Remedies to Forget

Patricia Woolsey WANTS a remedy for the 1870s

It’s hard to change an empire when you’re stuck in the house. The Daughters of Two Pan marched in front of the whore house and saloon, but we scattered like twit sparrows when that hussy with the jutting big bosom shot at us.  We haven’t been back since.

A colorful colorectal cure

My two little ones came down with the grippe*.  I sliced up a huge bowl of white onions and a few wrinkled radishes, just like my grandma used to do.  Covered it with oil and forced the boys to eat it. Then they washed it down with a hot tea mixed with honey and schnapps.

From the way they sulked and hollered, you’d think the cure was killing them.  Silly boys.

Then I wallpapered their chests with a mustard plaster and put them to bed. The whole shebang made sweat ooze from their pores like they were being roasted alive. (Although, Henry, my husband, said it was the schnapps tea that made them mercifully delirious.)

Perhaps, he’s right. I startled awake from my beside vigil and Elias, the six-year-old, was absent.  Henry found him headed down the road—sound asleep. I attached a string from his toe to my arm so I’d  know if he tried to fly the coop again. I’m literally tied to the bedside, pouring water into sweating boys, instead of running harlots out of town and bringing a school teacher to this valley.

Henry says the west has its own culture. “Don’t hurry change.”

Bull Hockey!!! Even though Henry has a touch of frostbite from busting ice off animals’ water troughs and caulking cow’s ears,  he’s talked himself into loving Oregon. There’s not a doctor for 18 miles, and for that, I’m making him take off the mustard plasters attached to the boys’ chests.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to change an empire with kids hollering that it feels like a layer of their skin is being ripped off.

These remedies are journal memories of the 1800s and not recommended for use (even if you like onion, radishes and schnapps)

           (*grippe=influenza, sweating sickness, Spanish fever)

FREE: A word that doesn’t change.

There’s a story behind the Two Pan’s Needles, Dogs, and Secrets posted last week.

Is it me...or are the freebies getting weirder?

It surprised the woofers out of me to discover that sewing needles were a precious commodity in the newly opened Western territories. It was easier to find bullets and bear traps than sewing necessities. (Now days, you can find mending kits at convenience stores. That’s a handy change I won’t squint at)

Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail* records only one darning needle in Pass Creek Valley in 1853. It was carried like precious cargo in its potato transport. According to the child walking it to the next homestead miles away, (Side note:  How far do we let kids walk today—unescorted?), it was the bear’s fault he lost the potato.  (I suppose hiding from a mama bear with two cubs might cause spud separation.)  This was such a catastrophe, all of the community kicked trail duff and clawed through underbrush for days until they found the potato.

Months later, a peddler passed through the valley. When he heard the story, he gave a “Christmas present” to each territorial family—a needle.

The peddler, Aaron Meier, went on to establish a chain of department stores. One-hundered years later, in 1967, one of their ads stated:

We still want every woman to have a darning needle of her own.  Come into our Fabric Center…Tuesday and get yours, free.

via PdxHistory.com. Check out: "Meet Me Under the Clock." for a great story.

In 2006, the 16 store/acquisitions were sold to Macy’s.  Since then, the only free thing I’ve received are wads of Macy’s coupons.  (I don’t count the perfume stinkums as gifts.)

“FREE” remains the most effective word in advertising.  That hasn’t changed.

To compete with the new Safeway Monster, our small local grocery has giveaways.  No sewing needles yet…

but last week I was gifted with a 5# bag of potatoes. I can always use food.

*Recollection of Elaine Burns in Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail. Susan G. Butruille, Tamarack Books, Inc.1993

Needles, Dogs, and Secrets

In 1871, Women sew more than quilts for a change.

“Can you stitch up the dog?”

That’s what every woman wants to hear when she’s cooking dinner.  The kids were poking each other with sticks and into this chaos, Henry put the hound dog on the table. I swear my husband grew up in a cow pasture.

Oregon was not Patricia Woolsey's idea.

The dog lay there, quaking, with a big flap of skin hanging off his side. The children began crying.

Kaiser, the dog, who was savvy enough to avoid oxen hooves and coyote teeth for 2,000 miles across the Oregon trail, wasn’t quick enough to avoid the horns of our bull.

This was the kind of thing Roxie Poley enjoys. “Haul the hound over to her,” I said. They have a coyote that helps her husband track bears. She’d love stitching fur together.

Just a quick left turn, and we'll be in Oregon

Besides….tromping  to this isolated place was never my idea. I wasn’t even asked. Henry just showed me a flyer and announced we were moving to Oregon.

