GHOSTIES - Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

con’t from HISTORY ALONG THE ROAD

… as I slowly advance down the road, I feel like I’m driving into a time warp of a long ago era.  Even the air seems cleaner and smells like freshly-washed, line-dried laundry.  Suddenly though, a thin frisson of je ne sais quoi skitters across the back of my neck and down my spine.  Weird.

* * *

There’s not much around.  Hugging the curve of the road on my left is a beautiful fieldstone house, and outbuildings, twins

clad in identical stone.  Almost directly across the road, poised on a bluff, stands a majestic, matching fieldstone lighthouse.  It must be at least 50 feet high.  The vivid blue of the St. Lawrence Seaway creates the perfect backdrop.  And I wonder where the windmill is.  Oh, I think, I bet the lighthouse used to be a windmill before it morphed into its current persona.  My mother didn’t raise any rocket scientists but, still, it didn’t take me all that long to figure it out, I think in a self-deprecating way and laugh out loud at myself. The only discordant note is the railroad track, which runs along the shoulder of the road and disappears around the next curve.  And the remnant of that weird I just don’t know what kind of feeling.    

I pull into a small parking area and we get out of the car, happy to be stationary.  Sofie bounds across the quiet road and immediately leaves her pee-mail near the railroad track for the local dogs, if there are any, to check out.  “I was here”, it says.

As I slowly meander over to the windmill site, I inhale a few bushels of fresh air, relaxing me.  There are a number of plaques, which form a story board and explain The Battle of the Windmill, which took place in 1838, with much loss of life.  What an exciting time it must have been back then in the early 1800s, albeit bloody.

I make a circuit of the plaques, spaced in a u-shaped grouping and take images of the windmill-cum-lighthouse.  Sofie dogs my every footstep, uncomfortable in this area.  She seems a bit on edge and tries to guide me back to the car.  “What’s the matter, Sofie?  Are there ghosties here?  Are you ready to go?”  Sofie looks up at me, hopefully, but I wander to the back of the lighthouse.  As I stare out over the water, I wonder what a lookout might have seen that fateful day.  

* * *

The night of November 12, 1838 was close around the many, small boats, which carried 250 ‘Hunters’.  Hunter Patriots to

be exact, a rogue paramilitary troop based in the United States.  Their mission?  Invade Windmill Point, just a couple of miles from Prescott, Ontario and use that beachhead to launch further attacks within Canada, defeat the British rule and claim the land for their American selves. 

In other words, these Hunters wanted our land and our country and would do whatever they believed was necessary to get what they wanted.

It was not the first battle for this wonderful and great country I call home and it wouldn’t be the last.  This grass-roots organization was made up of armed militants whose plan it was to overthrow British rule in Canada.

In all, the battle raged for four nights and five days and out of the 250 Hunter Lodge invaders, 53 died, 61 wounded and 136 were captured.

The defenders, 1,600 strong, British, Canadian and allied American soldiers fared much better, losing only 17 to death and 60 wounded.

We all know how the battles ended, with Canada being strong and free.   My thanks to the brave men who fought the good fight.

* * *

Looking down, I figure it must be a good 30 or 40 foot drop to the shoreline.  Catching sight of a path off to the left, I follow it down to a small plateau.  Looking up, the lighthouse stands in solitary splendor on the promontory.  I take images from that awe-inspiring perspective and would have continued down to the water’s edge, but Sofie is getting really antsy.  I wonder if she senses the spirits of the 70 or so souls, friends and foes, who lost their lives here?  This was a pivotal battle, which started this great land on its way to Confederation in 1867, some thirty years later. 

According to lore, the windmill was converted into a lighthouse in the 1870’s.

Sofie pushes her cold nose against the back of my leg and gives a high pitched whine.  “Okay, okay”, I say, “We’ll go.”

