Sweet Ginger Brown

I've been out of commission for a while - was laid out for almost two weeks with a nasty cold/virus/lung thing that refused to go away. I'm not one of those types who suffers silently - I'm all about modern medications - so at the first sign of something going wrong I'm perusing the local Cold/Flu aisle at Safeway, Long's, and Walgreens.

I realize that I should have been a good boy and father figure and gone to my doctor's right away, but I rationalized that by the time I got an appointment, got the antibiotics and took them long enough to take effect, the virus would have run its course anyway, right?

Apparently, since I'm still coughing, I was wrong. But now I'm so far into it that the idea of going to the doctor's really seems unjustified.

So anyway, I have these coughing fits that leave me a wreck, and I've been trying everything to soothe the savage lung, but nothing was working: lozenges, Dayquil, special teas. Nothing was working. However I remembered that a couple of years ago a friend told me his mom used to give him a steeped ginger and honey infusion that would alleviate his coughing for a long time.

So at first I tried to find some ginger tea, but saw nothing, and finally grabbed some ginger roots and went home, cut some up, and through it into a cup with a tad bit of honey and lots of hot water and let it sit for about five minutes (covered). The results were ... amazing. I could feel my lungs and throat relax almost immediately, and even my sinuses started opening up. So there you go, the cure for the common cold. I have to figure out how to prep this so that my kids will drink it come cold season - perhaps I need a bit more honey, or maybe I'll use a spoonfull of sugar. Hey, it worked for Mary Poppins, right?