Bits & Bobs

I am giving you fair warning. This post contains more of the same nonsense that you have come to expect from me. You can tell from the title. Bits and Bobs is an idiom. Idioms are sometimes, but not always, used by idiots, but not exclusively. Bits and Bobs is a British expression. For those of you born west of Ireland, it means odds and ends. This idiom generally refers to small things of a different type. Different than what is not exactly clear.

Anyway, what this post lacks in thought-provoking usefulness, it makes up for in brevity. My companion tells me that she loses interest in reading my contributions to this blog because I go on way too long. So Sister Blickenstaff, this is a (relatively) short one, just for you.

My first big bit (or, if you prefer, bob) is that I got a flu jab. In American, that means I went to my gynaecologist and received an influenza vaccination. Why I have a gynaecologist is a story for another day, but it involves what Americans call socialised medicine. So far, it is working! (The flu jab, not the socialised medicine.) I have not come down with the flu one time since I got jabbed.

However, I must share the amazing advice I received after the jab. The nurse said, and I am not making this up, “Take two paracetamol if you experience a fever and put a bag of peas on your arm if it swells up.”

Really? A bag of peas? Why not a bag of carrots? Why not a bag of ice? Why not a bag of bags, a bag of cauliflower or a bag of potatoes? What is so healing about a bag of peas?

This prompted me to Google™ the phrase, “healing nature of peas”. And I found that peas are almost magical in their healing properties. One expert, Beth Lapin, who has two masters degrees (top that if you dare), one in social work and the other in biology, is quoted as saying, “We are expecting thunderstorms, so I go out to gather peas.”

And a reader/client named “BF” (best friend?) commented on Beth’s website, “I know I wouldn't be as calm if it weren't for you.”

I know this is hard to believe, but I am not making it up. And may I add that Beth has just published her first book, which “uses fiction to show how relationships are designed as lessons to help us heal.”

What? Really? If this is true why does she have to use fiction? Also, what does this have to do with peas? I do not have these and many other answers about Beth. You could check out her website, but that was a complete waste of my time so I don’t recommend that you do it too. However, I would like to report that I have also discovered that peas are high in folic acid and that Dr. Nandita Shah teaches a course on some Sundays at the Quiet Healing Centre in Auroville, India, entitled, “Peas vs. Pills,” which empowers you to reclaim your health. She has had a “huge success” with her Reversing Diabetes residential program (apparently it is not for non-residential use) as evidenced by the fact that, “Everyone was able to cut down their medications…”

Finally, I bring to your attention that “Pea soup is eaten in many parts of the world” and “Nature packages green peas in several different forms.”

This life saving and health promoting information comes courtesy of the Google. This concludes my research and special report on peas. For more information please contact the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council.

My next bob (or, if you prefer, bit) involves the wonderful American gourmet cuisine available at Pizza Hut®. The younger missionaries voted to go to the local Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet. This did not sound like where I should be eating lunch and I told my companion so. She told me they would have a salad or something. So we went and they did and that is what I had. In a moment of full companionship unity, and in accordance with tradition (my wife almost always orders what I order, or vice versa – I can never remember which) Sister Blickenstaff had the same.

However, before I could eat my special hand-crafted salad at Pizza Hut, I had to remove the red onions from it. My companion did the same. We piled our superfluous onions on a dinner plate. The pile kept getting bigger. Pretty soon, we had collected what were originally two (and quite possibly half a dozen) huge red onions. Or in other words, we had enough red onion to last a normal person approximately two decades. Once the red onion extraction program was completed, there was nothing left of the salad. What was advertised as a “Honey Mustard Chicken Salad” turned out to be large red onions, sliced up in a bowl.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I did eat three forkfuls of salad before I determined that I would live longer if I commenced an immediate and complete removal of all red onion slices in the bowl. This was sufficient to give me onion breath for the remainder of the week.

In other words, days later, as I write this entry, I am breathing out huge quantities of red onion tainted carbon dioxide. However, dear reader (I only have one reader and you are very dear to me!) as you are smart and very clever, you will already have figured out that while red onions can be toxic for your dog, they are the most magically stupendous thing that you could ever hope to cram down your own pie hole.

I am not making this up.

The active ingredient in onions (in any form) is allyl propyl disulphide, which damages red blood cells in your dog. Note that I write that onions damage blood cells in your dog. Onions will never affect my dog because I don’t have a dog. I served a mission when I was nineteen and a dog bit me on the leg, breaking my skin, not to mention piercing a hole in the leg of my trousers. This experience cured me of the need to have a dog. So please do NOT take your dog to Pizza Hut for a salad as it could kill him/her.

The nutrients in onions — including quercetin, allicin and chromium, can protect against cancer, fight fungi and bacteria, promote cardiovascular health, reduce high blood pressure and insulin resistance, and aid in weight loss. Furthermore, red onions can be helpful to people who suffer with dandruff. I am not making this up! To the contrary, I have learned these things, and more, from nothing less than the Heal With Food organisation on the Worldwide Web.

According to these knowledgeable red onion experts, one study shows that eating half an onion per day could reduce the risk of stomach cancer by 50 percent. I assume this means that also eating the other half could reduce the risk of stomach cancer by 100 percent. Continuing along this line of reasoning, eating one and a half onions per day could reduce the risk of stomach cancer up to 150%, which I assume means it totally reduces your risk by 100% and then the after affects of your breath could reduce some randomly selected third person’s risk by the remaining 50%. I am sure you understand; after all, it’s not rocket science.

So apparently my companion and I both missed the golden opportunity of a lifetime. We could have just eaten the red onion salad and been transformed into Red Onion Transformers. Instead, we made a large fort out of the onions, in which the neighbourhood children played for hours.

That is one Bit and one Bob more than you paid for, but it’s Christmas and I love you.

 Elder Blickenstaff