Happy Chinese New Year (of the Snake): January 22, 2001
I expect this letter is coming to you late this week,
although I am writing it on Monday as usual. In an hour or so
I’ll be taking Aelfwine over to the doctor to see whether he has
influenza or bronchitis or pneumonia. (It’s pneumonia- the doctor
was quite impressed with how ill he was. He started by asking how
he felt about hospitals, and later said that he hadn’t seen
anyone so sick walking in on their own. Gave him a shot of anti-
biotics and sent us home with a prescription for more anti-
biotics and codeine. It worked like a charm, he’s feeling better
already although still totally wiped. 1/23/1) He started coughing
last Thursday, and by the time he got home on Friday he was
really obviously NOT WELL. The big problem is that he had a
really bad sore throat which is interfered with his swallowing
anything, even liquids, and is generating a great deal of mucus
which he coughs up every time he tried to take a drink. Also when
he doesn’t. This is about every five minutes- which means he
really hadn’t slept or eaten or drunk much in three days. Sunday
night was the worst, with his throat swollen to the point he
couldn’t inhale except slowly, with ugly gurgling noises. And
lymph nodes swollen until you could almost SEE them from the
outside! The oddest part is that he didn’t seem to have any mucus
in his head- just chest. Strange.
I expect that by the time you get this he will be on the
road to recovery. By the way, I have discovered a wonderful
expectorant formula: Mullein, fennel, and garlic, and add a bit
of cider vinegar to the tea. You can get the mullein at a health
food store if you don’t have any growing around you- which, it
being mid-winter, you don’t. But it works wonders. (of course,
coughing up wads of phlegm is a kind of yucky wonder, but it’s
better than having it stay in your lungs.) AElfwine says that it
acts very fast-one sip, and he’s choking up phlegm. Takes him him
minutes to get through a cup. Usually he’ll just chug most
herbals to avoid the taste issue, whether it’s real or not. I
don’t think they taste bad.
As I drove to the dentist this morning the news reported
that a major storm had hit the Northeast over the weekend. Also
that our winter crop of “Frost Heaves” signs have sprouted. I was
surprised- we hadn’t noticed any storm. I think of us as being in
the Northeast, but apparently they meant New Jersey and
Connecticut. We just got three inches. It covered the goose turds
in the back yard, and the blood stains in the front, and we had
to shovel the driveway of course, but it wasn’t anything to
mention. Of course it snows in the winter. Very pretty, big,
fat, fluffy flakes. It’s pretty chilly- it hasn’t gone over
freezing lately. But we are all so acclimated that 20 feels
fairly comfortable. The goats go out and play in it (and eat it),
and the geese seem to sleep in it.
The other evening when we tossed out food for the geese, and
opossum came out from under the barn and ate it. I would have
expected the geese to drive it off, but they just stood back and
honked at it in a very offended manner. We would have shot it,
but that was the night Aelfwine was getting sick and he didn’t
feel like going back in for the rifle, and since it was after
supper, I really didn’t feel like cleaning it (although Treelady
tells us that it’s fairly good eating), so we let it go. Maybe
later if it hangs around. I haven’t seen it since. Of course, I
haven’t tossed grain right there since either.
The hen turkeys and single hen duck have started laying
again (finally), so Kat has eggs she can eat again. The chickens
don’t go out much anymore, preferring to stay in and dirty up the
bedding which we spend good money on. And I do mean good money!
The shavings have gone up 50% last week. Once Aelfwine is well
again we’ll have to pick up more sawdust from Wally.
And the Wally and Monica story continues: this week Monica’s
lawyer has told the paper that it was Charley, the guy who was
living with them who burned the house down. He’s old and
handicapped, and has a speech impediment so severe that it is
almost impossible to understand when he speaks. In fact they’ve
said he isn’t competent to stand trial. I can believe that they
managed to confuse a confession out of him, but hey- how are they
going to explain that Charley put Monica’s kids birth
certificates and papers in their backpacks that morning, and how
is he supposed to have gotten Monica to threaten her son the
fireman into lying about what he saw at the fire? It doesn’t wash
at ALL. The big thing that has us annoyed is that she is trying
to implicate Caroline Otto in her thefts. I can see Wally
convincing himself that blaming the fire on Charley is OK if it’s
just going to get Charley put in a “funny farm” for the rest of
his life- but there is no way he should stand for screwing over
Greg and Caroline. I am telling you, I feel like we are on one of
those TV shows like Picket Fences or Twin Peaks. Life is weird.
