Maybe not appropriate, but definitely apposite as I used comment #1 for this in the last check-in thread too.
My offer was accepted, I'm in contract for a condo! Very excited. 8 days to inspect, close of escrow mid-April. Not so far away that I'll be out of touch with my local friends, or so I hope, but a different city.
So we're going camping for spring break, and I didn't pick the park and I don't want to complain to the people who chose it. But it sounds like a pretty unpleasant terrain:
I looked closely at the arroyos and gullies of Copper Breaks State Park--I couldn't believe my eyes. Who would ever think to make a public park of such broken badlands and mesas, peppered with copses of cedar trees? Shouldn't they call it "cedar breaks?" But upon closer examination (and a little reading) it all came clear. Among these eroded channels, all barren and lunar, you can clearly make out the gray-green streaks of raw copper running through the earth. It's a chemical green, the color of bread mold.
And:
Juniper, mesquite scrub and low rolling hillsides stretch throughout much of the park where the washes and parched ground are striated by minerals left behind from a colossal ancient sea bed. If not for the trail markers, hikers could easily get swallowed up by the indiscriminate repetition of this desert-like snarl.
I'm just saying, I like trees. I like shade. While I like barren lunar hellscapes for an hour or too, I do not like relentless wind pounding across barren lunar hellscapes for days on end. Sigh.
Our bread mostly gets white mold. Do I need to leave it out longer for the green?
A completely unrelated online space has been a total nightmare this week, after over a year of being a pretty useful and friendly place. It's astonishingly anxiety-inducing, particularly since escaping the online world by going and Doing Something in the real world is still not happening.
4: You should prepare yourself for the outing by reading (or watching the 1928 film adaptation with Lillian Gish) of The Wind.
This last, controversial, novel, in which a gentle heroine is driven insane by the incessant wind and drought-plagued frontier environment, has assured her [ Dorothy Scarborough] reputation as an American regional novelist. The book created a furor in Texas when it was published because of its negative portrayal of frontier living conditions on the cattle ranges around Sweetwater in the 1880s. The book was also published anonymously as a publicity ploy. Today, however, many critics regard this novel as a Texas classic, notable for its characterization of a tragic heroine driven to murder and insanity.
It's also in the general vicinity (by Texas standards) of where Last Picture Show was set. Book (and movie of course) recommended. There is also a more light-hearted McMurty sequel Texasville (but a pretty dreadful movie despite Bogdanovite directing).
My mom once confessed to me that she walked into the home in which I was raised for the first time and felt a sense of despair because the view from the window was just empty fields.
Anyway, my dad planted a ton of trees and shrubbery to fix things.
Which explains the lack of murdering.
7: Oh man. We stop for lunch sometimes in Sweetwater, on our way out of Texas, and it is the place that I hold not-very-dear in the dreariest, saddest part of my heart.
Which hotel should you pick if you want to do drugs?
I hope you're not asking Heather from Season 1 of The Real World.
I mostly remember being pissed that the music videos were disappearing.
Heel of a place.
15: It makes me feel old that I can remember when saying "I can remember when MTV actually played music videos" was a thing.
I can remember back to when I had a steady stream of water flowing across my basement floor.
Endless phone calls to banks, government offices, lawyers, and so forth, as well as the undertakers. And they almost all have scripts which refer to my mother -- not theirs! -- as "Mum". She would have fucking died rather than hear herself called "Mum" by strangers. And I suppose she did.
Alive and well. We took Monday off and got in a good hike just across the river. There's a new "planned community" that has a tiny town center and a lot of space set aside for houses, but not too many houses actually built. We were able to amble 3.5 miles from the center down to the river, then back.
We would up eating on the coffee shop/restaurant patio when we got back to the car; fortunately it was large and breezy, making it easy to keep 15' from the other occupied tables. People watching, particularly for masking behavior was interesting; my main take away is that guys are far more likely to be entitled jerks and unmask before food or drink arrive.
"planned community"
That reminds me, I want to become a real estate developer and call my company "Planned Plat-hood."
Instead of HOA rules, there will be "contra-ceptions".
Congrats Minivet! We have also had an offer accepted on a great house just a couple blocks from our current one, and it sounds like we're on about the same timeline for closing as you are. Our tenants are going to have to move in sooner, so we've got an AirBnB lined up potentially until the end of April. Moving is going to suck but at least things are moving along well.
