k-brow: seasonally affected

As usual, around this time of year, my own seasonal affective disorder and the chaos of being with children all day, as we approach the bratty Christmas season combine to create a severe case of the "Fuckits." Term coined by my sister, who knows the names of all the worst maladies that afflict our family. Today, Oahu got hit with the mother of all rainstorms. We were treated to a few claps of thunder, but also high winds and annoying power outages. What we were NOT treated to, were school closures. So I had to drive the 8 miles into Kailua, on the Pali Highway, which was a brown river in places, only to arrive at school, and have the lights be off. Our windows had to be open because otherwise it's pitch black, and we endured hours n' hours of howling wind, blowing rain and fairly dark conditions. Let me tell you, the novelty wore off, very quickly. The rain wore off around 2pm, just as school let out, and was back on again by 4:30. I beat it home right after the kids left, being in no mood to concern myself with teacherly things for one more minute. Fuckit.

I am riding out the seasonal affected time of year reasonably well, this year, though my fuse is definitely shorter. Sleep, St. John's Wort, supplements and tonics are keeping me alive until winter break, starting next Friday. The shorter days of light are grinding me down, but once off work, I can at least spend more time outside, and hopefully we'll get some decent sunshine and beach time over that break. Something that's been working well, was my decision to go off coffee; an annual experiment that begins when it starts tasting nasty to me, and ends when I decide I need it again. It's been 3 weeks now, and I'm doing more or less okay with green tea in the mornings. I haven't been pure (I'm not about pure) as I've had the occasional Starbuck's offering, but have been impressed at how much I've enjoyed those infrequent treats, now that I'm off the morning Joe.

Meanwhile, here's my "recipe" for warding off a cold. You have to take it at the first sign that something may be coming on:

I grate a 2 inch piece of ginger, crush 2 cloves of garlic, juice a lemon (but I used a lime this time because it's what I had) 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper. Infuse in about 2 cups of boiling water, and add honey. Sounds nasty, but it hits the spot if you're feeling sniffly or scratchy.

All the leaves and blossoms are gone from our plumeria tree. Sad, because I love the fragrance of the waxy white blossoms, but the barebonesbranches do create a striking image against the sky. Like black coral. In this land of almost-constant green, the sudden deciduousness of a tree is strangely disturbing. On one level, I find myself longing for dormant brown and grey woods where the only green is the occasional splash of holly or pine. Here it's the opposite, with only the plumeria providing the winter starkness.


Poor Cricket is seasonally affected, as well, as he is suffering an ear infection, which requires flushing of the ear on a frequent basis with a warmed solution. He doesn't mind it too much, but the flush contains gentian violet, and it stains like crazy, so we have to do it outside, so he can shake his head afterwards and fling the purple droplets everywhere.


Only another week (punctuated by parties and festivities which I am only marginally excited about) until I get 3 weeks off. My sis is coming to visit, and hanging out with her always cheers me.