Foodie rule: When you choke on your own tooth, it's time to go home.

Good afternoon!  

How can it be almost a month since I blogged last?  Oh yes, I've been SICK!  How sick?  Well, I managed to binge watch 6 seasons of "House MD" without once thinking I had any of the ailments on the show.  THAT'S plenty sick enough for me.  And this disease I did have, this massive cough, congestion, loss of appetite, loss of voice, loss of will to move...I'm still getting over it.  I went two weeks without putting on eyeliner or shoes.  (I'm actually amazed at how far I devolved during my time of illness!)

But I've recovered now, at least well enough to go on a little bit of a winter get away with Hubby.  (I realize it's April, but up here in Wisconsin, winter get aways can happen deep into May.)  We headed up to Door County, a touristy place north of Green Bay, for a couple days.

Door County is one of those places that has an off season. Like the Wisconsin Dells, or Paris. (At least I'm told Paris sort of shuts down in August.  And since someone who lives and works in Paris told me that, I guess I take it as truth.)  Typically this means that the things you're going up to see and do aren't going to be open.   But in the last few years, Door County, like many other places that rely on tourism, has figured out a way to draw people up there no matter what the weather.

One word:  alcohol.

It's become quite stylish to hit the wineries of Door County (and there are MANY) to taste and enjoy local wines, and distilled beverages while staying in a hotel room and watching lousy weather roll by.  This is exactly what Hubby and I planned.  Although, being foodies, we added that in as well.

We managed two wineries, Door 44 and Door Penninsula Winery.  We did a wine tasting at Door 44 (and subsequently spent way too much money on wine).  I enjoyed both, but I think the edge has to go to Door Penninsula Winery.  Why?  Well, bottle prices were lower, they offered distilled beverages in addition to wine, there was a larger selection and...most importantly...their strawberry zin took me back to my college days of drinking Boones Farm Tickle Pink.

Ahhhhh, the memories.

Hubby outdid himself with booking a room.  I mean, if I'm booking a room I start with the mantra "I'm not paying more than $50 a night." and work from there.  Hubby booked with an eye towards...romance...and comfort.  We stayed at the Edgewater Resort in Ephraim/Sister Bay.  This wasn't a hotel room...no, this was a place I wanted to move in and live for the rest of my life!  Full kitchen, double sided fireplace, TWO TVs!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh, and a giant whirlpool tub!  All of the rooms

face the water, but if you're going to book, ask for room 216.  Best of all, the ICE MAKER in the freezer worked so well I was never without ICE!  (Well done Hubby!)

The weather cooperated well enough. We had sunshine two of three days up there, so we were able to hike in the state park, which was lovely.  (And good for my fit bit).

Food is always a big part of our trips (Duh...look at us) and Door County did not disappoint.  Since we had a kitchen, we stopped at a local grocery store and got fixings for a rustic cheese and sausage dinner for both nights, which saved a ton of money.  Breakfast and lunch was out and about.  And boy, did we find some off season gems!

It started with soup.  I love soup.  Seriously...if there's such a thing as a soup addiction, I have it.  So when I checked out the lunch menu at Shipwrecked Brew Pub in Egg Harbor and I saw "seafood chowder" I was all about it!  And I WAS NOT disappointed!  ( I also recommend the cheese curds and the cherry/berry crumble. Portions are huge, service is fast, and the place is CUTE!  

Breakfast both mornings in Door County was at the one place open near our hotel:  Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant and Butik.  This place has it all!  Swedish pancakes to die for, Swedish meatballs FOR BREAKFAST, a super cute little gift shop, and, in the summer months, GOATS ON
THE ROOF!  You read that right.  Goats.  On the grassy roof of the restaurant.  While it's hard to miss in the summer, you have to keep a slightly sharper eye out in the winter months. Well, not really.  Just look for the cars.  I love Swedish pancakes, but I've never really had them until now, and I'll probably only ever eat them here from now on!  Al Johnson's is a place where the regulars gather, so you know the food is good, and eavesdropping on conversations is fun and informative. Probably better than a local newspaper.  

