feelin' just a little funky

I always seem to get into a bit of a funk this time of year. I love Spring and all the splendor, but I absolutely hate my birthday. I always have; I have never felt good around this time.

Perhaps this year is meant to be different...

I was considering making myself a yummy chocolate cake.

But no...wait. I remember the Christmas Cookie Fiasco of 2007.

Gluten-free soy-free goodies are just not in my line, and especially not when I am in a time crunch. I instead packed up the little monkeys and they rode bikes (I am still yet pushing the Young Prince up big hills so, if he goes, no bike for me) to Whole Paycheck this afternoon to buy Mama Llama a nice, big, gluten-filled, soy-filled chocolate cake (but made with the best glutenated and soyed ingredients, of course!) and eat little piece by little piece (sharing, of course, with any interested souls who wish to join me!), and drink enough red wine with it that I will then care less how I react!

Sweet, moist and fudgy with frosting. That is what I want.

And that only comes in soy.

Well....soy I thought (oh, I crack myself up...)

Turns out they now carry a Flourless Chocolate Cake.

Do you REALIZE what this means??

Gluten-free, Soy-free (yes, I checked the ingredients) Sinful Delights!

YIPPEE!

Too good to be true? We shall see, but I will be a good girl and wait 'til Thursday. To be accompanied by Haagen Dazs Vanilla Ice Cream.

Rough life, eh? ☺

---
Now I am officially on the Downhill Stretch to 40. (Of course, I tell everyone I'm turning 25 on Thursday.) Dad almost died at 40. It scares me to be getting older. But I am a different person with a different history--who knows how my dad's time dealing with hazardous chemicals in the Air Force in the early 60's might have affected what ended up happening to him. But the thought never leaves your mind.

However, I have made up my mind that it is to be a good week, which a big step ahead of where I was this past weekend! Will go out for Artie's (I am assuming, am I right? ...or rather, "is there anywhere else to go, really?") either Thursday or Friday night with some friends, maybe spend Saturday in my garden, now know that I have at least one student on Sunday of this coming week and I have a full schedule of classes to teach otherwise so I had better get my birthday/Mother's Day obligatory garden time in while possible. I'd like to fit a trip to the gym in, too; for spending the money on the membership, it sure is almost impossible for me to get there. Maybe I ought to think twice about continuing with the membership...

I decided to go ahead and pay off my piko ring, too. (insert sparklies here). Whoo-hoo!

Happy Birthday to me!

yo soy...

As a Spanish prof, it is always funny to me the importance of this phrase. "I am..." is "Yo soy...".

I happen to be allergic to soy. Even though this is not the same soy as in the conjugated first person present tense verb form, it is an even bigger pain in the posterior than this particular irregular verb is for beginning Spanish students.

On my Google home page, I have a feed of Wiki how-tos. Yesterday's tip was entitled "How to Live With a Soy Allergy."

Oh Great One, where WERE you three years ago?

I never realized I had an actual food allergy until after The Young Prince was born. I had learned that latent allergies can become active with such triggers as traumas, either physical or emotional, and I noticed things not being right following the thirty-nine hour labor and subsequent one-hour delivery of The Young Prince. It was incredibly hard on my body and I noticed that I had constant breakouts, itchy sores, on my arms and legs. Thinking it could be lotions or detergent-caused, although I had not changed my habits at all, I tried a few different things but nothing made a difference. Something nagged at me to try an exclusion diet to see if something I was eating could be causing a reaction, so I did. After fasting and then re-introducing foods individually, I reacted to soy. My heart rate sped up. I got a headache. I had a couple of hives come out on my arms. There was my answer.

Looking back, I can remember digestion problems that I simply no longer suffer that could easily have had roots in this soy allergy. I remember my tongue swelling in Japan to the point of being unable to speak clearly on various occasions, usually at the home of my Japanese teacher after having been served a delicious Japanese dinner made by her mother. I experienced a case of anaphlaxis in Taiwain in 1994 upon eating way too many wontons, a reaction which I attributed to MSG poisoning; I have since learned that MSG is soy. My tongue still swells, which will tell me if there was an ingredient that I must have missed or mistaken when reading my labels.

Unfortunately, reading labels is difficult because soy is not usually listed as "soy" but instead has a gazillion of other "aliases" that have proven to be a headache not only for me but also for anyone who is kind (and brave!) enough to cook for me or have me over for dinner (She-ra???!). Soy-free menus are not as common as, say, gluten-free menus are in restaurants, so I pretty much have to guess at what is and is not acceptable fare for me to consume.

This allergy has, of course, been since verified with a saliva test--it is NOT just "in my head."

