Anti-Flu Strategy

I live with elderly parents. Or maybe they live with me. I'm not sure how that should be phrased. What can't be denied is that my father (whose birthday is today: Happy Birthday, Dad!) is medically vulnerable at this point in his life. So for handling flu season, I turn to a strange blend of science and magic. 

Modern science provides this entire household with flu shots as soon as they are available. A single flu at this stage could take Dad out. I refuse to be the one who brings into the house. All four adults in the household get those shots every year. 

We do our best to keep the house reasonably humid which sounds funny in Florida, but this winter has been unusually dry with repeated cold air invasions from the north. Dry air allows viral particles to remain airborne longer. In higher humidity, they get weighed down and pulled to the floor or other surfaces. In dry air, we breathe the little bastages and all hell breaks loose. So in really dry weather, we'll do our best to bring up humidity in the house a little. And we step up the house-keeping routine so our food prep surfaces and the surfaces we all touch are cleaned often.

From there, I spend the entirety of the winter taking a nightly hit from a bottle of Sambucol. 10ml to prevent viral infection, and up to 40 ml per day to treat in acute situations. For years, science went back and forth about whether or not this stuff worked. First is was no. Then yes. Then pff, of course not, it's wishful thinking. Then a series of articles published the mechanism by which black elderberry worked: By blocking viral insertion into cells so the viruses can't replicate. Y'all, this stuff is basically contraception for viruses. That's some serious magic.

Articles on the effectiveness of Black Elderberry:

Mercola

Nutrition Review

Building your arsenal for flu season?

Sadly, ancient swords and plasma pistols aren’t much help in this department. There are some helpful flu-fighting posts already up this week that you should check out. Jeffe shared a great naturopathic list and like her, I’ve always got powdered Vitamin C and Oscillococcinum®. And if I can’t avoid everyone like they have the plague, I now have a hot toddy recipe! See…helpful, go check them out! 

But, no matter what you choose, when the cold or flu lays you out we all turn into listless, muddleheaded, babies. And one thing I’m sure to have handy when I’m chilled and achy: Creamy Rustic Soup.

I shared this pic about a year ago and had demands for the recipe. Unfortunately I must have some of my grandma in me because as much as I love to cook…I don’t always use a recipe. I know! I know! I’ll write it down…next time. ;)

So, this is my attempt at a recipe for what I like to call Creamy Rustic Soup because it’s...well, creamy, roughly chopped, and a soup! If you try it out, let me know what you think! Enjoy!

Creamy Rustic Soup

In a stock pot…

Sautée:

1 chopped onion

2-3 diced garlic cloves

Brown 1 lb ground meat (or diced chicken) and season:

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried sage

1 tsp chopped parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Then add the following:

5 chopped carrots (it's rustic! uneven's the name of the game!)

2 stalks celery, chopped (if you have some)

1 large rutabaga, chopped (I had rutabaga to use up, feel free to sub potatoes, my faves are Japanese sweet potatoes)

4-5 c stock (whatever kind you have, I make my own vegetable stock from leftover peelings and it turns out so lovely and dark)

1 c coconut milk (because I had some leftover to use up, but feel free to sub half and half/whole milk...think creamy decadence)

Heat to boil then simmer for ~30 min or until the veggies are fork tender.

Last, this should go without saying...eat while reading a good book for maximum effect.

The Happy Introvert's Guide to Flu Season

I was just reading back through the SFF Seven posts this week and taking notes. So much good advice for getting through the cold/flu season so we writers can focus on the thing that makes our magic. That would be, um, writing.

I personally am neither a medical expert nor a particularly effective home-remedy user. If my kids get sick, I take them to the doctor. If my partner gets sick, same. If I get sick... well, the world doesn't stop needing to be dropped off places, so I just plow on through and try to ride it out with a buffet of over-the-counter syrups and pills at the ready.

Wouldn't call myself a big believer in essential oils, necessarily, but inhaling the steam from a bowl of hot water and a couple drops of melaleuca oil seems to help with sinus infections and congestion. Guess you could say I recommend that?

