I’m at home today, in self-imposed exile, allegedly working on a feature story due — oh, well, technically I suppose it was due yesterday. But my editor doesn’t expect it from me yet. He knows.

I am mean-mean-mean when it comes to deadlines with my own young writers, because I feel strongly that I was raised wrong: No one ever really cared if I turned a story in late.

And so the habit stuck. You think you procrastinate? This morning I have already made two batches of sugar cookie dough, done two loads of laundry, emptied the dishwasher and filled it back up again, found the surface of my dining room table, covered it will the contents of my “story box” and — well, now I’m blogging.

I’m also at home because it’s not even October and it’s still well over 100 degrees outside but people are dropping like flies. Two called in sick at work yesterday; Annabelle’s teacher is home sick; so are several of of our good friends. I

I’m in hiding from germs.

And so when I stumbled on a link last night to a very entertaining New York Times blog post about “the Jewish echinacea,” I considered making a batch. That was til I learned that gogol mogol contains sweetened, beaten egg yolk that I’m not entirely sure is supposed to be entirely cooked. Blech.

I did like the part where you can spike it with rum or brandy. Last week I had a canker sore on my tongue (sorry, too much information!) and found that instead of Orajel and Advil, what really worked was soaking my tongue in a small glass of Bailey’s and ice.

So maybe sometime I’ll whip up a batch of gogol mogol. But today, instead, I swung by Walgreens and bought a big box of Emergen-C. And before I do anything else this morning (what’s left of it) I better stop and drink my big bottle of immunity-laden Smart Water.