So I will pass on the soy-sauce dipped shrimp, thank you very much.

the culprit

Soy.

Yeah, I've been a bad girl. Went off my diet for two days of PMS binging on really yummy cookies (no wheat in those but LOADED with soy lecithin) had a salad dressing that I KNOW was made with soy oil (although I was already broken out on my abdomen by then), ate ice cream and whipped cream with my merlot the other night (BAD) and paid a dear price yesterday.

When the shrimp issue occurred in January, my body equally felt like I had the flu; I ached so terribly bad--but besides throwing up shrimp, nothing else happened. Just ached. As was yesterday, my glands were completely swollen on the base of my neck and hurt all day long. Immune system at battle again.

All gone today, feel great, nothing wrong and ready to tackle this textbook! Sorry, Gym, you will have to wait.

cashew butter and jelly on rice cakes

Jon Stewart, one of my favorite comedian-satirists, once said that the only difference between a rice cake and a styrofoam cup is that the styrofoam cup actually fills you up.

No frickin' duh.

Today I am in a Funk. Notice the Capital F. I did get up, but slept in (which means not getting up at 5). Out of the house by 7. To the gym. Decided to lower weights by 10 lbs for everything I do, yet up my reps to 15, and try to keep within 10 points of my target heart rate on elliptical. Why? Because I'm losing weight and I should not be losing weight. My thyroid numbers, on last check in October, were fine so that means my hummingbird-like metabolism has sped up to that of, oh I don't know...what goes faster than a hummingbird, a bumblebee? I don't KNOW. Point is, I should not get to below 120 lbs. Ever. That's what I weighed in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. So I need to lower weights but continue to maintain tone. More yoga. Need to find a yoga class that fits my new schedule.

Okay. Get home, made myself gluten-free pancakes and sausage. Yummers. (Truly...not being sarcastic, it was so good it was almost orgasmic. I mean, real food.) I am paying for going off-diet with horribly itchy breakouts on my arms and abdomen, as well as in my mouth, my tongue remains slightly swollen. Yuckers. So back to being strict with myself. Guess I'm still allergic...

But that's is now all, besides 1/2 bar of really good but really expensive dark chocolate, I have had to eat. I had class, I have worked all afternoon, took a break to visit She-Ra in neighboring Queendom and now continue on in The Royal Funk.

When in the Funk I do not eat.

See the vicious cycle?

So I decided that, tonight, I would make myself a cashew butter (since that's all I have open at the moment) and jelly sandwich on rice cakes...since I don't have bread that I can eat and I really can't stand the gluten-free crap out there--and wheat bread makes my stomach turn anyway.

Turns out that all the rice cakes that are left are so broken that there is no human way to spread cashew butter and jelly over them. None at all. My kids like to eat them like that; they call them popcorn.

Whatever floats the royal boat.

So that leaves me, in Funkland, with a bunch of healthy soy-free gluten-free snack bars I tried to make myself this week and totally failed (of course--it's me in the kitchen) to get them to stick together...so they are in essence a bunch of sickly sweet cereal crumbs wrapped in ClingWrap.

Yummers.

I don't even think I have a bottle of wine in the house, and it is honestly too damn cold out to even want to go out to the store to buy myself something, just to feed my Funk a little more. Probably not the smartest thing to do...but I suppose sometimes I am just not the sharpest tool in the shed, anyway.

So I will sit in front of my sunlamp, work some more while drinking hot lemon water and eat birdseed crumbs sweetened with an apricot jelly/brown sugar/butter mixture that failed to hold it all together.

You know what I would rather do tonight? Go dancing. Laugh.

That, my darlings, appears to No Longer Be in My Cards.

Red lights, alarms sound

I went to do elliptical for 1 hour at the gym this afternoon, thinking that maybe, just maybe, this ache is just my body needing to move.

Nope. Mistaken. Felt good while exercising (no weights) but am paying dearly for it now.

In my research on food allergy reactions, one that I remember reading about was an almost flu-like arthritic ache...and that would just about cover how I feel now, although much, much better than last night...the virtual Drill Sergeant threatened to come kick my butt and he made me cry! :) I am fine, I can eat, I am good...but my bones literally hurt. It takes four days to get an offending food out of your body completely, and tomorrow is day four. Like I said, I have no issues other than the ache...

...except for the fact that I have mysteriously lost five pounds.

I am now down below 120. Officially dead-on 119.0. And that is fully clothed. Winter clothes. It's cold here. And I am freezing.

Sound the alarms. Tonight IS a FosterBurger night. Big burger for me. Hold the bun. With fries. I'd order a chocolate shake, but I'm already freezing to death as it is. Oh...what the hell. Big shake. Cho-co-la-te.

