The Five Questions Meme

2022-11-22T11:58:15Z

I got Five Questions from asakiyume:

(1) What's a piece of guerrilla nursing wisdom you could share with us--along the lines of "You can use gin to clean out a wound," but not that one, since we all know that from westerns (unless that folk wisdom is wrong and we're actually going to ensure an infection by doing that?)

Oregano poultices! Oregano is a powerful antibacterial agent and an antioxidant. The essential oil works best, but if you don’t have access to a doctor, chances are you won’t have access to the essential oil either. So, you can actually use the powdered herb. Pulverize it with garlic, moisten it with a wee bit of honey—honey and garlic are also powerful antimicrobials—and apply it to that suspicious-looking wound.

I didn’t learn this as an RN. I learned it from my very first ESL student Renan (dubbed “Reuben” in this LJ) who was a medical student in El Salvador before he figured out that he could make twice as much as an unskilled laborer in the U.S. as he could as a physician in El Salvador.

Access to antibiotics in El Salvador is highly limited as they are expensive and most people cannot afford them. So, there is a thriving folk medicine industry in El Salvador. Renan was taught about oregano poultices in medical school. He used them himself once while I knew him on a dental abscess after he broke a tooth and didn’t want to spend the money on a dentist. The abscess cleared up.

I’ve never used oregano poultices myself.

I did use that tetracycline you used to be able to buy at PetSmart to clean fish tanks to treat a suppurating head wound the Meezer once sustained when I didn’t have the money to take her to a vet.

(2) What's a haunted piece of Hudson Valley architecture/real estate that people should visit?

There’s a standing stone in Wappingers Fall.

No shit! It’s on the front lawn of a modest ranch-style home at the intersection of the corner of Oakwood and Delavergne Roads.

Lois Lane was the person who turned me on to it several years back when I was teaching English to the two Tibetan llamas at the Buddhist temple in Wappingers. The standing stone is maybe a quarter of a mile away from the Buddhist temple.

Lois Lane had tons of backstory on the actual stone itself—she lived in a foster home right around the corner while she was in high school—but unfortunately, I can’t remember much.

I don’t know whether the stone actually counts as haunted. And I don’t know whether people should visit, seeing as it’s jutting right there up from somebody’s front lawn.

But it’s awfully odd. Its base is something like 10 feet underground.

And, of course, this whole area, the mid-Hudson Valley, is deeply steeped in a strange shimmery portal energy. There are an enormous number of Buddhist temples around here. The Buddhists feel it, too!

(3) The revolution has come and you have been tasked with dealing with billionaires Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk. What do you do with them?

Oh, gosh. I don’t know.

Avoid them? 😀

(4) The revolution has come and you're being forced at gunpoint to paint your nails--but you get any color you want. What color(s) do you choose?

My favorite nail color is a bronze, glittery gold.

Although lately, I’ve been wearing this deep rose.

I think I’ll go with the glittery gold.

Question for my interlocutor: Why are “they” forcing me to paint my nails at gunpoint? How does the color of my nails forward the Glorious Revolution?

(5) If you were making a personal time capsule today, which you'd open up in five years' time, what's one thing you'd put in?

Hmmm. Five years is really not a very long time for a time capsule. The technology five years from now should be more or less the same as it is right now.

I would probably back up my phone to the Cloud, drop the current phone in the time capsule, watch the interment of the time capsule, and then scurry out to buy another phone.

I’m fairly sure you could reconstruct my entire personality should my brain get erased from a backup of my phone.

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Part of this Five Questions meme is customizing five questions for other people who might want to play.

So, if you want to answer questions, let me know! 😀

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The Food Meme

2019-06-05T00:07:12Z

Since there is Bad News on the Not-My-Tragedy front, and I'm in dire need of distraction, I have copped this meme from the bee-yoo-tee-full and self-contained lifeinroseland. If I do her meme, it'll kinda be like eating her heart in the full magic sense so that I, too, will become self-contained. Otherwise, I will start randomly dialing people in my Contacts database, and what, after all, would I say to them?

1. How do you feel about golden Oreos?

An abomination used by pedophile demons to lure choirboys to hell.

2. What is your favorite dessert topping?

Very, very thick cream. As a former nurse, I hate to call it "clotted cream" because that makes me start thinking of heparin drips.

3. What is your favorite flavor/brand of bubble gum?

Not a bubble gum gal.

4. Favorite cheese?

Raclette! And Mobier.

5. Favorite Lunch Meat?

Ohhh. Not a lunch meat fan.

6. Favorite ice cream flavor?

Very partial to Häagen-Dazs coffee.

7. Best looking food?

I think you can plate just about anything with sufficient artistry and make it look good. Though, of course, plating incurs no debt to actual taste.

8. Best food to put cheese on?

Bread. And then you put it in an oven at 350° for ten minutes.

9. Best food to eat away from people?

Anything with large amounts of garlic and anchovies. Also (come to think of it) raclette and mobier cheese.

10. Best tasting drink in the summer?

Orangina.

11. Best tasting drink in winter?

Peach tea.

12. Best food for a night out with friends?

Tapas. Also Szechwan dumplings.

13. Best foods to eat with a roll?

I don't do rolls either.

14. Messiest food, in your opinion?

Hmmm. You mean, what do I always dribble all over myself so that everyone realizes I'm a complete slob? Any type of pasta.

15. Easiest food to prepare?

Pesto! If you have a food processor.

16. Cheapest food you ever ate?

I've spent large portions of my life subsisting on ramen noodles.

17. Most expensive food you ever ate?

God. It would have had to have been at a multi-Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, and I have totally forgotten what was on the menu because I was with a man I did not like.

18. Stinkiest food you ever ate?

One of those wonderful, smelly cheeses, dripping with ripeness.

19. Favorite dipping sauce?

Chinese plum sauce.

20. Best pizza topping?

Pizza is another food I don't do! I know, I know—everyone loves it! Except me.

21. Favorite potato chip flavor?

Vinegar!

22. Most toxic substance you ever ate?

Peyote.

23. Most calories you ate in one meal?

I can't remember. I've eaten so much at one meal that I've gotten a stomachache. But I've never thrown up.

24. Favorite soda?

Orangina. I'm also partial to Jarritos mandarin.

25. Favorite flavor of juice?

Apricot.

26. Favorite Vegetable?

Beets!

27. Favorite fruit?

Apricots.

28. Worst canned food?

Peaches! And I acquired that hatred from reading The Last Picture Show. There's a scene in which poor Ruth Popper is lying there being pummeled by her husband, the despicable Coach Popper, and she remembers all the canned peaches she has fed him over the years—it's his favorite dessert—and she fantasizes she is being squashed by a human wall of canned peaches! It's a very well-written, memorable scene, and I have never been able to eat a canned peach since.

29. Best side dish?

Sauteed mushrooms.

30. Worst fast food restaurant?

Wendy's.

31. Best restaurant?

Well, that varies, doesn't it? Right now, it's Cinnamon in Rhinebeck.

32. Best smelling food?

That varies, too.

33. Favorite appetizer?

Palak Chaat

34. Favorite cookie flavor?

I am very partial to real linzer torte cookies made with real walnut flour.

35. Favorite cake flavor?

Lemon.

36. Favorite pie flavor?

Blackberry.

37. Chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

Neither.

38. Ketchup or Mustard?

Why do I have to choose?

39. Best food to have with a near-stranger?

Something that won't get caught between my teeth and make me look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon suddenly metamorphosed into human form.

40. Most share-able food?

Truffle fries!

And if anybody has any more memes, send them my way!

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The Five Questions Meme

The Food Meme