Jeff came down with a nasty cold our first day in South Carolina. Usually when he gets sick, he’s just sniffly for a couple of days – maybe a little out of it in the evenings. This one hit him pretty hard, and he was stuck at home with my parents while Katie and I went gallivanting around Columbia visiting friends.

(Of course, being stuck at home listening to my dad tell stories may have been preferable to him even if he wasn’t sick, so it kind of worked out.)

Today my dad’s all stuffy. Daddy’s never sick – he’s 82, and he took antibiotics for the first time in his life last year when he broke a hip. Mom thinks he had a cold once. It’s hilarious: he keeps saying things like “I don’t understand… I feel mostly fine, but my nose won’t stop running. It’s so strange!” Mom and I usually catch everything that goes around, and catch it bad, so we’re not terribly sympathetic.

So far I have avoided the plague, which is weird. Out of my last six or seven visits here, I think I’ve been sick for, oh, ALL of them. Barrie even commented on how strange it was to see me without a Kleenex constantly hanging from my hand. I’ll probably catch it just in time to fly on Tuesday, but maybe I’ll get lucky.