Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Kathryn

Whoa NETI!

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This is a happy pot.As someone who has been known to vomit when faced with the sound of my husband blowing his nose and who swears they know what phlegm smells like and is sickened by the scent of it especially when it’s coming from my own body, I don’t know what possessed me to take my naturopath’s advice and buy a Neti pot with which to flush my nasal cavities.

Nasal cavities contain phlegm. Sometimes I gag just saying the word phlegm. I’ve certainly never been capable of coughing it up because then it would have to enter my mouth and my mouth is a dwelling place for taste buds and nerve endings, making it a completely unsuitable home for noxious goo. Granted, phlegm is 100% natural and possibly organic, depending on what I had to eat that day, but so is bird poop and I don’t want either of them splattered in my mouth.

But the doctor told me to get flushing with Neti so I got to the store and picked one up. When I got to the cash register, the Whole Foods clerk smiled and asked, “Is Oprah running her show about Neti pots again?”

“No.” I gave her a 3-snaps-GIRRRL!-I-belong-here smile. “My naturopath suggested it to me. Does Oprah do a show about Neti pots? I haven’t watched her in a while.”

“Oh. Yeah. This is the third one I’ve sold today and we usually sell a bunch right after they run that episode.”

I smugly tucked the pot into my fabric shopping bag and headed home to cleanse myself. I looked at the box. That girl flushing her sinuses looks so HAPPY, I thought, “This can’t be that bad.”

It can. Trust me, it can. You fill the pot with saline solution which you then pour into one nostril on your tilted head. The water then runs through all of your sinuses and, if the angle of your head isn’t precisely correct, into your mouth.

Have you ever tasted saline solution? It sort of tastes the way I imagine phlegm would taste, warm, salty, disgusting. And I know where it’s been. And I know what it’s supposed to be flushing out… or in to my mouth. And I cough and gag, compose myself, re-tilt my head and repeat.

Honk if you're reading this text. Seriously please mention it in comments if you read this.
The drips in this image were NOT photoshopped (at least by me) Brownie’s honor.

I certainly wasn’t grinning as the goobers ran down MY face and the only reason I kept my mouth open was to let the solution run out.

Maybe I’ll try again in a few weeks… or years… or at some point when all of my taste buds and nerve endings have been fried in a terrible taste-bud-and-nerve-ending-frying accident.

Saturday

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Today was Saturday.

We did some things.

My friend moved to Germany and left behind this gorgeous wreath and Dan let me claim it and bring it home even though he thinks it looks a bit like a ball of hair in a shower drain. To me it looks like beautiful funky nature.

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I like it so much that I drove 10mph all the way home holding the wreath outside my car window to avoid cramming it into the car and breaking it. My hand may need to be amputated from freezation but at least I’ll have a pretty wall to look at while I recover from surgery.

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Laylee’s been working hard to integrate “Big Miffy” into our family and it seems that Miffy is getting along just fine.

She thinks safety is the best policy and always buckles up.

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Her face looks like it was MADE for the window in our Little Tikes castle.

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She never complains about what I feed her.

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She does all her homework without getting any marker on herself or others.

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While Miffy worked scrubbing the bathrooms, I ran off to a local antique store where I found these adorable milk glass snack plates and cups and the vintage cloth napkins they’re sitting on. While I was in the store, my thoughts were never far from my antiques guru Karen. I kept thinking, “What would Karen do? What would Karen buy? Would Karen think I looked good in this vintage Smurf hat?”

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At dinner tonight we were talking about manners and Dan began to demonstrate good posture. “Wow,” said Laylee, “You’re sitting really straight.”

She sat up a little taller.

“Look. I’m straight too.”

She looked at me.

“You’re pretty straight Mom, except for your breasts.”

We played outside in the sun and in the rain, sometimes simultaneously.

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And then I had a culinary festival of poserhood and baked my own granola! I can finally hold my head up high in Seattle.

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And then I wrote about it all on the internet.

And then I went to bed.

The Word on the Street

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crazy-faceToday I overheard a man on his cell phone, asking his friend if he had “arterial” motives. Maybe his friend was a little too concerned about his own cardiovascular health.

Laylee says her stuffed bear Eddie is starting preschool next week. I asked if he was excited and she said “I don’t think he even knows. He probably forgot. He’s really forgettable.” Laylee is not.

Magoo has started referring to himself in the 3rd person… as a crazy-face2T-Rex… but sometimes he forgets. Today he forgot his identity for a moment. “Mommy. Can Buddy play with… Um… um… [lowering his voice an octave]… Can the BIG T-REX play with your ball?”

After the tenth time watching and rewatching this video clip of my infant nephew, Laylee looked up at me skeptically and said, “Mom. I can’t understand a WORD he’s saying!” With her tone of voice she was clearly calling him some sort of incommunicative idiot-tard. He may be cute, but that kid is not gonna get along very well in life until he learns to speak so people can understand him.

Consumer Motivation

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I bought these because they are unsulphured and unsweetened.

for the purity

I bought these because they are made from BLUE CORN, which is corn that is BLUE. The chips may not be a whole food, but they only have 3 ingredients and I can count that high.

for the color

I bought this because a little good sharp cheddar goes a long way which is good for my waistline.

for the yum

I bought these because while I was pausing to see why they were selling “minions” from the refrigerator case at Trader Joes, Magoo leaned over the edge and spit all over them.

for the loogey

They say that “if you break it you buy it.” I think that if you hock a loogey all over a piece of meat, the same rule applies.