In my ideal world, though, I would handle flu season thusly: From October to March, I would have all my groceries delivered to my home and would venture out of my house only occasionally to soak up a little sunshine in the privacy of my back yard. If you get viruses from other people, chiefly, then what better way to avoid illness than to never encounter another human?

This prescription works best for introverts.

(Like me.)

And people who work from home and live alone.

(Sadly, not me.)

(Pass the tissues? Achoo.)

It's Plague Season, Now Featuring "Fix It"

It's plague season. The Petri dishes are running amok, spreading their snots and coughs and general oooge throughout the realm. From the first tickle of the throat or the third successive sneeze, we all fear that realization that we too are among the doomed. All too soon we're couch-bound beneath a bankie and clutching a box of tissues. If you've succumbed, dear readers, and are not driving anywhere for 8-10 hours, then snuggle up, Dr. Feel Better is poking around the kitchen.

Some call it a Hot Toddy. Some call it Mercy in a Mug. My family calls it Fix It.

Ingredients:

• Honey
• Decaf/Herbal Tea (Flavor of choice, I recommend lemon or orange. If your tummy isn't your friend, pick peppermint. Back away from the high-test stuff unless you want to stay awake, but you're sick, so sleeping is sort of the point.)
• Hot Water (if you don't have tea concentrate)
• Whiskey (Any member of the whiskey family to include: bourbon, rye, scotch, malt, Irish, single malt, etc.)

Make your hot tea according to your personal preferences. Pour in a mug, not a dainty cup. Add honey to just this side of too sweet. Add whiskey according to tolerance. Minimum 1shot:6oz of tea. Stir. Sip. Savor the way the honey coats your throat while the booze warms your body and numbs the irritation.

Caution: Don't add too much booze. The point isn't to get shit-faced 'cause then you'll only feel worse; plus, puking is to be avoided at all costs. Achieving a "nice buzz" is good. Maybe it takes two mugs to get there. You're sick. When that first yawn attacks, give in. Have a good rest. You can make more Fix It tomorrow.

Dr. Money's Flu Remedies

It's Flu Season, so this week at the SFF Seven we're talking about our favorite tea, soup, or homeopathic feel-better recipe.

As you all may or may not know, I was clever enough to get myself an in-house physician. My hubs, David Money, is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. As part of his schooling, he learned all about nutrition, herbal formulas, and various supplements.

Really, the best flu remedy is not to succumb to it in the first place. So, if I start feeling under the weather, these are my go-to home remedies.

Vitamin C and NAC

We buy Pure Vitamin C in powder form. I put a scoop of that in some filtered water and take it with NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine). I also take NAC as a daily supplement, but it's great for kicking up my immune system. The two taken together are like the wonder twins of amping up health.

L-Arginine

If the Vitamin C + NAC isn't doing the job - especially if I'm feeling fatigued - I'll take some L-Arginine. That often does the trick to give my system the boost it needs.

Echinacea

Sometimes, if I'm really feeling like I'm battling a bug, I'll take the L-arginine with some
Echinacea tincture. Mine is literally homemade: I grow my own flowers, use gardening techniques to intensify the plant health, harvest at the optimum time for max potency, and brew the tincture. The stuff I have is powerful!

Gan Mao Ling

For a pre-made, store-bought herbal formula that's great for kicking the flu and other nasties, Gan Maol Ling is our go to. Really, it's great stuff that actually works.

Oscillococcinum®

If none of these are working, we buy some Oscillococcinum®. It's a homeopathic remedy that always does the trick for us if none of the above have worked. It's been a real rescue for me, more than once.

Stay healthy out there people!

Also, since lowering stress is part of staying healthy, I'll mention that I'm teaching a workshop on Taoism at the New England Chapter of RWA in February. Even if you're not a member, you can attend in person for only $5!

10 Quotes About Reading

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Our topic this week is our favorite quote about books and reading and why. 