I really need to start keeping weight on. Evidently going to the gym isn't helping me much there. I know most would kill to say that, but not if they felt how I have felt all weekend. My thyroid numbers were fine on my last blood draw back in October, and I can't think of anything else that would be making it so hard for me to not just melt away into nothingness.

Maybe I AM the wicked witch-bitch and am paying the price...



You know, she and I DO look and sound a lot alike, ¿no?

I'm sure my children would say so...

ache to the bone

One day without food or drink and I am out of commission. I must be getting really old.

My bones literally hurt. It's not like a flu-ish type ache, and I feel good when I do some yoga, but I can't stay in a backbend all day long. I can feel almost every movement I make just hurt my entire being. So I've tried to eat something, I took my vitamins and am just trying to ignore the stomach ache that lingers so that I don't have to deal with this ache again tomorrow.

I don't honestly remember this from last time I was sick, an entire 8 years ago. But I was also not even 30 yet. Dude, aging sucks.

Maybe the food will give me enough energy to get my butt up and off to the gym tomorrow morning so that I can at least move; maybe that will do me some good. Sitting in my office and working today sure did nothing for me.

She-Ra the Godsend

I will have to admit, the hardest part about being sick as a dog is the Princesita and the Young Prince.

She-ra, Princess of ?? and mother of 3, not a mere 2 but THREE, from neighboring quadrant of town, came to the rescue this morning, even as her mother is visiting from Afar, completely out of her way, to bring The Young Prince to his preschool classroom...and not only did that but she picked him up, picked up McD's Happy Meals for All (a royal favorite among the young group), ran off to get the Princesita from the end of her kindergarten day, and wouldn't let me pay for lunch.

She even called later to ask if she could take them for a while this afternoon--a point at which The Young Prince was SCREAMING at Princesita about something having to do with the Happy Meal, the Court Jester cat wouldn't get off my butt (literally) and I was tempted to take her up on the offer!

Dear She-Ra. Thank you for all your help today. It is one thing to be off, alone, sick in a foreign country. It is quite another to have responsibilities to fulfill, children to get places, etc., and I am not often enough sick, especially sick like this, to have to worry about it. I hope to not have to pay you back in equivalencies...but as you always say, it always comes around.

And I promise not to make you anything shrimp-containing from my kitchen...ever! Not that it would affect you in the end, anyway, but still...I make a point to say that NOBODY else got sick from this, so it obviously wasn't a point of my lack of cooking skills at fault!

nice to know

Well, I now know that I do not, indeed, have to leave the States to get really ill on shrimp.

How do I really know it is shrimp?

The first time was in Ecuador 1992, and there must have been something really bad in there because I experienced horrible problems for a good month following getting really sick on some incredibly delicious shrimp had in the oceanside city of Salinas. When I returned to Ecuador in 1997, I did eat fish in a restaurant and, although not the deathly ill I was with the shrimp, it sure did not do well by my body.

The second time was in Thailand for the new year of 1996. Culprit? Yeppers, shrimp. Delicious, wonderful curry that I paid dearly for for three days.

Some trout put me under in the Peruvian Andes in 2000, that everyone else with me had eaten as well, but I was the only one to suffer so we thought it could have easily been a plate or fork that had not been adequately cleaned. Who knows. However, since that trip I've never had any problems in Perú.

Now I have had no problems with shrimp in Japan, shrimp I buy from the Korean market here closeby, in China, nor any fish in Europe or the United States...

...until last night. Everyone else in the house ate the same thing and nobody else got sick but yours truly. (sigh) I haven't felt this bad because of food (morning sickness does NOT count!) in years.

And just think...if I had been in Perú now I would not have eaten shrimp last night and I would sure as heck not be resenting Life today.

Is someone making a judgment call on my decision? Just a thought.

reactions

Remind me...I seem to be allergic to warm water shrimp.

Don't, please oh please, don't let me ever eat any again. Even if questionable.

It has been one heck of a long night.

New Year's Eve

I have never been out on New Year's Eve.

In high school, I was once invited to a friend's home for a movie night. That was nice and perfect for the time.

In college, I was always home for New Year's Eve. If my boyfriend called, my father would set the timer on the microwave and that's how long I had to talk to him. No more.

In Japan, I was with a friend and her family for a very cultural New Year's Eve but still suffered aftereffects from MSG poisioning had in Taiwain just days before, so I did not feel very well. Year two had me in Thailand, on the island of Koh Samui and I went out to a discoteque that night...but only to return to my bungalow deathly ill on warm-water shrimp, something that had also almost been my demise in Ecuador. I didn't leave that bungalow for three days.

