Sucking back on nature’s cough syrup
I‘ve been sick for what feels like an eternity. We all have. When I was in school, I stayed sick. I was so used to it that when the coughing spells and sinus infections magically stopped1, I kind of freaked out. Being able to take a deep breath without gasping was foreign to me. But since we moved out of the shithole2 four years ago, my allergies are making up for it big time. The grass here is toxic; even the dogs break out in hives. There’s ten times as much pollen which means I spend all spring weeping from one eye, and the carpet – at least in one place – sports the ruin of one of my exceptionally heavy nose bleeds.
I wish this was just a bout of heinous allergies but oh, no, we’ve most definitely contracted the cold from hell.
I read once that honeysuckle was an excellent cough remedy. Last year, I tossed some into a glass bottle with apple cider vinegar, pushed it to the back of a cabinet and forgot all about it. I pulled it out the other day and curiosity got the better of me. I popped the top. I didn’t taste it, but the stench was enough to make me wretch. I still haven’t tossed it out, don’t ask me why.
Next time, I’ll try it with honey.
The honeysuckle’s chokehold on our fence.
1 I dropped out at 16. As a result, I got very little exposure to anything past my mailbox. Amazing what that does for one’s sinuses (assuming you clean your house which, ironically, we rarely did; I’m shocked the mold didn’t kill us).
2 My name for what’s also known as “the other house,” where we lived happily for the first two of ten years. Then things went to shit. The last couple of years, we had neither air nor heat nor running water.