Came out as trans to my mother a few days ago, much earlier than I'd planned to. The problem is that she video calls the house all the time to talk to her 9yo granddaughter, and it felt profoundly stupid and wrong to be ducking around the corner and changing my clothes every time she showed up on the tablet. So we had an hourlong phone conversation followed by a lot of email; she doesn't entirely get the concepts but she's trying to be supportive. Meanwhile I am worn out with accounting for myself.
Dad (who lives in a different state) will be difficult in a different way. Everything after that, including work, will be easier. But these explanations are so exhausting; it's like, then I have to talk to the bank? And the plumbers and the neighbors and the dentist and my chosen religious center and these hundred other people who all have me in their system in some way and will need to learn that they're dealing with the same person but not the same person? It's been all of two months since this started and I can't believe I'm already contemplating a public transition, but it feels astonishingly out of my control. Since I first recognized it it's been moving under its own power and I'm just along for the ride.
More happily I got some great boots, more cardigans, a super sleek leather jacket (hand-me-down so vegetarian OK), these hybrid leggings-or-pants that are good for yard work, everyday camisoles, clip-on hoop earrings to wear until piercing seems covid safe. The 9yo is having a masked playdate with her friend in the yard, and they just invited me out to eat vegetables and hummus at a flower-strewn banquet table. "Happy March fifth!" they shouted, tossing petals in the air. "It's for your gender transition!"
Meanwhile I am worn out with accounting for myself.
Think about how tiring it must be to be a CPA accounting for possibly hundreds of people.
The 9yo is having a masked playdate with her friend in the yard, and they just invited me out to eat vegetables and hummus at a flower-strewn banquet table. "Happy March fifth!" they shouted, tossing petals in the air. "It's for your gender transition!"
This is so adorable.
4: The fact that it's a Dark Sky Sanctuary sounds pretty cool!
Picking up takeout. It's 30 degrees and a couple is dining on the patio.
Went skiing this afternoon, and it was glorious. Sunny, pretty warm, and yet the snow was ok. Not as good as Wednesday, but still skied really nicely. Temps in the mid 40s at the bottom, and upper 50s in town. Winter's not over, but there's nothing wrong with a taste of spring.
I'm back in my actual house, with construction still underway. It's nice being home.
I'm thinking of taking up transhumance, as soon as I can find enough sheep.
34: Eight months, one week.
40 years? It was a big-ass tree, measured either from the top or the bottom. It also took out two smaller trees, one of which was a very nice dogwood. I'll miss the shade.
The tree also totaled a car, which we'll have to replace when I start working in an office again. We had just done a huge repair to it, and after we got the insurance estimate on the car's value, my sister-in-law suggested that we let them know about the repair. We got about 40% of the value of the repair added to the total. I was really surprised.
So, it turns out that my basement is taking on 8,000 gallons of water per day and thus my new system is pumping that much water and it flows onto land I do not own and this is a problem.
Install a swimming pool? Bioswales?
I think I need to tie into the storm drain.
The storm drain has been tying into you.
This really isn't rainwater. This is rerouting a stream around my house.
49. That's a pretty healthy flow. I think faucets tend to be 2-3 GPM, and that would be more than 5 GPM.
It's really nice that sump pumps now come with an app so that I know just how much trouble I'm in.
I was going to suggest you sell it to California, but maybe it's easier to sell it in Bozeman as mitigation water. You'll put it into the Mississippi River system and in return some zillionaire can draw the equivalent out of the Gallatin River.
And they almost all have scripts which refer to my mother -- not theirs! -- as "Mum".
Ugh. I thought this was a North American thing? Although, come to think of it, when my mother died in Dec 2012 (and I remember those endless phone calls, for which you have my sympathy), nobody referred to her as "Mum:" she was "Mrs. JPJ," or "your mother/your mum."
Congrats to Minivet in 1, and best of luck to Jacinda in 25.
8000 gallons a day!
It's only two percent of an acre-foot. Does that make it sound better? (No.)
Could you daylight the stream and rename the house Runningwater?
We did daylight the stream. That's the problem now.
8,000 gallons a day!
I hope you're allowed to connect to the storm sewer. Connecting to the sanitary sewer they'd have to charge by treatment volume too and that could get expensive.
Now that you've daylighted it, is it just running in a channel in your basement to the pump? If the pump fails (power goes out) is it more likely to flood your basement at all or faster than before?
That basement must have been really damp!
We daylighted the part outside the house and buried all of it in the house.
This is an apartment-dweller question, but what changed that made the stream a problem when it didn't use to be? Couldn't you divert it back to whatever it was doing when it wasn't bothering you? The water must have been going someplace.
Manchin indicating potential interest in a talking filibuster. If this can be cajole into something that delays without bottling up, that could be huge...
