What is that mournful sound I hear? A lone oboe or the plaintive wail of a bassoon? No, that is the sad trumpeting of my nose. I am as sick as a dog with a head cold and totally miserable. Since my breathing is less than genteel, I decided to skip the London Symphony Orchestra concert tonight. I bought the ticket ages ago and am fairly sad about missing their all Beethoven program. Let's hope that things work out better for the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, because my track record this season isn't promising.

I selfishly went to work today, like some kind of Typhoid Mary. I honestly believed that after a couple of good doses of Sudafed, it would be manageable. That was not the case. Instead, I went through about a half a box of Kleenex and couldn't keep up with the usual witty banter. I think that I will take tomorrow off, to lie in bed with the New Yorker and breathe as heavily and noisily as I please!

I've made a fair bit of progress on my Juliet sweater. I did a bit of finagling with the pattern (I believe the technical term is *alterations*), to keep it from being so gappy in the front. I knew this would cause some problems when I reached the lace pattern, but the alterations were close enough to the pattern's stitch count that I do not foresee problems. My Juliet is going to be the one with the lower waist, because the high-high waist is unflattering for anyone with breasts. I still want a bit of an empire waist, so I probably won't follow the "long" instructions to a tee.