But the gold star place that took it all was Czarnuszka Soup Bar in Ephraim.  After a day of hiking, we were overjoyed to find this little place tucked just off the main road.  The menu is limited to, you guessed it, soup and maybe a sandwich, whatever Mr. Czarnuszka feels like making.  Personally, I recommend the kielbasa and cabbage. Sounds weird, I know, but it's quite possibly the best soup I've ever eaten!


( I should mention that the little shack next door to the soup bar is currently for sale. Someone needs to send me $75K so I can live the dream of living next door to never ending soup!)

We hit the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame, because that's what you do when you're on your way home from Door County.  Exhausted and loaded down with possibly a couple too many bottles of wine, we made one more foodie stop.

Il Ritrovo is a personal favorite for Hubby and me.  Wood fired pizza, unbelievable appetizers, and a tiramisu that makes all other tiramisus want to run away and hide.  Seriously delicious, fresh, and not too pricey.  I'd been looking forward to biting

into a lovely piece of that pizza since the day Hubby told me he was planning this weekend.

So imagine my surprise, after everything we'd eaten, when, while taking one small bite of a not at all hard piece of pizza, I started choking on something very hard.

Yes, it was one of my teeth.

Well, actually it was a part of a tooth.  See, several years ago I had a crown put on my back upper molar on the right.  The crown slipped off a couple times, and my dentist (who did not make the original crown) sealed it back on. When it fell off a third time, my dentist told me that he couldn't make a proper seal and that I should either get a new crown ($700) or get the tooth pulled ($180)  or do nothing.  ($0)  We've been in a holding pattern for a number of years. Last time I was in, a year ago, I told him to pull it.  He said there was still quite a bit of tooth left and if it wasn't causing problems I still had plenty of time on it before we had to pull it.

NOT NO MORE I DON'T!

In a true, "It can only happen to Sarah" moment, the whole center of the tooth stub broke off and nearly killed me.

Okay, that might be a little dramatic.

Still.  That was my signal it was time to get home and stay home for a while.  And I think that's a good rule of thumb:  When you choke on your own tooth, it's time to go home.

The tooth isn't causing any pain.  But I figured I should call my dentist and get this looked at.  Funny thing is, he was at a conference all day Monday. So If I can't get in on Tuesday or Wednesday I'm stuck with a tooth rim in my face because on Thursday...wait for it...I go in for what I like to call the GUT AND BUTT SCOPE SPECIAL.

That's right. I'm getting an endoscopy AND a colonoscopy all in one day.  Watch for the blog on THAT!

#donthatemebecauseImawesome

Tempting fate at Sam's Club.

Good afternoon!

Sometimes when I'm out and about I think, "What's going to happen to me today that's going to be blog worthy?"  Admittedly, since I no longer work the Noelle C and Elsie W...I have to look harder for material.  (Although if you want to catch my adventures with Elsie W all in one place, check out "Not While I'm Chewing!")

Most days I don't have to look too hard. Things just happen, as my regular readers all know.  

Take yesterday, for example.  I had to run over to Sam's Club to pick up, what else, a prescription.  That transaction went smoothly. There was no one in my way, no foul ups with the information, and the prescription itself cost $2.00.  

Feeling pretty good about things, I then used the restroom. Normally a place where weird things happen, my experience this time was...completely and utterly un-blog worthy.

I picked up a few items, maybe 15.  More certainly than I wanted to try and push through self check.  (Peaches loves self check. I'm not a huge fan.  I tend to get into an argument with the machine about whether or not all my items are in the bagging area.  It's not pretty.)  So I looked for an open cash register with a person.  Since it was that magical time of day when the lunch crowd is gone and the after work crown hasn't shown up yet, there were only two registers open and both were getting full.  I popped into one line and settled in for a wait.

Had it ended there, there would be no story.

