How many times have I started a blog with that line? I should go back and look.
Okay, so let me start again. Don’t tell my mom but, I’m using pot. Neti Pot, that is. For those of you who’ve never heard of a neti pot, it’s a cheap, at-home, saline irrigation system that cleans out all of the crap in your nasal passages. Just heat up 6 ounces of water, dissolve in 1 ½ teaspoons of salt (preferably sea salt or kosher salt harvested directly from Lake Wobegon or Lake Michigan if you can get it) and let it cool down to lukewarm - but NOT matthew, mark or johnwarm. Then pour it into your neti pot. This is where the fun begins. Stick the open end of the neti pot into one of your nostrils, tilt your head and pour half of the solution into one nostril and watch in shock and awe as it comes out the other nostril. Then repeat on the other side with the remaining half of the mixture. Seriously. I’m not kidding. It’s sort of like laughing and having milk come out of your nose but this is on purpose.
April is pollen season in the south and this year, it came early and is overstaying its welcome. I love being in the yard when the temps are good, like right now, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. The neti pot is getting a work out that almost warrants a gym membership. I’m also washing way too many bandanas, and not because they contain “working in the yard” sweat. I’ll leave the “what I’m washing off of them” to your imagination and your own personal nostrils.
I’m off work today. As is always the case when I’m home alone without anyone to talk to but the cat, my mind wanders (or as they say in disability applications when they are trying to get approved for cognitive issues, my mind “wonders.”). Today I was home from work for a specific reason that caused my mind to “wonder” about words that weren’t in my vocabulary until my adult life. Take for example, “Sub-Zero”. This new word is the reason I’m home today; I’m waiting on Seth, the refrigerator diagnostician. You know what that means? It means that I’m going to pay for a service call today and I’m only going to find out what’s wrong with the fridge. Then I’ll have to take another day off work, and pay more money, so that the repair technician can come out and fix it. So here we go in Jeopardy speak: “a large stainless steel chilling apparatus that looks really cool for ten years but ultimately repair costs are the same as a brand new Kenmore. What is Sub-Zero?
So back we are, full circle, to the net pot. Well, almost. Just one more thing.
Mom hated it when we kids came in from the sandbox and washed our dirty hands in the kitchen sink. In fact she wouldn’t allow it. I’m guessing it’s because it would interfere with the plastic sandwich baggies she had washed and was drying so that they could be used again? Or maybe it was just that she was a home economics major and this was part of her training? Either way we had to go to the bathroom to scrub our grimy mitts. Or if we were at Grandma and Grandpa O’s, we could use the sink in the entry room, where there was always some really cool abrasive soap – the kind that could scrub off tractor engine, chainsaw, cherry picker and snowmobile grease AND I bet could even be added to the laundry to freshen up a well-worn Carhartt jacket.
So if mom hated those dirty paws in the kitchen sink, imagine what she might say if she saw me employing the services of a neti pot over the kitchen sink? There’s no handed down from generation to generation protocol for where to use a neti pot. Maybe next time she’s in town, I’ll give her a demonstration and let her determine the guidelines. Or maybe I’ll just keep pulling weed and using (neti) pot in the kitchen sink.
When are you coming to visit again mom?
For those of you in the Atlanta area – see you at the Inman Park Festival this weekend?
3 comments:
It's so interesting that you remember not being able to wash your muddy hands in the kitchen sink. For the past 47+ years I've been trying to "train" the senior member of our family. Where we live now, the senior member walks past TWO sinks to get to the kitchen sink!
My guess is there will be a rebuttal comment :) xoxoxo Mom
He's also bypassing an outdoor shower! But I guess that only applies during the summer months! And by the way, every time I even think about washing my garden hands in the kitchen sink, I get big waves of guilt and voices telling me not to do it!
Yea, guess that makes THREE "sinks".
When you come inside via the awesome screened-in porch, you also pass a sink as you head to the kitchen sink :)
Post a Comment