I slowly trek back up to the bluff, Sofie’s saucy behind bounds quite far ahead of me and she beats me back to the car.  As I finally get close, Sofie looks up at the door handle, then at me, then back to the handle, then at me, ad infinitum, shifting back and forth, from foot to foot.  I can tell by her little dance that’s she’s yelling, “Hurry up, Mom, hurry.”

* * *

A few weeks later I was telling my friend, Grandma Jacquie (she’s 85ish) about my spine-tingly experience.  Funnily enough, upon mentioning the Battle of the Windmill, she gasped and said, “My ancestors fought in that battle.”  I’m not sure which side they were on, or if they were part of the 70 or so men who died there; or were grievously wounded as they fought; or were captured and later hanged.  Interesting though, that I have a connection to this bit of history.  What a small world!

* * *

As we turn back on to Highway 2, I wonder if we’ll see the thin man and his dog again.  We go a good few miles and just when I think he’s turned off somewhere, I see him up ahead.  He’s squatting down beside his bike, on the side of the road, puffing on a cigarette. 

“Hey, Sofie, I’m going to stop and offer this sweaty guy some of our nice, fresh water, especially for his dog.”  Sofie’s eyebrow twitches and one eye opens, so I know she’s heard me.

                                                                                                
I pull over, somewhat further down the road and onto the gravel shoulder, trying to go slowly, so the car doesn’t kick up too much dust.  It would surely stick to the sweaty man.  I inch over as far as I can on the narrow shoulder and stop.  Checking carefully before I open the door, I step out and walk quickly to the back.  It’s a pretty busy road and I’m not off of it by much.  I wonder where the dog is and then spot him, checking out the greenery on the lush hillside.  He seems oblivious to my presence.  Carefully, he selects a blade of grass and pulls it out of the ground.  He chews it with obvious enjoyment and I’m reminded of a cow chewing its cud.  Sofie likes to graze too and when she does, I call her Elsie, after the famous condensed milk cow. 

The man walks towards me.  Just as he draws near and we’ve exchanged hellos, a police vehicle, which I noticed approaching at a pretty fast rate of speed, slows

considerably.  As the police car crawls by, the cop turns his head and he gives us the fish eye.  The thin man and I stop talking and watch the cop watching us.  His head swivels ever sideways as he moves on.  I hold my breath and will him to continue.   
I see his bushy moustache twitching, as he slows even more and I’m surprised he hasn’t come to a complete stop.  Will he or won’t he?


© 2019 UNDERCOVER CONFIDENTIAL aka PHYLLIS MAHON … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH CONTENT FROM THIS WEBSITE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

HISTORY ALONG THE ROAD - Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

con’t from JAUNTING

Not paying very much attention to my route, I notice that the very high bridge, which I have been flanking, is now suddenly in front of me, with a sign pointing ‘thataway’, To U.S.A.  Uh-oh.

* * *
HISTORY ALONG THE ROAD

Yikes!  I don’t want to go to the U.S. of A., especially since I don’t have my passport with me or Sofie’s papers.  Luckily, there’s a sharp right hand turn coming up and I crank the steering wheel, feeling very Dukes of Hazard(ish) – I can almost feel the car tilting onto two tires.  Just kidding but sometimes it’s fun to let my imagination go nuts.

Squinting into the sun, something glows brightly on the horizon.  Wonder of wonders, just ahead of me, salvation in the form of two Golden Arches.  Yippee!  Mickey D’s, 4 gazillion served. 

Finding a parking spot not too far from the door, I speed-walk inside and make a beeline for the bathroom.  Oh joy, no line-up.  I hit the stall and sigh with relief as I make room for coffee #2.  Coffee in, coffee out.  Kinda like beer – you don’t buy it, you rent it.  I make for the counter and sigh again as I spot the line-up there.  Oh well, at least I don’t have to pee anymore.  Finally, the fresh-faced, young girl (she looks all of 12) behind the counter asks, “And what may I get for you today, ma’am?”  The ‘ma’am’ grates, but I overlook the polite address. 