Back from Japan, met my current housemate, who I soon learned will not ask me out unless it is to a military museum, a holocaust memorial, a war movie or a battleground park. New Year's Eve? Go dancing? Have fun? Nope. War stresses me out terribly. It is just not one of my hobbies.

So I suppose I can get around this now by permitting my children to have friends over on New Year's Eve. Make this a good, child-friendly home for eating snacks and playing games and showing videos and providing noisemakers for what might be around 10:00 this year when all will be too tired to continue on until midnight.

And I may live vicariously through them.

Christmas in Taiwan

I spent my first Christmas away from home, in 1994, in Taiwan.

My college roommate was half-Taiwanese, half-American and had fulfilled a study abroad requisite there while I was in Ecuador in 1992. She returned after graduation, and as I was likewise already living in the same hemisphere as of July of 94, she invited me to the southern city of Kaohsiung to spend Christmas.

Granted, Taiwan is not a Christian country but Christianity is alive and well as it politically exercises a rather great degree of independence from China. There were lots of Christmas services that we could attend and it was a new experience for me, very different from Japan. It was the first time being in a country in which I did not speak or have some basic operational idea of the native language.

Her boyfriend (now husband of 11 years) joined us and, together with a co-worker of hers and her boyfriend (I felt a bit like a, well, "fifth" wheel...) took off one day to the southern coast where there is a beautiful national park and the southernmost point of Taiwan, that looks like a cat's nose. We went out for some amazing food--I believe we had wontons, and I had way more than I should have. As the day wore on I started to feel worse and worse. My throat became sorer and sorer and I started to lose my balance. If I had been drinking I would have understood how I felt, but I had not a drop of alcohol in my blood. By the end of the night I could eat nothing more nor could I even stand up; we had gone to shoot pool, something I enjoy from time to time, but I couldn't even focus and didn't have the energy to stand anymore.

We got back to her apartment and I fell into a restless sleep. I awoke in the middle of the night and stumbled into the bathroom, I could not breathe. I was falling against the wall. My throat had swollen and I had to awaken my friend as I was terrified.

This was the day I was to be back on the plane to Japan and I had to get to the hospital. I don't know what they did, gave me a shot of something, probably a placebo but who knows, to make the swelling go down so I could breathe and be fit to fly. I had a rather long layover, seemingly endless, in Taipei, but obviously survived and made it back to Japan in time to rest for a few days previous to the New Year's celebrations.

In researching and learning about my relatively newly-discovered food allergies, I found out that reaction in Taiwan was probably anaphlaxis from MSG. MSG happens to be derived from soy, something I didn't know then but now, since as of just about three years ago my soy allergy became manifest following the birth of my son, I have made all attempts to avoid in my life. MSG acts almost like a drug in that it tricks your brain into a heightened awareness state; thus all senses are almost overloaded (including that of taste) and consequently foods are made to taste absolutely wonderful when consumed under this influence. Much like a drug, people constantly taking in MSG in their diets will, over time, gain tolerance and thus not suffer the strong reaction one whose body is not accustomed to such a strong additive. MSG goes by some "code names" as well and I know when I've had some because my tongue will swell to the point of hardly being able to talk and I will usually end up with a strong headache.

*-------*

Now, 13 years later I am awake, it is 3:30 a.m. and I suppose now is the best time to get myself up, clean up the playroom and magically make the Santa gifts appear. Make myself a cup of hot tea, then go back to bed.

There is sacrifice in making magic happen...

I can do absolutely nothing right.

My daughter's birthday cake just fell completely apart as I removed it from the pan.

Completely.

I am tired of everything I try to do in the kitchen ending in complete fracaso.

I learned recently that, to get a cake to frost well, one must freeze it first. So I thought I would actually plan ahead a bit.

I am not a cook. I don't know why I bother or try...except that I, for a change, actually wanted a piece of cake for a birthday and, since I'm off gluten and soy, I can't just go buy one and still eat it. I must make it.

I am tired of being the one to smile and say No, thank you.

As this happens, C is pelting me with some stuffed animal. I am the robber and he is the pizza man. I am tired of being hit by flying toys.

Feeling the rage boiling inside, I finally just yell.

WILL YOU STOP THROWING THINGS AT ME! WILL YOU JUST GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN? BOTH OF YOU. OUT!

I am tired of yelling at my children.

They just fled, C meekly uttering an "ok mommy" as they ran from the kitchen into K's bedroom. They have been fighting each other all morning, including while I had a student this morning.