The woman in front of me had a very full cart.  She looked at me and asked if I wanted to jump ahead of her to save time.That's very nice. I do that sometimes, but not generally for someone who has multiple items in a cart.  I thanked her but did not go ahead. There was no rush and thus far everything had been so normal.

Oh if only.

A man walked up behind me holding a couple items. Now, I figure, it's a good idea to be nice to people, especially is someone has already tried being nice to you.  So I told the man he should go ahead of me.  

Pay attention now, because this is where it all starts to unravel.

The man said, "Thank you."

If only he'd left it at that.

But he didn't.

Then he said, "I have two items and I'm paying with cash."

Now, normally I don't pay that close attention to what people around me say, especially since he didn't really seem to be saying it to me so much as making a pronouncement to everyone within a couple of feet of us that he fully expected this treatment as his GOD-GIVEN- RIGHT that he SHOULD go ahead of me because HE only had two things and he was paying with CASH which, as we ALL know is the way people who are always RIGHT should be paying.

Maybe it was his tone of voice. Maybe it was the fact that he underscored how many items he had and that he was paying with cash while the rest of us unwashed were standing there with full carts waiting to pay with debit cards.

Whatever it was, I started timing him.  Because this is how things become funny.

First of all, he did not have two things, he had three things, one of which was the metric ton container of Metamucil.  For which he had a coupon.

But, you may say, Sam's Club does not accept coupons.

Yes, that is correct.  They do not.  Anyone with a membership is fully aware of that fact. 

Except this guy.

Now, had the cashier just said, "We don't accept coupons" and moved on, or had the guy not had his wife with him, this would be the end of the story. But no.

The cashier said, "Do you still want this item?"

This began a discussion between the man and the wife.  Do we really want to buy the bale of Metamucil if we can't save 45 cents?

They decided they wanted the item.

Then the cashier (and note, she's just doing her job) said, "If you spend 20 cents more, you qualify for $20 off your order if you apply for a Sam's club credit card."

This is where I rolled my eyes.  Honey, for 20 cents, don't even mention it.  you have nothing in this building that's under ten bucks and this guy just spent time debating the 45 cent coupon question.

The man's response was somewhat different.  He launched into a mush mouthed rant about how he doesn't have credit cards and he only pays in cash.  

At which point the cashier and I both rolled our eyes.  To each other. It was a great moment.

So she tells him his total, he gives her money, and she has to make change.  Not that she didn't know how to make change, but cashiers today simply don't handle as much cash as I did when I worked the register and therefore they aren't in that smooth money handling rhythm.  the cashier was a little clumsy getting the change out of the drawer and the man was quite clumsy getting it from her.

Total time of this transaction:  5 minutes and 43 seconds.

By this time I'd put my items on the counter, UPC code side up.  I had my debit card at the ready.  We chatted about how great a "free plum day" would be, the cashier, the lady behind me, and I when the bag of plums I bought didn't ring up right away.  She checked my age because two of my items were wine.The cashier loaded my items into a cart, I paid with my card and I was on my way.

Total time of my transaction, with wine and plums that didn't ring up:  2 minutes and 14 seconds.

Yep, the lesson here is that if you are having a smooth shopping experience someplace...don't tempt fate by trying to be nice. Just keep your head down and try to get through it without something blog worthy happening to you.

Never fear, Princess Perfect Hair, I'll protect you!

Good afternoon all!

Aren't I so cute in my new swim wear?

Recently I remembered that I have a gym membership to Xperience Fitness and I also remembered that I invested some serious bucks into new full coverage swim bottoms and caps and that I should probably make use of both.  Thusly I started making an afternoon pool workout part of my day.  Been there twice this week, hope to get there again today. We'll see if this can keep going.

Anyway, to understand my encounter yesterday you must first understand the pool and its unwritten rules.  It's a typical health club pool, not too big and not too deep. Three lanes are marked off with ropes.  Open swim every weekday afternoon from 1-4, although it strikes me as a generally underused pool since there aren't a ton of classes going on. 

I digress.

