Still Life With DayQuil

As the above tableau suggests, I am currently sick.

Earlier this week I came down with one of those awful (and yet utterly ordinary) summer colds that leaves you plugged up, hot, headachy, restless, and feeling like you'd rather do just about anything than confront a stifling New York City subway.

Anything, that is, besides cook. I'd forgotten until now how completely unappealing cooking is when you're ill. The physicality of it is exhausting, the fine motor skills overtaxing, and the sights and smells of food absolutely nauseating. Beyond all that, there's a psychological component -- to me, cooking is above all else about caring for people, and when I'm sick what I want is for someone to care for me.

For these reasons I haven't been in the kitchen much this past week. I got as far as making an omelet last night, depositing it in a heap on The Viking's plate and then shuffling back to the couch to recover from the effort. It was not a photo-worthy result, for me or for the omelet.

Luckily, my summer cold has brought all the mother-hen-types around me out of the woodwork.

Here are a list of remedies that have been suggested to me over the past few days, by actual moms and others with mom-like tendencies: 3 grams of Vitamin C per day; Echinacea; Rest, rest, and more rest; Hot compresses; Fluids; Hot tea with honey; Miso soup; Chicken soup; Zinc lozenges; A neti pot.

Here is my own personal wellness solution: take the maximum allowable dosage of DayQuil, install myself on the couch with a jug of water, and watch reality television programming for about 11 hours straight in a drug-induced delirium. There are also saltine crackers, ginger snaps, and old movies involved. As a cure it might not have the weight of science behind it, but it has provided me with a much needed mental hiatus (and my symptoms seem to be dissipating too).

I suppose that I owe you an accounting of how I used my CSA box this week. I do actually have photos of the various efforts, all undertaken before the cold arrived on Tuesday, but my brain has turned too much to mush to do anything about it for the time being.