Toadstool (our local bookstore) finished moving to their
bigger facility, and I picked up a copy of The Schwarzbein
Principle. I was pleasantly surprised that it was NOT as extreme
as Chick had suggested. While Dr./ Scheartzbein does say that it
is healthy to eat non-damaged fats, and that Americans eat too
much carbohydrates, I would say that the OVERALL message is
promoting a balanced diet. You can eat pretty much whatever
healthy food you want to, but it should be balanced, not weighed
heavily toward carbohydrates as they now suggest with the “food
pyramid”. But the program also includes totally giving up
tobacco, alcohol, most OTC and many prescription drugs (phasing
them out while working with your doctor, of course), caffeine,
and processed foods which includes all sugar, white flour
products, and processed oils, as well as reducing stress and
exercising.
In many ways this IS totally radical, in many others, it
seems like non-news. Personally, I can’t see Aelfwine giving up
his Coke, or me never eating chocolate or baking yummy goodies
again. I think about the Amish and the people at the turn of the
century who had pies and cakes and breads- of course, they worked
hard all their lives. Luckily, I feel (and so does Dr.
Swartzbein) that when you are healthy, you can process the
occasional health antagonist, and one should not obsess about the
lapses, just keep on working toward ones goals. She keeps saying-
“any improvement in your nutrition is going to result in an
improvement in your health.” and “Congratulate yourself for your
successes and move on from there.”
As usual, I got very excited about the new information in
the book- I thought to myself, I’ve got to tell Alva, and Dennis,
and Allyn, and, and, and… All the people I know who are
dealing with weight problems, and heart problems, and asthma,
diabetes, high cholesterol, FM, ADD and the other myriad health
problems that we all seem to have. Of course all I can say is
check it out- get a copy of the book yourself, borrow mine or one
from your library, decide if you think it makes sense, and if you
feel like giving the system a try. Going against popular wisdom
is difficult for many people, even if years of experience show
that eating diet food results in gaining weight. The
merchandisers of those products have convinced us it’s a failure
in us, not their product that creates our problems. This woman
isn’t giving us a free ride to eat junk food- far from it. Sure,
you can butter your popcorn, but no french fries. Indeed, no
anything deep fat fried- she says high heat is one thing that
damages oil to make it dangerous. (As a matter of fact, she
recommends air popping the corn before dousing it with butter!) I
suppose I could see only having those marvelous batter fried
onions once a year at the county fair. Special treats, plugged
into special occasions- I think that fits in well with my
feelings about fasting and feasting. Of course, no more deep
fried bunny, seems more difficult as it’s something we are used
to having more often.
But I think it was the moderation that appeals to me- it’s
not NO carbohydrates, she suggests eating carbohydrates at every
meal, along with proteins and vegetables. Not NO fruits, just
don’t overload on them.
I have books on Your body’s Cry for Water, on The Promise of
Sleep, on exercise (aerobic to weight training), on all kinds of
nutrition, from eat no yeast or vinegar to books pushing
fermented foods, books touting no meat to any meat but pork and
contaminated fish. And all of them claim research backing up
their positions. On the other hand, almost everyone who isn’t
selling one of them agrees that alcohol, tobacco, stimulants,
artificial foods, etc. are bad for you, and getting rest,
drinking water, and eating whole foods is good for you. How many
times does this need to be researched and promoted? How often
does someone have to go on Oprah and Sally to tell the American
public to eat real food?
OK, I still buy some processed foods- cold cereals, some
breads (crackers, tortillas, pitas, frozen waffles- I can’t
figure out how Vans makes their rice blueberry waffles
palatable), soup concentrates, yoghurts, chips, sodas, and candy.
I do like candy. (Of course, I’ve gotten to the point that there
are some candies I only like freshly made- but I’m willing to
admit that that’s just that I have effete taste.) Who am I to
suggest to anyone with less time, money, energy or access to
whole foods that they should give up canned soup and frozen
dinners? I figure it takes me an average of about two to three
hours to make dinner- and I think I’m a pretty efficient cook. (I
figure a half hour is plenty of time to make pancakes for
breakfast.) If I were to eliminate those processed foods would I
accomplish (besides driving the kids out of the house) a
significant improvement in my health? Even Dr. Swartzbein
cautions that you shouldn’t expect to drop weight as if you were
on a diet- it will creep off as it crept on as your health
improves. So if it creeps off me, you can ask me if I did the
Schwarzbein program. Seems to me I was just as excited about the
last diet I was going to try too.