Here’s the thing – quotes, like poetry, jokes and geometrical formulae, don’t stay in my head. I read them, I nod, I ‘like’ it if it’s on Facebook and I move on. You can tell me the same joke every day and I’ll laugh as if I never heard it before because my brain doesn’t retain the information. I have a prodigious memory and always have, but only for certain things.

So what I decided to do this week is go to my favorite source for quotes, BrainyQuote, and search there. I found no less than 1000 quotes about reading which they curated, so I’ve selected the first ten I found that appealed to me in some way or another.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have no idea what he was thinking but to me it points out the reader brings their own experiences to a book, a concept which I liked…

Which leads to this quote:

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. Albert Einstein

Oh dear, I’m afraid Dr. Einstein and I would have to agree to disagree. Strenuously. But perhaps a mind such as his (which probably did retain all kinds of formulae while also making up his own) was too elevated to merely read. On a side note, I’ve eaten in the Caltech dining room where he used to sit when he lived there…

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Now I do agree with this one:

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. Maya Angelou

I’ve always thought whatever the child wants to read, be it comics or Nancy Drew or anime or the encyclopedia or whatever, should be encouraged! Reading is reading and a child can always branch out to other material later.

A rather chilling warning here:

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury

I liked this one:

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Rene Descartes

Of course I don’t know that people in future centuries will be reading my scifi romances but an author can always hope!

One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it. H. P. Lovecraft

So true!

Personally, I like reading adventures which really have happened to people, because they show what kinds of things might happen to oneself, and they teach how to ‘Be Prepared’ to meet them. Robert Baden-Powell.

I definitely subscribe to this one, probably in part because of my fascination with the sinking of the Titanic, and who survived and who didn’t. I remember giving a lot of thought as a child to what I would have done and how hesitation in a crisis was a killer. My copy of A Night to Remember by Walter Lord is too dog eared to read any longer! My daughter bought me a new copy in fact. I think that entire aspect of my nature – to be prepared (not that I was ever a Boy Scout, or a Girl Scout LOL!) is an outgrowth of being determined not to be left behind when all the lifeboats are gone because I dillydallied when there was still a chance to escape. I love to read about disasters and to think through what I would have done (or not done)…Inaction can be the worst mistake.

I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve. Montesquieu

So much this ^^^. Losing myself in a favorite book (hello Nalini Singh and Psy-Changelings) can make any day better. Or becoming engrossed in a really good new-to-me story.

We shouldn’t teach great books, we should teach a love of reading. B F Skinner

Because speaking for myself, if I hadn’t already been a voracious reader at a very early age, some of the BORING awful things we had to read in junior high and high school just because they were deemed to be CLASSICS could have turned me off books forever. (Looking at you, Charles Dickens.)

And I’ll conclude with this:

The unread story is not a story; it is black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K LeGuin

Happy reading!

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Two For the Price of One Quotes

My favorite reading quote wasn't something I'd ever really thought about before now, so it took me a minute to find a way to put into words what I'd valued about reading all my life. It was the place I felt like I should belong, where I could be safe if only for a little while. (Not that I was ever in any kind of danger other than the sort of normal emo danger most kids are in at any time of their lives.) It's just that when it's you getting the jeers and sneers of classmates, a massive fantasy novel behind which to ignore them feels very empowering. So. My two favorite reading quotes:

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage. 

Arthur Schopenhauer

My second favorite book quote:

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

Reading...it's elementary.

The more that you read, 
the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, 
the more places you’ll go.

~ Dr. Suess

That’s one of my favorite quotes about books. Like many of you, my love for reading started early on. *Thank You, Mom!* And I have many fond memories of wandering through the bookshelves of my elementary library, inhaling the aroma of aged pages…and the occasionally stinky feet, and to pull book after mind-challenging book down to hold in my hands.

Reading has given me so much, so much more than the oft necessary escape. It’s given me the ability to use and understand multiple perspectives, it’s given me knowledge (yes, my handsome man, even knowledge about made up magic systems counts as knowledge), and it’s given me the inspiration to dream. 

So, tell me, what’s your favorite quote about books?