I chose the wrong repair service, evidently, for my washer. It is filled with water and I had to hand-wring out my clothes yesterday after finally giving up. Yet I have had not a minute to sit, go through the phone book, try to blindly find (yet again) a more reputable service.

I am tired of having to make all decisions.

I don't have the patience and I don't want to. Honestly, I don't want to do anything. But I have to. All day yesterday I kept reminding myself of the women along the Río Tomebamba in Cuenca, Ecuador, washing their brightly colored clothing on stones in the freezing Andean water and then decorating the riverbank hillside with brilliant reds, yellows and blues to allow their clothing to dry. How I used to beat the ice out of my panties in Japan to get them to dry in the winter. What do I really have to complain about?

I'm tired of wishing to have my past life back.

The past three days, my children have flung themselves on top of me to bury me in hugs and kisses. I ask why; they say that it just looked like I needed to be hugged and kissed.

I will never tire of that.

But I just feel so tired. I would like to migrate south. I would like to not feel so alone. Amazing, how I am constantly surrounded by others, namely my children, and I can still feel so alone.

reaction?

Who knows, by this point in the game. It is so darned frustrating.

Last night as K and I got ready for bed (she had a fantastic little birthday party for B...and of course I accompanied her! Couldn't miss out on all the fun...I mean, Cheesecake Factory, for goodness sakes!) and played our "little-brother-isn't-around-to-destroy-so-let's-play" games, I felt the headache coming on. This was about 8:30 p.m. and fortunately K and I decided we were too tired to go on so we went to bed.

Throughout the night I could feel the headache getting worse.

I awoke this morning with such an intense pain that I tried to go back to sleep and make it go away. I tried sinus stuff, but it didn't help--although the hot shower this morning did, I can't stay in the shower all day long. By 10 a.m. I could not even move and was nauseous and in tears.

A perfect, sunny, 85º day and I completely wasted it away in an achy stupor.

Causes? Did I eat something I shouldn't have and reacted? Was it the "cold front" that went through today, causing "Me, the Human Barometer" to act up again? Hormonal imbalances? A mix? I don't know. I just know that I have taken some ibuprofen and, over the course of the past seven hours, become barely functional again.

Let's see if we can maintain functionality for a while! Today was not fun.

I guess I have always been a headache sufferer. My mother wrote in my baby book of, when around 2 years old, I would hold my head and scream, and she wondered if I could possibly be suffering headaches. I have had headaches since late elementary school that I can remember, but my worst times were in my 20s, when I would frequently suffer those akin to that which I had today, completely debilitating.

But that is nothing.

*--------------*

Today a good friend informed me of the birth of a new baby girl in the family--at 31 weeks, the mother was sent to the hospital with severe preeclampsia and they had to operate to get the baby out. She has yet to develop her external ear lobes. Prognosis for survival is not yet known. So sad...my prayers go out to that family.

*-------------*

Mom would like to come to visit in November. That is a nice month to visit, normally. Plus, being K's 6th birthday and Thanksgiving all together, it would be extra-special. We haven't celebrated Thanksgiving together in many, many years. I would like that very much. Now...what to do about the sleeping arrangements?

*-------------*

And that is my weekend round-up. Hopefully the week will be uneventful and pain-free for us all.

Feliz Navidad

The year has flown by, and here we are again, Christmas right around the corner. My daughter is now officially on Winter Break for the next week, Christmas cookies are being gobbled up left and right, and we are jolly and happy.

We have been successful in avoiding a great deal of the Holiday Hubbub this year, which has made this season all the more enjoyable. It has been refreshing to focus in more on family, friends and the New Year rather than what is next on the sometimes seemingly interminable List of Things To Do.

Professionally, I have my new in-home classroom all set-up and ready to go, with a little straightening up of Play-Dough, paper scraps and coloring books, with a couple of well-placed pieces of cloth to cover all those trite details. I am preparing for my next Perú trip in 11 days (who's counting????) and hopefully there will be a good fit with the school down in Lima. I am officially done at George Mason...and that does feel good, although I know that I will miss the students.

Personally, I am on the mend after my emotional breakdown of last month. I have the official word on my allergy to soy, plus I am to avoid gluten. I am now on a thyroid complex that hopefully will even out my slightly hypothyroid, and am treating my adrenal stress with a sunbox, a withania complex and a vitamin coctail taken with a glass of sea salt water--which tastes, suprisingly, really really good (if it does not sound good to you, that means you are not in adrenal fatigue!). Last night I slept through the night for the first time in weeks, and it felt really good. Today I feel like A New Woman. Just in time for Christmas.

Watch out, world. This desperate housewife will soon be desperate no more!