I've got Cold

Fact Sheet from the Public Health Agency of
Canada.

I mean the sickness, just in case that wasn't clear. I tend to say always that I've the flu, like flu and cold are interchangeable terms, but as I was looking for a picture for this post, I found this useful fact sheet from the Public Health Agency of Canada, and thought about sharing it. Click on the link in the description and you can read the whole information.

I've been thinking about some topics for a post, and I even have an idea recorded on my phone - you know, one of those great ideas that come to you when you can't really stop to write stuff down, like when you are driving or in a yoga class - but then the cold striked and I don't feel like doing anything save curl up under the covers with a book, a hot beverage and my PJs.

I'm even skipping my Lesenklub meeting today, because - though I love going and I have a lot of things to say about the part we've just read - I know it's better for me to pack up my carcass, go home and make sure I remain well protected while the worse of the sickness passes.

Now, the thing is that some of my friends and colleagues have also been coming down with the cold, and each fights it their own way. Ok, some just relay on hopes and wishes because they carry on, spreading the disease like gospel. I'll share here with you my proven recipe to get the worse over as fast as possible.

Tips To Fight Cold

1. Get in bed and stay in bed, covered up to your chin for 24 hours, if possible, or as long as you can, but please make it several hours. I figured that this keeps your body warm, and helps your organism fight better the sickness. (Or so I've been told, and it seems to work).

2. Drink a lot of orange juice. Also try to consume vitamin C from as many natural sources as you can. If all fails, a Vitamin C tablet or one of those effervescent vitamin C tablets also help, BUT make sure to read the instructions.

3. If you take medication, TAKE IT ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTIONS. If it says "every eight hours", then take it every eight hours. Don't try to be "smart" about it.

4. Drink plenty of water, lemonade and the such. Your body needs the liquid to flush out, and again, if it comes with vitaming C, even better.

5. Drink hot beverages. Specially herbal tea if you can lay your hands on some.

6. If you can, have a spoonful of ginger syrup three times a day, or at least once a day. Ginger syrup is sharp, so it can be counterindicated for people with pancreas or liver issues.

If you don't know where to get ginger syrup (usually in Whole Foods or macrobiotic stores), or you don't trust industrially produced syrups, or there is none, or it's so expensive you would rather wait the cold out, here is an easy recipe for it.

Ginger Syrup

Picture from Mommypothamus. Check out their recipe too!

Ingredients:

a bit of fresh ginger root

honey

Procedure:

Slice the ginger root into small circles, or really, any shape you want. Circles are better because it you don't use the whole piece you can save the rest and keep it from drying out too much. Slice enough to cover up the bottom of a recipient.

Normally I do this on a medium pie pan to fit more, but you can do it in a jar and do a layer or two of slices.

Once the layer of ginger has been layed down, pour honey on it to cover it. If you make a single layer, covering it up with just until all the slices are under honey or maximum 1 cm more, is enough. If you have more layers try and make double de amount with honey.

Leave it covered the whole night.

In the morning you can take out the slices and take a spoonful of the syrup.

BE WARNED! The syrup will be much more liquid than the honey is and freaking spicy. If you choose to leave the slices of ginger in the honey, make sure to pour more honey as you take out of it. And before you ask me, yes, it is ok to add more honey if the syrup is so strong it threatens to exorcise your soul out of your body.

Again with the "Intelligence"

I know I've already written about this topic, but really, I have to get this out of my chest, so here we go.

It's impossible not to notice how often scammers, corrupts and thiefts are described as "intelligent" or even "very intelligent". Maybe I'm too analytical (no, there is not such thing), but each time I hear a scammer or a corrupt person described in those terms, I try to understand what is it that they call "brilliant" or "intelligent" about their actions. And time and time again, I come to realize that there is nothing in their actions that would reveal any sort of intelligence. That doesn't mean that they are stupid people, but their crime - for which they are called "intelligent" has no trace of intelligence in its conceiving or implementing. What I do have found in the cases I have been able to analize - and as far as news clips and other bits of information I have been able to obtain in certain cases - show that the key for their criminal enterprise resides in their willingness to go against moral and ethical standards. In other words, in order to commit a crime, they have to have a loose moral code that allows them to take advantage of the social courtesies that bind us all in a cordial, peaceful society.

