Boxing Day Hangover (One Day Late)

December 27th, 2007

I never understood why Boxing Day (i.e. the day after Christmas) wasn’t a big thing in the United States. Granted, I really don’t know anything about the Canadian holiday but it’s been a pseudo-tradition of mine to go shopping on Boxing Day. Last year my Mom was visiting and we went whale watching so I missed out on the whole shopping experience. It was just Colleen and I this year and we had some Christmas money to throw around so we headed down to our favorite store, Target.

I hate to throw a lot of complicated math around here but here is a simple equation that most of you should understand:

Colleen + Sat + Target = Empty Pockets

Having two new things to play with (cats and a handheld GPS unit, for the uninitiated), that gives us two more things to blow money on at Target. The cats ended up with a litter mat (to wipe their paws on after exiting the litter box) and two level hammock. Our friends at Bone Appetit recommended that we wait to buy the cats bedding until they pick out a spot in the house that they like to sleep in. It took about 2 minutes for Rubi to identify the corner in the living room behind the chair as her favorite nap spot and Roxy was soon to follow. After a few days we put a pillow there and they seemed to enjoy in. The hammock was small enough to fit back there so we replaced the pillow with it. In order to entice them to use the hammock, we put the towel on the top level and sprinkled cat nip on the bottom level. Again, it didn’t take long for them to warm up to their new bedding arrangement with Rubi taking the top “bunk,” while Roxy snuggled in below. I’ll try to snap a picture of them sleeping there and post it here some day.

As for the GPS stuff, we picked up a bunch of little things that might be useful for when we are in the great outdoors. Glow sticks (sorta like the cheesy neon things you seen at lame frat parties sometimes), emergency ponchos, a mini compass (since the Garmin eTrex Legend doesn’t have a true one), and some waterproof matches all made it into my cart. I also picked up a Victorinox Sportsman Swiss Army Knife that could also be classified as outdoorsy. It was on my Secret Santa wishlist but since I didn’t get it I decided to buy one for myself (oh! the joys of Boxing Day). Today we searched for our first geocache and realized there were some items we still need but I will get to that later in this post or (most likely) in another post.

While at Target we were also close to buying an air filter but I wanted to do more research on them. A lot of the air purifiers they had there were labeled as “HEPA-type” which is very misleading since they aren’t really HEPA. (On a complete tangent: for some reason I can’t stop pronouncing it “hey-pa” instead of “heh-puh.” I guess it is the Mexican half of my heritage that is forcing me to speak like I know the language when i don’t.) I was also looking into getting a HEPA-rated vacuum cleaner when I realized something nice: the vacuum that Jenne gave is HEPA-capable. The filter that came with it wasn’t a HEPA filter but you can buy them (for about $5) online so I am going to do that. I also stumbled upon the user manual for our vacuum (a Bissell 8975) and found out that there was one filter we didn’t know about—the damned Bissells seem to have about 100 filters hidden on them. After inspecting it I found it completely clogged with dust, which was probably the reason why the last few times we have used it, it has thrown a bust of dust into the air (not so good for the allergies). I ended up spending about a half hour cleaning out all the filters and checking the brush for threads. I must say though, the fruits of my labor paid off because there was a noticeable improvement in the air being spit out while Colleen was vacuuming today. Hopefully the HEPA filter on the vacuum along with a new ifD filter air purifier will keep my allergies at bay.

Speaking of allergies, I haven’t been having many problems with them the past few days. I’m not too keen on the idea of popping allergy meds every day but I begrudgingly picked up a pack of the CVS-brand Claritin RediTabs. Claritin is labeled as some sort of wonder drug for allergy suffers but, as it turns out, the main inactive ingredient in it is lactose monohydrate, which is definitely not vegan friendly. I thought I was going to have to get a prescription for the liquid form of Zyrtec because it was the only one without the lactose. The RediTabs actually don’t have it but they have gelatin so they were out also. Luckily, after inspecting about 500 boxes I found that the CVS-brand instant-dissolve pills didn’t have lactose or gelatin so I was good to go.

I took one of the pills on Christmas Eve and the symptoms went away very quickly. I was expecting them to come back about 24 hours later when the antihistamine was supposed to wear off but, to my pleasant surprise, they haven’t been so bad. I occasionally have a runny nose but it wasn’t as bad as the time leading up to me taking my first RediTab. I have also been waking up with a bit of congestion but I am hoping that an air filter in my bedroom will clean up the stale air in there. Since I keep it closed to keep the cats out, air doesn’t circulate in there so there is an unpleasant scent that lingers there. It’s been a bit too chilly to keep the window cracked or I would do that.

Well, I suppose that I should wonder off to bed now. I was excited to talk about our first geocaching experience today but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Hopefully I can convince Colleen that she is a good blogger so that she starts writing some more. You can help out the cause by leaving a positive comment for her though