Asking for a medium-size Arabica roast to go into my travel mug, I succumb to the special of the day, two hot fruit pies for the price of one.  Can’t resist – one apple, one mixed fruit.  Inhaling the tantalizing aroma of fresh ground beans, mixed berries and cinnamony apples, I make my way back to the car, where Sofie’s on guard.  She leaps back to her side, as I settle in the driver’s seat.  Turning the GPS back on, I punch in the next leg of my backroads trip, and include a local park as a via point, then exit the parking lot, as directed by the electronic rendition of a female voice. 

Comfy, satiated and looking forward to my now-cooled hot fruit pies, I find that the park is really just a grassy knoll, with a solitary splintery bench, but convenient parking.  I perch gingerly on the rather wobbly bench, and enjoy my coffee and apple pie, while Sofie has her bathroom break and then a big slurp of water.  I keep a watchful eye on Sof, even though she’s not inclined to wander away.  Sudden noises tend to startle her into flight mode, no matter what the cause or proximity and I want to head her off at the pass if I have to.  Broiling a little in the late morning sun, I lean back against the bench, and Sofie, although very interested in a particular patch of grass, lays down, panting, pink tongue lolling.  It’s that hot.  We head back to the car and still with the windows down, start moving, creating our own zephyr.

Onward and westward, I tool along Highway #2, singing at the top of my lungs to one of my favourite songs.  Life is good.  

* * *

A ways to go - I start seeing signs for Long Sault, which brings back happy memories from my childhood.  I recall the hot summer weekends, usually a Sunday morning, when my father would come home from his second job and pack up the car, the four of us and my mom, for a rare trip to the beach at Long Sault.  My mother always spent most the evening before, cooking, making sandwiches and baking cookies.  Then she would pack my dad’s ratty old army duffle bag with our underwear and extra socks and who knows what else, because, as she would always say, “Just in case”. 

My father, not the most patient of men (being of Irish descent and suffering from sleep deprivation after working all night), would sometimes glare at mom and growl, “Mother, why you packing so much?  Are we going for a week?  Do you have to pack the whole house?”  My mother usually had an answer, which at least mollified my dad, and away we would go after the hour or so that it would take him to pack everything, and us, in the car. 

I especially remember one summer when my dad had a convertible, a big, shiny red one, with huge tail fins.  Away down the highway we would zoom, with the top down, our long hair whipping into impossible knots and the odd tissue or paper flapping around before hitting the slip stream and taking off like a seagull.  What fun!

Upper Canada Village slips by the rear-view mirror, keeping me on memory lane and all the fun field-trips we had there with school.  That was the field-trip just before school let out for the summer – Vermont and sugaring off was the late winter trip, hopefully before all the snow melted.  One year, I ate so much maple syrup-covered- snow, I got sick and threw up all the way home.  To this day, maple is my least favourite of flavours!   Good Canadian girl am I, eh?

\

Morrisburg, Iroquois and Cardinal conjure up different thoughts and images as I try to figure out where the names came from.  Hmm, Morrisburg after the man who founded the hamlet way back when? 

Iroquois is a bit easier, as I remember snippets from history class in school, about the proud warriors who were here first.  Cardinal, I think, hmm, either the bird or maybe a high-ranking church official who emigrated from England, bound and determined to civilize the heathen Iroquois?  It’s fun to turn my mind loose.

  

Johnstown is next and immediately, for some bizarre reason, saloons and barmaids spring to mind.  Big, flouncy, ruffled dresses and pinafores barely cover their ample bosoms.  

The rich, pine scent seeps from the sawdust spread with a liberal hand on the wide plank bar    floor.   A hard-bitten cowboy, shouts to the barmaid, “Bring us a round of sour mash and beer chasers and make it snappy!”  The red-headed barmaid flicks her hair and turns her back on the cowboy.  She ignores him now, but later, after all the other drunken rowdies stumble through the swinging doors, she’ll be heading up the back stairs with him, supplementing her pitiful saloon stipend with the ‘Johns’, engaging in the world’s oldest profession. 

