Not sick yet

Ok, so, here's the deal.

I work in childcare. Dave is a waiter. Both of those jobs involve a pretty high rate of exposure to pathogens, and when flu season rolls around that means that it's time to think about what the heck we're going to do to avoid getting sick. With H1N1 on a roll around the country, this only gets more true. Sick time doesn't just mean being sick, it means being broke.

So imagine my surprise and curiosity this morning to see a link to this abstract posted on my Facebook page, of all places (it pays to be friends with people in some type of medicine).

Seriously? The results of Elderberry Flavonoids compared favorably to the effects of Tamiflu and Amantadine? Correct me if I'm wrong, but seriously, doesn't this say that Elderberry works better against the flu than the $90 flu drugs that they sell at the pharmacy?

If this is true, and let's hope it is because that would be rad and I would laugh, it solves a problem, because I am paranoid about the flu and also have no desire to drop $180 on two rounds of Tamiflu if one of us gets sick.

So, I googled "Elderberry for flu", because google knows everything (duh). Apparently elderberry is an ancient gypsy remedy for flu, among other things. Gypsies, man. Everyone knows that gypsy medicine is practically magic and therefore has to work.

According to one slightly questionable site on natural medicine, they did a study of Eldberry and flu in Israel in the 90's and had a 100% cure rate in 2-3 days. Now, a 100% cure rate is less impressive with the low mortality rate of most influenzas, but the 2-3 days thing is pretty impressive, given that without it the flu takes 6-7 to go away, and on Tamiflu it still takes about 5. I have no idea if they're telling the truth, but it isn't like elderberry is bad for you. People eat that stuff for food. Also, they make wine out of it, so it's got to be good.

Homemade elderberry extract takes 30 days to make, and I'd prefer to start taking it, well, immediately. But, we don't live five miles from a Whole Foods for nothing. Have you ever seen the pharmacy aisle in that place? It is a cornucopia of herbal remedies and weird supplements, not to mention their plethora, yes, plethora of bizarre and outlandish teas. And I will also check CVS because hey, you never know.

If Whole Foods doesn't have it, there's a Middle Eastern import store and I am quite positive that google and I can locate a health food store in the vicinity. I probably wouldn't do it if it were just a bunch of naturalists and herbalists recommending it (much as I love herbal medicine), but an actual, legit study published in a legit science journal is worth checking out, and it can't hurt. The worst that happens is we drink a lot of elderberry extract and/or tea for a few months and still get sick and have to take Tamiflu. That isn't really the end of the world, right?

Ok, time to go to work. But seriously, you all think about that. And don't breathe on me.

A nod of the head

I did, indeed, go back to Whole Foods today after church. Not only did I buy chrysanthemums and apples (macintosh, local-ish, in a paper bag, just like when I was a kid)--I bought a pumpkin! It's tall and skinny, although I ogled several short, squat ones too. Ultimately this one won me over due to its twisty stalk and the curlicue of dried pumpkin vine clinging stubbornly to it.

The pumpkin, along with two pots of yellow 'mums, is now sitting on our front steps. The third pot (they were three for $12) is purple, and has taken up residence on the dining room table.

But I'm not here to write a blog entry about that, or about the delicious faux-Indian dinner that we had last night and tonight (we love leftovers). Instead, I'm going to write some more about blogs I read. The blog I'd like to point you all to today is called Dollar Store Crafts.

If you like to craft and you like to not spend money, this is worth taking a gander at. Essentially the idea is that the author posts crafts that can be done for $5 or less in materials, most of which come from the dollar store.

But, I hear you saying to your computer screen, surely dollar store crafts are ugly. After all, have you been to the dollar store? Things only cost a dollar there for a reason.

Well, yes, the dollar store is not the typical location for buying exquisite crafting supplies, but the thing I love about this blog is that pretty much everything on it is something that 1) I can afford and 2) I would actually be willing, nay, happy to make and lay claim to.

So, check it out. Even if you aren't a crafter, you might enjoy seeing the creative things that people are doing on a thin budget.

Dollar Store Crafts

Is it October yet?

All the public rooms in our house are now what I can safely call--without even a shred of false optimism--done. Books are unpacked, artwork is hung, furniture is moved, floors are swept, and everything has found itself a home. As soon as I finish writing, I am going to put batteries in the wall clocks and set them so that unsuspecting guests do not wander from room to room thinking that at one moment it is perpetually 10 o'clock, and at another it is precisely 7:05 and 21 seconds. Then it will be really done.

