Since I spent most of the day semiconscious on the couch, this won't be the most enlightened essay I've ever written. One thing I learned, even in this condition, is that I will never become addicted to DayQuil. That stuff is nasty. If it didn't ease my sore throat for a couple of hours, I wouldn't even take it.

Now Nyquil, on the other hand, is a lovely way to get caught up on sleep. Ten or twelve hours of it at a time. And then when you get up, you still feel as if you're asleep, for the first couple of hours you're walking around. I don't mean to be pimping a product in which I have no financial interest, but I would hate to see Nyquil taken off the shelves of my local pharmacy.

Somehow amidst all the medication, I've managed to have a day of recovery, unproductive as it was. If I didn't work at home, I would have called in sick this morning, and I wouldn't have accomplished anything, so what little I did get done is a bonus for the company.

What I did today was for me, and it's helping. I still have all the symptoms I had yesterday, but nothing is quite as severe. I'm convinced that by tomorrow I'll get back enough energy to get some real work done.

Unfortunately, Mom seems to have picked up the same malady, either from me or from wherever I got it. It doesn't matter how it developed; it's here and knocking us down and putting its heel on our throats. Passive resistance is the only way to counteract this kind of aggression. If I keep my eyes closed, maybe it'll give up and go away.

Something else that happened while I was sleeping it off today was that my Christmas shopping got finished. I didn't do anything, except ask Suzanne to pick something up for me. And the last item I bought online was delivered as I napped this afternoon. So that's off my mind.

So I'll get the last of the wrapping done tonight or tomorrow. And the weekend should present me with opportunities to write about something other than my deteriorating body.

To some, this is the first day of winter. To me, it's the shortest day of the year, which means that all the rest of the days, starting tomorrow, will be longer. And longer and longer, until in just three months the daylight hours will be equal to the night. And they'll still keep getting longer, for another three months after that!

It rained lightly through the morning, but a few determined rays of sunlight found their way through the clouds this afternoon. The birds have come back to my garden, after mysteriously disappearing for a couple of days. Maybe the wild bird seed I've been sprinkling out there has helped them feel at home here.

This is what hope is all about. It's not quite as propitious a day as the opening of spring training, but that's only a couple of months away. A day like this helps me believe that there will be another spring, and just in time, too. I need reminding sometimes.