They say the land is still rising a bit every year since the retreat of the glaciers, but I think it's probably because either water eroded a new channel underground or because some older system I don't know about (in addition to the one I did know about) has failed.
56: Yes. The reform I'm hoping for is a change from 60 votes to pass a cloture motion to 40 votes to defeat one. It gives Manchin a figleaf -- in some sense it's the same standard -- but they'd need to maintain 40 senators present at all times to stop legislation.
OT: This would hardly be chief of her offenses, but is McMegan faking a deeper, more resonant timbre when she wastes everyone else's time blathering on podcasts? She sounds like she's making the amateur's mistake of swallowing every vowel.
Or there's a reservoir that gets filled in a wet year only and once it is full, sends water to a channel that is usually dry (even after a heavy rain).
She sounds like she's making the amateur's mistake of swallowing every vowel.
Like when I eat soup.
59: I'm trying to think through, if HR1 came down to them keeping up continuous presence, and the filibuster dragged on for weeks or months, would they eventually decide "this is too bad publicity, we can't keep blocking" or is it so existential an issue that they would mount an unprecedented Berlin Airlift-level support structure so they could keep it up indefinitely?
60: I'm sorry, but did someone put a gun to your head and force you to listen to her on a podcast? If someone did that to me, I would have to think about it for a while.
Anyway, I've never listened to a podcast yet.
I don't know how to put recorded things on my phone. I used to have an iPod, the old kind with the wheel, that was full of Aimee Mann for when I was in the mood to listen to songs about heroin addiction. I still have that on my old desktop, but I'm told I can't put it on my phone easily.
Just made an appt for us to get the Moderna on Tuesday, since we become eligible on Monday. First try: dumb luck for the win.
69 was me. Why would my laptop forget me?
69, 70: Congratulations!
My wife got the first Pfizer shot on Friday. She only had a little arm soreness.
70: My Mom got her first Moderna shot on Thursday. They had registered with the local hospital but weren't getting called back and Maine was expanding eligibility, so I was nervous. My sister heard from somebody at online bible study that Walmart had them. Ordinarily, I would avoid Walmart, but my sister told me that Hanbaford's (local grocery store pharmacy) was waiting for their shots, and I'm a little bit worried that my sister is out for work enough that my mother has risk, and I'm just grateful - even if she did have to go to Walmart.
My grandma had two shots of astra zenica, everything went fine, no complications at all
My grandmother used to have a shot of Baileys every Christmas but would never touch anything with whiskey otherwise.
So, there's an 8-point whitetail buck that's been outside my window for about two hours. I think he's starting to feel at home because he's licking his butt.
61: Is your house built on old farmland? If so, could there be an old field drainage tile line that was cut off when they built your house. It might only run in wet years. I have seen that happen before when farmland was developed.
I kind of doubt it, given the slope. There is an abandoned, presumably haunted, coal mine that is not (according to the map) underneath the house but ended a few dozen yards behind.
I got my second Moderna shot on Thursday. Fine that afternoon, then Friday I had a fever and chills, and Saturday I woke up totally fine. I lucked out enough that I don't really talk about it in real life.
I have also not been a podcast listener. I want my information in skimmable text. But I find myself in the last month or so regularly listening to The Lowe Post (NBA basketball) podcast, and I realized that humans apparently can enjoy just listening to talk about something they're interested in, and it's good for folding laundry or doing dishes.
I've also had coworkers telling me to start a podcast (we've been interviewing users of the site we're building), which I've been idly considering. I could interview all the people who left Unfogged in anger.
What about the ones who left more in sadness than in anger?
They weren't angry, just disappointed.
It was unfogged's loss, more than their own.
I had an appointment for my first Pfizer on the 14th but I just got a call from my employer's clinic and I'm getting the first jab today!
68: If you have a modern phone, it's probably bigger than the vintage iPod so you'll want to put the phone down first and the iPod on top of it. Unless you meant putting your old desktop on your phone. That would be trickier!
70: It was tired of being used?
It turns out that the real Unfogged was the commenters we lost along the way.
84 Didn't get it. My BP was too high, for the first time ever, it's always been good. I had to buy a BP monitor and take readings a couple of times a day for the next week to ten days. OTOH I still have my vax appointment at the government clinic on the 14th and may just go in case it's fine by then.
If your blood pressure was high because of worry about my basement, you'll be happy to know we're down to 6,000 gallons of water a day.
87: That sucks! I hope it's just a transient thing.
Jealous of everyone with appointments. I just got us on a bunch of waiting lists, work is hoping to do on-site vaccinations, but I'm impatient. Looks like vax rate is going to beat variant spread to keep us from another horrifying wave. Yay for minimally competent feds.
