Neurodivergence: Thinking differently is special somehow?

The question of late is, what is neurodivergence? "You mean thinking differently is special somehow?" (This has come up with the Harris/Walz political campaign because Walz's son is described as neurodivergent and cried and mouthed, "That's my dad!" as his dad got nominated as VP at the Democratic National Convention. He has a nonverbal learning disability. "The condition, known as NVLD, was first recognized in 1967 and doesn’t yet have a formal clinical definition. It is characterized by a significant gap between verbal abilities — which are just fine — and nonverbal kinds of learning that involve visual-spatial processing, such as telling time on an analog clock, reading a map and balancing a budget."(https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2024-08-23/what-is-non-verbal-learning-disorder-gus-walz)

Neurodivergent is a word that means something a little more in-depth than "thinking differently." From the Cleveland Clinic's website, "Neurodivergent is a nonmedical term that describes people whose brains develop or work differently for some reason. This means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work more typically. While some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or diagnosis hasn’t been identified." It is a way to describe people whose brains process things significantly different than the norm, thus, they learn significantly differently than kids of a similar age, culture, etc. Because they learn differently, they often need varied learning strategies for a positive outcome. The significance of the difference is often determined by academic testing, which is the spring board that people being their foray into the world, in many societies.

This means a person who has a low-IQ, due to a chromosomal difference, (previously called Mental Retardation), is considered neurodivergent. They aren't able to learn at the same speed as children of a similar age. However, this can also mean that a child, who is gifted and talented, and autistic may be considered part of the same classification. It means that they may need special interventions in a classroom setting and that those interventions may be ongoing into adulthood, or even just early adulthood (the college years).

Often, increased IQ makes it easier for neurodivergent children to become competent adults because smart people use their brains to compensate a lot. It also means that interventions are different in EACH case, as are outcomes. That means that we don't know how kids are going to react to interventions until we try them. Some kids just need extra help throughout adulthood to be part of society.

I am considered neurodivergent because I have aphantasia, which is the inability to visualize things in my mind's eye. The way I have compensated for that is by "visualizing" things with words and feelings. I remember things with great difficulty, if they are graphical. I have to practice the graphic again and again. For example, I cannot play chess very well at all, despite being a very bright person, because I cannot "see" the moves ahead because I am unable to visualize them. It does not adversely affect me in my day-to-day life, but it makes me different from most people of a similar age and IQ.  

To be honest, in teaching, I recall students' names because of how they smell (I have a keen sense of smell) or a smell associated with them, like a particular sandwich or favorite food, something they said, something they did, the first impression I took from their presentation, something I felt or some association I made with regards to them. It takes me a little longer to get their names straight, but I keep making the verbal connection to their name, by repeating their name, whenever I call on them, to force me to learn their name and associate the face in front of me with it, and God forfend, the infamous seating chart, though I'm going to have to say here, that it doesn't matter to me, where they sit, as long as I know where it is.  If you know me, you know I'm a talker and I get people to talk to me and give me the mnemonic necessary for me to remember them.  Just never ask me to draw someone's face from memory, without those mnemonics after seeing it once. I'd be a lousy visual witness.

In this article, this woman is far worse off than I am. My aphantasia is far less severe. While I can't visualize it, I do feel something about people I meet and I learn the name and associate the name with something, so if I meet them again and get their name, all the information about them comes back with a glimmer of recognition, maybe. With no verbal information or name, my ability to re-recognize people is diminished greatly. I'll never be a great chess player, but ability to select the right herbs for a recipe is unparalleled, by gum!

Black Barbie

 I'm watching, "Black Barbie," and I'm feeling my privilege.  The one thing that I really relate to that the women in the documentary are saying is that it was empowering to have a doll that looked like them.  I felt like that, too, when I was given a red-headed Francine.  She made me feel like I wasn't quite so weird.  I think the whole experience of being a total nerd and not one of the pretty girls, befreckled auburn-haired kid that I was, it really made a difference to me to have a red-haired Barbie.  I love to this day, dressing dolls.  I have bought black, brown, big-hipped and  an assortment of Barbie dolls, including Wonder Woman with articulating arms and legs.  I love dressing them because I find it relaxing.  I think that I often preferred Skipper as a young girl because I was never going to have a rack like that either.  The body types were definitely unrealistic, but it made me feel less alone. I get on a small level what it must have been like to be a black girl in the time of white Barbie. Those same feelings of inadequacy were there for me, too. I don't pretend that racism is the same as lacking self confidence.  I just get a tiny hint of needing a doll to look like me and finding comfort in that.

I worked hard to keep all the pieces to my dolls and accessories.  I wasn't great at it with my ADHD, but when I ever got a Friendship for Christmas, I never felt closer to my dad, a commercial pilot.  I kept a lot of the pieces that came with that and I worked very hard to keep my shoes.  My mom in a pique to empty her attic, donated all of my dolls.  I was devastated!

When we were losing our house in Nevada, I didn't want anyone to spend much $ on me for Christmas, so I asked for a Barbie and a few outfits  It was awesome!  It helped settle the anxiety about losing the house for me to just sit somewhere and change her clothes. 

It's important that mainstream represents everyone.  It's an appalling shame it took until 1980 for there to be a black Barbie.  I was so in love with MLK as a young child.  I graduated high school the year after black Barbie came out, which after living through the civil rights' changes of the 60s seems like...what the hell?  How come it took so LONG?!  Why do changes that are so important take so damned long?