As I draw closer to Wexford, the sun shimmers on the asphalt, creating undulating waves in the still air.  I slow as directed by the highway sign, 50 kph, and watch in empathy as I catch sight of a thin man, who’s encased in the de rigueur gear of serious bicyclists; skin-tight black unitard, with bright red and yellow accents, which stretches tautly from throat to ankles.  As I drive past, I watch in my rear-view mirror, and catch the gleam of his sweat covered face, and the shiny patina on his balding head, as he pushes his bicycle up the long, sloping hill. He’s got quite the convoy going - first his bike, with its bulging saddle bags, one on each side.  Hitched to that is an empty child trailer and hitched to that, is a great, big thick-coated furry, dog plodding along in perfect rhythm with the man.  Odd. 

I pass them and turn abruptly left, when I spot a sign for an historical site, The Battle of the Windmill.  Ah, I think, maybe a good place to stop and stretch our legs and Sofie could use a pee.  It’s not too far up ahead, but as I slowly advance down the road, I feel like I’m driving into a time warp in a long ago era.  Even the air seems cleaner and smells like freshly-washed laundry, drying on the line.  Suddenly though, a thin frisson of je ne sais quoi skitters across the back of my neck and down my spine.  Weird.


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JAUNTING - Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

  

                                

 Even with the windows open and moving at a good clip, it is hot.  Way too hot for this time of the year.  T-shirt and shorts are the order of the day, on my way home from visiting family in Montreal, for a traditional Thanksgiving weekend.  Mid-October and the sun beats down as though it’s high summer.  What the hell?  I even think about closing the windows and turning on the a/c but that seems like too much work.  Still stuffed from yesterday’s decadent pig-out of a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, I feel slothful on this bright, sunny day.  I decide to jaunt the back roads for my return trip to just a bit north of Toronto, the place I’ve called home for almost 40 years. 

Some people, including a lot of my family members, think I’m a bit strange about this thing I call jaunting, but that’s okay.  We all have foibles.  As I head towards home, driving the back roads, I think about how my addiction started.  Summer weekend evenings, usually Sundays - dinner’s over and the dishes are done - and boredom rears its flat head.  Always up for adventure, I choose a direction; east, west, north, south and just go that way, taking back roads.  I also try to get back home on roads, which are different from the ones I take to get there - wherever ‘there’ is.  I go as far as daylight allows me to see everything interesting and the not-so interesting and also the need to be back home and in bed at a decent hour.  Over the years my jaunting has expanded to encompass longer trips, such as going to and from Montreal.  I even plan vacations to places like Wawa and Thunder Bay, just to take back roads in places I haven’t explored yet.  I love taking byways and roads less travelled. You just never know what you’ll see or who you’ll meet. 

                    

One of the benefits of jaunting is being able avoid the massive Highway 401, slightly to the north of my current adventure.  I understand why most people prefer the highway, since it usually only takes about 6 or seven hours to get to Montreal from Toronto.  I come up with at least three good reasons as to why I would rather take back roads and byways – ‘A’ – Highway 401 is terribly boring.   ‘B’ – Most of the time, it’s at a virtual standstill.  What’s the point in taking a highway if you’re not moving?  And ‘C’, and the one that is probably closest to the heart of the matter, is, The Ex.  Yes, the ex-husband, who’s been out of my life for about 35 years now.  It rests squarely on his shoulders.  He had and probably still has an obsession about not going for just a drive.  He always has to have a destination and then he has to go from Point A to Point B, as fast as he possibly can.  I was lucky if he would stop for a bathroom break.  His personal best time Toronto - Montreal?  Four and a half hours.  Four. And. A. Half. Hours.  If I remember correctly, I don’t think we stopped at all during that trip.  He was very proud of himself.  Yep, jaunting the back roads and byways, taking the time to stop and smell the flowers, definitely works much better for me, even if it does take eleven hours.

