WWW.WEDNESDAY

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1. What are you currently reading? Cheap Shot by Ace Atkins. It's one of the more recent Spenser mysteries, so obviously it can't be written by the late Robert B. Parker. But Atkins is so good at writing in Parker's style that I feel like I'm still hanging around with the cast I've come to care for (Hawk, Z, Pearl and even Susan). Like Parker, he writes so affectionately about Spenser's Boston that I long to go back. I'm so happy to be with my old friends again that the plot almost doesn't matter. But it is pretty engaging so far. A football star's son has been kidnapped, and Spenser is working hard to get the youngster returned safely.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Brief Encounters by Dick Cavett. A series of essays and a collection of Cavett's NY Times columns. By turns entertaining (when talking about his career), poignant (reminiscing about his boyhood), and tiresome (yeah, yeah, yeah, so you went to Yale), it was a quick read. One thing I especially appreciated about it was the head-scratching amazement that Sarah Palin ever mattered. Well, I feel the same about Trump today. Hopefully someday soon he'll be just as irrelevant as the Alaskaradashian matriarch.

3.  What will you read next? Not sure

Damn near killed me!

Monday was my first day back to work and I stuck to the bland diet suggested by my doctor. One of the items on it, one of the few hadn't yet tried, was baked potato.

UH-OH!

Within two hours I was so sick. Sicker than I've been since the bug first hit. And at work, which is always especially embarrassing. I managed to compose myself -- without, I hope, anyone realizing what was amiss -- finish the day and get myself home. Where I promptly fell fast, fast asleep.

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling all headachey and still weak. And there was something else, hard to describe. My gastrointestinal region just kept making itself known to me. It was twingey, I guess. Nervous about being on the train when the violent urge struck again, I went back to bed for a few hours, waiting until noontime to go in to make sure I was fine.

It occurred to me that the twingey feeling might actually be hunger -- eating has become so fraught with danger that I've almost forgotten hunger. So I had two bowls of Rice Krispies (no milk, doctor's orders) and went in. I was fine!

I had a grilled salmon filet for dinner -- plain, with nothing on the side -- and so far this morning, all is well. I've haven't had any, er, um, "solid evidence" that I'm OK, but I remain devoutly hopeful. I'd really like to be back to normal. I optimistically think that by this time tomorrow (Thursday), the only remnant of my illness is the snafu with the doctor's bill.