The Age of Aquarius

I thought if I titled the entry "FOOD POISONING!" nobody would want to read it. And I don't want to meet people who search for topics like that on the internet.
I won't go into lots of details, but (believe it or not) I have some ideas about food poisoning. Suffice to say it was a w-retch-ed experience.
I have had food poisoning 3 times in my life now. The first time was when I was a kid (Petoskey, MI). I was so sick, I was really afraid that I was going to die. The second time was when I was in college, on foreign study in Bogota, Colombia. This time, I felt like I was going to die, but I knew I probably wasn't because I had had this before. Still, I was so miserable that I wanted to die for a couple moments. So, this time, I knew I was not going to die and that I should not want to die because I would feel better in 24 hours or so. So, I just prayed for mercy.
I've learned not to talk about food poisoning living in the US. I used to look at it like a fact of life, like, "Wow, this meeting room is hot." Nope, if you tell someone in the US you had food poisoning, they're going to ask you a lot of questions, like "Where did you eat?" and then they will never go to that restaurant. (How fair is that? I think that most food poisoning is a random occurrence.) Or if you won't say, they assume you gave it to yourself. Then, they will never come over to your house because they reason you are either: a) a bad cook, b) have poor sanitary habits, or c) stupid. I got a couple of interesting comments from my doctor friends. One guy wondered about the source and started to ponder various incubation times. The other guy told me to stay on a liquid diet for a couple days. I thought of asking him if beer was OK, but I already knew his answer would be "Well, Mark, of course it is implied (not to)." Still, I can't help but wondering where I got it. I think at least one other guy on the trip got it, but not everyone. I plan to ask one of the epidemiologists at work about this. I think they cut there teeth on stuff like this in grad school.
OK, you are wondering about the picture and the title of this post. Aquarius is a local drink here that I think is patterned after Gatorade. Water, salt, sugar, little fruit flavor. Tasty actually. Maybe this stuff saved my life because I started drinking it as soon as I could keep anything down. Bought a 2 liter bottle on the way home tonight and that's what I'm drinking now. I don't know which came first, but a rival to Aquarius is Pocari Sweat. My dad told me about PS a long time ago. What a grotesque name - I couldn't wait to try it when I first came to Japan! I think I might be going over to Aquarius, maybe a little less sugary than PS and maybe a little more flavor. PS also has "Ion Water," which is pretty good too, but a lot less sugar. I'll switch to that after I'm done with this post. I still think I'm maybe a quart low.
This story has a happy end. I got a note last night (from the apartment management staff) stuck under my door that said my Administrative Assistant had been calling and they wanted to offer any assist necessary. So, tonight, I stroll into the lobby, and the young adorable Miss Ishizu gets this look of shock and then genuine happiness on her face. I don't get that much from nice looking young women except my wife and daughter. Contempt, boredom, annoyance....yes. This is the price for being an old dog.