Reading: Vampire Hunter D Volume 6: Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane
Listening to: Nada this time around.
Blargh.
I have a cold. I usually get them once or twice a year, Buffalo weather being what it is. It just seems way more vicious than usual.
Honestly, I used to be sick a lot when I was a kid. I got several colds/flues during the winter every year. Now that I'm grown, I get sick a lot less (though I do tend to pick up the more serious sicknesses that missed me when I was younger, like strep.) Yay for developing antibodies! But I do still live in Buffalo, and that means the weather sucks balls. So all that lovely 2 hr commuting I do in the freezing air and harsh wind can not be good for me. Granted, it's great exercise. A lot of times, the buses don't run in coordinating times, so I end up making a 20 minute walk to the train station. That's mostly uphill, in the snow (adds resistance) with layers of clothing on (hoodie, coat, hat, gloves, scarf...) Good exercise, but you do sweat a little and sweating in the cold is a good way to open your body up to germs.
Also, I now work in a food industry. Which means I'm now washing my hands A LOT more than I was previously used to. Now, granted, I am not a scumbag. But I don't believe in washing your hands several hundred times a day. It's bad for you. It kills off too much bacteria and lets all the super-bacteria flourish and get you sick. (MRSA is not an accident, and shouldn't exist outside of hospitals. Stop being so godblessed germophobic and clean!) But because I work with food, I wash my hands way more often than before and I bet that has a little to do with me getting sick as well.
It's not like I'm on death's door kind of sick either. I have a cold. My head is stuffed, my nose is alternately running and stuffy, I can't breathe through it and I sneeze about a million times an hour. I can feel the crap in my sinuses moving through in my plugged up ears (which is weird, btw) my throat is a tad sore (I've had worse) and I'm coughing up post-nasal drip that's also making me nauseous and have almost zero appetite.
But no fever, no body aches, no chills. As far as sicknesses go, I'm doing alright. But that does mean it's time to bust out my cold-fighting homemade tea remedy.
See, I hate taking pills. I loathe it with the passion of a thousand suns. And it has nothing to do with being against traditional medicine or anything like that. It has more to do with the fact that once you've popped up to 15+ pills a day and experienced all their side-effects, you just don't want to take any more pills. And I wasn't popping pills to get high. I had to take a set of AZT pills when I was 15 because I was accidentally exposed to HIV without my knowledge or permission.
So I try everything under the sun to get rid of a sickness before I have to take any actual medicine for it. The only pills I will ever take now are my birth control, which do double duty of hormone regulation and not getting me pregnant.
Now, this recipe is taken from an old Japanese cold cure. I present to you: Shoga-yu
Shoga-Yu (Japanese cold-fighter)
Ingredients
Boiling water
Fresh Ginger
Lemons
Honey
Directions
Bring water to a boil. While water is boiling, peel and slice up the ginger. Put about 3 slices into a mug and cover with the boiling water. Let ginger steep for about 3 minutes. When drink has cooled a little, add the juice from about 1/4 a lemon and about a teaspoon of honey.
Drink and enjoy!
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