In which she chronicles twelve hours of fighting the common cold before the first day of a new job

Roughly 9:30 a.m. – sit up to check time. Crawl to the window to check weather status. Looks like a whiteout to me.

9:45 a.m. – downstairs to make lemon zinger tea and take wonderful Tylenol-brand concoction for head cold. Upstairs to verify with Sarah that current precipitation rates make church attendance hazardous. Thankful I will not have to leave the house today.

10 a.m. – need more tea. Take multivitamin. Medicine already making me feel better.

10:30 a.m. – listen to sermon from parent’s church. Sermon intermittently interrupted by Sarah’s blackberry, announcing various asundry requests for her to save the world on a Sunday morning. She complies in spite of herself. I use these breaks as opportunities to make more tea.

Noon – sermon concludes and a perfect winter meal of tomato-pepper soup and grilled cheese sandwiches is settled upon.

12:30 p.m. – Sarah’s place as undisputed champion grilled cheese sandwich maker of the world is proven once again. After verifying that you feed a cold (as opposed to starving a fever), I finish the soup. I switch to raspberry tea and do the dishes.

1 – 5 p.m. – scrapbooking, because it is much overdue and doesn’t require talking. I get the entire second half of 2006 done. This makes me happy. Pause for more tea and meds.

6 p.m. – try to drain sinuses by eating goose stew spiked with a quarter of a bottle of green Tabasco sauce. Tastes good, but no nasal relief.

7 p.m. – Sarah makes some fries, and I partake – spiking my ketchup with horseradish in another attempt to drain sinuses. This provides temporary relief.

8 p.m. – I figure out how to use the humidifier and move it into my room. Sarah diagnoses me with a cold. I bestow on her an honorary doctorate from the L.W. University of Well Duh.

9 p.m. – shower and pajamas. Discover that peppermint tea with a little honey is quite delicious. Another dose of the Tylenol-band goodness.

9:30 p.m. – hoping against hope that I will be coherent enough to learn everything I’ll need to learn tomorrow. Need more tea.