Here’s the pretty kind. We’ve been getting dense fog and sub-zero temperatures, which does interesting things to the trees.
Then there’s the horrible kind, brain fog. I thought I was over my cold, but it has come roaring back with stuffed up sinuses, a bad cough and sniffles, and some kind of brain goo. I’ve been struggling with it this weekend, just trying to get Monday’s lecture in shape, and it took far, far longer than it ought to.
One consolation: I ran out to the store to pick up some cold relief and cough drops and the like, and the place had been cleaned out! Bare shelves! I couldn’t get anything, but at least I can tell myself the entire goddamn town is suffering with me.
Yes, as there’s certainly no hoarding going on.
In our part of the world we don’t get temperatures nearly as low as what you’ll get in Minnesota. But recently we’ve been a few degrees below zero, and that bit of cold produced something I’ve never seen before.
The frost on the overhead window in the bathroom produced an intricate and absolute beautiful pattern. It was like a good number of branches of a bush weaving in and out, and in between those branches there were various geometric shapes and animals–e.g., a bird’s head and two foxes fornicating (I’m not making that up), and so on.
Exactly how this happened I have no idea. Was it possibly the texture of the glass? I really didn’t think so, and in any case we haven’t seen a repeat of that pattern.
At any rate my son and I agreed that a good artist could take that pattern and make a tapestry out of it, and if they chose their colors well, they’d certainly find a buyer for it. It would make a nice work of art.
Perhaps those of you in really cold country have seen something like this and you can explain it to me.
There are studies showing honey and hot tea are as effective as cough syrup or drops.
I’m a bit weirded out how often you’re out and about while sick. I know sharing is caring, but … not like that.
You need to to take a picture of the empty shelves and post it online, claiming that it’s Venezuela, and this proves that socialism doesn’t work.
Of course, I now misread
I’m fighting my second cold in less than two months, so I assume there’s more than one nasty strain of the virus on the loose. I’m in south Louisiana, so you and your town mates are not the only ones suffering. At least the cold medicines have not been sold out here.
I had stocked up on Claritin D and Mucinex at the start of the pandemic. I figured before shots were available that was my only chance. I also toyed with the idea of having some dipping tobacco available because the alleged effect of nicotine toward a cytokine storm.
I just checked and my Claritin D / Mucinex stores are expired. Claritin D always did the trick with colds, plus the weird rollercoaster of antihistamine and decongestant was as close to what I imagine a speedball to be like that I’d care to experience.
I do have some eucalyptus infused saline to periodically shoot up my nose for fun.
hemidactylus: most drugs have a 2-year expiry date printed on them.
On the flip side, most drugs that have been tested are completely fine even many years expired. Some actually do expire, so check, but most don’t seem to.
I saw something about this, drugs expiring, a while back. What I remember is that the potency decreased. But it was on the order of 1 or 2% every few years. I pretty much quit worrying about it after seeing that.
But note that I take no regular prescription drugs. Everything I have is over the counter stuff.