Bruce, and here is a link to Best Hospitals 2005 for respiratory illness reported by US News and World Report.

I saw an ad (poster) for a Bailey's martini. It's Bailey's chilled in a martini glass.

Why is this a martini??????????????

Is everything served in a martini glass now called a martini? If I put tomato juice and vodka in a martini glass is it a martini? Maybe it'll be called a bloody marytini?

Argh.

Bruce, I wish you a very very speedy recovery and hope it all goes well.

That really is an annoyance and then some

Thoughts and prayers go out to you, Bruce.

You'll show em, Bruce.

Best to ya.

Hoping all goes well for you, winesonoma.

Bruce, dang, man! Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.

Best wishes, Bruce.

My nasty cold has been diagnosed as pneumonia...heavy dose of antibiotics prescribed. Lousy day in the 9household..$700 vet bill..and counting for 1 of the cats.

Nothing compared to Bruce. Best wishes to you and hope all goes well.

My sympathy to all our sick members, especially Bruce.

Hang in there - we need you.

Oh my, oh my. Bruce, I just hope you don't get taken over by the spirit of some 19-year-old, motorcycle-riding, hot-headed, non-helmet-wearing, young whippersnapper whose lung you get.



Otoh, maybe I do. Best of luck whatever happens.


Fly: you were checked out by a doctor, right? RIGHT??????


And finally: 9lives, at least you're taking care of it. The worst part of pneumonia for me was not being able to go to my restaurant job for about 2 weeks.


Get well soon, all of you!!!!

Moving right along, just had a cat-scan.

Oh, I hope the cat's okay.

Looks like the first week of January was marked by some rough water.

I spent 14 hours in a hospital emergency room under the mistaken impression that my heart was attacking me again.

The true annoyance was sitting there in a little cubical for about thirteen hours while nothing whatsoever happened. No electrocardiogram, no ex-rays, no blood-letting, no encouraging words from attendants nor physicians.

One tech brought me a hunting magazine to read. And of course there was my friend anxiety, playing the taws on my soul like a berserk timpanist.

Boredom punctuated by surges of spectacular angina is not my dish of tea. I could have been at the Burger King, stocking up on cholesterol.

Bruce and Maurice, best wishes for you.

Yes, best wishes for Bruce and Maurice, and 9lives as well.

Bruce and Maurice, you are in my prayers.

Fly, 9Lives, you too.

Annoyances these are not.

My illness is really just an annoyance. I've had it before and the antibiotics should get me good as new pretty quickly.

Thanks for the good thoughts.

Bruce's situation is far more than an annoyance...serious stuff.. and Bruce, you're in my thoughts and prayers.

Good heavens, you guys are making running into a brick wall seem small potatoes. Warmest thoughts to Bruce, Maurice, 9lives and anyone else who is suffering January blight.

(Suzanne, I have a doctor's appointment coming up soon anyway, but everything does seem fine in the meantime... if it didn't I would not hesitate to go. But even the lump is going down and my neck does have full range of motion.)

Fly

My best wishes, too, to all of you suffering at
time's fell hand. The heartening note: we're
all going to get better. (Oh, I may not get
better--a relative concept. But I'm going to
get well.)

everythings going to be good guys. thinkin about ya!

Bruce and Maurice - I hope you have speedy recoveries. Hopefully all the craziness that goes on here will make your convalescence go quicker.

Best wishes to you too, Maurice, 9lives, flyfish, for swift and painless recoveries for you all.

Warmest wishes for a speedy recovery for all of our sick members.

I'd happily read to Maurice (or anyone stuck in such a hell, for that matter) for a few hours. I'll even pay for the call.

Eyebrows was bitten by a dog in Mexico. He started a one-month course of rabies vaccines yesterday. Scary.

Speedy recoveries to everybody.

Egads! Best to all.

It's not so bad anymore - it's 5 injections in the deltoid muscle, over a period of a month. He had the first one, and he said it was painful but not horrible. It's a little swollen and bruised at the injection site. Next one will be Monday.

He sends his best wishes back to you, Maurice.

Poor guy. I assume the dog bite itself was minor, then?

I had a whole run of bad luck as a kid, which meant I was always getting tetanus injections - really painful. But this sounds worse.

He did get a tetanus shot on Wednesday.

The bite itself wasn't so bad, but it did draw blood and there was an outline of teethmarks in blood on his calf. And there was a big black and blue bruise from the bite's impact that is mostly gone now. The doctor said it's unlikely that it was a rabid dog because the wound did not become infected or swollen or hot or itchy, etc., and it's healing and disappearing nicely. But because there's no way of knowing for sure about the dog, the vaccinations have to be done just in case.

Must be annoying indeed when you are almost sure it's unnecessary.

To change the subject, another annoyance.

My father tells me that he read in the NYT that a planned movie version of Carmen with J-Lo has been cancelled because no one wanted to fund a movie in which the heroine dies.

Not that I need a movie of Carmen starring J-Lo, but what gives??? I would think it would be a big moneymaker.

Isn't the obvious solution to change the ending?

Oh my - my father just told me that it was supposed to be with totally new music.

Why call it Carmen then? Just make a movie with a happy ending with J-Lo singing and call it Jenny from the block lives happily ever after.

Didn't MTV already do one, with Beyonce in the lead role?

My mother just told me that she heard the intermediate level Sudoko in the UK is sold in the US as advanced.

This isn't really an annoyance, it's just a horrible reality.

Yes, there was a Beyonce Carmen. And the infinitely talented lass co-stars with Steve Martin in the forthcoming Pink Panther remake - a film the world really needs.

Maybe there aren't any new stories.