Careful With That Chili Pepper, Cym

So I mentioned in the previous post that I found a couple of red chili peppers the other day on the side of the road. Today I got the idea that I would make some home-made pepper spray with them. Actually the idea was two-fold: I would make home-made pepper spray for two different purposes, 1) for self-defense and 2) as a sinus relief spray.  And of course since I've never done this before, I needed to find a recipe online, with precise instructions of what to do.

I wasn't quite at the point where I was ready to actually make the pepper spray today, but I figured I would at least get the chili peppers ready for future use. I extracted the seeds, ground up the chili peppers, and put them in a sealed glass spice jar. At this point everything was fine. No problems. I thought I was being careful, but I thought wrong!

I went inside to wash my hands, lathered them up with soap and water, and then for some moronic reason I decided to splash my face with cold water. Well apparently there still must have had some red pepper residue on my hands, and instantly my face, my nose especially, felt like it was on fire. Shit. I splashed my face with water, submerged my face in a basin full of water. Hot. Fire. Red. Burning sensation. This lasted maybe 15 minutes. Applying ice on my face helped the most. 

I barely touched it. I thought I was being careful. Thought I washed my hands thoroughly, but red chili peppers are very potent, very powerful, that's why they use them in self-defense pepper spray! I only got a tiny bit, a trace residue on my face, and it was strong. I can only imagine how worse it would feel to be sprayed with a forceful stream of pepper spray on the whole face, in the eyes, nose and mouth. It must be horrible!

So what's the lesson here?

BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN HANDLING HOT CHILI PEPPERS. DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE AT ANY TIME DURING OR SHORTLY AFTER HANDLING CHILI PEPPERS. EVEN IF YOU WASHED YOUR HANDS. EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU DIDN'T DIRECTLY TOUCH THEM WITH YOUR SKIN. DO NOT TAKE ANY CHANCES!

Below: Totally unrelated, but was inspiration for the title of this post! 



Careful With That AXE, Eugene

Desert Treasures and Trash

As I've stated many times before, I go on walks all the time. Whenever I'm walking I'm always mindful of my suroundings, and searching the ground I walk on, not just for plants or wildlife, but for potential treasures left behind by people. If I lived near a beach, I would be a regular beachcomber, but I live in the desert so I guess I am a desert comber.

I've found all kinds of things on my walks, unopened bottles of beer, a half-full bottle of tequila, empty bicycle water bottles, empty wallets, coins, even paper money. A couple of months ago I found a five dollar bill laying flat on the ground, the next day later I found a couple of dollar bills stuck in the thorns of a tree, and another one in a cactus. Wish I had my camera with me then to photograph the spectacular moment of literally finding money growing on trees. It was awesome!

I'm going to make it a habit of regularly posting pictures of some of the things I've found on my walks. Today I found 1 lemon on the ground that fell out of a lemon tree and is still in good condition, I found 3 dried out red chili peppers, left behind from a guy that runs a chili stand on the side of the road, and I found an owl decoration.

Owl, Red Chili Peppers, and a Lemon.

And here's a bike rack I found laying on the side of the road a couple of weeks ago:

I recognized this bicycle rack (for locking up bicycles) from the nearby shopping center. Figured some kids may have taken it as a prank. I reported it to the store it used to be parked outside of, but they never did anything about it. I guess they couldn't care less if their customers have no place to lock up their bicycles. It disappeared from the side of the road a couple of days later, but it never made it back to the shopping center. Someone probably took it to sell as scrap metal, not realizing it was worth more as a bike rack than as scrap metal. I've seen this design listed for $500 dollars in a bicycle parts catalog I receive. What a shameful waste.

Here's a picture of the Walgreen's storefront near where I live. No panhandler's there today. This is the same shopping center that the bicycle rack was taken from.

And here's a picture of the dumpster behind the Walgreen's, where the bum's often get drunk and lay passed out nearby. You can't actually see the dumpster, because Walgreen's recently had this giant cage built around it, I guess hoping to keep the bums out of it. So far Walgreen's is the only store around here I've seen build a cage around their dumpster.

This is not only to keep the bums out, but also to keep the dumpster diver's out, because Walgreen's throws away a lot of good stuff. I bought some coffee their a few months ago, that I returned because I realized after I had purchased it that it was close to its expiration date, and I wanted something fresher. They had no problem with it, and let me exchange it for a fresher coffee, but I learned that Walgreen's cannot put any returned food items back on the shelf for resale. Even if there is nothing wrong with it, and it is non-perishable and sealed in a tamper proof steel can, they are required to throw it away.

November Full Moon Rising @ Twilight

The twilight hour is an interesting time to be outside. These pictures were taken on a full moon night in Arizona on Monday November 2nd.