Day: February 23, 2008

Let the promoting begin.

rainbow of office flavors

I’ve hit that critical-mass 10-tie threshhold, thanks to a sale at Strauss.  I bought three more ties (the red one, the shiny taupey one, and the periwinkle one in honor of ex-coworker Jan) plus a nice navy blue shirt (oddly I didn’t have one already).  Here’s the kicker:  it’s an XL (only one ‘X’ there!).  And a European XL at that!

If you need casual wear, ties, or shirts, I recommend hitting Strauss ASAP.  I got two ties for €7,95 each (marked down from €15,90 each) and a tie-friendly work shirt (I hesitate to call it a dress shirt, but it’s really as close as I come) for a hair over €10 marked down from €29,90.

I would have gotten some sweet khaki cargo pants for about €7, but they didn’t have any in my size.

it’s 3:15 a.m. — do you know where your immune system is?

I’m really getting tired of work kicking my butt all over the place. Fortunately, it would appear that my massive overtime accumulation has attracted some attention — for better or for worse — and my boss is starting to realize just in how many different directions my choke chain gets yanked.

Unfortunately, working like a dog since…well, late December, I guess (by German standards at least) appears to have taken its toll on my immune system. All winter I haven’t even had a case of the sniffles, but these past two days something has gotten into me, and I don’t mean inspiration.

Vitamin C BombePrimary counter-measure: chug as much of the „Vitamin–C-Bombe“ as possible. We normally drink this (and other juices) as a Schorle, but lately we’ve both fallen off the wagon. Perhaps this is showing itself in my cold. Either way, when my lungs start rattling or that scratchy feeling in the back of my throat comes around, I go full-strength on this stuff at work, drinking it hot with a cinnamon stick or two in it. Half the fun is watching Germans watch me prepare it. Today (yesterday really) a secretary asked me, “Whoa — you can tolerate that undiluted? Stomach-wise, I mean?”

Well yeah; it’s just apple juice with acerola in it for the Vitamin C boost. What really gets them is my one gloved hand and giant cappucino mug coming down the hall out of our Teeküche. I need it hot, but I can’t carry it with bare skin at the necessary temperature.

solvin' your mucus since 1978!I’m also taking some Hustensaft (aside: Cough juice? At first that seemed totally oddball to me until I thought about what kind of pancakes would go with cough syrup) called “Mucosolvan“. It seems to be working. After crashing out this evening immediately upon arrival, I woke up coughing a couple of hours ago.

And now I’m hungry.