Day 6,7,8:

It's not that I'm bored, I've just hit a plateau at my Apothecary.  I have gotten good enough to speak downstairs to pretty much anyone and can answer most questions. They don't leave me alone yet, but I prefer the company.  Both Monday and Thursday were quiet tame (read: boring) this week, so there wasn't much to write about.  We have very few visitors here during the week since it's the off season, so to avoid the visitor-less blues, I decided to go in today.  The weekends are much more populated, though there are still times that there aren't any visitors.  The downtime gives me a good opportunity to start my research.

When I am downstairs, this is my box of tricks:

This is what I have behind me when I am standing behind the counter.  The bottles hold tinctures, wines, and other liquid medicines.  The bottles are all reproductions and we make the medicines.  They aren't just colored water, it's real medicine in there!  When I talk about different medicines, I grab it and let the visitors look at it up close.  I also will only put out one or two bottles (the medicines I know best) out on the front counter to talk about, so that if visitors are curious, they're only curious about the medicines I know about! The white topped bowls are ointments and powders.  We use them for the same purpose of demonstration.  The terrifying thing you see in front of the bowls is my favorite source for terrifying young children.  It's called a "tooth key"--guess what it does!  Yup, it rips your molars out of your head though the act of leverage only.  With no pain medication.

Thats all for me today.  More on my research later in the week!
Your humble servant,
E

Day 5: Thank god for Band-aids

Today was fun for three different reasons.  I had 2 unique guests who challenged me to interpret in a different way than my usually ABC shpeel I give when people walk in the door.  The first was a family of home school-ed hippies: we're talking a 5 year old with dredlocks and a baby wearing a protective charm necklace.  The kids didn't listen to a thing I said, but asked questions the whole time.  I'm still figuring out how to deal with kids, especially ones who are not controlled by their parents.  Sharon finally stepped in and asked the kids to figure out whether the skeleton is male or female.  Basically, she stepped in because I was overwhelmed.  C'est la vie.
Later, I had a school group of 16 high schoolers.  Here, I excelled.  I was able to give a full apothecary presentation all by myself!  I had volunteers and answered questions and everything.  School groups? Potentially conquered.  Older groups at least.  Super proud moment.  Sharon even told me I was doing really well.  I pride myself on tackling the steep learning curve quickly.
The new thing I learned today was....BANDAGES!

There are linen bandages (both coarse and fine) as well as cotton.  Linen was preferred because it was both cheaper and more absorbent.  I learned about different specialty bandages.  The scariest of them all was the bandage used for facial burns.

Terrifying, eh?  It really is.  Greg says I look like I'm about to "murder a lot of people."  Sara says I look like "ham face girl." Awesome.
After I had learned all about bandages, I was put to work making new ones.  You can't just cut a bandage out of a sheet of linen, you have to actually go through a pull out a single thread as it runs straight up the linen.  Once the thread has been pulled out, you can cut the perpendicular threads.  It has to be done this way so that there are no stray threads that could get into a wound, and so the fabric is as strong as possible.  Also, it is the biggest pain in the butt EVER.  After a attempting this for a few hours today, I decided that I never want to do that again.

It was quite a day for me.  I may be exhausted, but at least I'm making progress!
Your humble servant,
E