Shopping list and cold season

  This post is (as usual) a weird mishmash of musings.

A brief Facebook exchange with a casual friend reminded me of my need to go to a liquor store. I need to go to the liquor store for two reasons. Maybe three. First, I need liquor. For my mother's sore throat tonic (recipe to follow). Second, I need liquor. Peppermint Schnapps, Kahlua, Amaretto or Goldschlager, or somthing like that, to go into my hot chocolate in the evening.  Third, I may need a couple bottles of red wine, to make my all-purpose Italian-style meat sauce.

So, I need my throat tonic. I need it because I did something to my epiglottis Christmas night/Boxing day morning. Woke up with a sharp pain down the left side of my pharynx when I swallowed. Over the next couple of days, and to this day, it has moderated to a dull lumpy feeling on the back of my tongue. I think I did something to my epiglottis. I'm thinking it had to so with the very dry air, since starting the humidifier and over-loading the reservoir on the CPAP machine has helped a lot. But pre-SSRI Rob would be having a serious anxiety attack over this thing he can feel on the back of his tongue.

But anyway, my mother had two liquor based home remedies which it always amuses me to share with people.  The first was for teething babies.  She would get a glass, fill it with ice, pour whatever liquor my dad had in the house over the ice. She would then wrap a clean dish towel or something over her finger, dip it in the cold liquor and rub it on the fussy baby's gums.  Then she would take a sip of liquor.  Then she'd rub more on the baby's gums. And take another sip. I don't know if it helped with the teething pain, but by the bottom of the glass neither she or the baby seemed to care much any more.

I think my mother's sore throat tonic works on a similar theory.  It consists of equal parts honey (with its soothing and anticeptic qualities), lemon juice (with its anticeptic qualities) and liquor.  Mix to combine.

Seriously. I used to get this in a baby bottle as a kid.

The idea was to use a squeezey bottle or something to squirt it into your throat.  Liquor is slightly anaesthetic, honey is soothing, and all three are antiseptic. So good for your sore throat.  In graduate school I graduated from the baby bottle to just two teaspoonfuls every hour or so as needed.  Then I figured out I could put a tablespoon or two in some hot tea and have very happy-making hot tea toddy thing for when I was sick.

So I need to go to the liquor store. And the grocery store. Because of my sore epiglottis.