Just notice how the "intelligent" criminals are usually people of a higher standing in life, and their crimes usually occur on these higher spheres. Many of them are also considered to be "successful" people. There migt be also a level of "money protects money" kind of thing going on, but the point I want to focus here is how the people who choose to commit crimes of corruption or scamming, usually put themselves in higher positions, commaning the trust of others, and then their deference.

These steps are important: first they earn trust and then proceed with their crime. 

People tend to approach others with trust. Trust is granted, invested and so losing it is not an easy matter. Taking advantage of this, the so called "intelligent" criminals start abusing of the trust deposited in themselves, and then abusing the system, bending and breaking the laws, holding in the shrads of remaining trust, and then the cordiality and the manners imposed on their victims, who expect the criminal to start behaving properly and some point.

There are no laws that demand you to be truthful (unless you are testifying before court), nor to behave in a morally impeccable manner. Laws actually don't condemn you for conducting yourself in an unethical way, or for taking advantage of the trust deposited in you. So much of the law is up to interpretation, that if you make sure to put your people in the right places, you can even ensure that either cases against you will be halted or interpreted to your benefit. However, the main point is that these criminals are willing not to be ethical, and so the considerations that would stop others do not stop them. For that, all you need is to be an unethical person, someone lacking of integrity. No need of intelligence for that.

On this line, I find them actually lacking of intelligence, as their actions are highly risky and short termed. You can scamm a group of people, and though you get to rip them off, it will be difficult to scamm them a second time. Yes, it can happen, but the criminal enterprise will be less succcessful. Eventually, the criminals will run out of people to scamm, and also would have burned out their reputation, so will hardly find ways to make ends meet - unless they latch onto someone or some organization willing to take them in. For a profit.

However, why are people prone to think them "intelligent"? Because people who are victims of their shenanigans don't want to feel stupid.

Being scammed, defrauded, being victimized by corruption bears a stain similar to that of being raped: the victim is re-victimized because they are made feel stupid for having fallen into the scheme. People thus protect themselves, by choosing to believe their abusers, their scammers are very intelligent people, and so they had no way to defend against them. As humans, we want to still believe. We want to trust.

It's hard, because all of us can fall victims of scammers, and we feel angry and ashamed, specially when we are also surrounded by people who praise them and want to follow their steps.

So, what can we do? Well, first of all observe, learn, reseach, get more than one opinion on different matters. Trust, as long as what is asked from you do not compromise you, your resources or your loved ones. Don't fear to ask questions, and mistrust anyone who treats your questions as signs of stupidity. Remember that lack of intelligence isn't revealed in the questions asked, but the answers given.

Then, denounce, and don't be afraid to stand up strong. As Shallon Lester says so often: What we permit, we promote. Make that effort, for you and your neighborhood: Stand up against abuse, corruption and crime. It's in your hands.

The Art of Recording Your Experience

Source: Book of Shadows, Charmed Wiki.

In recent days I've been going back more and more to my Book of Shadows, striking out things that are no longer part of my believes, and also adding anotations from the practice I am doing. Nothing fancy, just usual comfy-witch-doing-stuff kind of things.

The funny thing about my Book of Shadows, is that I see it as a dynamic, changing thing. I started keeping one ages ago, first in a spiral bound book and then moved to a large hard bound book a friend gave me. This had some lettering, some structure and some uncertainty. In it I sought to embrace the witch in me without going against my believes of the time, which was difficult, because the consensus of my believe frame went against my nature and my very own believes.

