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“I Held My Nose, I Closed My Eyes…I Took A Drink”

“I Held My Nose, I Closed My Eyes…I Took A Drink”

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“Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

 (Witch’s Brew recipe written in Shakespeare’s Macbeth)

 

It’s almost Halloween.

I read once that Halloween was second only to Christmas in retail sales.  I have since read that is a myth.

But still, it’s a big deal to some, especially kids, and like everything else this year it won’t be the same.

That’s too bad.

 

Our typical day starts out with Kim and I having our first cup of coffee in bed as we check our email, check the weather, maybe our banking, and of course some social media.

This morning as I opened my Facebook I was greeted with a post reminding me that today is World Mental Health Day.

I might argue that a reminder of World Mental Health on Facebook could be perceived as an oxymoron but I was happy for the heads up.

In a great many cases and to varying degrees,  the results of the conditions we currently are living and working and schooling under have taken its toll on our mental health.

Many sought new ways of staying active physically and mentally while social distancing.  There was a time earlier in the year when you couldn’t buy a bicycle or a kayak as everyone tried to take on activities that lent themselves more to distancing from others.

If you want to social distance you can’t do that much better than being on a kayak.

 

Strangely, Kim and I, though we already had kayaks and bicycles, spent only a small amount of time riding our bikes this year and in fact never used our kayaks even once.

For physical activity, we walked a lot.

For fun, we spent a lot of time in our back yard.

And in our back yard, we worked our gardens.

Kim’s garden this year featured lemon balm, elderberries, horseradish, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs.

She even grew a pepper known as the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion!

According to PEPPERHEAD.com the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion will wreak your stomach, burn your intestines and still be smoking on the way out and is considered to be the second hottest pepper in the world.

We found that even just handling them was dangerous.

 

And as the pandemic focused our attention on building our immunity and trying to keep from getting the virus, Kim developed a new hobby, herbal concoctions that boost immunity, depress symptoms, help you relax and sleep.

I have mentioned our regular consumption of elderberry syrup in a previous post as a good source of boosting our immunity.

Normally we would go out and buy our syrup made locally by the Village Winery in Waterford, Virginia.

This year however my wife decided to fire up the cauldron and make it herself.

And in addition to elderberry syrup to boost our immunity she made elderberry tincture.

And in addition to the elderberry tincture, she made lemon balm tincture.  Lemon balm tincture is supposed to reduce our stress and help with our sleep.

 

Today however was the day she was to prepare the mother of all home remedies.

FIRE CIDER!

Just the sound of it gave me chills.

“For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

I don’t know if it includes any of those ingredients mentioned by Mr. Shakespeare in Macbeth but I do know it has garlic, turmeric root, ginger root, horseradish root, onions, lemons, apple cider vinegar (with the “mother” in it, you will have to look that one up), peppercorns, and I don’t know that I care to know what else.

And in at least one of those batches she added the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion!

Once you have all this stuff mixed together you keep it in a cool place for six weeks while it does whatever it does until I have to drink it.

One thing is for sure, in addition to my lemon balm tincture and my elderberry tincture before bed, and my elderberry syrup in the morning; once that Fire Cider is ready in six weeks I surely won’t need to worry about social distancing because that should pretty much take care of itself.

Masks will be required.

 

Last year near this same time I wrote a post titled “Oh Well” that discussed mental illness and former Fleetwood Mac founding member Peter Green’s life of dealing with mental illness.  Again this year on my 2020 Guitar Calendar hanging on the wall of my office I am reminded of Peter Green’s October 29th birthday along with other famous guitarists.

However Peter Green died this past July peacefully in his sleep at the age of 73.  The cause of death has never been released by the family though some have speculated his mental health problems may have contributed to his death.

 

So on this World Mental Health Day, I am reminded about how important it is to keep busy, keep physically active, and find a hobby.

Go buy a kayak or a bicycle if you can find one, or get yourself a dehydrator and a large pot.

Find some wacky folks on YouTube living off the grid in the upper Northwest and learn how to start brewing concoctions in your kitchen.

But find something.

 

And now as we approach the bewitching hour, my beautiful little witch-doctor wife is fast asleep with dreams of other potions dancing in her head, and I am still waiting for my lemon balm tincture to kick in.

It was a good day and I am looking forward to six weeks from now when I might get a chance to say:

“Honey, this Fire Cider is awesome but I think it might need a little more fillet of fenny snake”

“Just sayin'”

 

She bent down and turned around and gave me a wink
She said “I’m gonna make it up right here in the sink”
It smelled like turpentine, it looked like Indian ink
I held my nose, I closed my eyes… I took a drink*

 

One of the three brewed batches of FIRE CIDER from today. It doesn’t look so bad today, let’s see how it looks and tastes after six weeks in the cold and dark. Pray for me. And my co-workers.

