The Real Danger of Going Out in Public: Influenza.

My wife and I had an absolutely marvellous time at the Wyoming Mensa Dine-Out SIG in Cheyenne the other day.

A real city (with real traffic lights—it took a minute to realise those were not street corner decorations), fine food, fine conversation, and the chance to gather with other Mensans (this being my wife's first official Mensa event).

Unfortunately, that also meant leaving our little rural cocoon and exposing ourselves to the big bad germs in the big bad city. (Cheyenne isn't very big, but it is bigger than anything around here.)

What it looks like we got for our four hundred mile (640km) round-trip was more than we bargained for.

Influenza.

My wife and I are both horribly ill today (the second day for me). Fortunately we have enough food laid in to last the winter, so going out to get groceries or such is not a problem.

I do feel for my wife though: she is trying to struggle right now via the Internet to finish homework necessary for her state library director certification, due tomorrow, and the state's computer system won't take "I'm sick" for an answer. (That might work in a real classroom, but computers don't seem to care about those sorts of things: you have a deadline and that is that.)

We are both staying self-quarantined in the house until this passes. (Fortunately we get along well.) The village will have to do without its racy Romance-novel-editing atheistic hippie liberal city councilman for a few days until I get past this.

I just got a message from the Village Clerk with all sorts of attachments like the USDA agricultural report and other such things. She also asked where we've been the last couple days; I informed her about our little bout with the flu and our choice to stay in.

She said thank you for not coming round the village office, and hope you feel better soon.