Jett and I leave tomorrow for a week in Mexico.  It will almost certainly be our last full-week vacation before we retire.  We will have a week in the sun to talk about the future, get rid of the last vestiges of that damn cold and consume vast quantities of alcohol (yes, it is an all-inclusive).

I sometimes wonder if these all-inclusives aren’t just a little too inclusive.  It is one thing to be able to get a free drink from a bar, but in Mexico the room comes stocked with big bottles of tequila, rum, vodka and gin.  If someone had a problem with limiting alcohol intake, this would be a bad place to be.  And yet I have never seen stumbling-drunk guests at an all-inclusive in Mexico like I have on a cruise where the drinks are expensive.  Maybe they get so drunk that they skip the stumbling part and just pass out?

The Cold That Wouldn’t Go Away seems to be going away.  I still cough enough to annoy my co-workers but it is mostly under control.  And I no longer sound like a frog.  So I guess I survived this one.

I had a good time writing about our planned trek west.  I can’t hardly wait!  Jett seems to be more focused on having the 399 in New Hampshire for the summer, but I am much more centered on leaving it all behind.  Different strokes.  Hopefully Jett will be just as excited as I am by the time September comes around.

In case you haven’t noticed, I wrote a page describing the first 17 days of our 101-day journey west (“The Planned Trip West – Segment 1”). This portion of the trip is pretty set; anything after this is a rough plan, subject to change. But it sure is fun planning it all.

This damn cold just won’t go away.  Jett and I both have it.  When one of us isn’t coughing the other is.

Winter… bah humbug!  It will be a pleasure to be done with it.

Jett always gets whatever illness I bring home, so it is no surprise that she started coughing yesterday.  Unfortunately, she always gets it worse and sometimes ends up in the hospital.  I hope that doesn’t happen this time.

My “just a cough” illness turned into a full-fledged flu-like disease, complete with fever, chills and both chest and nasal congestion.  It seems like the flu to me, but as I received a flu shot this year it has to be just a cold, right?  But how can I tell the difference?  If I could look at the virus under an electron microscope, could I tell?  Could anyone?

If the flu and the common cold are so similar, why is it possible to vaccinate against the flu but not against the cold?

And why does the flu make me talk like Andy Rooney?

One of the many reasons that I want to leave cold winters behind is my January cough.  It appears, without fail, every January and usually lasts most of the month.  Sometimes it is accompanied by the other symptoms of the common cold (runny nose, chest congestion) or flu (aches, fever).  But sometimes, like this year’s vintage, it is just a cough.  A dry, persistent, racking cough.  It is more annoying than a real medical concern, but I wouldn’t miss it at all if it stayed in Massachusetts while I was in California next year.  Hell, I would even send it a postcard. Or maybe bequeath it to a (not very good) friend.

Maybe next year I can start a tradition of January sunburns.

Jett and I had kind of a strange New Year’s Eve experience last night.  In the company of our good friends Barb and Bob – and, as it turns out, on their dime (thanks again, guys!) – we had a very nice dinner at Princeton Station in Chelmsford, MA. Prime rib, baked potato, squash, strawberry shortcake and good coffee. Yum.

And entertainment, too.  Unfortunately, the band, which apparently specialized in hip-hop, was poorly matched to an audience that was heavily tilted, age-wise, to those who regard hip-hop as noise.  At 62 I was in the “young” half of this crowd.  And the band wasn’t helped by the sound system which made the lyrics seem like they were bubbling up from the Krusty Krab, about 200 feet under the surface of the ocean.  Apparently so many of the oldsters were so unhappy with the live music that the management pulled the band from the stage after the first set and would not let them play again until midnight approached – a “short break” of nearly 90 minutes.  Instead, we were treated to 50’s music from a local radio station, complete with commercials.  Very weird.

But we managed to have fun anyway.  We encountered a very lively 75-year-old at an adjacent table who grew up very close to our previous home in Somerville, MA, and who had actually met Whitey Bulger when he was head of the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville.  We traded some Whitey stories (we had some neighbors in Somerville who had given us a few).

And we danced.  Not a bad way to usher in the Year of Retirement.