 

Post Script:

*“I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink” is from Love Potion Number Nine a song written by Jed Leiber and recorded by The Searchers back in the 60’s.

Shakespeare Macbeth witch’s brew recipe is courtesy of University of Minnesota

The feature photo is courtesy of Unsplash and photographer Tikkho Maciel.

Happy Halloween.

Everybody in Hollywood Farts

Everybody in Hollywood Farts

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Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory has detected explosions on the planet Mars!

A large meteor has crashed in to a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey!

“Something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake…it’s indescribable, I can hardly force myself to look at it, it’s so awful!  The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent.  The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate!

It’s Halloween this week.

On this day in 1938 occurred maybe the best example of fake news in this nation’s history.  More than a million people were convinced that Martians were invading the earth, by a young 23 year old radio announcer named Orson Welles as he presented his version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on national radio. Panic broke out, terrified people jammed highways. It is said a woman ran into an Indianapolis church during evening services and yelled “New York has been destroyed!  It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!”

 

I learned recently while writing something for work that Halloween is commercially second only to Christmas in the amount of revenue it generates.

We experienced this while in Florida with three trips to pumpkin patches, hayrides, pumpkin painting, carving tools, decorations for the windows from Michaels, and costumes from Party City.

I’ve had the pleasure these last few weekends of being able to spend some quality time with all three of my grandsons.  We don’t get to see them enough, especially the Florida kids.

Having grown up in New Jersey and spent the rest of my years in Northern Virginia Octobers are typically cool.  In fact while we were in Florida, Virginia experienced a frost.  However in south Florida it was in the 90’s.  Great for me, because I love the heat; not so great for the two large pumpkins we carved, one with a traditional jack-o-lantern face and the other with a ghost carved in it, because by the end of the first 24 hours the mold had grown in the cut outs and by the end of the second 24 hours they were sinking from rot.  Next year just painted pumpkins.

 

This past weekend once again we experienced the bad in our world.  Another shooting in a house of worship, this time in Pittsburgh, at a Jewish synagogue during Saturday morning services.  There were eleven dead worshippers.  Six were injured including four police officers who, it has been reported, ran into the gunfire.

And the week before that we had make shift bombs being sent to prominent past and current political figures by another no doubt disturbed individual.

 

And that weekend I was in Florida I read Amy Schumer said that any football player who doesn’t kneel with Colin Kaepernick is complicit.  I take that to mean anyone who is not in favor of this kneeling protest in Amy’s world is complicit.  I take a little offense to that, but the world is her stage and she is in a position of influence.  And there are countless messages of influence and hate on the internet, network TV, movies, print, and still in fact, on the radio.

“Everybody in Hollywood farts.”

This profound statement was uttered by my grandson Christian while in the drive through of McDonalds, after he presented us with his gift of flatulence in the car, while waiting for his Chicken McNugget Happy Meal.  He, of course, was referring to Hollywood, Florida where he lives.   I of course, thought it was brilliant.

I think it’s great that Amy Schumer has her celebrity and her Hollywood (CA) status and I suppose that gives her the privilege to promote her opinions and spread her ideology on social media.

Yeah, but you know what?   Everybody farts in Hollywood.

And everybody farts in Herndon, Virginia too, and everywhere else for that matter.

And we all put our pants on one leg at a time.

We are all human.

 

But sadly we are not all the same.

At least if it’s just me with saliva dripping from my rimless lips as they quiver and pulsate from reading my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds, and watching my TV,  who is exposed to all this I can just say phooey!

Some folks don’t know how to say phooey.  They don’t know how to process information in the proper context or ignore it for what it is.  They take it seriously.  It may fuel their hate or trigger something in a mind that may not be stable as yours, mine, or Amy Schumer’s.

Some of that flatulence is able to permeate further and deeper and stimulate sometimes unthinkable actions.

Some folks believe what they hear and read as the truth and they panic, maybe jamming the highways,

Maybe rushing into houses of worship and yelling…

Or maybe worse.

 

So to the twenty or so people in my social media universe who might read this, I promise I will turn down any offers to do Super Bowl commercials this year.  And I know it must sound like a privilege ass sacrifice but it’s all I got!

 

And I suppose I have to confess I am guilty too so,

“Oops, excuse me, I guess I just farted!”

My bad!

 

Prayers go out to all those victim’s families, those victims themselves that are still fighting for healing physically and will be long term emotionally; their friends, the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and everywhere, houses of worship everywhere, the leadership and first responders in Pittsburgh and everywhere, and all of the rest of us who are responsible for working to help build a better world that my grandkids and your grandkids will be able to live civilly, safely, happily, and harmoniously.