Ginger Unplugged

The power went out over here the other night. Big deal, right? But I swear Husband woke up the second it happened, like at 1:00 in the morning. Most people wake up to loud noises. How do you wake up from a power outage, I ask you. Anyway, we looked up the street and there wasn't any power anywhere. Now a normal person would just roll over in bed and enjoy the silence. I am, well, not normal and especially not when I've been woken up at 1:00 am. After ordering my husband to do things I can barely remember ("Do we have to unplug the refrigerator?", "Should we gather in one room to conserve body heat?") I laid in bed obsessing over the fact that we had no heat source. It was 1 degree outside, after all. Could we light a bunch of candles and gather around them? Why did we never get that fireplace put in? The power came on a couple of hours later. I was relieved that my fears of mass destruction due to alien invasion were most likely untrue. Or at least the...

Crash: I had the freakiest substitute today! Me: Are you okay? Was it a man or woman? Did they attack you? Crash (giving me a weird look): Woman. Princess: Was she this tall with a face like a melted pumpkin? Crash: That's the one! Okay, how did Princess even know to ask that? And how did they end up with the same sub. Ever? Brothers and sisters just have weird connections I guess.

I can't help wondering who did this and why, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with some ancient calendrical system brought to my neighborhood by aliens.

Okay, this is information I've run into while internet surfing so don't quote me in any dissertations, but APPARENTLY some native americans believe that people have totems-- or maybe just some internet people believe in totems--at any rate, I think the gist is that totems are a kind of animal spirit/god that watches over you or follows you or bugs you but is attached to you for some purpose. The, "How to tell what your totem is" indicators seem to point to the spider as my totem. When I see a spider I'm supposed to pay attention to what it's doing and where it is to eek out symbolic meaning in my own life. Like a spider hanging in the middle of a web might mean, hey, I'm pretty balanced. A spider building a web might mean...um...I should prepare for the future? The pantry needs stocking? Anway, you get the picture... So yesterday, Monkey leaned into my shoulder for a sweet little hug and there was a big black hairy spider right on the back of his neck!!! W...

Here I am awake with Monkey at 3:34 am. This is not something I usually do. My amazing Husband gets the kids ALL the time. ALL of it. He was up 6 times with Monkey just last night. So as shrieks arose in the dark yet again I made Husband put in ear plugs (who actually fought me about it) and took Monkey on myself. He was drugged within an inch of his life because I had given him something earlier for teething and Husband forgot and gave him more (who cares about these things at 2 am?). After ten burps I finally brilliantly deduced the problem was gas but had no gas medicine. Did I mention the shrieking--not Monkey's usually hearty yell? Shrieking. Here I was dependent on home remedies again, although I considered driving him to a pharmacy if necessary (did I mention the shrieking?). I stuck a tiny bit of powdered ginger in his mouth (it's supposed to help digestion) but I had to do something more--he wasn't falling for, "Here, this is really delicious" again. Befo...

I have been sick for, oh, two years now. First it's one thing and then it's another--I'm thinking it's a cry for attention, except mostly I just want to be alone. Anyway, this weekend's malady is a stuffy nose. I know, WAH for me. But I can't breathe through it at all. It's the kind where if you drink something too long you will pass out and probably drown. I took a decongestant which did exactly nothing to help. So my husband made me an Airborne concoction to drink down and absolutely insisted on giving me some nose spray. But I hate nose spray, I couldn't even breathe to suck it up anyway. Plus, it's not like it's a fresh bottle. I'm not usually squeamish but come on, it's been up someone else's nose already. (See, I told you it was all a cry for attention). Anyway, he came back with a warm cup of salt water and told me to put these drops in my nose. "I learned not to breathe in water at a very young age," I told him. But ...

I just looked through the list of ingredients on my Bath and Bodyworks soap and they are using the exact chemicals that are supposed to be a concern in my essential oils. So I'm as safe as Bath and Bodyworks I guess. I expect Keihl's to pay me millions for my recipe any day now.