Hope And Goo Spring Eternal

I am pleased to report that The Worst Cold In The Whole Wide World has decided to withdraw the troops.  Yes, the initial assault is over.  I hate the first wave.  It is the part where the generals decided to carpet bomb the target with histamines and all they can do is itch and sneeze.

Of course, this tactical retreat is nothing more than a means for getting the enemy to relax a bit.  Once the sneezing is done, the second assault begins and that involves the packing of the chest and sinuses with goo.  The hope here is that the victim will just surrender before the shock and awe of being surrounded by mountains of used tissues becomes completely overwhelming.  Or they are so unnerved by the sound of their own slurpy breathing that they go utterly mad.

But you don't need to hear about that.  That is not the sort of thing that one discusses in polite company.  You can just use your imagination should you really want that mental picture on a Monday...

This all might be enough to make the average person sink into despair and the endless viewing of infomercials.  I, however, am made of sterner stuff.  I am on vacation and will not be brought to my knees by a little excess goo in my noggin.  Well...at least not until around 2:00.  Then I'll have to take a nap, but I'd be doing that anyway.  That is just part of the routine during school vacation week and has nothing whatsoever to do with the effects of OTC cold medications.

OK.  It did maybe have a little to do with the purple medicine.  But I maintain that napping would have occurred no matter what.

Yup.  I'm a trouper.  I doggedly went about my vacationing as if there weren't a tissue stuck in every pocket and one stashed up my sleeve because that is just how I roll.  I broke out the swift and finally wound up some more of that yarn for "the dishcloth" (with sleeves) because I remain ever-hopeful that there will be enough of the stuff to finish the project.  I transferred the gi-normous pile of dirty dishes from the sink to the dishwasher and pushed the "go" button because I remain ever-hopeful that I will one day remember to take the clean dishes out and make room for the dirty ones before they form a gi-normous pile.  I fired up the vacuum cleaner and dragged it around the carpet for a while because I remain ever-hopeful that someday the vacuuming will "take" and I won't have to ever do it again.

I also took a break to watch the PandaCam because I remain ever-hopeful that, one day, a panda will wave back at me:

They never do, though.  In fact, I think that the panda was looking a little peaked today.  Maybe he has a cold, too...

More importantly, I returned to the grocery store because I was ever-hopeful that they had managed to put together their clearance table for Half-Priced Chocolate Day The Second.  It doesn't always pay to be ever-hopeful.  More often than not, you run out of yarn, the gi-normous pile of dirty dishes in the sink topples over onto the kitchen floor and the carpets do not start spontaneously rejecting cat hair.  You even have to start your vacation with a cold sometimes and that hardly seems fair at all!

Other times, though, you are rewarded for your optimism:

 

And half-priced candy appears on the clearance table just like it is supposed to!

It is only the first day of vacation, but I do think it went well.  And who knows?  Maybe the military geniuses behind The Worst Cold In The Whole Wide World will give up and let me enjoy the majority of it goo-free.  If not, at least I got some leftover Valentines candy on the cheap, right?  

I can always hope...

SA