SO I FINALLY HAD A BAD DAY

            By the end of Monday my throat has seized up in that “oh my god it hurts to swallow” sort of way. I never get sick. I also never get sick from food but I proved that wrong last week. By the time I left the field, yep, I was back in the field for the day, I was totally exhausted and my throat was not having the cool air anymore. No worries, I’ll drink some OJ, eat a little soup at dinner, have a good meal and go to sleep early for a change. Guess what? I did all the above, including the sleep, and I woke up really well and ready for the day but then as I made the trek down the hill I began to feel it. That achy feeling that is not the “I hit the gym to hard yesterday” achy but that “shit” achy. I try my best to suppress it but by lunch I’m totally beat and since we are getting ready for a big wine fair at the estate we are cleaning anything and everything and we are using cleaning agents and the vapors slice my throat into tender ribbons before I move on to polishing the copper stills. The copper dust is the last straw but I continue mostly because I don’t know how to say, “calling it a day, I’m shit out of it so that means you are too.”

            At the end of the day the mother drops by and gives me three small stalks of what looks like “A Peanut’s Christmas” tree and tells me to make a tea out of it, add a lemon, and a spoonful of honey. I have no idea what it is but I’m sick enough I don’t care and I immediately set the tea into motion. What I found surprising is just how this tiny kitchen already had everything I needed. Something to boil water, check, large glass coffee pot to seep said Christmas tree, check, a large strainer that easily accomadated a coffee filter to catch all the debris, check, one sick ass American ready for relief, double check. It actually tastes quite nice and is rather soothing. I just hope the tiny Christmas trees aren’t a psycho trope and end up in the yard wearing my winter jacket as a diaper screaming in Spanish…since that’s the language I most frequently revert to in times of stress.