Thursday, July 30, 2009

Frozen grapes and cold remedies

Quite a few of my closest companions are sick these days - none of us, thankfully, suffering from The Flu That Must Not Be Named (sorry, more Harry Potter yesterday). I would like to note that I am not the epicentre, either, but merely a helpful person who obviously forgot to wash her hands at some point or other.

I've been monitoring the progress of a variety of remedies including:

Running around madly pretending nothing is wrong

Regular doses of acetaminophen

Lakeloads of water

Lakeloads of boiling water mixed with fresh lemon juice and honey

Sleep

Chicken soup

Vicks Vaporub

Acetominophen mixed with cough/cold medicine (bad, BAD idea, thankfully not one of mine)

and, the winner for effective deliciousness:

Frozen grapes.

Nothing has beaten back the germs so far, though I - the person drinking the most water and hot honey lemon - seem to have avoided the whole 'nose as tap' thing.

The frozen grapes were a lucky accident: a cousin who is more gifted than Martha Stewart on the home front mentioned the concept to me once, years ago, but I never thought to try it until last week when I got sick of grapes going moldy in the 'frig before they could all be eaten. Even then it took me a few days to remember to put grapes back on the grocery list and then take the time to pull them off the bunch, separate out the baddies, wash them, dry them, and put them into freezer-friendly plastic.

The next day I tried one and - whoa! Instant sore throat relief! Way, way better than Popsicles, and no sugar or food colouring or anything.

Makes me think I should try freezing fruit juice, too. After a cup of tea though. And maybe (cough) a nap.

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