87: I don't think they check BP here.
Yeah, a British friend told me they don't do that in the UK either.
I'm just so glum with disappointment, I feel like a 7 year old kid who's had both Christmas and his birthday canceled.
I'm told there's a war on Christmas.
I'm feeling mildly resentful of the people I know my age who have been vaccinated. Not enough to say anything to them, but I am deeply curious about why some of them have been vaccinated, since they are younger than me or a similar age, in apparent rude health and don't work in health care or education. In the back of my mind, I know that it's partly because I know my GP is shite, and so it wouldn't surprise me if other GPs in the area are further through their list than mine.
That makes me sound more bitter than I mean it to. I'm glad that a lot of people are being vaccinated, I'm just confused about precisely how the allocation is being managed in some cases.
Wow, socialized medicine and its discontents.
re: 97
Heh. Also, my brother in law, who is a prick, has been vaccinated. And my own GP really is terrible. First genuinely bad GP practice one I've had, that I can recall.
My wife reports they aren't checking blood pressure here either.
I don't think I qualify to get on the list.
But I have a blood pressure thing.
87. They certainly didn't check my BP before my shot. On the other hand they've lately started asking about my paracetamol (tylenol) consumption before adjusting my warfarin dosage, after not caring about it for 25 years. I think a lot of these things are just fashion.
I'm scheduled for a shot this afternoon and feeling hopeful and guilty-- many people that I think should be ahead of me aren't eligible yet. But I am eligible by their rules-- they're doing health ones by age instead of condition, so overweight 50 year olds ahead of younger people with worse health-- and they still have lots of open appointment slots for this afternoon, so I signed up. With luck they'll learn from this and loosen the age rules for the next one. Pandemic pounds for the win?
103: Congratulations! No guilt! You're doing your part to fight COVID!
Some part of me with imposter syndrome is expecting to be hauled out of line and yelled at. But the rational part of me is very happy. 3 hours to go...
re: 103
Absolutely no reason to feel guilty. Ignore my 95/96. I'm just grumbling about the opacity of allocation among in my specific local area of London. No-one who gets offered the shot should feel guilty.
106: Go ahead and grumble; it's infuriating. And I'm more feeling guilty for my local friends, who all ALSO tell me not to feel guilty. And I know it's better to have a fast system than a perfect one, and the way things are looking locally, it's probably a matter of a week or so, not months. They're trying to figure out how to deal with more supply; their invitations are now not yielding enough people, but they don't want to open it up so fast that it's back to feeling like a lottery to get a slot.
Wife got first shot. Said it hurts less than flu shot. She also bought Oreos and milk since she was at CVS.
So Hawaii has been a royal jerk for the past two weeks or so. I finally had it out with her this morning. With Hawaii, you get lots of false-issues getting vocalized, but when she finally admits the real issue, she relaxes 100% and is just a totally different person. So I think this is the real issue. But I also think it's a wee bit hilarious: "The house is such a mess."
I'd been trying to figure out if something was going on at middle school, or with Jammies and me, or...nope. She's just a mini-Jammies. If I hadn't lived with Jammies for so long, I probably would not have understood quite so quickly how deep a problem she's trying to communicate.
It's real, and I do feel bad for her! So many roommates and such messy ones. I just think it's funny because she's 11 years old and this is not what bothers most 11 year olds. (Or maybe it is, what do I know.)
Could you sit her down with old episodes of The Odd Couple and then dress your other kids in Jack Klugman masks.
I think the quarantine has just been really brutal in terms of feelings about the physical space of the house. I cannot tell you how unhappy I am right now about a) the organization of our freezer and b) the animals living in our basement and/or attic. It's just hard to be in a house for so long.
I have come to think I am allergic to something in the house, at least when I'm exposed to it 24/7. I didn't notice this in the before times, but I definitely have had something since about April that Zyrtec knocks down.
93 tbf actually feeling suicidal over this bullshit
gosh, Barry, anxious care from afar, hang in there?
113: Ditto to 114. Also, what were your BP numbers that they felt you could not get it? Because if you did have htn, It would put you at risk of worse outcomes and would mean that you should get the shot.
112: I was having trouble in the late summer and fall because there was a lot of ragweed, and a HEPA filter helped a lot.
Barry, be kind to yourself. Also, all desserts lower blood pressure.
No-one who gets offered the shot should feel guilty.
This is what I'm telling myself. I got my Moderna jab today entirely by the book -- but that just shows that you can't make rules to serve a broad population without helping some folks who are undeserving.
