No rest for the weary

There I am, done with work for the day, sick with a fever and a cold, when Galileo greets me at the screen door. I had left him outside for maybe 20 minutes, and in that time, he had decided to dig down underneath the porch and get lovely muddy dark dirt under his feet.

My choices were pretty slim. Since I couldn't leave him outside in the balmy .1F to be a puppy-sicle, he had to come inside, but the carpet inside is a beautiful cream color made to show the black dirt. Usually I can get him to sit on his pad (really an old papasan cover), but to make it over to the bathroom is really difficult without getting some carpet mess that has to be cleaned up.

So, pregnant and tired, I picked up our 50lb austrailian shepherd and attempted to get him to the bathroom about 10 feet away. After an accidental dropping on the bathroom floor (which flung ice-mud across the linoleum--nice), we made it to the bathtub for the third paw-cleaning in two weeks.

Puppy was traumatized; I was traumatized. Pregnant or not pregnant, sick or not sick, something had to be done! I went out to the garage to grab a snow shovel and started shoveling snow under the porch to try to keep Galileo out next time. We'll see if it works.

In other news, I'm sick, but have discovered Tylenol is not only for reducing pain after a particularly brutal marathon training session, but it also reduces fevers really well. I'd always seen it on the box, but never tried it really until today.

And ear thermometers? Easy to play with, very very hard to get a correct reading off of of. Maybe this is because I am a hothead.

Also, I watched the Price is Right while waiting for my fever to come down. I'm not sure what I am more disturbed about -- the insanely high prices on the show (600 bucks for two mp3 players?), the very odd selection of prizes (water trike or a grandfather clock!), or the contestants that seem way, way to eager to be on the show. Either way, I think it may have contributed to my fever reduction by reducing the number of brain cells firing in my head.

P.S. for those of you wondering about baby Kira -- she doesn't seem to be traumatized at all by me being sick and is in fact entirely unsympathetic. She has taken this opportunity to perfect her kung fu inside my belly, and likes to give me an extra kick to the kidney when I cough or sneeze.