Sick as a Dog

I felt it coming on last night – the drippy nose, the sore throat, the irrepressible cough. I went to bed early, determined to nip whatever-it-is in the bud but that turned out to be an exercise in futility. I tossed and turned and coughed and blew. I’m sure I slept a little, even though I didn’t notice.

Fortunately, the only side Nyel can sleep on these days means his good ear is buried in the pillow. Still, he knew I was less than a hundred percent this morning and nipped into the kitchen to make coffee before I was fully awake. He brought me coffee in bed and an Airborne. What a guy!

All I can say is “Damn! Damn! Damn!” I had Plans-with a capital P today. Not only was I going to drive Nyel to Physical Therapy this morning (never mind that he can now drive on his own, though it involves some complicated shenanigans with the brace on his left leg), and then I was going off to visit my friend Stephanie. She had invited me for muffins and coffee (or tea, my choice.) I was so looking forward to that morning outing!

New Year’s Eve

And then there’s the traditional New Year’s Eve party that we’ll have to miss. It’s potluck and we had picked up one of those wonderful CostCo chocolate cakes as our contribution. Nyel promises to drop it off at our hosts’ (unscathed) while he is in Ilwaco this morning. (His first suggestion was to keep it in Oysterville and split it with Tucker which is a noble idea, but not in line with current resolutions about diets in our household. Sorry, Tucker!)

I looked up the expression “sick as a dog” and find that it dates from 1705 which is about in line with how old I feel right now. According to Yahoo Answers: it is probably no more than an attempt to give force to a strongly worded statement of physical unhappiness. It was attached to a dog…because dogs often seem to have been linked to things considered unpleasant or undesirable; down the years they have had an incredibly bad press, linguistically speaking (think of dog tired, dog in the manger, dog’s breakfast, go to the dogs…)

I also learned that when you say you are “sick as a dog” it usually implies vomiting. Fortunately, that is not my situation. I just have a crummy old cold and mostly it’s just incredibly bad timing. (Aren’t they always?)