02.05.05

Loop-de-doo! I'm still ailing.
I want it to end,
I want smooth sailing.

Having a great day; zoned out on cold medication and doing laundry. Today's soundtrack? The Anvil Chorus (from Verdi's Il Trovatore) in coughing form.

I am a tickle-in-the-throat, gasping, hacking, burbly, coughing mess. And I'm doing laundry.

Could my life be more...?

KaliHellKitty has alternated between keen interest in sitting on my lap and manic dashes down the hallway.

Perhaps it's time for some cafe corretto (I'm not sure of the proper spelling and too brain-dead to look it up.) To the Italians, coffee ain't correct until it's got some liquor in it. I got some amaretto and some Kahlua yesterday. Maybe there's some coffee that needs correcting out there. Somewhere.

That's all folks. Just another thrilling day in Xatonia.

Here's a poem by Ogden Nash called "Common Cold." Enjoy:

Go hang yourself, you old M.D,!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
In not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The F�hrer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

- Ogden Nash

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