I finally poured carbolic acid and warm water over the wound and sewed the flesh shut with big Xs.

All I could think was: This  dog better not break my only needle. I covered the stitches with turpentine and lard when I finished so flies wouldn’t get into the wound.

That mutt lay around for two weeks, barely eating, before he decided to live. I threatened the boys with a whooping if they told anyone I stitched up the dog.

Try and lose this in a haystack!

There are only 4 darning needles in the valley. We women lend them to one another. The needle is threaded with a long measure of thread then stuck in a potato for transport.

I don’t want people referring to my needle as the Dog Needle. I’d die of shame. I’m trying to bring a bit of culture the the settlers, whores, and dirt of Two Pan.

Maybe I Remember Pong. Who’s Asking?

Shoot. Darn. Heck. Nothing syncs up anymore.

Recently, while shopping for skulls, I made an amazing discovery—my brain wouldn’t fit in the new skulls.

You’ll remember I needed a new skull because my sinuses seemed to have filled up or caved in on the old model.  As much as I hate change, I installed a sleek beauty skull with high cheek-bones and extra hard-headedness.  But when I got it home I discovered—my brain wouldn’t fit.

It seems our humanoid gray matter grew for the first 20,000 years, but has been shrinking ever since. So the new brains are 10% smaller than Cro-Magnon man. (That’s a chunk about as big as a tennis ball).

The salesman was as slick-tongued as ever, assuring me I didn’t need that missing10%. “Remember the first cell phones?” he asked.

“No, I don’t know anything before Justin Bieber, Glee, and sugar-free, caffeine-free Dr. Pepper.”

He grinned like a zoo monkey, pretending to buy the lie in trade for a sale. “Well, the first cell phones were as big as lamps. Technology has improved. So has the brain.”

“You mean we’ve dumbed down?” I asked.

“No one’s sure,” he mumbled into the J-pegs holding brain apps. “Some scientists argue that as human society grows increasingly complex, individuals don’t need to be as intelligent in order to survive and reproduce. In any case you don’t need the brain cells you lost. It was probably just multiplication tables, old poetry, and reruns of I Love Lucy.”

“Never heard of it,” I lied. Dang! I liked that show.

“However,” he pontificated, adding his best ape grin, “An anthropologist at the Duke University Institute for Brain Sciences (Brian Hare), thinks a smaller brain is a domesticated brain.”

I squinted at him. “I have domestic chickens.  They’re stupider than a box of rocks. Some of them drown because they don’t know to come in out of the rain.”

“Well…” he continued, ignoring my dead chicken problem, “A smaller brain is the signature of selection against aggression, and an increase in tolerance.”

“You want me to trade how-to-use-an-abacus for not-getting- bent-out-of-shape-that-Starbucks-hikes-the-price-of-peppermint-drinks during December? Is that what you mean by tolerance?”

“No. You’re right.” He squinted at me as though I were the insane one. “It could be the dumbing-down of the gene pool.”

"The governer's on line one, Barb."

I scowled at him until he lumbered away, then I bought a Wii.

According to the Japan Medical Journal, 42 patients suffering from brain tumors and head injuries were introduced to ping pong.  In all players, even the crappy ones, blood flow to the brain increased.  Additionally, dementia levels dropped from high to intermediate.

Sign me up. Let a fresh load of blood wake up my last two blinking brain cells. I might even admit to remembering the original Hawaii-Five-O.

Burning the Fat

When Patricia Woolsey wishes for change… (Two Pan, 1871)

They stink. And soot off. But what are you going to do? Besides, through the whole process, I learned why Violet Spinrad won’t picket the whore house or saloon.

We Woolseys are probably the most prosperous folks in the valley, but with oil being 18 miles over the mountain and more expensive than a miner’s widget, we rarely light a lamp.  When my last wax candle was down to a nub, I asked Violet Spinrad if she’d help make tallow candles. I have a 12-hole mold which forms a nicer candle than what she does (puts dirt in a jar and hollows out the center.)

Violet Spinrad renders the amount of fat in a pizza if it had been invented yet.

Even though it was a gray freezing day, she arrived bundled against the cold with her three youngest children. I made Mr. Woolsey build an outside fire to keep the rendering stink out of the house. It took about an hour to dice and cook the fat into oil. During that time I found out…

Moving to Oregon, was all Violet’s idea. It was the only way they’d own a piece of land because Bricker’s a …she didn’t use the word, laggard, but that’s what she meant.  And then Bricker—

She got quiet when the kids gathered around as we strained out cooked gristle. I told the children to give the crispins to the birds, but her little ones ate it like it was candy.

