Oh. My. God. There was never a worse spring break than mine. There may never have been a worse week in general than mine. This is not just the insane pessimist inside me...it truly was a sucky week. Let's start with Wednesday, when we went to San Francisco. The drive down was ok. THen we (mom, matt, me) get to the "guest house" in which we are sleeping for the night that's right near the hospital where my brother's getting his checkup. Mom and Matt had stayed there before and knew how much it sucked; I, of course, was shocked by the cigarette burns in the mattresses and the funky smell rising from the pillows. i'm stuck on the floor, which is really, really hard and cold. we wake up and i have the sniffles and a sore back. then we go to the dr. appt, where we sit for a few hours for one appointment. then we go to the other dr., where i sit in the waiting room for 3 hours waiting for matt to come out. turns out he was waiting in a different waiting room and the dr. had forgotten about him. so finally, we get the dr.'s attention, he says matt's a-ok, and we take off. we take matt to the airport, where he has to sit for a long time to wait for a flight back to redding. mom and i take off for santa barbara.
5 hours later, we arrive in paradise to discover it's oddly cold down there and a huge storm is coming in. on top of that, i now have something of the flu/cold variety. i deal, and we find a really nice marriot hotel to stay in 30 minutes away from ucsb. we wake up the next morning (friday) and explore the campus, which is nice, and find our friend larry cushnie in one of the dorms and visit with him for a bit. so the campus is enjoyable, the people are nice, and i'm going to school there next year, woo! except that while we were down there, we walked around 5 miles and by the end of the day i was shuffling around like a 90-year-old women with arthritis. i was in extreme pain and was losing my voice. finally, we get back to the hotel and fall asleep watching what women want, which was actually quite funny. the next day, i wake up feeling ok but my voice is iffy and my back is still sore from the night on the floor. we get up and go shopping and buy many cute things and find a suitable prom dress that covers my belly (you'll have to help me decide whether i want to wear the bronze one or this one). oo, funnyish story: we had narrowed it down to 2 dresses, a plum simple one for $100 and a sexy, lacy torquoise number for $200. we literally spent an hour in macy's trying them on and couldn't decide. the sales lady said to go for the cheaper one, but we weren't sure, so we found a random guy who happened to be italian who said he liked the plum one without knowing the price difference. since he was italian, we figured he must have style, so we went with the plum one. yay for italian guys! anyway, we shopped and shopped and shopped and downtown santa barbara is so so so so wonderful and we spent allll day there and it was glorious except for that fact that i couldn't stop coughing and was in severe pain for some reason. we hobbled back to the car and fell asleep watching charlie's angels (mom's pick...after, she said, "that was SO STUPID!"). on sunday, we drove back to redding and i slept the whole way because i felt fluish and blamed it on my upcoming period. on monday, i was all set to celebrate spring break and have fun, except, oh, i have a fever, i can't stop coughing, and i woke up in a cold sweat. ew. esp came to visit every now and then during the week, but i spent most of the week on the couch watching tv and dozing because i had nooooo energy to do anything except walk to the bathroom. the good news: i had no appetite, and i lost 5 pounds! yay, im' 117 now! anyway, so on monday i woke up a cold sweat. tuesday night, i was lying in front of the fire with two blankets over me and was shivering for 2 hours and couldn't move and was crying for help but everyone was asleep and it was really scary. i finally fell asleep. on wednesday morning, i woke up in a cold sweat again. wednesday afternoon, i went to the dr., who said i had probably gotten one of the many viruses going around and if i had a fever for more than 2 days or if i started coughing up blood or green or brown stuff (mm mm good) i should come back because i have pneumonia. i called in sick on wednesday, and my manager was very, very pissed at me for not finding a replacement, even though i called everyone and no one was home. i hate my job. anyway, on friday, the climax: while mom and i watched the road to el dorado and wonder boys (which was amazing, you must see it), my temp rose to 103.8 and i threw up the only thing i'd been able to eat that day (frozen yogurt) because i was coughing so much. mom tucked me into bed around midnight and i was rather delirious and she debated whether or not to take me to the emergency room, but we decided against it. so saturday, i felt a little bit better and today i feel much much better, except for the fact that i think i have poison oak from my cats on my leg and my ear is very clogged with fluid and my nose is a dripping faucet and every 15 minutes i have maniacal coughing fits in which i double over and can't do anything. ok, so you should call me when you finish this to tell me how wonderful hawaii was so i can know someone had a good spring break, ok? love, morgan