To Ease a Cold

The parents of my first Saturday student are both doctors.  Medical doctors.  The dad was in this morning, and noticed (a bit hard not to, really) that I have a cold.  The following advice came, then, from a doctor.  I found it rather odd, which was why I have repeated that fact.

"You have Coke?" he asked.  With my ears a bit funny, I thought I must have misheard.  I had not.  "You get a can of Coke", he said, "you warm it up and put in some garlic.  Makes you feel better".  "As in - real Coke?  The fizzy brown soft drink?" - I still didn't believe him.  "Yep.  You heat it so it not fizzy.  The garlic, it good for antibacterial.  The caffeine, it perk you up.  Trust me, if you go chemist in place like India, China, this what they give you".  Um... I asked if it was just for warm caffeine, would a coffee do - he grudgingly gave it the okay but really seemed to favour the soft drink option. 

I couldn't bring myself to buy any soft drink, on doctor's orders or not.  I bought some antihistamine (which doesn't seem to have had any effect), and did the garlic-caffeine thing in the afternoon, with a tiny bit of honey as well.  The first whiff made me not want to drink it.  Appetising.  I tried to ignore the 'aroma' and downed the first mouthful, and it was not as bad as feared.  The honey was the saving grace, really.  By the last few mouthfuls I was so relieved.  I'm not sure it really did what it was supposed to do (maybe he was right, and fizzy brown soft drink really is the way to go) but I didn't die either.  And I did have enough energy to get through the day with only a little nap.  Alternating blocked and runny, sneezy nose, at the tail end of a mariachi gig, resulted in very little sleep last night. 

So, I've tried this.  The childhood remedy was a lemon-ginger-garlic-hot water horror, which always made me rethink if I was really sick.  I might give both options a go tomorrow.

The Consolation of Art

For the whole holidays, I've been feeling like I almost have a cold.  Today, it hit.  Which was especially mean, as I was looking forward to some auntie time.  With my ears producing dizziness, blocked-up feelings and pain, I wasn't going to be doing any musical activities.  I thought about doing some paper craft things, but I've been feeling like painting for a little while - especially since watching Frida.  Now, there's a massive square canvas that has been sitting behind the keyboard for some time, and a few students have asked when I will finally paint it, and some friends have commented impatiently also.  But there are 3 canvases I've had for even longer that I thought should be dealt with first.  I had a fiddle around with dimensions and ideas, and then I started painting. 

In the process of inspiration, I turned to the creative site, Redbubble.  I joined it by accident last year and, after spending many hours trawling beautiful images, I now only stop by occasionally.  After looking at a few beautiful images today, I decided to add 3 new photos to my portfolio.  Anyway, I found an artist with paintings that made me want to create something similar, and I started painting.  Of course, as soon as the paint started moving on the canvas, my ideas of what should take shape changed immediately.  Partly, I think, because one of the images I uploaded was from Mt Isa, and the blue seemed to be the same sky blue. 

This painting will replace another largely-blue work, at the top of the stairs.  I think.  At present, that area looks like this:

One of the challenges of this canvas is the dimensions: 15x60 inches.  Most of the ideas I've had look screwy in this dimension, and this is the first time I've attempted this. 

Another challenge today was the paint supply.  Once I knew this was an outback Australian sky I was painting, I wanted to do the ochre of the landscape.  Problem: no large supply of yellow paint, and only small shots of yellow ochre.  Solution:  use up the last of the true red, mixed with green.  Weird, but I'm more pleased with the result than I expected.

So far, it looks like this:

I know it needs a little something, and at this stage I often freeze, not wanting to stuff it up.  I foresee a trip to the paint store so I have plenty of supplies with which to paint over mistakes (or, experiments that don't cut it).  My idea for the middle is looking less and less likely...

Today's photo:

Similar to yesterday's... but this time with sunlight.  We had a few hours of not-totally-overcast in the middle of the day, and the light caught the raindrops like crystals.