Sofie, my constant and perfect travelling companion, twitches an eyebrow and opens one dark-sherry-brown eye.  Heaving a deep Jewish sigh, she stretches out the length of the car seat, watching me with the hope that we would soon

find a good place for a pit stop and a pee.  Maybe even a walk?  Her suede-like tongue gives my sweaty hand a few desultory licks and then almost bonelessly, she kind of just melts into a ball of white cotton and settles back into snooze mode.  I smile and say, “It’ll be good to get home, eh Sofie, and sleep in our own bed?”  Her tail gives a short wag and I know she agrees with me.

  

A rescued Coton du Tulear, she came into my life in November of ’08 - a year of turmoil and major changes in my once tranquil life.  As the miles pass under strumming rubber, I think about the life Sofie endured at a puppy mill, before being taken into care, first by a rescue organization in Ohio, then shipped across the border into foster care by a vet and his family in Brighton, Ontario.   What a trembling, submissive creature she was back then.  But I digress…

The miles unfold, one after the other, as the sun beats down.  Gosh, what I wouldn’t do for some shade.  Even with my sunglasses on, I squint.  Squinting causes wrinkles and at my age, I think I’ve met my quota.  Crossing over the border back into my own ‘country’, Ontario, I immediately feel so much closer to home, although most of the drive is still in front of me.  Following the shore of Lake St. Francis, the day shines with a vibrancy that fills me with a feeling of peace, contentment and joie de vivre!  Ah, joie de vivre, my three days in La Belle Province have obviously influenced my thought process.  It is said that the French have a way with words and the phrase encompasses my entire being – joy of life!

As I follow the road along The Waterfront Trail, we come close to marshy wetlands and I inhale the soggy scent of decaying water plants, drowned trees and eau du waterfowl.  I sometimes get a whiff of salty air.  I know that I’m surrounded by fresh water, but my brain creates a scent I always associate with seemingly endless bodies of water - briny ocean air, and it fits.  Colourful, triangular sheets dot the horizon, as sailboats skim the water’s surface, tacking to and fro, finding the zephyr, which keeps them going just a little while longer. 

I tootle into the outskirts of Cornwall, a town whose signs I’ve passed hundreds of times on my multitude of trips to and from Montreal.  I’ve never stopped there, though, to smell the coffee and I was ready for my second cup of the day.

By Blanchardb at English Wikipedia

My GPS bleats, uni-focused in getting me from Point A to Point B, which reminds me of The Ex.  And, boy, you better not detour in between A & B, because it’ll have you driving .08 miles to make a U-turn and recalculating until it drives you mad and you do what it says, just to shut it up.  Or turn the volume off, which I do. 

              

Driving into the town proper, I get caught up in the bustling Tuesday morning commute, the first day back to work for most people after a long weekend.  Aimlessly, I follow the crowd, hoping someone will lead me to a decent cup of Joe and a clean bathroom.  Not paying very much attention to my route, I notice that the very high bridge, which I have been flanking, is now suddenly in front of me, with a sign pointing ‘thataway’, To U.S.A.  Uh-oh.     

      

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THE BEAUTIFUL GREEN TREE

Easy reading is damned hard writing.            Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864)

Growing up in Montreal, oh, what a blast on a cold, wintry day!  Blustery squalls, spinning like berserk Tasmanian Devils take your breath away.  It takes a half an hour just to get dressed in winter stuff and get out the door!

And it’s really bad after a big storm, when we get a major dump of snow.  It’s one of my chores, and my three sisters, to shovel out a parking space on the street, for my dad.  It needs to be cleared in time for him to park, when he gets home from work, around dinner time.  And, my baby sister really is useless because she is pretty little.  She doesn’t get an allowance yet either, because she doesn’t really do any chores, but then again, she doesn’t really know what an allowance is either.  She just likes to be outside with her three big sisters, which lasts maybe ten minutes and then she starts banging on the door, (she’s not tall enough to reach the doorbell), to be let into the house. 

