Today has been a challenge already and it’s only just time for first lunch (the 4 x 400 plan has me eating two lunches). I woke up with a sore throat that denial was working just fine to deal with yesterday afternoon and evening. It hurt so much that if I hadn’t been covering for another team leader today, I might have stayed home, but I was covering so I dragged myself out of bed and dug in the linen closet to find the Chloraseptic lozenges and headed off the gym—since I wasn’t coughing or sneezing I figured I wouldn’t be endangering the health of my fellow gym goers if I went and tried doing at least some of my usual weight workout. Upon getting to the gym and unpacking my bag to hang my work pants in the locker, I found I had not brought any pants. I’d packed a shirt, shoes, bra, and underwear—even earrings—but no pants. Driving home to get some was not an option—with the road construction and rush hour, getting there and back would easily take two and a half or even three hours. I could have skipped working out and gone to the office in my gym clothes—we’re pretty casual at Purple Systems—but I didn’t think bright grass green nylon shorts were particularly office appropriate regardless, nor did I really want to share that much skin with my coworkers. For approximately one nanosecond I pondered whether I could fashion the blanket I keep in the car into a sarong, but thought that would be even more distracting than the shorts (and less flattering, too, since the blanket is fleece). Thus I found myself in a dressing room at Meijer this morning, wearing my shower shoes because I didn’t want to strut around in gym shorts and the 3-inch heel mules I brought for work (and didn’t want to put sweaty socks and shoes back on after showering). I tried on four pairs of jeans and bought the one that didn’t make my thighs look like lumpy sausages. Unfortunately I haven’t lost quite enough weight to drop down a size from the ones I meant to pack in my gym bag, but maybe I can shrink these new ones when the time comes. When I got to work in my new pants, I immediately had fires to put out—they’re mostly all down to smoldering embers now, so I can take a bit of a break and eat that first lunch and hope that the rest of the day goes better.