I thought I could get the rest of the story while we simmered the oil again to get more stink out, but she suddenly became busy herding everyone into wick-making duties.

One child held an end of a fabric strip and another twisted the free end until it kinked up on itself.  I have to say, Violet is the best there ever was at threading a homemade wick in the candle tube. I rarely get the knot centered and oil leaks out the bottom. Or my wicks are slightly crooked, and the candle won’t come out of the mold. Violet’s the best at needle work in the valley, but hardly has a pot to toss out the window, much less anything to sew with.

A 12-pack for those dark winter blues.

I shooed all the kids away before we poured into the mold. It’s a delicate process, besides…without little ears around, I wangled the rest of Violet’s story.

It seems…she knows Bricker’s a drunk. She went to thank Silky Sue for bringing her cookstove over the mountain and found Bricker face down in front of Opal’s palace. The whores had covered him with a blanket. Can you imagine?  A decent woman going to see a saloon hussy?  What I didn’t know is that Bricker hasn’t been home in a month.

She suddenly stopped talking. Thanked me and bundled up her children and her share of the candles. She wouldn’t let Mr. Woolsey give her a ride. Nor would she take the nice calf liver I offered.

I watched her walk down the trail until shadows overtook her.

It’s times like this I regret the person I am and wish I would change. Back in Nebraska, we had lamps shining in every room. Now, I feel shamed for wishing for a well-lit room that doesn’t smell like burnt cow.

5 Steps to Healthy Sleep

Enough. Enough bleary-eyed wakeups feeling more tired than when you went to bed. This isn’t one of those righteous blogs that tell you to avoid alcohol, caffeine and sugar.  Nope. For January’s Squint-Eyed Look at Changing Yourself, we’ll grab Morpheus by the dreadlocks and wrestle a goodnight’s sleep out of him.

GOB UP ON TRYPTOPHAN

Turkey before Bed!!! Not turkey vulture

You know how a hefty dose of turkey leaves you hibernating like a hungover bear? That’s because your body can’t cook up one of its 9 essential amino acids. (Thus genetically interlocking us to the turkeys of the world.) Our hallowed torsos need the tryptophan from proteins to produce the joy-juice of serotonin  (also a sleep inducer).  So keep an emergency pack of turkey-bird on hand to gorge on those rough nights.

MOOOOOOre CALCIUM

Remember your 5^th grade health class?  If you follow all the baloney you learned when you were 10 years old, you’ll be in decent shape. If you’re waking up because your legs want to do a dance or your muscles are cramping, increasing dairy products may help. A big bowl of cheese, yogurt, and dark-green leafy vegetables will increase your calcium/magnesium  intake.  Sprinkle it with turkey for a sleep-combo meal.

CAUTION: Don’t abuse the Dairy. Too much tryptophan from too many sources shuts off the serotonin factory and creates muscle. So just knock-it-off  unless you want to wake up looking like a slam-head wrestler (but don’t think about that…it won’t help you sleep).

Yes. I feel safer with the bed not directly in front of the door

Rearrange Your Bedroom

According to feng shui experts, your bedroom door should be hidden and the bed shouldn’t be directly in front of the door, but off to the side.  This positioning decreases anxiety of intrusion. There’s also a lot advice about decluttering, but straightening up the room makes me tired and I fall asleep in the process…so mission accomplished.

COLOR ME SLEEPY

These sheets are too loud!

Use skin-colored sheets. Beige, chocolate brown, peach, terracotta. Allegedly this helps your sleep attitude. I don’t know why. I can’t see the sheets in the dark, but supposedly my skin can. However, I find it’s still good advice because colored sheets don’t show the stains from eating the turk-yogurt-leafy green entrée in bed.

RESTORATIVE YOGA POSES

Sooooo relaxing

Inversions for 5-10 minutes which place your pelvis higher than your head supposedly balance hormone levels.  This reduces brain arousal and blood pressure.  Do not stay upside down so long you pass out.  That’s not the same as sleeping.

You know how I hate change, but maybe these alterations to your routine can put an end to your nightmarish crawl through sleep.  If not …do what I do…get up and blog.

Before Morning Breaks: Floozys on Main Street

January 6, 1871                          Honorary Editor: Dangling Participle Lichen

Patricia Woolsey fights for culture, a 6th grade eduation, and keeping your pants buttoned.