Nobody checked my blood pressure or did any medical test. I had to answer the health questionnaire twice, though, because the person giving the shot appeared to have forgotten that she asked me all the questions already. It's possible that they don't give their best people this job.
111: I had a tree fall on my house and eight months of temporary quarters ... was kind of a nice break.
113: Barry, I'm really sorry. It must be brutal to have the rug pulled out from under you on the vaccine. Good luck on your next try!
113: Will be worrying about you until you check back here tomorrow, Barry. You have another appointment coming up; it's a temporary setback. There's no contraindication for high blood pressure. 25% of Pfizer trial participants had hypertension. Maybe this particular site was just weird?
Cassandane has an appointment for the first shot tomorrow. Apparently the weight that counts as a risk factor is low enough to include her. She was surprised and a bit offended/concerned, but took the appointment.
I had to answer the ten preliminary questions four times, if you count the time that I answered them online before making the appointment. And when the nurse saw I hadn't answered the question about whether I was pregnant or not (I am a 58-y-o male) she answered it for me. My left arm is sore. No BP test.
115.1 They were 160/100 at the clinic. I bought a machine and last night had a reading of 171/105. This morning was 132/85 but by noon it was 153/93. It's never been this high. I may have to give up drinking so much, also started smoking a bit since I ran out of vape last month (stupid, I know, that's got to go too).
I could also stand to lose a fair bit of weight
127: yeah, that's way high. Really healthy is 140/90 (maybe even >135/85) after you've made some of the lifestyle changes, then you should ask your doctor about meds. If the systolic goes to 105 and stays above that even if you wait and relax before taking it again, call your doctor right away or go to the hospital.
I don't know why that would be a reason not to get the shot, but you do need to do something about your BP.
128: Also, take cate of yourself mentally. Glad to see you!!
Barry! Glad to see you this morning. (Er, afternoon?) Please take care. I'd loop in a doc for those numbers. Sometimes it's bad luck rather than lifestyle, and even if you're planning aggressive adjustments, blood pressure meds work really well with little to no risk, no shame in starting them if your doc recommends it. Hope you can work out getting that vaccine. I'm sure that will help a lot mentally.
129: There was a change in 2017, and now anything over 130/80 is generally considered high and warrants treatment (lifestyle change, meds, whatever). I think current thought is that more aggressive early management will lead to better outcomes than waiting.
131.1 is right. Lifestyle didn't help my blood pressure a bit even though other things improved. Lisinopril took care of it in a month.
131: 130/80 is considered early hypertension but the recommendations at that point are still lifestyle. If it's 140/90, you most definitely need meds.
Not disagreeing that that is probably right but anecdotal sample of a few hundred primary care docs is that very few will go straight to meds if it's low 130 and under 80.
Definitely worth setting up an appointment to see your doctor snd discuss. They might be more aggressive in Arrakis than Boston.
And bring your BP cuff to any appointment to make sure that the readings match the one in the office.
I guess there were headaches while I got used to the medication. Also, I sometimes get a little cough, one that would not bother me except if you are in thy grocery store and have trouble not coughing, it's really awkward.
Yes, cut with HCTZ so I can bill more time while peeing.
barry! so sorry you are having bp issues and stress around the vaccine. i am writing purely to offer maybe helpful observations - to the extent any of this makes you more stressed or is not helpful please please please ignore it. above all i do not want to make you feel worse.
when "all this" started a year ago i spent 6-8 weeks being horribly ill with a viral respiratory infection, bacterial pneumonia and prolonged asthma. once that had finally mostly-resolved i was stressed and out of condition and the things that usually made me feel better - my bike commute and lap swimming - were off the table. what helped me get things in happier order was first, finding a way to swim (for swim, read anything that is a pleasurable way to move your body - maybe that is walking for you? or dance or rowing or - ???), and then biking to and from the swim. a big bonus has been that i've been absorbed into the community of mad people who also swim in the bay. i know how much you loved your walks with pola, i so wish you were still able to do that with her. hopefully there is some community of folks that you can move with.
then i took a break from a glass of wine with dinner or a cocktail before due to a series of migraines and discovered that cutting out alcohol increased even more my pleasure in swimming in the bay (and through the winter my ability to do so without a wetsuit in the cold). and it turned out to be pretty easy to cut out alcohol when i was doing it to facilitate something i love being even more fun.
lastly, like most people i found the discombobulation of the last year really hinked up my eating habits. i found esther hargittai's post on crooked timber here https://crookedtimber.org/2020/06/21/healthy-living/ really helpful in thinking about how to get back to eating habits that made me feel good in my body.
again - if any of this helps, that is wonderful! but to the extent it doesn't please disregard and move on. but don't do so without knowing that i'm thinking of you and hoping you find a way to feel good and healthy. all my warmest wishes - dq
Barry, I ran those numbers by my wife, who said they're not "get to the ER" level, but they are definitely "go see a doctor" level.