The afternoon open swim, and I've been there several times now over the last year, is not so much a swim as it is a gathering of old fluffy people who have been instructed to get more exercise, but who do not like to jar their joints in any way at all.  (More attractive people would say something like, "One wishes they'd be more protective of other people's eyes rather than their own joints" but I'm not that person because I'm right there with the rest of the aging fluffies.) It's a genteel group, and often numbers more than three, so lane sharing is expected, and not a big deal since most of us just walk or stretch or trot or whatever.  We certainly don't, you know, swim.

Occasionally an actual person who actually wants to swim actual laps shows up.  It's rare.  But we, the water walkers, let them swim laps and we just crowd the other lanes with more walkers.

Personally I don't care for this much contact while I'm swimming/walking/being in public in my swim wear.  But it is what it is.  So I share lanes if I must and I live my life.

Yesterday I got to the pool around 1:20, same time as usual, and there was no one in the pool. No one!  It was lovely. Smooth water, no echoing voices, no lane sharing, just me, a pool, and my thoughts.

That ended about fifteen minutes later when three people showed

You may be in the pool, but only if you do not
get water near my hair.

up.  The first two were ladies, one I'd never seen before and one I'd seen many times. This woman I'll all Princess Perfect Hair.  PPH is one of those older women who thinks the pool is hers and she makes the rules. She's there all the time. When she came back from her month long vacation in Florida she was super tan (read here, "leathery") and all a flutter about how she and her friends went to this place and that.  (She talks to everyone very loudly.  People who converse while working out bother me.)  She wears jewelry in the pool, lots of gold chains and whatnot and she never, NEVER gets her hair wet.  She doesn't wear a cap like I do (sometimes) because that would make her hair less than perfect.

Now I never really gave her much mind since she's usually there before I get there and she seems nice to everyone and everyone seems to love her.  She always takes the lane with the stairs, because then she can just stride into the pool like Cleopatra or something.  She shares lanes if she must, but she's fairly picky. You must only walk in her lane.  You mustn't swim or use floaties or jog. (She and I shared a lane once.)

So I was in the far right lane, where there was a ladder but no stairs. New lady was in the middle, and PPH was in the far left, gliding majestically down the steps into the water.

As for the third person who showed up, well, it was a guy.  And I could tell immediately that this was going to be a problem because the guy had goggles, which meant he wanted to swim laps.  He made the hand gestures to the woman in the middle lane and she nodded, indicating they would share.

But PPH had something to say about that.

"Oh are you swimming?"

"Yes," says he.

"Can you by any chance swim in the far lane?  I don't want to be splashed."

He sort of looks at me and I shrug and say, "No biggie, I'll go in the middle lane and give you more room."

Which I do and he does and that puts him as far away as possible from PPH.

Oh, and then another lane swimmer showed up, but he must have understood the rules because he just went in the far lane and left PPH a full, unshared, unsplashed space to herself.

I mean...she's in the pool.  And she's worried about the splash from someone swimming...in the pool.

Well never fear there PPH....I absorbed the bulk of the splash (there was none) and you, in turn, made the blog.  So we both win.

Fluffy Girl Burned Her WHAT?

I was feeling really lousy, flu- like last night, so I did not eat much for dinner.  (And I cooked a killer meal, too.  Slow cooked bbq pork roast, mashed taters, beans.  All good stuff.)  So by 11 Pm I was sort of hungry and feeling a little better in the tummy.  Peaches had made a batch of popcorn which smelled really good, but there were no leftovers.  So I decided to make a small batch on my own.

We have one of those stir crazy poppers.  (Well, we currently have an Orville Reddenbacher popper, such as you see to your right.  I got it at Kohls...not that I blame then for what happened.) You put the oil in, put the popcorn in, the arm stirs it while it pops, then you flip the whole thing over and the top acts as a bowl.  We've been using stir crazy poppers for a long time.  It's not like this was a new piece of equipment for me. In fact, next to the microwave, I'd say the popcorn popper is the kitchen machine I use most.

