I woke up a little bit on the early side this morning, and enjoyed some time just lazing in bed that I don't normally get on a weekday morning. Once I got out of bed, I went about my morning routine, and as I was getting out of the shower I thought I heard a knocking sound, but I dismissed it as coming from the dryer. Then a few minutes later, another sound caught my ear.

"DING-dong!"

Who is ringing our doorbell at 8 in the morning? I figured it was for my roommate and ignored it until

"DING-dong! DING-dong DING-dong DING-dong!!"

The hell? Having just gotten out of the shower, I wasn't dealing with it. I was certain it wasn't for me, because I have a cell phone and my friends would call it if they were at my door and needed me. They also know that no one upstairs can ever hear the door.

"Hey! HEY!!!!"

Okay, seriously. The. HELL?? I threw on the nearest things to hand and went into my bathroom. If there was some psycho screaming at the front door, I sure as hell wasn't going to go down and open it. But my bathroom window is right over the front door, so I opened that instead. As I pulled open the venetian blinds, I saw a guy at the end of the front walk, just on the other side of the horsetail plant at the edge of the yard.

"Can I *HELP* you?" I asked, with not so contained annoyance.
"Yeah, I'm looking for C. He's got my truck and he didn't show up for work this morning."

I noticed at that point that the guy's sweatshirt had the same logo on it that C.'s work shirts do.

"Umm. I'll go see if he's here, hang on." I shut the window and went down the hall to C.'s room.

Knock-knock-knock-knock. "C.?" Knock-knock-knock. Knock-knock-KNOCK. "C.!"

C. answers his door, bleary eyed and partially wrapped in his sheet, still about 75% asleep.

"Your boss is downstairs."
"Oh, uh, right. Uh, okay, I'll be right down."

I did a little dance in front of C.'s door. Do I go back to my room? Do I go downstairs and talk to his boss? After about a minute I opted to go downstairs and talk to his boss. As I open the door I realize what I have thrown on: red flannel pants printed with Emperor penguins, and a brown and pink (Josh Groban) hoodie that says "AWAKE" across the front.

"Hi, uh, C. will be down in a minute."
"Okay, thanks."
"Uh..." I have no idea what the protocol is here. "Did you want to come in?"
"No, thanks, I'll just wait out here."
"Okay."

I shut the door but didn't lock it, and went upstairs to finish getting ready for work. Right as I got back to my room I heard C. stumble out of his room and down the stairs.

I changed into work clothes and finished getting ready; shutting down my laptop, dropping my cell phone and camera into my purse. I slid my purse up onto my shoulder as I slipped my feet into my shoes and then headed out, habit making me check over my shoulder to make sure my cat hadn't managed to sneak out into the hall before I could close the door behind me.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs I noted that the front door was still unlocked. C. was in the shower and his boss was nowhere to be seen, so I locked it and headed to the back door, which is the door off the driveway and the one we use to enter/exit the house 95% of the time.

As I slid my key into the door to lock it behind me I could hear the water running upstairs, and I wondered what his boss must have thought of us. Two people in a huge house, both in pajamas at 8 a.m. on a weekday, seemingly oblivious to the person pounding on our door. Not that I really care what his boss thinks of me, but I have to think that the difference in my two appearances in doorways, separated by only ten to twelve minutes, was striking and that he had definitely not seen me in anything even resembling a presentable state.

The first had me not only in baggy pajamas, but pajamas that clashed- red and brown and pink and black- barefoot and dripping from the shower, green eyes flashing with annoyance. The second, not 15 minutes later, had me stepping out a different door, professionally dressed in khaki and light blue, hair still wet but styled, purse slung over my shoulder and shoes clicking on the pavement, looking forward to sharing my amusing morning with my friends.

I'm a magnet for The Crazy.

I'm all about modern medicine, give me a magic pill that will take away my headache, my depression or my ear infection, and I'll take it. From the ages of 14-20 I wanted to be an X-Ray tech. The medical field fascinates me. Mixing chemicals and making cures for stuff is just so cool.

My friend Heather, on the other hand, is all about natural remedies for things, and is quick to tell me all the harmful things medicine is doing to me while it does the good thing I want it to do. Don't get me wrong, she'll take medicine if she needs to, but she'd rather use a natural remedy. She gave me an herbalist cookbook recently that I need to find time to read.

I think the thing I have heard her talk about most is honey. The medicinal and restorative properties of raw honey. Scraped knee? Put honey on it. Infected hamster bite? Put honey on it. Digestive issues? Eat some honey. I will admit I was skeptical. But Heather is not one to lie just to be right or prove a point.

Last week I started developing a stye- a bacterial infection in the edge of the eyelid. They're really irritating, and they hurt if they get bad. I've gotten them before, but it's been several years. I remembered something an old boss told me. If you rub a gold ring on a stye, it takes the pain away and it heals faster. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking I'm crazy. I was skeptical too. But this old boss actually gave me her wedding ring (and let me tell you, that thing was expensive and had some DIA. MONDS. in it), told me to hold it in my hand to get it warmed to body temperature, and rub it on my eye. She then let me keep it in my office for two days (she took it back at night) so I could rub it on my eye whenever it hurt. And it worked. No one was more surprised than I was.

