Winter blast blasts

So! We have survived the great Windstorm '06 here on my block of Ballard. Despite the fact that I have a gigantic evergreen on both the northwest and the southeast corner of my lot, I was not crushed to bits in my bed last night, perhaps because I lay awake keeping the two trees firmly rooted by sheer force of will. The power to the NerdCo campus in its entirety was out, and so I have spent the day in slippers, congratulating myself on my good fortune and wondering why so many service and delivery trucks were driving up my street in reverse.

Whoa! Turns out the south end of the block wasn't as lucky, and another huge honking pine tilted out of someone's front yard and covered the entire road, sidewalk to sidewalk. New tenants, in that house--they've been there maybe a week. I trotted down to check, and aside from pulling down the power lines, nobody had so much as a scratch; the tree just rolled over and settled gently between parked cars, away from the house. So of course we all had to stand around in the street with coffee mugs and camera phones, marveling at this grand, playing-hooky development as well, giddy with our own safety.

I didn't have a restful night, however, between storm terror and the wretched cold/flu I've battled all week. For some reason this one started as a sore throat and has migrated upwards; my sinuses were so swollen last night that I could feel the pressure shift in my gums as I rolled to one side or the other. I am wearing my contacts instead of glasses right now because the bridge of my specs actually hurts my face. I tried to blow my nose this morning and figured it shouldn't hurt in the back of my head, to do that.

So. I finally hauled myself to the hippie co-op and bought myself a neti pot; it was that or a gun. I've resisted this for a while, mostly due to the "ew" factor. A little Interweb research suggests that the average user is way too happy about using his or her neti pot:



The lady pictured on my neti pot package and accompanying materials is positively grinning, something I found too challenging as I hung my head over the sink wearing a towel bib and pouring salt water into each nostril in turn.

But it worked, sort of. It felt a bit like doing an overzealous cannonball into the pool, as a kid--that faint tingling burn--but my nose was actually clear. For about 15 minutes. Sigh.

Oh well. Between this and regular gulps of Safeway-brand CoolBURST nighttime minty blue cold liquid not found in nature, I should be right as rain in a couple more days. Plus, my new nostril kettle informs me it is dishwasher-safe. Good to know.