Last night I put the oil in, and put in about half the normal amount of kernels I use.  It popped and when it stopped making noise, I unplugged it (safety first) grasped the handles and flipped it over.

What I did not do is account for the fact that fewer kernels meant less oil was needed and that since I'd popped a much smaller batch, there was actually oil, hot oil, standing in the bottom of the popper, which then, while I was flipping the thing upside down, shot out at me from the gap between the top and the bottom.

I was wearing my jammies, like most people my age do at 11 PM.  And my t-shirt was no match for the super heated oil drops that fired at me.  I'd say about a tablespoon hit me square in the middle of my shirt, seeping through to the belly skin beneath it.

Which means, yes, my friends, I managed to burn the OUTSIDE of my gut on popcorn oil.

This was not my first burn. Please, I was in 4-H cooking. I burned myself all the time.  But hands, fingers, wrists ( a work related burn thanks to my waitressing days at Big Boy)  and one very weird time, my armpit (also Big Boy) but NEVER my belly.  

And guess what?  It's actually two big burns. My stomach sort of looks like I have some kind of tribal art on it.  So sexy.

And the nausea came back and didn't leave.  SCORE!

So the moral of the story kids, because I want you to learn from my blunders, is that if you're going to have flu-like symptoms and you want to make popcorn...don't.  Just have a piece of bread with a little butter on it and go to bed and pray the queasiness goes away...you know, like a normal person.

Say it with me, what's the name of the blog?

IT CAN ONLY HAPPEN TO SARAH!

Not Quite the Medical Test Result I was Expecting!

WARNING!  Some graphic girl-type topics are discussed in today's blog. 

TODD!  You've been warned!

Good afternoon!
So, as some of you may know, I've been having issues with my iron levels for the last several months. My doctor has put me on iron supplements since before Thanksgiving, but the only real change has been that I've dropped almost 20 pounds due to constant nausea.

That's the good news.

Yesterday I went in to find out the results of yet another blood draw. Now, my doctor is sort of like one of those holiday movie elves who are cute in a sort of elfish way, and they're short and talk with a "voice on 45 RPM" tone.  (Older folks are going to get that, the rest of you think "Alvin and the Chipmunks.")  Anyway, Doctor comes in with my results (on a laptop because that's what they all do

"...and if I can't be a dentist, I want to be Sarah's doctor!"

now), sits down, and starts talking really, really, really fast about medical terms I don't completely understand. (In spite of all my years of never missing a single medical based TV show.)  He sort of angles the screen in my general direction, as if I'm supposed to be able to read the screen (I can't) and he starts asking me about my menses.

Now, first of all, "menses" is such a throw-back word.  I mean, the word "Menses" make me think of my grandmother...and now also of my elfin doctor.

I explain that my punctuation has been sort of like a clearing house "everything must go" sale.  I figured the crimson tide was due to me being almost, but not quite, at the end of my monthly punctuation essays, and so Mount St. Helen's I was experiencing was not a big deal.  (BTW, anyone searching the internet for news on Alabama is going to be a tiny bit disappointed in this blog.  Roll Tide.  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Apparently it is.

See, Santa's helper explained, there are two reasons someone is anemic (which I guess I am).  The first is lack of absorption.  My test levels are ridiculously low in that arena, but they are within the spectrum of normal. (looking at the numbers, it's like saying "Scoring one field goal in an NFL game is as normal as scoring five touchdowns." I'm on the board...but really, there's a lot of room for improvement.)  So the next thing Dr. Elf looks at is output.  Where is the iron going.

I can answer that.

My daily constitutional has taken on a rather...um...let's call it a sexy jet black appearance.

Hey, I warned you!

Anyway, Dr. Elf figures my iron release is far too much given the fact that my menses  (who else is giggling...just me?)  is such a drawn out Vesuvius.  So...he has decided that while we are going to search for bleeds and pollops in the gut and butt (endoscopy and colonoscopy scheduled on the same day, lucky me...and oh yes, there will be blogs!) we are also going to send me to a GYN specialist to...and I'm not making this up...