The October issue of Martha Stewart Living came in the mail today, complete with a cover photo of pumpkins and squash arranged cunningly to look like giant, root vegetable-y toadstools. We sat out on our front step in the sun and read it together and enjoyed the burgeoning crispness of Autumn in the air while discussing the relative merits of apple cider muddled with cranberries and green curry served in a black cauldron at a Halloween party (verdict: cider is always better on its own, and green curry in a cauldron is clever and sounds delicious).

The arrival of Martha Stewart magazine is always a discombobulating event, because it comes some two weeks before the actual month in question is due to begin. Now everything feels October-y, even though there's a week and a half left in September. I had to forcibly restrain myself from buying a pumpkin and some pots of 'mums at Whole Foods this evening.

I went to Whole Foods because there was nothing left in the fridge but eggs and some spoiled ears of corn that we didn't eat because I did show some false optimism and assume that my husband would ever be in the mood for corn within the life of the produce. As soon as it goes out of season, he will crave it and I will shake my head and smile tenderly and offer him a pale memory of fresh corn out of a can and think wistfully of the delicious summer feasting that we let slip by.

Although I didn't buy a pumpkin, I did buy several pounds of organic fingerling potatoes (the gold ones and the purple ones; purple potatoes are a joy to my heart), a roast for later this week, some beef for dinner tonight, zucchini, mushrooms, and onions. I pondered long and hard over the many varieties of apples that are now available, but was so spoiled for choice that in the end I threw my hands up and decided that the choice was beyond me for the moment. I experimented dangerously, too, with bags of frozen vegetables ready to be tossed into curry or fried rice at any moment.

Curry and fried rice are two staples of our weekly diet. Curry because it is both easy and delicious--a tablespoon of curry paste, a can of coconut milk, whatever vegetables we have lying around, and whatever meat I pull from the freezer, along with a generous helping of basmati rice from our magical rice cooker of bliss. And then, with the leftover rice, I make fried rice, because it is easy, quick, and delicious.

I learned how to make fried rice when I lived in Alabama and was poor. The value of being poor is that it teaches you how to make delicious poor-people food (as Dave calls it). Rice is cheap and nutritious. So are onions. Garlic isn't cheap, but we always have it anyway. Toss in some scrambled eggs and any vegetables that didn't get put in the curry, throw in a handful (literally, I just scoop a handful out of the jar) of cumin and coriander, a little cinnamon, and some cayenne pepper, and we eat like kings. Fried rice is an end-of-the-week dish, when we're out of fresh meat but not yet out of everything else and so not yet willing to go to the grocery store.

Earlier today we had breakfast at Kalie's with Molly and Brittany, who came out from Grove City last night to play Scrabble and Cranium with us, and to sleep on our living room floor, because they are Good Friends. After we said our goodbyes and saw them on their way, we stopped at Susan's Yarns, a small yarn shop on the way home. I've been wanting to give it a look and see how it was, and I wasn't disappointed. It's everything a mom-and-pop store ought to be--dingy, dark, and disorganized. There were empty cardboard boxes on the floor and a giant bin of assorted buttons, and box after box after box of every yarn you could ever hope to want, with not a price tag to be seen.

When I'd found a yarn I wanted (I'm being ambitious and knitting some socks for Dave and myself, because the weather is getting cold o' nights and we have wood floors and dubious-looking radiators for our only heat source), I looked around helplessly for someone to tell me how much it might cost. Eventually, I found the owner, who was a tall, thin, and ancient-looking Australian with white hair and a white aran-style sweater so covered with cables and bobbles and mismatched wooden buttons that it looked like someone made a stitch sampler and then decided at the last minute to throw some sleeves on and call it a day. He knew the price for every skein, ball, and hank in the store, recommended the right needle size for the yarn in question, and looked scornfully down his nose at me when I said I prefer bamboo needles to metal. It was perfect.

I'm making faux-Indian food for dinner. Lamb at Whole Foods was a cool $15/pound, so I opted for beef instead. Cube the beef, fry it up with some onions, throw in some potatoes, cauliflower, peas, and maybe a little zucchini and then dump a bottle of pre-made korma sauce over it (I'm not proud, and I am lazy, at least in this instance--real korma takes forever to make) and toss some rice in the rice cooker. Twenty minutes of work and then two hours of enjoying the smell of softly simmering magic as it wafts through our beautiful apartment and warms everything it touches.

And then I'll get back on the computer and upload some pictures of said beautiful apartment.

Or maybe I'll run back to Whole Foods for those 'mums. They smelled so good.