127, 128. Barry, visit your doctor and get a BP and electrolyte workup. Sometimes high BP is transient, and due to general anxiety, nervousness and other factors, but you should get an professional opinion.
132. Lisinopril can have elevated potassium levels as a side effect; it's an ACE inhibitor. Almost all "mild" HT meds affect one or more electrolytes. IIRC the diuretics (hydrochlorothiazide, chlorthalidone, etc.) can lead to low electrolyte levels. In combination with lisinopril they can make your BP dangerously low.
on a completely different note, for years i've checked in on arual annekcm's blog every couple of months as a wow-that's-wild read, she is certainly headed in a different direction from me while starting from a not so different place. kind of a socio-political calibration check of mild interest and wow wow wow has she gone over the deep end or what??? is it just me or is she unhingedly invested in hating on mr. & mrs. elkram??? i've been chalking up her loathing for public schools to an understandable reaction to her family's v tough circumstances, even if i disagree with her policy takes. but what could possibly be fueling this deranged obsession??? so strange. did i miss some incident where a light entertainment actress of mild fame personally injured her?
Moby: my 139.last to your 136. Hydrochlorothiazide = HCT(Z).
Thanks all. I'll definitely run it by my doctor. Meanwhile I've gotten another call for the clinic for a vax appointment tomorrow morning so we'll see how that goes. I think I'll keeping my appointment with the government clinic on the 14th just in case.
We're months away from getting vaccinated. Less than 10% have been vaccinated so far where I live now.
144 My county is at 22% first dose, 14% both. This comes to 366 doses per 1,000 people.
Glacier County, which includes much of the Blackfeet Nation, is at 618 doses per 1,000 people.
AIUI, they're just starting with the J&J in some counties, which'll bring the numbers up somewhat.
Statewide, we've had just over 100k cases, and 1400 fatalities. 1500 active cases right now, with 58 hospitalizations.
I will be eligible for a vaccine starting on Thursday. It's really speeded up here. Meanwhile, my sister in Illinois,who is over 60, says she's still not eligible.
I will be eligible for a vaccine starting on Thursday. It's really speeded up here. Meanwhile, my sister in Illinois,who is over 60, says she's still not eligible.
We're down to 5,000 gallons per day, but the rate of decline seems to be declining.
Thinking of you, Barry. In a funny way, what dq writes in 137 is close to my own experience. Over the year of lockdown stress and inanition I drank way too much, ate badly, and by the holidays my weight was up to lifetime max. Realizing my gender made it suddenly possible to imagine a relationship with my body that wasn't just a matter of antagonism and avoidance - I'd spent so many years just wishing it would go away. It was somehow a natural step to cut back on alcohol, stop scarfing Trader Joe's snack food (it seems to be mountains of baby carrots that now fill the niche?), and since the new year the excess weight has been dropping fast. I'm remembering how I looked when I was younger and hoping to find the female version of that person.
So that's not all generalizable advice, but it overlaps with 137 in that trying to manage one's body as a form of surveiller et punir just doesn't work. I was trying to do that forever, and it turns out you need something to hope for. I don't know what your ideal would be - Iggy on the cover of Raw Power? - but I hope there's something. I'm really sorry you can't still do the walks with Pola. Fingers crossed for your vaccine appointment.
Sorry I'm so absentee today. Not going to be able to get anything up anytime soon today.
I recently learned that my brother-in-law is gluten intolerant.* Do any of you have experience baking with gluten-free flours? I always make pie on Thanksgiving and Christmas.** Can one make a truly good piecrust with a gluten-free flour? I'm especially interested in your answer if you're snobby about piecrust. If it's only possible to make a passable-but-inferior crust, I'd rather skip pie and make something else. I've heard good things about Cup 4 Cup -- are there better products out there? Any important techniques?
*I have a sincere question about gluten intolerance. I'm told that it's not a matter of degrees, but rather, like an on/off switch, in that a tiny amount of gluten will trigger inflammation responses. If that's the case, then if you're in for a penny, aren't you in for a pound? If he eats, say, something with soy sauce in it, why not just also eat a loaf of bread?