Slowly I grew, and learned to shed the frames imposed by third parties and reach out in a direct connection to my believes and the world around me, and so some things in my Book of Shadows became obsolete, so I have started striking out what no longer works for me. I'm also taking up again some studying I wanted to do during my Year-and-a-Day period, but yeah, that didn't quite happened. That is also recorded in there.

I've a new book - leather bound, handmade pages, and much smaller than my current one - and I've been thinking about moving into it, with the anotations better organized and curated to my current system of believes. Now, my Book of Shadows is personal, not a public record nor a book for public consultation. It can hold all my tries and errors, and nothing happens. However, as I was revising yesterday, I was thinking how different it is from my journals, which I don't go back to correct. I do have similar feelings for both of them, both are personal books, but while one adapts to my current needs, the other remains fixed.

This got me thinking about some things we do. Sometimes we are tempted to go over our past and past decisions and fix them. We want to go back and erase them, or tell them differently, in the light of what we have learned later on. We don't want to admit that we had a crush on that person that turned out to be so embarrassing, and we don't want to admit that we didn't do something or didn't get to be picked for something we really wanted. I've met people who had lied about the score they've got to enter a beloved university, claiming they didn't get into this or that career because "back then they decided against it". The truth? Back then their results came below the required score. -- Yes, I had back then the means to check on their allegations.

The point is not that people lie - people always lie and it's not always a bad thing - but the issue here is the revisionst attitude to one's own past. Why do we feel the need to do so? Because, at the same time, most people are perfectly fine rewriting their past, but do nothing to fix their future and improve those perceived flaws. We want to change what we can't change (our past), but ignore what we actually can change (our attitudes and actions in the present).

If it bothers you that you couldn't enter to your beloved career, instead of lying about why it didn't happen, why don't you try to enter now? It's never too late to study. Or was it that you let go the love of your life? Hey, unless they are dead, you can still pick up the phone and drop them a message. And if they are dead - I know, that's my case - you can always dedicate them some time to write or paint ot think about them.

Honor your past, learn from it. You don't need to share if it makes you feel uncomfortable, but embrace it, observe it, draw out lessons and apply them to your present. See it this way: if you want to change something you did in the past, or that happened to you, what could you do now to correct its effects?

I keep a journal for my past, to remember the things I did, I said, I thought and those I witnessed. I keep a Book of Shadows for my spiritual practice. My personal past and my personal present. Life is also separated in two books for all of us (or more). Use them wisely.

Thoughts About The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Property of Stormberry

Maybe it was the hype created around this book, but I didn't really love it. I didn't got it right after it was released - I hardly ever do - but ever since it showed up in my recommended reads, I wanted to get my pawns on it and consume its words. It was only after the next instalment by the talented Ms Jenkins Reid hit the virtual shelves of Amazon.com, that I finally decided to get myself a copy - and I wanted it in physical format, not in Kindle - and went through quite an ordeal to own a much coveted copy.

When the book was finally in my hands, I was... not impressed. Thankfully it had decently cut pages - I hate decked edges - but the covers of the book one to two milimeters shorter than the pages. On both front and cover. Was it on purpose? Because I was not pleased. But oh well, what matters is the content, the words, not the look of the book... though I paid shipping and handling for this, so if I would have known, I would have gone with Kindle, mind you.

It took me a couple of months to get to sit down and read the book, even though I really wanted to read it. I really did. It was on my nightstand (along with a pile of other ten books), which made them my "this is what I really want to read next" pile. I somehow end up reading other things, but I don't lose hope. I'll get there... eventually, Anyway, the thing is that I lifted a book from the pile - finally! - and read it. And that book was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

WHAT FOLLOWS INCLUDES SPOILERS, SO STOP HERE OR BE WARNED.

I started head over heels with it, adoring both Monique and Frankie, and expecting to meet Evelyn and love her too. However, little after I did, I disliked her. Reading, I frowned because it never bodes well when you start by hating the main character. From the begining, the way Frankie's and Monique's style was portrayed in a way that made you want to look like that. They showed no-nonsense type of female characters, one bold and strong, the other gathered but self secure.