And as a pathetic counterpoint, I just got a great new
cookbook- on baking. Let’s face it, even the most healthy recipes
for baked goods have white flour in with whole wheat to lighten
it. Still, a recommended breakfast is an omelet with oatmeal and
fruit, or eggs with whole wheat toast with cheese and tomatoes on
top. So I may be able to bake a little.
Another book I started reading this week was Wild Child, a
book about girls raised in the counter-culture of the sixties and
seventies. One phrase from it that I liked was “I am not as
crispy as some, but I am more crunchy than most.” I’m not
counter-culture, I’m pretty mundane, other than the SCA stuff,
but I identified with a lot of the chapters I’ve read so far. I’m
not done with it yet- but I managed to put it down by strength of
will. It’s good.
I’m also reading a book about medieval food called Feast and
Fast, which amused be as I discovered in it many of the
historical bits mentioned in The Wicca Cookbook which I am
currently reviewing for the Blessed Bee magazine. Reading the
Wicca Cookbook left me in a constant state of irritation because
although the spellcraft seems pretty good to me, and I can’t pass
judgment on the accuracy of what the authors say about Wicca, too
much of their medieval history is off- not a lot, but too much.
And they must come from much further south than we do, because
they constantly suggest things like stuffing nasturtium flowers
with cream cheese- which certainly sounds delicious- for a May
Day treat. Or that strawberries and raspberries are available for
May Day, or that you should have flowers growing in March. Also,
the recipes aren’t well written- in one they suggest lining a pan
with frozen puff pastry dough- then they say cook the chicken
until the meat falls off the bones. If you let frozen puff pastry
dough sit out for two hours, it won’t puff when you bake it. They
should have checked that before publishing.
In fiction, I read the Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent,
Gordy Dickson’s latest in the Dragon Knight series. A lot of fun,
but not the best one in the series. Mark loaned us that one.
We watched The Patriot this week. While the choreography of
the fight scene when he and his two younger sons rescued his
oldest son was very impressive, I don’t see what the big deal was
about his letting them have guns. They were saving the older sons
life, after he’d done everything non-violent possible to stay out
of the war. And he couldn’t have saved him without their help. Do
they think it would have been less traumatic for the boys to have
had him let their brother die, while their father did nothing?
The movie maker had even gone so far as to have had the British
that were killed in that scene have just walked along a line of
wounded shooting them. They made sure that these were “very bad
guys” worthy of being killed. I don’t see what the problem was.
The history was weak, (so we brought out our old copy of Sweet
Liberty with Alan Alda, over the weekend) but it was still a
pretty good movie. Certainly not more violent than war really
was I’m sure, and the violence was carefully deplored, not
glorified. I also watched Pulp Fiction this week, which I thought
had a few amusing moments, but WAS too graphically violent. So,
now I’ve seen it. I have to wonder what the big deal with that
one was. Willow also took out Stir of Echoes. I thought it was
much better than Sixth Sense had been, especially in it’s genre.
I love it when the heroes resist admitting that they are dealing
with ESP, ghosts, etc. I think most people would.
I think I’m mostly done with the libraries selection of old
famous movies. Unless they keep adding to it.
Even if we are back to eating meat again, (and the Rabbit
Gumbo was SO good!) I thought I’d share this recipe with you from
The Vegetarian Hearth, even Aelfwine liked it. It’s Beets
Vinaigrette: Take a pound of cooked beets, and slice or cube
them, then add them to a sauted onion with garlic, dijon mustard
and a bit of wine vinegar. Serve warm. (admittedly, the original
recipe said grate the raw beets and cook them with the onions,
but I had some cooked beets on hand and they came out great!)
I don’t want to overload you on recipes, but I have to
mention the Russian potato salad. It had capers and black olives
and beets and it was SO good (although it looked kind of odd the
next day when the beets had bled through everything else)!
I meant to mention last week that my aunt Amanda is or was
in India participating in the big festival of Kumbh Mela in
Allahabad bathing in the Ganges. The festival lasts a week, I
think, starting on the 15th, when the most holy folk get to take
a dip, and then progressing down through the yogis and such to
the tourists. Very cool stuff. I hope she doesn’t catch anything.
When she came back from Tibet she apparently brought back
something that doesn’t effect 25% of the people, gives 25% a
cold, makes 25% very ill, and kills the other 25%! Luckily, when
Uncle Charley got it, her doctor thought to check on Himilan
diseases and saved him (he had the serious quarter).