Smirk Rehab

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Someone recently told me that my face at rest looks a little angry, mean or possibly snarkish. Since I rarely see my face when it’s truly at rest, I had no idea that I was possibly sending people a rageful vibe.

This has troubled me and I’ve begun practicing my neutral face. I want to look happy but I don’t want to sit around with a goofy grin on my face, my eyes popping open with inexplicable joy at the thought of the traffic I’m sitting in or the produce I’m squeezing.

I also don’t want to be one of those people who walks around with a secret smirk on their face, a look says, “Sh-yeah. I am so much cooler than you. You don’t even know that your fly is undone.” Do you know those people, people who make you self-conscious by the simple fact that they always seem to by laughing on the inside, not in a nice way?*

So, I’m trying to cultivate a look of friendly, happy, effortless contentment. It sounds easy, but oh no it is not.

I want to keep my mouth closed to avoid what my dad refers to as “looking like an idiot” and I want the corners of my lips to turn up ever so slightly but not enough to make me look demented or promote wrinkles or other facial decay.

I spent 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer at the gym today sweating away my troubles and trying out various relaxed facial expressions in the equipment video screen which is quite reflective and conveniently placed.

I’ll tell you, I’m not making a lot of progress in this mission. I end up looking like someone who’s trying to look relaxed, friendly and effortlessly at peace while bouncing up and down with a heart rate of 160. It’s very strange and when I’m practicing facial expressions, I always end up doing the fake laugh like I’ve just thought of something mildly hilarious from earlier in the day. One corner of my mouth twitches to the side, I wrinkle my nose and make a mild “hmph” sound while nodding my head ever-so-slightly. Trust me — I look really cool and nonchalant while I do that.

In the end I decided that perhaps I should work on learning to make a face that does not inform everyone that on my MP3 player I’m listening to Vanilla Ice, Paula Abdul and Shakira in Spanish (which I don’t understand) and I’m grooving so hard on the inside that it would be embarrassing to the other gym patrons if they knew what was happening inside my head.

Hola Isabel! I feel you dawg. Move to my town. Iron something on for me!

Poser in Granolaville

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Last November around Thanksgiving I found myself in the Whole Body section of Whole Foods, wearing a beret I had crocheted by hand. The hat was supposed to be a present for my little sister for Christmas but it wasn’t Christmas yet and I thought I’d test it for fiber-poisoning, while covering my greasy unshowered hair. Who has time to shower when family’s in town? I also wanted to appear earthy while shopping at Whole Foods, like I’m not one to waste water… or soap.

“Now why was Kathryn in Whole Foods?” you might ask. If you guessed it had something to do with my good friend the homeopath, then you were correct. If you guessed it was because I like paying 10 dollars for a single apple, you were false or incorrect or something.

When I’m in there, I feel like a bit of a poser in Granolaville, like someone is going to stop me in the isle, point a judgmental finger and yell out, “THIS WOMAN EATS AT MCDONALDS. SHE SMELLS LIKE NON-ORGANIC BANANAS. STONE HER WITH HER OWN GRASS-FED GOAT CHEESE CURDS!”

I do occasionally eat fast food and sugar (referred to as The White Death by my naturopath) and food that has been processed by someone other than myself. I don’t recycle EVERYTHING and at least half of the lights in my house are not fluorescent energy star bulbs. I do not turn off the water while I’m lathering in the shower. My kids think Nuggets are a food group. I wear yoga pants but I’ve never actually done yoga. Raw milk scares me. I don’t weave my own cloth to make diapers. Sometimes I shop at the mall.

For these and other reasons, I’ve always felt like a bit of an imposter when I’m shopping at Whole Foods.

But lately I’m getting more comfortable there. I’ve been cooking more healthful whole foods, items that I can picture living and growing in nature. Who’s ever heard of a Dorito tree or a free range Slim Jim? I’m trying to think about the food I’m eating, where it comes from and what’s in it.

My neighbor’s been a huge influence on me. Because I respect her so much, I’ve opened myself up to thinking more about the choices I make every day and I’ve started to realize that I’m putting things into my body that do nothing to help it and can even be harming me and my family.

We’ve also been seeing a naturopath and after 12 rounds of antibiotics for Laylee for previous ear infections, we were finally able to manage one without drugs. We did it with herbs, dietary changes and home remedies and she got better quickly.

I didn’t set out to be some kind of raging homeopath or all natural woman wandering through Whole Foods dressed in a hemp muumuu but things are just starting to make sense and I love feeling like I have a little more of an active role in my family’s health.

My current goal is to find ways to feed us well without breaking the bank. We’ve found a lot of great deals on whole organic foods at Costco and the bulk and health food sections of our local grocery store and I hope to join a local farm co-op this summer. I’d appreciate any tips you have to offer. Organic is not the most important thing to me and it’s honestly not financially realistic for our family but as we incorporate more whole grains, fruits and vegetables our health is improving.

I also believe that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Every good choice we make benefits us and we just keep learning more and doing better. That alone should qualify me to walk into any grocery store with my head held high. I may have stopped at McDonald’s for lunch on my way to Whole Foods but dadgumit, I ate peaches and millet for breakfast.