Sick Again??!

I think I'm getting sick again. Not quite three weeks after getting sick from a trip to Austin I've got a cough again. This bout of sickness would seem to be from my trip to Las Vegas this week. My Vegas trip had a lot of the same risk factors— especially being in a room full of colleagues for a few days— with the added risk factor of cigarette smoke. OMG, the Bellagio was awful (by modern standards) for latent cigarette smoke. Every time I walked through the casino— and I had to walk through the casino to go literally anywhere to/from my room— I could feel the smoke irritating my throat. And that was just a few minutes of exposure. And that was even without tons of people actively smoking. There's just so much latent smoke there from apparently poor ventilation.

Even more frustratingly, this round of sickness is barely a week after I got over the previous round! I had chills Friday night and went to bed early. That's after the lingering cough from the last round only finally went away last Friday.

Well, maybe— maaaaybe— this cough is just a reaction to all the smoke and I'll clear from it quickly. OTOH this could be the start of another two weeks of struggling through various symptoms.

Trading Down while Dining Out

I've seen a number of news articles in recent weeks that people are dining out less due to high prices. It's to the point even that some restaurants are realizing they need to roll back their last price increase. ...Though articles this week note that some restaurants are still raising prices, even for the second and third time in 12 months. People dining out less or "trading down" in their choice of restaurants makes sense to me because that's what I've been doing for a while already!

"Trading down" is most of the change I'm making. I'm less often dining at a full service, sit-down restaurants and more often choosing fast-casual, quick service restaurants.

My primary reason for this is financial. It's gotten so that eating at a full service restaurant means a bill of $65-70 all-in for the two of us— and that's with sodas or tea as our beverages. Swap in a few drinks from the bar, as when we're already spending that much money on the base meal we figure we might as well make it a treat, and the bill quickly runs toward $100 for two people. ...Or more, if "a few drinks" means a few per person. And I'm not even talking about high-end restaurants, here. This is slightly upscale local restaurants of the kind I used to dine at 3 times a week.

The financial issue isn't even affordability. My spouse and I are well enough off that we could afford to dine out 3x a week at $70 a pop. We could afford to... but we don't want to. Because while we're affluent enough to afford it we're not rich enough to ignore what everyday things cost. To put it another way, we have discretionary income but we still need to exercise discretion in how we spend it.

When I consider whether I want to dine at the $70 sit-down restaurant or a $35 fast-casual restaurant I literally ask myself, "Will the choice of A over B bring me/us $35 more enjoyment? Especially compared to any of the other things I/we could do with $35?" The answer almost all the time is no.