Rose's Cantina

I have just returned from the Rexall Drugstore where I waited ten minutes to get the flu shot. I didn't feel it, not even a prick. Gosh, I thought, the pharmacist is a lot better than the nurses at my doctor's office, which is next door and had a line up of about fifty people who presumably were there because they have the flu. I didn't see one person who was sick at the pharmacy. The line up at the Pharmaplus was exactly no one except a worried gentleman who never had the flu shot before, a man who grilled me about how many times I've had it, whether I had side effects. I thought, man up, dude, it's just a flu shot. I get the flu shot ever year and this is why. I got a job at the Bruyere Hospital after SARS hit Ontario. I worked for one week, then felt sick and my boss told me not to tell anybody. I ended up so sick I had to quit my job. My health crisis lasted six months, during which time I nearly coughed up both my lungs. I believe I'm lu...

As Frankie Valley once crooned: "Oh, what a night". It was like a scene from Bridesmaids . I wasn't sure what end it was coming out. All of my orifices were weeping. Look away! And, My Lord, kill me now. The situation was so dire, I had to sit on the throne while puking into a pail. Thank God it didn't happen earlier when I was at Costco. There would have been a clean up on aisle six. To think, I got the flu shot. Didn't matter. As a smarmy nurse might tell me, I got the shot for the wrong strain of flu. Obviously. I've never had the flu shot before this year. I only did so because we had a baby coming into the house and didn't want little Skye's life to be put in peril. I've always thought it was the most pessimistic of actions, getting the flu shot, like buying full term life insurance. Or building a bunker. Besides, I have the constitution of an elephant, thanks to years of being a journalist aka professional drinker. I'm not a  ...

We have a plague on our house today and I'm trying to steer clear of it. Scott spent most of the day yesterday seated on one throne while Nick had his head down the other one. Having said this, I fully expect my Facebook community will chime in with its characteristic smarminess. "Shouda got the flu shot!" Perhaps it's true but I will not be saying that to them, lest the hand of God decide to cuff me up the side of the head. I am not above a little teasing but I'm prefering to stay low and out of the way of this particular brand of nastiness. When a bug goes around, the human reaction is to ask: was it something we ate? Nay, Nick eats crap in the basement and Scott ate what I ate on Saturday, lovely lamb shanks from the butcher. So it's not that. It could be spores in the backyard, the nasty result of an early spring, combined with doggy leftovers that Scott was cleaning up yesterday. Nick smokes out there as well, so that might be the connection. Me,...