Even with three young girls and six strong arms, our shovels are kinda small and sometimes it takes us a whole two or three hours to do after we get home from school.  Believe me, winter in Montreal pays, because even though my allowance is only a nickel a week, sometimes, if my mom’s feeling rich, it might go up to a dime if we have to shovel a lot.

*********

The approaching Christmas holiday is knocking on frosty windows and my school chums are breathless with excitement in anticipation of THE BIG DAY!  There is a Christmas tree in our classroom.  It’s a beautiful live tree, the greenest of green and has a pine scent that sure beats the stuff my mom puts in the mop water, when she washes the kitchen floor.  What a treat it is, going into my classroom for a week or two!  The fresh piney aroma smells so much better than wet socks and chalk.                 

My classmates and I work feverishly for days, making all the decorations for the Christmas tree from ‘scratch’.  Construction paper, twisted and turned and folded and scissored into wonderfully creative shapes and sizes, casts a rainbow of colours from the top to the bottom of our beautiful green tree.  Popcorn garlands and candy canes are especially fun to hang, with everyone sneaking a piece here and there, even the teacher.  The best decoration is saved for last.  The glowing white angel crowns the highest branch and looks upon us with peace and serenity.  What a fitting place for the guardian angel of our beautiful green tree!   

                                                                       

*********

A few days before Christmas break, the beautiful green tree would get to go home with someone.  The teacher asks us to write our names on small pieces of paper and one by one, we put them all in one of the kid’s toques.  Slowly rummaging around in the hat, the teacher finally pulls out that one special name and it was MINE! 

My excitement knows no bounds!  Dragging the beautiful green tree, now bare of all its glorious decorations,  I enthusiastically trudge toward home along slushy sidewalks, my head and tree barely visible above the snow banks, standing like sentinels guarding a castle.  I burst through the door and can hardly contain my glee as I announce to my mom, “I won the Christmas tree!  Isn’t it beautiful?” 

The look on my mother’s face is hard for a seven-year-old to understand but what came next isn’t.  “We’re Jewish.  No Christmas tree is coming into this house.” 

Shoulders sagging, eyes filling with tears, I struggle to understand what had gone so horribly wrong.  How could my beautiful green tree make my mother so upset?  I ran to my room, which I share with my three sisters, sobbing as if the world was ending. 

My dad got home from work a while later and I could hear my mother telling him about the beautiful green tree and how it arrived at our house.  Listening to their murmuring voices rising and falling, I doze off, exhausted from crying.

 My sister wakes me up to tell me supper is ready.  As I walk sullenly through the living room, what to my wondering eyes did I see, but my beautiful green Christmas tree, standing proudly in the corner.  A hand-lettered sign, simply proclaiming “Chanukah Bush”, propped on its branches, its one and forevermore only decoration.                                   

                 

                                       

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THE NOT-SO-NAKED CHEF Part II

Turning around, I ramble over the dunes, working my way closer to the parking lot and my car.  It’ll be good to get home, ditch the bag of gross-me-out garbage and take a shower.

 ***** 

Continued from Part One

Ah, there’s nothing like a refreshing cool shower on a hot summer day.  I put on fresh undies and one of my long, t-shirt type nightshirts, knowing that I’m home for the evening.

During my rambles and ablutions, I finally decide what I'm  going to make for dinner.  Pan-fried, thin sliced T-bone steak from the local grocery store, in a little butter and fresh-picked corn-on-the cob and cucumbers from the local farmer’s market. New potatoes smashed with milk and butter, complete the picture.  Yum, yum!  My tummy is now in full rumble.

Turning the stove on, a bit to the high side, to sear my meat, I melt a little slab of butter and let it caramelize before I carefully place the still slightly frozen steak in the pan. 

