I had this budgie once...

...we named it Enza. One morning we opened up the kitchen window and Enza escaped. We never thought we'd see him again, but a week later, we opened up the living room window and...

...in flew Enza.

Yeah, I'm now officially, certifiably, doctor-approved, sick with the flu.

It serves me right, really. I've always been a skeptic when it came to those free flu shots the Ontario government doles out. How could they know what strain of flu would be circulating around? Besides, I hate needles. Well, I've never met anyone who claims to like them, but I really loathe them. So I've never bothered to get the shot. I'd convinced myself it was too much pain for too little gain.

So now I've got it--the flu. Eva had already convinced me to bite the pinprick and get the shot...next year. The doctor corrected a false assumption I'd held in telling me the effects of the flu shot don't fade away in mere months. He said he'd had maybe ten shots so far in his life, and there aren't many strains of flu out there he hadn't been vaccinated against. If a specific strain does come along, he's likely protected against its close kin, so it will only knock him on a slant, not flat like this one's doing to me.

I woke up this morning feeling a bit better, actually. Then I got out of bed. "Nope!", said the flu.
"I'm not done with you yet, sir!" THWACK! came the headache. HACK! went the cough. ACK, I muttered as I attempted the miraculous feat I'd always taken for granted: walking downstairs without falling flat on my nose.

We're getting our windows replaced today. Full frame-outs, which is putting a nipple-stiffening chill in the air in here, refrigerating everything below my braincase. Peggy Lee's in my head, singing "Fe-ver!" *ba-da-bomp*
At least this isn't getting done tomorrow, when three to ten centimeters of snow are supposed to fall on us...