Not having access to a gold ring anymore, I called Heather to see if honey would help it. She said that honey is a natural antibacterial that is good for infections, so I should try it. Thankfully the stye didn't fully develop, so I didn't need to go home and stick honey on my eye.

Fast forward to yesterday. I got a nasty sunburn over the weekend, and everyone knows that aloe is good for sunburn. I've got at least two bottles of it floating around my bedroom/bathroom, and so I slathered it on over the weekend. I find that it dries my skin out, but I needed the soothing that aloe brings. The burn is particularly bad on my nose, forehead, and a small patch on my shoulder blade where I apparently missed with the sunblock, as the rest of my back is not burned. (My nose and forehead are redder than in the pic, as they started peeling already)

I looked up raw honey on the internets, and found that yes, honey is good for burns, and raw skin. Check, and check. Have both of those. So I went out, bought a jar of raw honey, and slathered it all over my face during Dancing with the Stars. It was quite sticky, but felt pretty good. It soothed the rawness. After I showered and rinsed it all off my face before bed, I contemplated the bottle of aloe gel on the counter, thinking I could rub that in for some added soothing overnight. So I dabbed some onto my forehead.

Almost immediately it started burning, and white hot pain shot behind my eyes. Surely this was not right, aloe is supposed to cool. But the pain just kept getting more intense, to the point where I was actually ow, Ow. OW!-ing out loud. I raced back into the shower and rinsed it away. WTF? So yeah. Aloe Vera is good for sunburns. Aloe Vera gel... I looked at the ingredients and saw the top three were Water, Aloe juice, and ALCOHOL. Bad, BAD I say!

I immediately pitched both bottles in the trash. No wonder it had soothed but felt drying. It fucking has ALCOHOL in it. I'd like to say I put more honey on it, but I wanted to go to bed, and honey is not so conducive to that, so, me and my love of chemical medicine slapped some neosporin all over it and called it a night.

It's still raw and angry looking, and has the power to stop people in their tracks, but it's less red than it was yesterday. It's less dry. I put some honey on my nose on the way to work this morning, and washed it off when I got here. But the most amazing part? It doesn't hurt. At all.

I called my mom around 1pm. I got the answering machine, and left a message to give me a call back, but didn't leave what I wanted. She called me back, and although I remember calling her, I have absolutely no idea what I wanted.

**UPDATED** I called her about Mother's Day plans. I wanted to see if she wanted to go see The Music Man at Hillbarn on Mother's Day. I went ahead and reserved tickets, since I get comps and can change them later if I need to.

This time the questions are from Brad.

1. What is your favorite picture you have taken so far for your 365 project on Flickr?
Day 26. I just really like the way it turned out.

2. What is your favorite blog web site (the individual, not bloglines)?
Tequila Mockingbird. She hasn't been writing for about a year, but it looks like she might be starting up again. If I have to pick someone active... This Fish or Mimi Smartypants

3. If you could transplant yourself in another time and live out the remainder of your days, would you, and what time would you travel to?
Sometimes I like to think that I would want to live in medieval Europe, maybe Florence or Tuscany in the 12th century. I'd love to live in England during that same time and watch the great cathedrals being built... but I think if I were actually presented with a real and true option to go do it, I wouldn't. I like my climate controlled environment and my daily showers a little too much.

4. Where do you see the future of religion going? Considering the significant changes in the last 100 years, where will Catholocism, Islam be in 100 more years, or 200?
This is the question I've struggled with the most. It may be a question of semantics, but after a lot of thought I have to say that I don't consider myself to be a religious person, I consider myself to be a person that follows a particular line of faith. I don't pay a lot of attention to what "religion" says- I think it throws a lot of unnecessary complications into what should be a much simpler thing- so I'm not sure I can speak to what it will or won't do. But I think that as our world continues to evolve and change, major religion is going to have to change with it, or lose membership. I've noticed that Unitarian churches are on the rise, at least around here. I think that trend is very likely to continue. What I also think is likely is that blind adherence to religious structure will continue to decline. "Because it is how I was raised" or "Because it's what I was taught was right" is no longer a reason to follow something beyond the point where we can think for ourselves, and I think it will continue to happen more and more that people will come to their own conclusions about what they do and do not believe.

5. If you could eat one final meal, what would it entail from beginning to end?
Hot, fresh baked sourdough bread.
Spring green salad with string beans, cucumber, black olive, crab, bacon, and cheese, with homemade ranch dressing.
Prime rib (cooked by my brother in law) and grilled salmon (pacific wild only) with lemon and dill, with cheesy garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed brussel sprouts.
Chocolate Mousse with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.