**My BIL loves desserts, so I feel somewhat responsible for having apparently been slowly killing him all this time. Still, I think it rather strange that no one, during the past fifteen years, ever bothered to inform me that my actions were causing him actual physical harm. I mean, the problem apparently was less bad at the beginning, and also, BIL's reticence is somewhat understandable, since he's Canadian and very polite and somewhat reserved, and I'm not his biological family after all. But. what is up with my sister.
Is it possible your whole family assumes you're trying to kill them but lack for persistence so they've decided to pretend not to notice?
Maybe the assume it's but for lack of competence, and they're too kind to bring it up.
For gluten-free pie crust, I would be thinking crumb crusts, like a graham cracker crust but with ground nuts or gluten free something.
Be sure to call it a "ground nut scheme. "
Honestly, you can eat cherry pie filling right from the can and it's very good.
140: Having a similar reaction, and finding it distressing, as she was a vital connection some years back when we moved to a peculiar country and a grad-school friend of hers was a bona fide expert in that country. Hating on teachers' unions has been sad for me to see, since my mom was a teacher for more than 30 years (and specialized in getting dyslexic kids to read for the first time), but I get that arual has been poorly served by her district, like so many others with special needs kids. As for the semi-not-Windsors, I dunno. I kinda hate to chalk it up to attitudes I would expect if all I knew of her was NJ suburbs, but maybe the gravitational pull is hard to escape.
If that's the case, then if you're in for a penny, aren't you in for a pound? If he eats, say, something with soy sauce in it, why not just also eat a loaf of bread?
Assuming the mechanism is an immune reaction, isn't it easy for immune reactions to be a matter of degree, even given that the switch has been flipped? More or fewer cells located in more or less body volume going ape trying to root out attackers.
I think lots of people have picked up quarantine hobbies of varying degrees of remove from their other interests.
140, 158: Who are you talking about?
First link on the Crooked Timber blogroll ("Lumber Room"), I think. dq spells the author's name backwards.
I've got my appointment for my 2nd dose of Moderna scheduled for tomorrow morning. My eligibility was based on the fact I'll be doing live-in care for my mom starting later this month, while she's recovering from chemo, but mom actually got her second dose of vaccine today! So I should probably feel like a scammer, but... more shots in arms.
My wife's occupation briefly made her eligible for vaccine, before the county changed their minds and decided, no, fuck your occupation entirely, so she's had one dose of Pfizer and now has no way to get another. It is enraging. She's tried the county where she's employed, our county of residence, our health care provider, with no luck.
Aside from everything else, switching priorities without grandfathering the people with the first dose seems counterproductive for community- level immunity.
Mostly, really frustrating, I'm sure.
164: Yeah, that part seems insane -- she had the second appointment *scheduled* and they canceled it for her.
164: Yeah, that part seems insane -- she had the second appointment *scheduled* and they canceled it for her.
On the flip side, my mom is doing great. Mom's chemo was very effective, no sign of cancerous activity in her last PET scan. She's regaining her strength, maintaining weight, and being mostly independent. Me and my sisters just want to make sure someone's around the house all the time in case something unexpected happens.
wow. Around here I'm told they'll give you your second dose even if you obtain your first dose under sketchy circumstances. That's not great in terms of disincentivizing bad behavior, but it's a necessary trade-off in order to preserve every last bit of supply. But to give your wife a dose under the existing vax framework, and then deny a second dose when the framework changes -- that's really shocking and stupid.
151: I don't like pie crust but do some gluten-free baking. I like King Arthur's 1:1 gluten free flour well enough. Some recipes also need a little xanthan gum - if you poke around on their website, you'll get the general idea. The batter is always weirdly slick and sort of gummy, but the final items are OK. I think it works better for things like brownies than for lighter baked goods.
This crust was beloved by friends:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017817-cranberry-curd-tart
(I think I tried it with almond flour because I'm lazy and wasn't super impressed.)
Really, though, I find it's better to use recipes that are designed not to use flour in the first place if you want something that's just tasty and not an ersatz version of a better original.
I also understand that true gluten intolerance causes long-term damage to the gut, and even small amounts are bad, but I don't think anyone is suggesting there isn't a dose-response.
There's a gluten-free bakery nearby. It was featured (without the name being displayed) in the "Pounding on my Muffin" video.
It's not my fault, I didn't know what an immune system was.
162: Ah -- it's pronounceable enough backward that I didn't pick up what was happening. Yes, she does seem exercised about the Elkrams.
170: my understanding was that there was celiac disease which does cause damage. Gluten intolerance is a more subjective thing which some people might describe as a fad. I'm sure that there are people who feel kind of crummy because they are not great at digesting gluten. If people feel better off gluten then they should do that, but I don't know that those folks are saving their guts from harm.
