What I Did With My Summer Vacation

C'mon now, we all had to do it. Those bored and burned out teachers made us write that essay at least once in our school careers, yes? And I would be remiss if I didn't catch you up on the events of last week at the beach. Besides, there's nothing worth watching on TV tonight, right?

We left for the beach on Tuesday evening, getting there in a nice easy manner. We had a quick dinner and then went down and played in the surf. LBA greatly enjoyed that part of the day. Wednesday we got up and headed down to the beach in the morning to play in the water some more. The weather was very cooperative and we had a great time splashing, building sand castles (which were quickly dismantled by LBA). For dinner that evening, we headed to an Ocean City landmark with some friends. I have to say the White Pizza was outstanding. But don't bother with the calamari appetizer. Wednesday evening, I went to bed with a bit of a sore throat, but thought nothing of it.

On Thursday, I woke up not feeling any better and when heading out to buy the morning paper, picked up a thermometer, where I learned that my fever was pushing 102 degrees. Guess I was sick. I probably should have headed to urgent care at that point, but instead opted for talking to a nurse on the phone, who walked me through a series of diagnoses over the phone, scaring me into thinking that I might have Scarlet Fever or Meningitis. Oh goody.

By Friday, I was no better and sent the BA family off to play with friends, while I rested in the morning. I felt a little better in the afternoon and we all headed up to Rehoboth Beach, for Thrasher's Fries, soft serve, and arcade games. The soft serve was probably the best as it made the razor blades in my throat easier to swallow. The time had come to seek medical help. Evidently people get sick a lot at the beach, for you can come across an urgent care center every few blocks in Ocean City. I finally chose this one. There was little suspense or surprise when they discovered that I had come down with a raging case of strep throat.

The doctor decided to treat with steroids (including a shot in the butt to get me started) and anti-biotics, as is the best way to attack strep. However, when the doctor noticed my wrists and the healing patches of poison ivy still evident, she upped the doses of steroids, for evidently, if you introduce steroids to a body coming off a case of poison ivy, the poison ivy can come back even worse. So I'm on steroids for three weeks. There go the Olympic time trials. I also scored some pain killers (yeah, baby) and something known as viscous lidocaine, to help numb my throat. While it may seem like a lot of pharmaceuticals, it helped me to salvage the last two days of my vacation, which was really the only important thing.

In addition to my own health woes, Mrs. BA had her own issues on vacation. On the above mentioned trip to Rehoboth, we parked the car at a metered space ($.25 for 10 minutes!) and Mrs. BA emptied her wallet of quarters so we could park. in the confusion of then getting LBA out of the car, her wallet was inadvertently left on the roof of the car. Needless to say, it is no longer in our possession. We had had to go through and cancel credit cards and she's in the market for a new wallet, if you are looking for a gift for her. And does anyone want to go to DMV for her?

And now, in closing a few statistics:

• Number of "Summer" days (Memorial Day - Labor Day): 99

• Blog posts this summer (since Memorial Day, May 26): 73
• Number of president posts and recipes posted over the summer: 14 and 15, respectively
• Number of posts containing the tag, "summer" (I need to work on my tagging): 2
• Number of "memes" posted: 6
• Number of quizzes posted: 3
• Number of obituary posts this summer: 3 (Harvey Korman, George Carlin, and my cat Minnie)
  
• Number of iPod shuffle lists: 2

• Number of parties and events held or attended this summer: 8 (A baby shower, the Ford's Theater Gala, Red Dawn Movie Night, the Annapolis Rotary Crab Feast, the Fourth of July festivities in Annapolis, a picnic for LBA's daycare class, Little OSG's first birthday, and another toddler birthday party)
• Number of baseball games attended this summer: 6?
• Number of football games attended this summer: 1 (Go Giants tonight!)
• Number of movies attended this summer: 2 (Indiana Jones and Get Smart)
• Number of beach vacations taken: 2 (June and the most recent strep vacation)
  
• Number of rounds of golf played this summer: 1.5 (oh, how sad)

• Number of work days this summer: 68
• Number days taken off this summer (including sick leave): 10.5
• Number of dentist appointments this summer: 3
• Number of eye doctor appointments this summer: 3
• Number of doctor visits this summer: 1 scheduled, 1 urgent care