The worst part of a holiday weekend away with the Grandparents? Getting home on the last evening of the holiday and remember that not only did you relax and not do anything extra, you also didn’t do any of the normal weekend activities. Like, grocery shop or do laundry. And now you will spend the rest of the week trying to catch up.

It was worth it.

I’ve also heard that setting an alarm in the middle of the night and thinking of something while you are half awake / half asleep can influence what you dream of while you fall back into slumber. Frankly, as a parent of a child less than one year old, I try to avoid being awake in the middle of the night at all costs, because that would mean I’m up dealing with a crying baby.

Last night, I had a dream. And I remember it.

Vividly.

In fact, it was more than a dream; this was a full-fledged nightmare, and probably one of the worst I’ve ever had that I can remember. Maybe it was the sugary cereal that I had a couple handfuls of before going to bed or maybe it was the random thunder that was booming throughout the night, but something triggered my brain to create one of the most terrifying scenarios I can imagine and store it, permanently etched into my waking memories.

I dreamed that I was bald.

(I’ll wait for you to recover from the shock and horror of that statement. It’s been several hours for me, and I’m still not fully recovered.)

As in, really bald. Shiny head bald. (Sorry, Dad.)

I woke up from this dream around 3:30am and slept fitfully until the alarm went off a couple hours later, fearful that I might have the same dream again. People, you do not realize the significance of this for me. This is how insomnia is born – the thought of having this nightmare again makes me not want to go to sleep at night.

Some people think it’s stress that makes hair fall out. Well, what if you’re stressed about your hair falling out and then more stressed about the fact that you’re stressed and might bring that very scenario upon yourself all that much sooner?

I’m buying Rogaine on the way home tonight and sleeping with a bottle under my pillow.

And Jiminy Cricket and his “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true,” is officially on my persona non grata list. No dreams coming true for me, thank you very much.

At least until I dream about winning the lottery and remember it. Then we’ll talk.

On Monday, when Rhiannon was sick, I had a bowl of Reese’s Puffs, a granola bar, two small blueberry muffins, a lemon poppyseed muffin, two bowls of kneophla soup, two summer sausage sandwiches, a cheese quesadilla from Perkins, and a couple glasses of wine. Most of this was consumed after I knew that the flu might be spreading around me.

This is basically an invitation to be sick, and the flu went ahead and RSVP’ed on me three times last night, all about an hour apart. Much like Rhiannon, I don’t throw up very often, so when I woke up at 1:30 in the morning feeling a little off, I couldn’t immediately place what was wrong.

And then I sat up and figured it out pretty quickly.

Orginally, Rhiannon thought that if she would have been lying down or sitting on a cool tile bathroom floor, she might have never vomited, and, for a moment, when I made it to the bathroom floor without any regurgitation, I thought I might make it through.

This lasted somewhere in the neighborhood of two seconds until there was very little uncertainty where the food in my stomach was going.

And it went. And went some more. And an hour later, it happened again, only there wasn’t so much in the way of food left. And the third time, nothing came up.

My abs and entire core area were sore the next day from dry heaving, so imagine that somehow I could market the stomach flu as the next diet sensation: Lose inches off your waist while toning your midsection!

Except the whole part about actually throwing up and generally feeling like crap.

I wasn’t the only one that got hit: included in the final tally were Rhiannon’s sister Tricia and her dad. He tried to claim food poisoning since he doesn’t think all of the food he ate came back up – apparently his body only rejects the bad stuff.

I’m feeling better now and really just glad that I made it through the plane flight without bring up the piece of toast and couple glasses of water I had managed to consume at that point.  All told, it was about 36 hours until I fully felt recovered.

I hope that’s the last time I feel like again for a very long time. Maybe next time, I’ll just start drinking heavily enough to get it over with right away…

Unfortunately, while the incident has soured me a little on Amazon (what with their lack of help or information), they still have decent selection and prices and I will probably continue to shop with them. I might be a little more open to alternatives.

Other than the fact that no one ever called me back from King Soopers to let me know to stop by and pick up a new gift card, I can’t complain about their service on the issue at all.

Now, I’m just wondering how a physical gift card that I have in my possession doesn’t exist. Maybe time travel does exist. I’ll try again in a year.