Last’s week’s horse race down Main Street by gauzily clad ladies of negotiable virtue set off a roaring firestorm.Prairie mesdames Patricia Woolsey and Alice Hopkins began a campaign to remove the “underbelly of indecency from our small settlement.”

Darn It, Roxie, You've always been ahead of your time.

Holding wooden signs, the women marched in front of both the Salt Lick Saloon and Opal’s Palace. “But the signs were too dang heavy,” said Roxie Poley. “So we leaned them against the building and  just strolled around in front of the doors, trying to peek inside.”

Sugar Cherie, one of the “flowers of the night”, hung out of the second floor window of the bordello and poured a bucket of water on the women, ending the first day’s siege.

Photograph taken before Alice Hopkins got drenched. Who knew she could speak like a mule skinner when wet?

It was several days before the women returned. Fired up by traveling preacher, Vig Noyes, the  settler women, who call themselves The Daughters of Two Pan, yelled and shook fists at any man trying to enter the establishments.

Despite the rain/sleet, the Daughters continued to beleaguer the doors to both the saloon and the bordello across the street.  Silky Sue, saloon owner, sent hot coffee out to the ladies. Half accepted it. While warming themselves with beverage and giving this interview, two intrepid miners approached the brothel, spat a chaw of tobacco at the women’s feet,  and offered “the tall loose-footed one” $1 for a roll in one of Opal’s beds.

“I hit him so hard, his eyes wove a nice little braid, criss-crossing back and forth.” said Roxie Poley.

At this point, Big Opal herself stepped outside of her building and discharged a shotgun over the women’s heads.

“This is a heinous crudity.” Mrs. Woolsey told the Two Pan Tattler as she ducked. “Every woman of the valley, except Violet Spinrad, is here supporting these hussies’ removal.” Mrs. Woolsey gave an aggravated sniff when asked why Mrs. Spinrad hadn’t joined the cause.

Aunt Tilly gets confused. (What do you expect when she looks like a guy? And no, he doesn't know. Don't any of you tell "Aunt Tilly" either.)

Big Opal has another hissy fit.

At that point  a protest sign, next to the women,  splintered to pieces as Big Opal reloaded her shotgun.

The Daughters ran followed by Big Opal’s bellowed curses which are too loutish even for this tatty newspaper to print.

(Thanks volunteers for joining against Prairie Indecency. Let me give you a shout out for your good-natured, unknowing participation.)

Roxie: http://sannasbag.blogspot.com/

Alice:  http://alicelynn.wordpress.com/

Honorary Editor: Pat (for finding the dangling participle

in the last edition) http://www.patriciaklichen.com/

The Best Snow Man in the World

I don’t usually enter contests, but it’s all about change…and it’s a new year…so…I’ve entered the Great American Snowman Contest.

We’re supposed to use materials in our area. (Rules..schmools…I really didn’t read them closely.)

I’m too much of a slacker to drive to the mountains, so I used what every western Oregonian has in abundance:  RAIN & RECYCLE.

If you have a graduate degree you’ll understand why Rain is a perfectly logical snowman material.

(Thanks to cryptixy2k-gull; All Best Wallpaper-drink; NOAA-weather, and U.S Govm’t-toilet photos)

I present….. (tra-la-la)

RAINY, the Pre-SNOWMAN

I must add, I was readying Mr. Rainy for his photo op when we had a rather embarrassing moment. Mr. Rainy said it was because he needed to do some core work, but I think it was really due to his rather slippery nature.

Anyway…part of his torso jumped and rolled under the deck.  Mr. Rainy LOOOOOVES to turn dirt into mud….what a kidder. He even suggested he’d help me clean up with a candlelight bath since he’s not afraid of a little heat, like those “normal ” snow men.  In an attempt to dampen Mr. Rainy’s attitude, I didn’t fully load his innards for this photo.

I tried to get the feral lop-earred cat—who thinks his name is: “Don’t-feed-that-fur-ball,”  because that’s what Dallas Cowboy Fan is always shouting when he sees him.

Well….I tried to get the drenched cat into the photo to garner the sympathy vote, but the cat wanted nothing to do with Mr. Rainy–even though he had food under his recycled balloons.

So I’ll just tell you the benefits of this wonderful creation.

WHY BARB’S PRE-SNOWMAN IS THE BEST ENTRY

• Portable: Mr. Rainy can go anywhere. Mobile and ready to roll.
• Adjustable: Fits any space.
• Refillable: That’s why he’s so popular at party.  His only competition will be Mr. KEG.

