the spark is gone

I have had an on and off love affair for years...pretty much the entire time I've known Mister, to be honest.  He was the one who introduced us, even.  But I have to admit, the romance is going in the "off" direction again... I am losing interest in Yogi Detox Tea.

My basic strategy for handling illness is to try to force it out with foul-smelling, strong-tasting tea, while nurturing my little inner warriors (aka Antibodies) with particularly nutritious food.  As you've probably noticed if you've been reading for, well, let's say a month or more, I generally stuff Good-For-Me things down my gullet, but when I get sick (or perceive a threat of becoming so), I up the ante a little.  Anyway, I have relied on Yogi Detox Tea for nearly a decade - it's meant to detox the liver, but I swear it speeds up my recovery time when I get sick, possibly because a detoxed, clean liver allows for quicker clean-up?

The two things that alternately make me love and despise my detox tea are the taste and the hang-tags.  The ingredients are impressive and might give a little bit of insight into the bizarre flavor of this tea:  indian sarsaparilla root, cinnamon bark, ginger root, licorice root, burdock root, dandelion root, cardamom seed, clove bud, black pepper, long pepper berry, chinese amur cork tree bark, japanese honeysuckle flower, forsythia fruit, gardenia flower, skullcap leaf, chinese goldenthread root, rhubarb root, wax gourd, and juniper berry extract.  mmmm....tasty.  However, once you drink it frequently enough, you get used to the flavor and it does actually taste....well, palatable, as opposed to OMG-drink-it-fast-so-you-don't-taste-it.

And then there's the transcendental, inspirational, feel-good hang-tags.  I've been presenting them as little moments of zen because the first few were really pretty and did actually make me feel good, despite feeling so bad.  Then they started getting super-fruity, and will probably continue to, since we're on that downward trend.

Tonight's moment of zen?

Wow.  Really?  Thanks for letting me know, Yogi.  I've also gotten such gems as "Be your own best friend" and some other ridiculous piece of fortune cookie wisdom.  We had such a good thing going for a while... I guess all good things must eventually end.  Unlike the truth, which is everlasting.

I'm tired of being sick.  Yesterday was awful and I went to bed way before I usually do, fell asleep immediately, slept for nearly 10 hours and still needed my second alarm to get me out of bed this morning.  However, once I got going, I felt fine!  I coughed all day, but I only sneezed a few times and was sniffly once.  Then I waited 30 minutes for the train in 30-something degree weather (it was only supposed to be a 10 minute wait) and walked home through the same temperature.  I couldn't even feel my legs by the time I got home and my feet had frozen and were very angry with me.  Now?  I've been sneezing in patterns of four to ten sneezes in a row and blowing my nose left and right.  I really hope for the same miraculous recovery overnight because I really don't like this and I want to break it off with the Yogi before he leaves me (aka, tea runs out).

So, here's your real moment of zen:

nothing says "zen" like a peacefully sleeping kitty