PUT. ME. ON. BIRTH. CONTROL. PILLS.

People at my church who are reading this are either laughing or swearing off my blog at this point.

Yep, a woman who got her tubes cauterized twenty years ago, and who is maybe a year away from menopause (BRING IT ON)  is now going to be put on the birth control pill to regulate my punctuation so that I am no longer anemic.

Now I realize (my adult children felt the need to inform me of this because I used to be on the pill back in the Dark Ages...you know, before my adult children were born, and therefore before time began and therefore before anyone intelligent was around) that the pill is out there for so much more than preventing pregnancy.  And Dr. Elf quite simply did not understand why I was laughing so hard when he told me this. I know, it regulates hormones and all that.  I get it.

I just think the idea of being on the pill is so funny.

I was laughing right up to the time I had to talk to the colonoscopy lady about prepping for that....

Stay tuned.

Dear Target: If you want to sell groceries...maybe be better than the local gas station.

All I wanted was a half gallon of skim milk, a box of Shake and Bake,  and a DVD copy of "Hacksaw Ridge."

That's how my daily foray out into the world started yesterday.  I've made a point lately of making sure I have some kind of errand I have to run, no matter how small, to force me into real pants and eyeliner every day.  Do I use more gas than I used to?  Yes, but before you judge, ponder this:  I've owned my car now for two years.  I've put on less than 12,000 miles in that time.  So yeah, I'm going to allow myself a short run out of the garage every day.

Anyway, yesterday's errand was simple:  Find a DVD only copy of the movie "Hacksaw Ridge"  (I realize that if you get the blu-ray you get a DVD and a digital copy and then there's the 4K HD copy with the blu-ray/dvd/digital, but frankly, I only need one copy of a movie for my collection and I prefer DVD...and I really prefer DVD prices.) and a half gallon of skim milk.  

Literally the "Where's Waldo" of the grocery world.

Since my foray to Walmart the day before came up empty for the DVD, I headed to Target yesterday.  I knew that, even though this wasn't one of those Target Greatlands with the full on grocery section, our local Target had a good grocery selection and finding Shake and Bake and a half gallon of skim milk shouldn't be a problem.  I found the DVD right away and felt confident that I'd be walking out the door within five minutes with the other two items.

I started by looking for the Shake and Bake. Now, the location of this item varies from store to store, but generally I find it next to the bread crumbs or the boxed stuffing.  So that's where I started, looking for bread crumbs and boxed stuffing.  I figured this is the item what would take me the longest time...it always is...but still, I KNEW I'd be out the door shortly.

FORTY MINUTES LATER I'd combed every aisle of the grocery section and came up empty.  No bread crumbs. No boxed stuffing.  (But, there were FIVE different brands of baking Stevia and TWO SOLID SPACES for "ice cream salt."  I don't know how many people in the Waukesha area are making their own ice cream, but I guess the local Target is ready for them, should there be a run on ice cream salt.)  No Shake and Bake.  Forty minutes of studying each shelf...including the snack shelves Where I had to exercise the hardest of hard hearts because I hadn't had lunch yet and I craved pretty much anything on the FOUR AISLES of snack foods.  (On a side note, at least I got my steps in!)

Well, I mentally went though my cabinets at home and I realized I had a product that would serve as a covering for the chicken breasts I was making.  So I gave up on the Shake and Bake and went to the dairy cooler to get the milk.

Now, granted, this is a completely suburban American thing, but when I go to a big box store's milk coolers I expect to find, you know, MILK.  Imagine my surprise...no half gallons of milk. Not many,

anyway, and only TWO on the skim milk shelf...and THOSE WERE EXPIRED.  Yesterday being the 22nd, I checked the dates on both containers...both were expired.  Granted, I'll drink milk that's past it's due date if it's in my house, but I'm not going to BUY it that way.  (I have my pride.)

