Monday, January 23, 2006

Something I ate

Yesterday was quite fun. I took a close friend out for a belated birthday lunch (more like an early dinner as it was rather late). She was in the mood for seafood, and after a tasty shrimp appetizer, we each had a nice platter of crab legs, lobster tails and more shrimp. Afterward, we went to the empty half of a mall's parking lot, where I gave her a lesson in driving a manual transmission. It must have amused any onlookers as she stalled and lurched forward my car about two dozen times.

Today, perhaps we paid the price for a great afternoon and evening. I was slightly nauseated on the morning train into the city, which I dismissed as hunger. Breakfast helped, but I was also feeling unusually tired. I had slept five hours last night, which is more than sufficient for me during the week, but I wasn't sleepy, just fatigued and ineffably uncomfortable. After lunch, my stomach started acting up, which I thought might be the sauerkraut from the Reuben sandwich I had.

One of my co-workers suggested it might have been yesterday's lunch, and coincidentally, my friend called a few minutes later. I asked her if she was also feeling a little sick. "YES!" Her nausea started late last night, and all day she was feeling the same. Fortunately ours was only a mild case of food poisoning, that we both managed to get through the day. I was feeling ineffably "uncomfortable," though. Bleh.

At least this was better than the last time I had food poisoning, six years ago, just after I moved to New York. Before today, I had forgotten all about it. I was staying at my aunt's house and had bad Chinese food one night, which was surprising since it was from a more upscale Oriental restaurant in our area. After waking up at 5 the next morning, feeling nauseated and worse, I passed out until 10 that night.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Perry drives a stick?

I fall in to that philosopy when I can. "Don't drive a car that you can't pushstart". Of course I could not pass up the great deal I got on my latest slushbox. I miss the dowmshift.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:04:00 AM  
Blogger Perry Eidelbus said...

I wouldn't drive anything else. When I got my first manual transmission car in 1997, I was so insistent on stick, though I never really learned it in Driver's Ed. Embarrassingly, one of the salesmen had to give me a 5-minute refresher just so I could get out of the lot.

I limped the few miles up the road to the Baptist Campus Ministries house, no doubt making a fool out of myself to the drivers behind me. They probably were wondering what was wrong with my brand-new car, unaware of my troubles.

Later that day, one of my friends took me to a parking lot and showed me a trick, which I passed on to my other friend on Sunday. Park on an incline, facing up the slope. Put it in first, let go of the brake, and let out the clutch slowly to see where it catches. Those few seconds shouldn't do much harm to the clutch, and it's how I (and then my friend on Sunday) got a feel for when to start giving it real gas.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:22:00 AM  

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