Monday, March 21, 2005

a downward spiral

Here is a quick recap of the weekend's events. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors, as I'm doing everything I can to maintain an upright position for the moment...

Saturday we got an early start to the Salon du Livre, which is at the Porte de Versaille in Paris. After negotiating nightmarish traffic around the porte, we managed to get in the door just after noon. After a quick lunch of sandwiches at a concession stand, we started making our way through the huge exhibition. Many publishing houses were in attendance, and many famous French authors were there, signing books. I'm not up on my comtemporary French literature, so I didn't know them, but Steph and my mother- and sister-in-law did, and were mightily impressed. I was deterimined to find something in English, and finally at the end I did. Several countries were represented, including Russia, who is the honored country this year. I had hoped to find a booth for the U.S., or even England, but no luck. God bless the Canadians! In addition to an enormous Quebecois area, they also featured a small Anglophone section. I found a book that seems interesting, and we were ready to go. By the way, the Salon du Livre will continue through Wednesday, so if you're in Paris and don't have trouble reading in French (it's still work for me), I highly recommend it.

On the way home, my allergies were having a field day. Well, I thought it was my allergies. Little did I know it was about to get a whole lot worse. At least the fever chills had the decency to wait until I got home.

Yes friends, I am quite sick, and way past allergies now. Yesterday I spent a grand total of four hours out of bed, the rest of the time sweating and freezing and sleeping with the aid of Benedryl. Today I'm feeling a bit better, but I don't have the courage to walk half a mile to the nearest pharmacy. I will try to go as long as I can without taking the Benedryl, in the interest of staying awake, and will take some aspirin to keep the fever in check. Actually, I couldn't go to the pharmacy if I wanted to, as Steph has taken the bank card with him. Eh, that's fine, I couldn't make it to the corner on my own anyway.

One more thing I wanted to bring up before I fall out of my chair: I am very sad to learn that it seems some people are not playing GISBE very nicely. We have had reports that some people have not yet received a package, and despite several emails, we have heard nothing at all from their prospective shippers. Now, this does not pertain to those of you who have told us that you have shipped your package and it's going to take a long time, don't worry about that. This is to those of you who signed up, perhaps even received a package from someone else, and then disappered. Obviously, we will be taking measures to ensure they will never be admitted to play again, but Tracey and I have been throwing around the idea of a Page of Shame, in which we show the offenders to the world. What do you think?

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