Out of bed at 8:00 AM, frustrated at the persistent sinus drip-induced cough and headache that’s kept me awake since 5:00. Too fuzzy-headed to read, so I turn on the TV. MoviePix is showing a “documentary” about the women of James Bond. I catch the last 30 minutes.
The documentary segues into a non-stop, all day James Bond marathon. I sit through “Dr. No” and “From Russia With Love.”
Martine reminds me that our self-imposed quarantine, now running into its fourth day, must come to an end, as the food supplies are running low. And besides, the driveway needs to be shoveled.
We manage to clean up and make ourselves presentable. Fortunately, the recent snowfall has been light and fluffy and is easy to scrape aside. We drive to the grocery store where we lurch about somnambulistically, sniffling and moaning like zombies. We stock up on a few essentials, as well as some non-essentials that we hope will make us feel better.
Back home, we are miraculously clear headed enough to read for a while, as night settles.
While heating up dinner (a tourtière) I briefly contemplate the dozen or so bottles of wine that lay undrunk in the basement. The first thing to go when I have a cold is my taste for wine, and Martine seems equally afflicted by this tragic symptom. Neither of us have had a festive tipple since December 26.
We eat, pleasantly surprised that we can actually taste our dinner. A promising sign. We return to the sofa where we read some more, and then have desert; a store-bought pineapple upside down cake at 440 calories per portion. “Don’t worry,” I tell Martine, “think of the 1000 calories worth of New Year’s Eve booze you’re not drinking tonight.”
We settle deeper into the sofa and watch four episodes of “Battlestar Galactica,” back to back. Around midnight, we watch a few minutes of Bye Bye, the satirical year-end review on Radio-Canada. Then we watch another episode of “Battlestar Galactica.”
It was a long day. I was awake for 20 hours, almost ten of which were spent in front of the TV. We went to bed by 1:00 AM, and I got up today at 9:00, feeling much better in my sinuses (finally), although I feel like a physical wreck from all that laying about without actually sleeping. But at least things are on an upswing, and that’s a good way to start a new year.
Happy 2008, everyone.