Another red-letter day here...

Hola Amigos,

I try not to be a huge complainer, but today's just full of stuff to complain about.

First off, I can't taste or smell anything. Usually on the 4th day of a cold I lose both senses. This is a regular occurrence for me so I'm not surprised, but boy does it stink. Or at least it would if I could smell. I knew this had happened when I brushed my teeth this morning. If you can't taste Colgate you know something's up. So I made some odorless coffee and didn't put in any soy creamer since why would I waste it when I can't taste how good it makes my coffee. I ate my regular oatmeal, although it could have been a bowl of wallpaper paste for all I knew. The only other thing I've eaten today was a little container of applesauce (or more wallpaper paste). You just don't want to eat, since all you're doing is chewing some tasteless blob. Does this happen to you, readers? If not, you're so lucky!!! I still get hungry, so I eat. But I take no pleasure in it.

Then I had a run in with someone from our facilities services department. I won't bore you with the details, it just started my day off ALL wrong. Or more wrong than if I'd just lost my senses of taste and smell.

Then we get a message that there's a possible water main break on one side of our building and that they may shut off the water, which was followed moments later by an announcement that they had indeed done that very thing. So, if I need to use the bathroom I can go up to the second floor, through one side of the entire library, over the bridge cafe through to the other side of the library. The libraries combined span a good city block, and I'm about as far away from the closest working bathroom as a person can be and not be outside. Another option is to put my coat on and walk outside and over to the engineering building, which actually sounds like not such a bad idea.

Mind you, I actually don't mind having to walk over to the other side to use the bathroom. My problem is that I'm a big water drinker. I make a habit of drinking at least a 24 oz bottle throughout the day, so I need to use the bathroom on a regular basis! So now I'm rationing my water so I don't spend the entire day going back and forth to the bathroom.

And I get weighed in tonight. I don't exactly want to be retaining water when I step on the scale!!!

So, yeah, there's some strangeness going on with me today. I'm not mad or in a bad mood. It just could have been a bit better of a day.

But it could have been a lot worse. I have lost my senses of taste and smell at really inopportune times, including Christmas day one year, my brother's wedding and when we were doing taste bud experiments in high school biology. And I'm incredibly grateful to know that my sense of taste will return in another day or two, so all is not lost.

Now I need to decide what I'm going to eat for lunch. If you can call this eating!