Things started crumbling down for me the moment Evelyn makes a request from Monique in a forceful way, that demands the later to give up her integrity. And Monique gives under pressure. From then on, Evelyn tells Monique a story of human canibalism, where the only way to get ahead is by abusing others, by going around the law, compromising, selling out, calculating and using others.

There are ways to set this into a narrative, explain it away as "this is the way show biz works", and "yes, this was how it went before the #metoo movement and it worked", but it doesn't make it right, which is why I found it disturbing. Maybe you are a smart, aware reader and you notice that the book portrays a world with no respect, where kindness is to be exploited and being "smart" equals having no qualms to use and abuse of others. Other readers might find it difficult to distinguish - among so many real life examples of success based on cheating, manipulating, fraud and scandals - which only gets worse when Monique claims to find the strenght and courage to improve her life and her chances by being aggressive. She says she's inspired by Evelyn Hugo and her canibal approach to life, and her attitude of "if you want something, you have to take it". The scenes where she conjures the Evelun Hugo in herself might seem inspiring and full of female power for some readers, but for me, those were excuses to check human decency at the door.

Let's be clear here: one thing is to stand your ground, and another is to start running over people. Respect and courtesy are not a sign of weakness. Rudeness is.

The part that I found more troubling was the relationship with Celia. I was never sold on the idea of their love story. Throughout the whole book Celia seemed to me petty and manipulating, just as selfish as Evelyn was, with the one difference that Evelyn was self centered but did not expect Celia to bend to her expectations, while Celia was upset and made huge dramas and fights because Evelyn wasn't doing and acting and behaving and thinking and living exactly as she wanted her to.

Their so-called love sells the idea that love is blind and exclusive devotion, that every part of a person's life - including their hopes and dreams, their goals and ambitions - must be nullified and put all in exclusive service of pleasing the person one loves. The loved person is the number one priority, even above oneself. Anything less that that is a fraud and can't be called love.

This is toxic. This is poison. This is a lie and is anything but love. Love is not devotion, love is having strong, positive feelings about the other person. Love is not exclusivity, love is being happy for the other person, but also being happy for oneself. Love is not exclusive. Love is not all consuming. Those are the sings of an obssession or an unhealthy attitude. Love is not sacrifice. Relationships aren't either about sacrifice, they are about compromise, which isn't even remotely close to sacrifice. And Love and Relationship aren't related either, in case you wonder.

However, from the moment Celia enters the scene, it's all down the gutter. Evelyn insists until she is blue in the face, that Celia is the Big It, The Big Kahuna, the Mother of the Wen and the One and Only. Yet there are constant bits and pieces that show us that Celia isn't that much different from Don Adler. Beating with words isn't much better than beating with fists, just because it doesn't leave visible bruises. The only thing to say that theirs is a big, true love, is Evelyn insisting on it, but you get no real chance to see it. Pushing someone into a guilty trip isn't a sign of love. And no, I don't buy that bullshit of "oh, she hurts me because she's so hurt because she loves me".

Love is not an excuse to stand and take abuse, no matter then shape, form or intensity it takes.

Through the book I saw no glamour or old Hollywood lifestyle, only people with money manipulating their entourage. I really wanted to see that, read that, but to be honest, I liked better the snipets about Monique's life than the episodes into Evelyn's life.

The end of the book was quite infuriating, with the letter and all. As you remember how Evelyn acted in the begining, with her pushing of Monique to put at risk her good name and livelihood, you can't possibly believe anything she says. Oh, and the end? It was transparent as glass. The letter was a twist, but the end of it was being suggested in one way or the other over and over.

The writing style is good, the pictures it draws of Monique and Frankie so precious, that it managed to save three starts from the bin I would have chucked the whole book into.