This is logically the best snowman in the world.  I expect he’ll eventually wash away all the competition.

New Year’s at the Sporting Club

December 30, 1871

Honorary Editor: Words Swiderski

The catastrophe began with the piano in the Salt Lick Saloon.

Bring me back my tail feathers or bring me a drink.

Being the only musical instrument in the valley, folks came from miles around to listen.   Silky Sue, proprietor, waved her ostrich fan in the face of tradition and invited women to accompany their husbands inside to  listen. But, even here at the edge of wilderness, Two Pan ladies did not break the taboo against women in drinking establishments. They made their husbands stand on the street with them to hear the melodies.

Silky Sue, with a quick eye for opportunity, quickly jerry-rigged a canopy to protect listeners from rain. Then she tried to ply them with overpriced coffee and cocoa delivered by properly clad maids.

Sigh....I hate corsets. Let's take them off and yell at people.

Across the street, the ladies at Opal’s Sporting Palace lounged on the porch. Sugar Cherie, a tall woman who claims to be French but is known to lose her accent when excited, waggled her buxom bosom and cat-called across the street, asking the men to come see her when they were in town without their wives.

Go ride a Cow!!!

When a few of the settler women told the whores to shut up, the prairie doves became wilder. Later, when asked about the incident, Big Opal, owner of the Palace said, “All rumors that I’m losing business because of that clinky-dink piano and tone-deaf player are filthy lies. Men always want the bodacious bounty I’ve got. We don’t cater to families. If they’re offended, they need to move their dried-up little carcasses off the street. I don’t know why those self-righteous women are in such a pucker. The girls simply became carried away with the music.  The piano is the culprit.”

Two of Opal’s girls, Roamin’ Retta and Kitty Galore stood in mid-street in gauzy white dresses, yowling  and goading each other into a horse race.Then they worked bets from the bystanders. The saloon emptied to watch the two women fly down the street on Big Opal’s white steeds, the girls’ hair and gauzy garments flowing behind them.

Life is a bed of roses and ferns in Two Pan

The settler wives were outraged at the foul language and public indecency. Silky Sue was livid at the loss of business. The bettors were angry because neither horse reached the finish line. A winner was never declared. Having had a few shots of stout liquor for luck, Roamin’ Retta fell into a garden at the end of the street. Kitty Galore rode into the SaltLick Saloon  where the horse broke glasses and chairs.

“Damn fine advertising,” was Big Opal’s only comment. “And it’s still the piano’s fault.”

(Based on a true historical event)

From the Old Design Shop Blog

Jet Propelled Airspace for the Face

I was shopping for a new skull the other day because the traffic grid of my sinuses has jammed.  I guess that’s to be expected. After so many years, most things become full: cupboards, RAM, headspace.  The simplest solution was to make a change.

I asked for a model without those confounded paranasal passages, but the helpful salesman told me it was considered an app to the skull. Turns out sinus cavities are simply sacks of air between bone and flesh like packaging pillows. The sacs begin at birth and continue to excavate bone for the rest of our lives. I suppose this means by the time we’re 100, we’ll have the airbags of a Volvo under our eyes.

It seems without these pockets of void, our solidly-weighted faces would bend our necks into a U and our heads bob like lilies when we walked.  Oh wait! I already do that.

My problem is that my alleyways of airways swell and mucus-up like big sponges when exposed to allergens.  37 million people have the same malady, so you’d think there’d be more choice in skulls. There are alternatives:

Barb’s All Natural Nasal Filters: 6 Hair thickets. Traps particles. Comes in different sizes because each schnozz is different. Easy to install. Yanks a bit on removal.

Barb’s Sack O’Good Looks. Keep doors  closed. Drive with windows up. Use air conditioning to avoid allergens.

Thanks:www.neti-netti-pot.com/

Barb’s Snoot Rooter: Washing your nose holes twice a day helps hair move particles like they were a lightweight blonde in a mosh pit.  You could use a neti pot or the cupped hands you were created with.  Better yet…stick your head in the ocean and breath then snort it out.

I’ve kept on skull shopping at:  Wal-Mart (“Live Better”) and  J.C. Penney (“It’s all Inside.”) Now I’m intrigued by Ball Corporation’s rocket designs.  (“The Leader in Small Space and Rocket Systems”).

Really! You didn’t know your grandma’s jar company made spacecraft? Me neither.

Things change. Maybe someday they’ll even make sinuses.

Then…Good bye Neti pot.