To Cool for Cayenne

I made black bean soup yesterday. (Per Julie's request, I will post this recipe soon.)

After cooking the onion, garlic and jalapeno, I add chili powder and cayenne pepper for a minute before adding everything else.

The jalapeno bothers me a little bit when I'm cutting it up, but not too much. And generally, the cayenne pepper is no bother, either. Until yesterday.

After adding the spices to the onion/garlic/pepper mix, the steam coming from the pan offended my nose and throat a little bit. So naturally I turned my head to the side and back a little bit. But then it happened: I felt an itch or something on the side of my nose and so I rubbed it with a finger.

Big mistake. Especially when there are traces of cayenne pepper on my fingers.

Within a few minutes my skin was burning up.

I washed my face and hands. I believe this spread everything around because it burned under my nostrils above my lips, and spread up to my left eye. Yowza! I kept washing then splashing with cold water.

I grabbed a washcloth and soaked it in cold water, then looked up online with no results for relief. While looking online I put yogurt on my face, because I thought that sounded cool; it didn't help much.

I called my doctor's office and they then transferred me to poison control. Poison control first said yogurt (wow, I am very intuitive, huh?) but when I said that wasn't doing much, they said sour cream.

Yes. Sour cream. It not only cools down your black bean soup, but your face in case that black bean soup gets on your face. You know, for when you think, ''hmm.... I wonder how it would feel to put super spicy black bean soup on my face..." and then discover soon that it doesn't feel good. Well, now you know to put sour cream on your face...

And in the end, I must admit/comment: when something painful happens, whether physically (like this) or emotionally (the "worm" in my stockings), I think: wow. this is a blog post.

So of course, I take a picture...