So...movie in hand...but no Shake and Bake and no milk.. .and this from a very large national store that makes a point of trying to compete with Super Walmarts and other grocery chains.

I got back into the Cube and was about to head home when another thought struck me.  I wanted to get a lottery ticket (because I enjoy throwing my money away like that) and the nearest Kwik Trip was on my way home.

For those of you not familiar, Kwik Trip is a gas station chain based in La Crosse, WI.  They have, in the last ten years or so, become a gold star in the convenience store world offering a wide array of coffees, beverages, hot food, and some really solid pizza.  I worked at one for a month.  (Yes, a

month...too physical for my crippled hands.) and I can tell you that the idea of expiration dates is one that is a big deal at Kwik Trip.  They sell NOTHING that's less than two days BEFORE it's due date. They also produce their own line of milk and bread, among other things.  They also sell fresh meat.  (I love telling people I got the steaks from the gas station.)

Oh, and they have a teeny, tiny, three shelves of dry grocery items that aren't snack foods and candy.

I headed to the gas station. And what to my wondering eyes should appear?  Non expired skim milk and yes...SHAKE AND BAKE.

I found Shake and Bake in a place that devotes MORE space to bubble gum than it does to dry grocery items.  

So, hey, Target?  If you really want to get serious about the grocery game, here's a tip:  Maybe offer less nonsense and more normal items to the shopping public and also, try NOT selling expired milk.

I'm no business major...but I'm thinking that's just a solid business idea to follow.

Oh, and ask for "Hacksaw Ridge," WHAT a great movie!  Enjoyed it thoroughly along with my tall glass of skim milk and my chicken breasts covered in Shake and Bake.  A good night all around.



Well, except I didn't win the lottery.

Remembering medical cures from "The good old days."

Good afternoon!


It's been a busy couple of weeks here, which is why I haven't blogged in almost 3 weeks.  Well, that and I continue to be under the weather with some sort of mystery ailment that's an interesting combination of exhaustion and insomnia.  Not great for the blogging, but very good for napping while binge watching reruns of "The Middle" on my DVR.  (Which is like watching my life's story...which is sometimes exhausting...and you see the evil circle of life I'm in!)


Anyway, I WAS going to blog today about some changes I've been going through.  (No kids, your body doesn't stop changing once you hit that magical age of 16.  Nope, you just level off for a while and then when you turn 45 it all sort of starts to roll downhill. and no, I'm not talking about menopause...yet.)  Most notably, how my leg hair has, for the most part, disappeared and reappeared as facial hair.  I haven't shaved my legs in a while, and it really hasn't mattered...except for one weird alien hair that's about four inches long and lives on the back of my left knee.

But I'm not going to talk about that.

Instead, my good friend Shayna and I went to a movie a couple nights ago  (we saw "An Affair to Remember" on the big screen. So worth it!) and the subject of medicine we took as kids came up. Now, I'm a bit older than Miss Shayna, and I realized while we were talking that I'm sort of survivalist miracle, given the medical treatment my parents did, and didn't, provide for me.

It started with home remedies.  You know, stuff your parents use that's not really medicine, but acts like it, so it's good enough?  Where do I begin?  Oh, yeah, my teeth.

When my adult teeth came in the front two were folded over each other.  My mother thought maybe we could just change nature by pushing on the front most tooth really hard with a Popsicle stick.  From the time I was nine to the time I was twelve I spent several minutes every morning pushing on that tooth, trying to get it back into place.  When I was twelve, they broke down and got me braces.  Funny thing is, I haven't a CLUE where the Popsicle sticks came from since my mother...a woman dead set against all things artificial, never bought them.  My head hurts from imagining her trading piano lessons for clean sticks.

Then there was the mystery lumps in my lower lip.  My parents were convinced I was chewing on my lip, thereby causing these two weird lumps in my lower lip.  The solution?  We're not going to the doctor...no we're not.  Nope, instead, they taped white medical tape on my lip.  I was twelve at the time, so this wasn't embarrassing AT ALL.  (This was prior to getting braces.)  I walked around with white tape on my lip for about a month before they decided to take me in to the doctor who took four seconds to say I have a benign cyst in my lip.  One has since vanished. The other one is still with me.