Just made my first appointment for Thursday!
174: Oh, huh, you're right. I was thinking gluten intolerance had become an umbrella term that included celiac, but AAAAI says not. Celiac is the only one to cause damage.
celiac disease which does cause damage. Gluten intolerance is a more subjective thing which some people might describe as a fad
He declined to call it celiac disease but I think it's basically that. (His mother and his aunts all have CD.) It's not that thing that everyone in LA has, where they stop eating chocolate chip cookies and white bread for a few weeks and feel so much better, and conclude that they must have had a gluten allergy.
I find it's better to use recipes that are designed not to use flour in the first place
I think this is probably true. On GF recipe sites people say how Cup4Cup or KAF GF flour is "just as good" as the real thing and I hoped that might be true, but it probably isn't. Is there any gluten-free Thanksgiving dessert that isn't just, like, sad baked apples? Christmas desserts are pretty easy, you can make an almond something, or a flourless chocolate something, but I feel that in order to properly celebrate Thanksgiving one needs pumpkin or apple in pie form.
Some kind of oat-based apple crisp or apple crumble?
It's really hard to get apples to crumble. Slicing works better.
178.last: They really aren't. A dear friend says things like that because she hasn't had the "real" thing in years and has forgotten how delicious it is. The link is a cranberry tart I made for a Thanksgiving dinner. I like to bake pumpkin pie filling in custard cups and top it with whipped cream, but again, I'm not especially fond of pie crust in the first place.
Can you just bake pumpkin pie filling, put it in like a martini glass, add some whipped cream, and call it a day?
182 makes more sense than 183, which will look pretty half-assed.
I think I have a custard cup and pumpkin pie filling, but no whipped cream. I'm kind of hungry.
Cup4Cup is very good. I guess if you're committed to side-by-side tests and think of wheat flour as the standard, it's different enough to be disappointing, but we've been baking with it for years and really enjoy what we make.
163: She's probably fine even 6 weeks. The 3 week dosing schedule was the shortest they could do and still get a good response. She personally might be better off. The 12 weeks they are doing in the UK and 4 months in Canada is more of a risk scientifically.
That includes pie crust, by the way. I also had a co-worker who had celiac and won a fairly big deal pie contest and never told the judges that her crust was gluten free.
Cup4Cup works. I find the difference in taste noticeable, but it's not bad -- it's just not the flavor and texture of wheat flour. I haven't tried it in a pie crust, but it's likely to be one of the easier substitutions as the challenge of making pie crust is avoiding getting the gluten to develop.
Went this morning and my BP was fine. I got my first Pfizer jab!
Unfortunately on my way back both the check engine light and the low oil pressure light on my Mini came on. I'm looking at some more expensive repairs. I would have brought it in for routine maintenance a lot sooner but with the pandemic on I've only driven it about once a week.
134: Also, I sometimes get a little cough, one that would not bother me except if you are in thy grocery store and have trouble not coughing, it's really awkward.
My experience as well. This motivated me a few weeks back to do an experiment of the ill-advised sort (I have also been doing well on the weight lately so was sort of hoping for commensurate improvement in BP) . Established a baseline of my BP (taken 3 times a day, 3 measurements at each time). Then I quit taking my lisinopril/HCTZ and after a day o so, took my BP for a few days without it and then after the terrorists won I decided to quit being an idiot, back on the meds and measured some more.
Average with meds 133/78, without meds (after 24 hours off, but probably still some residual in bloodstream) 143/83. (I do think back before I got the prescription some years ago I was more like 150/90 average--was 50 lbs heavier plus working then).
I wish it were lower, (both with and without), but unfortunately not surprised. I would sometimes get flagged for BP even as a competitive swimmer back in the day and my reasonably fit father went on BP meds at an earlier age than I did. Ah, well.
134 and 196: There are other meds which don't have that side effect.
193: Yay, Barry! A friend in Tennessee got the jab this week, too, and she was eligible because she has high blood pressure. Every jurisdiction has its own rules, I guess.
I could have high blood pressure if I wanted to.
193: Congratulations!
I got an appointment to be vaccinated next Thursday.
I don't think I've made gluten-free short crust but I make my piecrust with my lowest-gluten wheat, ground very fine but whole wheat, which is weak even for biscuits. If you like a really short flaky crust I think gluten-free could be fine, it will just be tricky getting it there. I'd chill and grate the butter and do the Mastering the Art thing smearing it on a counter to get thin flakes, maybe.