Possum Oil! It'll fix you right up!

Asian redneck say wha?!

With apologies to Miley Cyrus and her writers at the Disney Channel, "[insert descriptor] say wha?!" is now my phavorite phrase. Pher realz. Ok, enough with the alliteration or consonance or assonance - first person to call me an ass gets a possum thrown at their head - or whatever.

Possum Oil. That's what the hubs calls the Po Sum On Medicated Oil.

Which strikes me as funny. You'd have to know him to really get this. Let's just say that when we got married, I donated all his "Garth Brooks" shirts to Goodwill.

Now before anyone gets the wrong impression, I don't think I've ever really introduced the hubs. He's from Indonesia. Not India like the seven-gajillion telemarketers selling calling cards to "India, Pakistan and Bangladesh" would like to think. Now *I* am indirectly of Indian descent (bio dad was part Indian) but hubs? Not likely. Second of all, just because his name is sanskrit means bupkis. Bahasa Indonesia is a derivative of Malayan and is comprised of Portuguese, Dutch and Sanskrit words in addition to Malayan.

Sepatu? Got 'em on my feet.
Meja? That's where the plates go.
Guru? That's the teacher.
Pandeta? That's the prophet/apostle/mystic.
Geritji? That's the mother-in-law. Along with siblings Maritji, Julius and more.

So for the love of mercy telemarketers, don't ASSume that because some dude is named Surya that he's desi. Freddy Mercury the hubs is not. But he can play a mean classical guitar.

So back to the topic at hand. While I've been crouping away and generally feeling nastay, the hubs has been the most supportive dude in the world. He hasn't even made one joke about how I look like death warmed over. Anyhow, one thing I've found that really makes me feel better is to have this process done known as "kerik" (that's my spelling) because that's what the implement is called. Wikipedia has an article on it that is semi-complete. I feel the article lacks *something* that I can't put my finger on.

Anyways, instead of the raw ginger that hubs's Popo uses, we have this little tool (pardon the crapola picture taken with my laptop webcam):


I'll tell you this... If you aren't sick, this procedure won't do squat. In fact, it could make you worse. Or so says the hubs. Also, it's supposed to expell the "wind" or "air" and restore everything to it's natural state of balance. The first time he told me that... Well, I thought pigs were going to start flying. But after seeing my previous post... Well... It DOES work. And it hurts like a MOFO. The key here is to barely scrape the skin. You aren't going for torture, just deep massage. I'm just glad our nearest neighbors are 60 feet away in any direction. Otherwise the sounds emanating from our house would probably scare the daylights out of them. Now let me say this... If you are sick, it's GOING TO HURT. Even if you're only being lightly touched. But once it's over... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH How do you spell relief? "Wacky Indonesian by way of China method of flaying the skin off one's back after having rubbed in some medicated oil that burns you alive".

Which leads us back to Po Sum On [bonus points for you if you were singing that to the tune of "Do A Deer" from "Sound of Music"]

I have an extremely high tolerance for most medicated liniments/oils/cremes/etc. My husband's dresser is a veritable Asian pharmacy of varying Chinese/Japanese/Indonesian creams/rubs/balms/liniments/etc. They mingle with the Dolce & Gabbana for Men, the Target brand of Purell Hand Sanitizer (cuz I'm germy) and Aveeno lotions. Of all the medicated stuff we've got, only Po Sum On even registers on my heat index. We have a game to see which one will be "hot". So far, none of them get hot. They only tingle a bit. My dad on the other hand.... Well, he was feeling ill a while back and so we bought him the Po Sum On and the hubs went to do the "coin thing" (kerik) on his back to make him feel better. Dude. We nearly had to pry Dad off the ceiling because it was "SO HOT!!!!"

One other thing about this procedure... You MUST get reclothed immediately after. Otherwise you can get sicker than you were from letting "wind" back in. Take it for what you will, all I can say is that this is the One and Only Thing that's made me feel human while I've been sick. See? I don't look like Night of the Living Dead anymore! And I'm not even wearing makeup. I contemplated putting some on, but figured that would A) be overkill and B) a waste of what little energy I have. So here's my bedridden face for all the world to see... Oh yeah, one more thing... This pic was taken with the lights off (thanks headaches). The colors in the picture above are the accurate ones.


Now one more thing before I go post something else... I've had a LOT of time to think while I've been in bed. "A dangerous pasttime I know"... Tell me where that phrase comes from and you'll win a prize. I'm not sure what, but it will be a prize. Thinking gives me fodder for writing. So stay tuned. I'm sure there will be some interesting posts forthwith.