Today's kids are loaded up on probiotics to keep them "regular."  My mother had two special cures

for irregularity:  1)  Offering prunes as literally the only thing sweet in the house.  2) Giving us cod liver oil ever single day.  Let's break that down:  Cod:  Fish.  Liver: an Organ: Oil:  a thick, semi liquid goo, black green in color.  My brother and I lined up for that spoonful of gagging every morning.  Oddly enough, I sometimes long for cod liver oil, if for no other reason than to remind me how good things taste now.

One of the illnesses we contracted A LOT when I was a kid was pin worms. If you are not familiar with this disease you are either lucky or in deep denial about just how often you have to tell your under six year old kids to stop rubbing their butts on stuff.  Pin worms is highly infectious and is often passed, and most things are with kids, through contact with unwashed hands.  I had a friend in grade school and she and I apparently were just the dirtiest of the dirty kids and we passed those worms back at forth frequently.  (They nestle in the warm dark places, and then they itch.  So if Junior is complaining of an itchy butt, get a flashlight, go to a dark room and check between the child's cheeks.  It sounds horrible. And it is.)  Anyway, the cure, in the 70's for this was two-fold. One: clean everything as if someone with typhoid had just rolled through. So laundry is a big deal, sheets, towels, underwear, it's all got to be cleaned in hot, hot, hot water and the harshest soap possible. Then, dose everyone in the house with Povan.  (It's a real medicine, look it up.)  This was a thick, semi fluid goo that had a vile taste.  (Wait, that sounds familiar...) Bonus, you got dosed by weight.  So I, the 45 pounds disease catcher, got like four table spoons of the glop while my poor father, tall and girthy man he was, basically had to drink whole cups.  Want to know what it tastes like?  Try Pineapple Crush.  Same taste.


My parents' medicine cabinet would have shocked today's weak-kneed teetotalers.  Our cough medicine was 35 proof.  We coke syrup with CODEINE.  Oh, and of course, if we had a tooth ache, it was right to the liquor cabinet and rub some brown whatever on the pain.  Our decongestants actually cleared your head because it was chock full of all that lovely methamphetamine producing psuedoephedrine.  (We were probably all meth heads, we just didn't know it.)

And then...there was this.  See, my mother did not believe in baby aspirin.  And my brother vomited a lot and never could figure out how to swallow pills.  So when we had a fever or a headache, good old Mom turned to her number one, number one all time favorite drug:  the suppository aspirin.

This might have been a way for her to make sure we were really sick and not just faking it.  "Mom, my head hurts."  Okay, says Mom, "Let me go to the fridge and get a suppository aspirin. 

Oh, wait, no I'm feeling better!

For for those of you who don't know, suppositories are about the size of a ten year old's ring finger and go in one place...the rear end.  And since we kept them in the fridge, they were cold going in.  And then you had to lie very still on your stomach while the aspirin was being absorbed into you anal walls.  

I know some of you are cringing, and some of your are laughing.  You better be laughing. I can't possibly be the only one this happened to.

The biggest side effect of these was obvious:  any sort of backed up situation you might have going on was immediately cured once that cold goo bullet was stuck up in you. My guess is those things were expensive because I was NOT good at waiting for the thing to dissolve. My need to good was always stronger than my fear of my mother yelling at me for pooping out the suppository.  Which she did outside the bathroom door.  "You better not be pooping!  That suppository hasn't had time to dissolve yet!"

One time, and only one time, I thought about retrieving the suppository and reinserting it...but then I decided no parental scolding could be grosser than that.

In telling this tale to Shayna, I got that look of shock and horror and then a disbelieving laugh.  And my only response is...hey, you don't think I just started having stuff happen to me in my adult years do you?  

Oh no, this train was on the tracks at a very young age.