Mexican food is trying to kill me.

Remember the habanero eye?

Now I have Posole Thumb.

At the Brother in law's last night, fishing in a pot that was, I kid you not, three feet tall, sitting on top of the stove, using a ladle that was about ten inches long. Terrified I was going to pull up a snout or a big hairy ear.

I'm scooping up hominy, and fire engine red broth, hominy and broth. Getting full, looking for a way to set the ladle down on my left without spilling the soup in my left hand. Turns out, I don't need to work about it, because the stupid styrofoam bowl folded in half, and scalding posole starts running steadily over my thumb, down my palm, and back into the pot. It's nice to be efficient. I kept thinking it was over, because the bowl would stabilize, but then it would cave in again.

I stand out at these family affairs no matter what, but I stood there torn, because while I really wanted to scream and just drop the bowl, my sister in law spent all frigging day cleaning her kitchen to a spotless--sterile--environment. That shit, in addition to never ever coming out of my clothes, would be all OVER her kitchen.

If I dropped the bowl into the soup, the soup was hot enough that I could envision it melting away before I got it back out, thereby ruining the SIL's pot of soup large enough to feed many third world countries, and the entire menu for her par-tay. So in the end, I very carefully poured the hominy back into the pot and ran cold water over my hand. Which felt delicious, until it occurred to me that I really couldn't stand at the sink all night. As soon as I stopped the water, my thumb was throbbing again. I am proud that I didn't cry, even when I went to the bathroom so I could run water over it some more in private. Today I have a lovely blister/callus that runs from the tip of my thumb to the first knuckle, covering about a quarter of the surface of the thumb. Under the thumbnail is kinda tender, too.

Last night was kind of a sucky throbbing thumb, but I did find someone to play Scrabble with at the other sister in law's house (where fucking posole was also served).

How was your New Year's Eve?