Checking on the progress after a minute or two, I notice one part of it isn’t lying flat.  So I take my fork and press down on the uncooperative edge.  BAM!  A huge projectile of hot grease and butter comes shooting out from under the thin-sliced steak, and scatters like buckshot into hundreds of small pellets.  Their size notwithstanding, they are plentiful and they nail me and everything in their path.  The velocity of the many buttery, blobby missiles is astonishing.  Not only does it splatter me from the base of my fingers to almost my shoulder, along the inside of my right arm, but also hits the refrigerator which is about four feet behind me.  The noise is incredibly loud, so loud I think I jumped a foot.

I am absolutely gob-smacked and gob-covered.  For a good minute or two I stand there, covered in the now-cooling hot grease, and wonder what in the feck happened. 

Grabbing a paper towel, I carefully blot the globs, knowing better than to wipe.  As I examine the damage, I realize that I am very lucky that the trajectory of the grease was at about a 45° angle, instead of 90°, because then it would have blasted my face and that would have been horrible.  As it was, it soaked through my t-shirt in places and even managed to singe one of my lady parts.  Sigh! 

Wanting to eat my dinner, while it’s still hot, I put on a fresh 

t-shirt and chow down.  Only it didn’t taste as good as I thought it should.  Maybe I was in shock?

After I clear away the dishes, I google how to treat a grease burn, ‘cause it’s been a long time since I had one of those.  Of course, the first thing you should do, after blotting, is run cool, not cold, water over the burn(s) for about 5 minutes.  Uh huh, a little late for that but I did it anyway.   It's interesting to see that the worst areas, besides the lady part, are the two biggest burns, just below where my t-shirt sleeve ended – the furthest body part from the pan. That’s weird.

Luckily, I keep a well-stocked first aid supply cupboard and usually an antibiotic cream in the fridge but, for the time being,  I slather myself in real aloe vera (I have three very healthy plants) and leave all my parts uncovered. Nowadays the advice for burns is that you can keep them covered or not.  Back ‘in the olden days’, we were told never to cover a burn.  I guess modern technology caught up with first aid, along with everything else.

After I finish slathering all the visible regions, I lift my T-shirt and check out the lady bit.  Hmmmm, my right side sure took the brunt of those greasy projectiles.  Of course, the part which sticks out the furthest, (i.e. the boob), took a pretty direct hit.   Also, about half of my poor tummy looks like a nicely patterned speckled trout.  I just keep cutting the aloe leaves and slopping on the gel.  I am very thankful that aloe is one of the few plants that I can actually keep alive and it grows abundantly.

Deciding to go ‘old school’, I leave all my parts aloe-slathered, but uncovered.  Sleeping that night could have gone a whole lot better.  About half-way through my very restless attempt at reaching REM sleep, because things are rubbing against the burns, I figure it’s the 21^st century and decide to give today’s way of thinking a try.

 

I raid my first aid bin and assemble everything I think I’ll need.  I cover all my singed parts with fresh aloe, and sterile gauze pads.with one exception – have you ever tried to bandage a boob?  Uh huh, doesn't work that well.

I wind yards of gauze bandage around the worst areas on my forearm and upper arm.  Now that was interesting – ever try to do that kind of thing with only one hand?  At least it’s my ‘good’ hand although I couldn’t quite get the gauze strip wound tight enough.  About a half mile of the hospital-grade tape finishes my amateurish efforts.

Sighing tiredly, I head back to bed.  I’m pretty wound up from all the first-aiding, so I turn on the TV and hope to be lulled to sleep listening to the Food Channel.  That didn’t work.  Now I’m hungry ‘because I didn’t really eat much of my dinner after that greasy ‘appetizer’.  It’s about 3:00 a.m. at this point and I know that whatever I may eat now will only come back to haunt me, so I forego the very early a.m. snack and try to get a little comfy. 

I turn off the TV and turn on a soothing CD, something that’s titled, “You Can Heal Your Life”.  How appropriate.  I hope it’ll heal my body along with my life.

Boy, am I ever glad I don’t cook naked.

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