Another very exciting thing is news, this from South Korea
on January 18th, that on the 500 year old statue of Kian Yin the
Compassionate in the Chonggye-sa temple in the suburbs of Seoul,
which is covered with gold (it’s actually re-gilded every three
years, so there should be nothing there to grow on) there are
blossoms of some very sacred flower which is said to only bloom
once every three thousand years blooming on her brow. This is a
major miracle and is very cool indeed. The blooming of these
flowers on this place are supposed to predict the coming of
Maitreya (Buddah), the Sage King of the Future. Scientists say it
shouldn’t be possible, and there’s a lot of healing going on
there- they say it could become a Buddist Lourdes. Kian Yin is
very cool intrinsically. She was supposed to have been able to
enter Nirvana, but refused because she couldn’t turn her back on
suffering humanity.
Dan came up on Saturday, which was very nice. I do wish I
hadn’t been nervous about possibly giving her her father’s
illness.
He stayed upstairs in bed, of course, but that would have been
too bad. So we didn’t get to play board games, which is what we
like to do when she comes to visit.
Sunday Honour, who was back on this coast briefly, was going
to come up and help me warp my loom, but we had to warn her away,
so I didn’t get to see her. (or get her very valuable advice)
Darn! Next weekend she is going to see a folk concert in Michigan
and she’s invited Steve, and Kami and Michael are going too- I
think she said Pete Seeger and Joan Baez are going to be
performing. Impressive, I’d certainly go if we could take the
time off.
Star had his finals this week, not midterms, because it’s
the strange split year schedule. He was pretty stressed about it,
but seems to have done OK (although we are still waiting for the
grades). I DO wonder how one gives an exam in Weight Training.
Willow got her paycheck (for taking care of Fitz) for when
she was away visiting Jenny, and split it between Star and
Aelfwine. I think Star is finally beginning to understand the
appeal of a regular paycheck. One could practically hear the
gears whirling in his head- if he were a toon, dollar signs would
have appeared on his eyeballs.
Kat is under the weather, still, always. I fear she may
suffer the brunt of my excitement about the Schwarzbein diet. I
can look at the way she and Star have been living on fruit and
cold cereal during our vegetarian period, and wonder if that
might have had something to do with her headaches and general
malaise.
I got myself a sweater shaver to try and “de-pill” some of
the gorgeous angora sweaters I got from my mother, but it takes
so long to use it to take them off, I might as well just pick
them off by hand. I mention this in case you’d ever thought of
trying one.
Willow is having major withdrawals from gaming- they haven’t
managed to get everyone together for a couple of weeks and she
keeps walking around muttering that she wants to “kill
something”.
Willow and I went down to Nashua during errands on Thursday
(since our local Ben Franklin closed) because she has an order
for another green man, or rather Fall Woman, mask. We saw Missy
Clark, who was Dan’s best friend in grammar school. She
recognized us, and we didn’t recognize her, until she identified
herself. (I hate it when that happens, I feel like such an
unfeeling jerk!) I suppose you would remember someone who had fed
you cat food. She told us that her big sister was getting married
in May, and has come back and is living in their old store/house.
It would be nice if someone could open the store again. It would
be nice to have two stores in town again, especially if she could
get the gas pumps put back. Local gas would be so reassuring.
The books we’d ordered from York finally arrived. The
postmark was 11-23-00, so they WERE late. These are books put out
by some university press on the digs at York- one on wood and
bone, one on fiber arts, one on iron work, one on non-ferrous
metals, and a couple of others on “small finds” from Coppergate.
I have to wonder if in some sub-conscious part of his brain
Aelfwine didn’t draw in being sick so he could read them. Of
course, he is so sick he can’t think or talk, much less read, so,
as usual, that wouldn’t actually work. Of course, the
subconscious, since it hides from the conscious, tends to miss
the practical aspects of the stupid plans it hatches.
One last bit of running on at the keyboard- I have gotten
quite cross with the people who write homeopathic books. I come
to the books with a explicit set of clear symptoms, productive
cough, no color in the mucus, sore throat, fever, body aches, no
headache, no head congestion, ear pain from grinding teeth… and
what do they ask? Are the symptoms better before or after
midnight? Does the patient want to be cuddled or left alone?
(AElfwine ALWAYS wants to be left alone when he’s sick, no matter
what is wrong with him!) Does it feel like a splinter or a knife
in the throat? Feh! and I say again FEH!
