Summer cold

It was bound to happen.

It still doesn't mean that I like it.

With all the running around I do, combined with the sort-of sudden temperature drop, pollen (aka plant sex) and pressures from this, that and the other...I caught...something.

Bah.

My nose is stuffy, my throat hurts, my ear aches, my body is stiff.

SOME people think it's my body's attempt to tell me to slow down and do nothing and just recharge. DO NOTHING? I don't "do nothing"...okay...I do...but when I say I'm doing nothing, that means I'm reading, writing, doing laundry, baking a cake, cleaning...homebody stuff. Apparently, this definition of "do nothing" is erroneous and what do nothing really means is sleep and/or watch TV/DVDs.

Bah.

There a number of non-pharma things I do to make life more bearable when I've caught a cold or something...one of them is drastically increase my intake of capsaicine, garlic and onions. Yes, that means copious amounts of spicey-hot foods that could be classified as a dangerous weapon in some jurisdictions.

The night that I finally admitted that things weren't right, I went to a local wing and rib place and ordered double-sauced wings: suicide and something they called "hotter than Hell"...well, they didn't do much for me--a slight tingle at best...nowhere near the eye-watering, nose-dripping lip numbness I needed.

TFE, on the other hand, tried the felt all warm and tingly.

I don't know what I was expecting...okay, I was hoping for a pseudo-surreal experience like Homer and the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper, but this definitely wasn't it...

When I was in secondary school there used to be this amazing "create your own" sandwich shop--lots of different meats, toppings, sauces and breads. I perfected my own "hotter than Hell" sandwich, when combined with a purely medicinal Nanaimo bar, always made me feel better. That sandwich was HUGE--a combination of chicken, beef, cheddar, lettuce, onions, pickles, jalepenos peppers, hot peppers, horseradish, dijon mustard, barbecue sauce and chilli sauce on an onion bun--I could only eat a quarter of it at a time, but it always made the nasty effects of any cold or flu go away.

Unfortunately that shop no longer exists (the owners sold it and the new owners had a string of bad luck and then ran it into the ground).

One of our gourmet shops also has a build-your-own-sandwich counter. It's nowhere as wondrous as the old shop, but you do the best with what you have, right? What you see is an attempt at recreating my medicinal sandwich...nowhere near as potent, but there were some redeeming factors: fresh brown bread, rare roast beef, cheddar, lettuce, onions, pickles, horseradish, grain mustard, sundried tomatoes and a proprietary secret mix called "the bomb." If my old sandwich was a "10" in spicey heat, this one was a "five"...a tasty five, but still a five. I knew this in advance, so I picked up some Death Rain Habanero potato chips...which brought the meal up to a seven.

Unfortunately, one important ingredient to this feel better with food journey was missing.

No Nanaimo bar.

I think that's why I still feel yucchy.

Bah.

cheers!
jasmine