My cold? It’s still here. In fact it’s kind of laughing at me right now. “Oh, so you thought you could suppress me with allergy pills and advil? Yeah? You thought you could suppress me? FOOL! YOU CAN’T SUPPRESS ME!” But it was so worth the effort, and the two hours that the suppression actually kind of worked were lots of fun. I had a great time with my friend at her parents’ house, kind of hanging around with her and one of her kids (I can’t believe her oldest is getting ready for SCHOOL in the fall! Schnickies!). Also her dad. Her dad is awesome. He’s super-smart and all funny and stuff.

After my rendezvous with my friend I spent an hour or so in Charlottetown shopping… and actually managed NOT to spend every dollar that we own. I got a bamboo blind for our livingroom window (finally! naked time in the livingroom is BACK ON!) for like, eight bucks, some plants because I’m obsessed with our garden, a hummingbird feeder– our seems to have sprung a leak– and some odds and ends. Oh, and picked up our plate and cup from Fired Up.

And then came the epic adventure of the sneeze in the daytime. I was on the escalator. I have this bizarre conviction that one day I am going to get sucked under the escalator stairs into some alternate universe (hey it could happen) where people are NOT nice and say things like “irregardless” and “for all intensive purposes”. No. No. No. So I was dealing with that. And I felt a sneeze coming on. And my hands were full of bags! And there was a guy! Like, two feet in front of me! I couldn’t sneeze! I’d sneeze right on him! And I might get sucked under the escalator because I’d be distracted by trying to apologize for sneezing on him! But I couldnn’t put my bags down on the escalator! THEY might get sucked into the alternate universe! SUCKED RIGHT IN! Oh man, the sneeze! It was coming! Holy crap what the heck am I gonna do?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

I didn’t sneeze on the guy.

I know, I may have ruined the story for you, but I could tell you were getting a little concerned there, and I wanted to put your mind at ease. I didn’t sneeze on the guy at this time. I sneezed, alright. I sneezed my face off. But I sneezed into the crook of my elbow. Oh yeah. I call that the Swedish Sneeze because my friend Erin, whose husband is Swedish, and plus she spent a year in Sweden being an au pair and learning the Swedish ways, says that instead of covering their mouth with their hands when they cough or sneeze, little Swedish kids are taught to cover it up with the crook of their elbow. Which makes sense. I mean, you sneeze all over your hand, then you go touching stuff. Sneeze into your elbow, not much chance of getting your elbow juice all over grandma’s dog. Well, maybe.

Then! I got home, and remember the anniversary gift for my brother and his wife that I’d been talking about? It was here! Fed Ex left it in my door and there it was! I’m very, very impressed. Canvas On Demand took a photo of my nephews and made it into a nice piece for my brother and sister-in-law to hang wherever they want to. Here’s a pic of me holding it:

(do you like that? I have a fever. And I wasn’t wearing pants. But dangit, I was gonna get a photo taken!)

Seriously, if you have any kind of photo you want blown up and made display-worthy, check these guys out. They’re very professional, super friendly and communicative (they email or phone you if there is ANY question about your order, and you can be very specific with them… they do their best to make the canvas to your exact specifications). So. I’m happy, and come July 17th, I’m sure my brother and his family will be happy as well.

And now, I go back to the sofa, where I will relax with a glass of rum punch (yes I know! But it’s summer! And one glass a day is fine!) and watch Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts Of Life (I heart our PVR).

It’s 6:13 am.

It’s also my summer vacation. What the hell am I doing up, you may ask. Good question, I asked myself the same one about 45 minutes ago when I finally decided I couldn’t sleep anymore and should really get out of bed before disturbing Rob too much with my tossing and turning. My answer is threefold:

1) I slept SO MUCH yesterday (from probably noon until… well, I woke up for an hour or so in the evening and dragged myself down to the couch, but beyond that I just slept all night).

2) Someone outside is honking their horn. Obviously they are waiting to give someone a drive, but REALLY? At six in the morning? In a neighbourhood where there are plenty of babies and old people and ME who would normally be sleeping at this time? They do this every weekday, and generally I just hear it and go back to sleep, but since I’m up, it’s really irritating me.

3) A friend of mine is on the Island this week… she’s leaving tomorrow. She’s available (hee, I’m making her sound like a celebrity, which she’s not, she’s just a mom) for like, three hours this morning while her daughter’s at day camp (morning camp), and since I didn’t want to go yesterday what with my boogery goodness (I also didn’t want to go today, for fear of giving them all my plague, but she insisted) today is the day. I asked about tomorrow but today is better. So that’s how that is. Oh, and she’s in Charlottetown, which is about an hour and twenty minutes from here, so there’s the driving, too.

Hey, lookie there, my answer really WAS threefold. I didn’t know that when I started out. I just like saying that things are threefold. What do you know, you take a chance and sometimes it works out.

I know hardly anyone reads this anymore (weirdly enough, I used to have like, ten readers. Nowadays by the volume of comments I get, I’d say I’m down to two or three. Not that I mind that because the two or three reading are very high-quality readers. And it’s quality, not quantity, yo) but! I wanted to say happy 5th of July to everyone, and does anyone at all remember what yesterday was? Not Independence Day (well, I mean, it was that, but that’s not what I’m talking about). A day that is significant to me and me only. I’ll give a (tee-iny) prize to the first person who gets it.

Oh, people, I am dying.

Okay so I have a cold. But we all know that summer colds are way worse than any other cold in the world.

I am going back to the couch.