 

 Today, we've been married 24 years.  It's absurd to think of anything in my life being that old other than me.

Two years ago, Mumu passed.  I am still in tears over that cat, which is so odd. My kids and husband get it, but I know my parents would not. They would assume I'm over emotional.  We were so close and she was truly my best friend.  We got each other.  She knew when I was feeling shitty and would be so gentle with  me. I need to go find another animal, but that whole process seems like more than I can handle like somehow I'd be betraying my relationship with her a tiny bit.  I don't think the love in my heart is finite and I know Isabel thinks I'm pretty lovely. I even know Mumu would wish me happiness, and that makes me sad, too. I'm stunned at how much I am grieving that sweet cat.

It's the last solar eclipse today for the next 75 years in the US.  We went out with our silly glasses and observed it.  We only got a 65% viewing, and the solar panels noticed no difference, however, it was fun.  Genny, Mike and I are such nerds. I love that.

Cornholio

Tonight, Hubs was swinging the passive-agressive grumpy jerk attitude like a battle axe, and I just wouldn't tolerate it. He saves that one just for his family, so lucky fucky us. I suggested I could go hang with Mell until I was able to get disability approved, so i can get bariatric surgery and then, we could just get divorced. He says he doesn't want that . Then, constructive solutions were developed and it was better,  

He often doesn't ask what's going on with me and then doesn't understand, when all my spoons are gone if I tell him I can't do something,  he doesn't want to do, I get the passive-aggressive garbage. I'm over it. If I wanted to be in a relationship that I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, I could have stayed with any one of the abusive assholes in my multi-colored and checkered past.

As much time as he says he wants to hang out with me, he doesn't seem to care how I'm doing at all. It hurts my body,  my spirit and my heart because he is just choosing to not pay attention. 

Today, I got up with little sleep and drove a regular to work. I worked for a few hours and got one to the airport, which is very close-by home. I spent the afternoon with calls, emails, and assorted stuff. Mind you, I can barely walk, use stairs or move because of all the collective ow and the unending poo fest that is my butt, after the gastroenteritis hospital stay. 

I asked G to do the rest of my shopping today with said income. She said she wanted to shower after the gym, but then she could. Three hours later...Nada. I could have called, but she has been working on school projects, so guilt plowed in and her evasion worked. When she got asked to put the groceries away, she started with the tantrum and I simply said, hey ya blew off doing the one damned thing I really needed today, you can do this part of it. And I'm exhausted, so no energy to track her ass down and push the issue.

I said something about the shopping needing to get done to Mike and he grimaced with the face that means, "Fuck you for thinking that." Knowing the usual battle, passive aggression and all with his assorted BS, I had to go with him with everything hurting and my digestive track having me run in earnest for the past week. God forfend he could hold his own as a grown ass man at the Piggly Wiggly.

It often feels like daily, I'm dealing with a toddler, who is supposed to care about me. I know he's always been a bit autistic, though he thinks I'm on crack. (Just my butt crack.  Yes, I have a 12 year old sense of humor, so cope, OK?) But yes, very autistic.

I said, "Butt." (insert Beavis and Butthead laugh here)

I'm really depressed.  I'm struggling with all the issues of my body not working and my insurance not currently covering bariatric surgery that would save my life. No drama.  Just facts.  I can only take 3 medications to deal with gastroparesis and one I can't take because of an important one I take for fibro and the other two cause heart problems, which can and will interfere with my existing heart issues over time. A gastro surgeon said there are no good surgical options for me short of a roue and y bariatric procedure.  Add to that that the gastroparesis has me looking like a tuskless walrus and I'm absolutely miserable.  Also, I've been getting all these weird muscle strains and sprains that (no surprise) don't fucking heal.  My sugars are being pretty princesses and behaving, but the fibro is dropkicking my ass from Kingdom Come to Kingdom Went.

Part of the problem is that even though I asked for help, I didn't get it from my hubs and kids.  I told my husband he doesn't get to be nasty to me because he doesn't like or want to deal with something.  And that's his go-to.  He hollers or gets nasty or takes on a shitty attitude for the night, so he doesn't have to do things.  Grumble, evade, be a bitch, so Ruby has no energy to fight it out with you. The problem is that he's taught the kids that and I'm over it.  I've informed both kids that the going rate for a room to rent in a house in our neighborhood (there's a room for rent on the other side of our back fence)  is $900, in our neighborhood. And if we're charging them $500, it's because we're expecting them to step up and be adults and help with the household chores or they can pay a more appropriate amount of rent, so I can hire a housekeeper. I've informed Genny and Mike what the meals will be this week and sent recipes and plans.

If the kids moved out (Oh, please oh please), I think we'd keep the house another couple years, take our equity and go somewhere substantially cheaper to live. We bought the house with the kids in mind, knowing that that the boy would need his own restroom and space for an indeterminate amount of time because of the myriad of health issues he has.  He's decided without knowing the language or the culture, he's going to the Philippines to play poker for a living over some girl he met online a few months ago. (God save me from the stupid!)  We have discussed things with him and he said he wants to try this out. He's always been a good poker player and he's been playing since high school and winning his butt off.  At 30 years old, all I can do is advise and shut the fuck up.  I'm not holding my breath for the woman involved, and we all know horror stories of morons being taken in. If he makes it work for himself, I'm not going to whine. I'll even keep my big mouth shut, if "I told you so" comes into my fibro brain. My biggest concern is he has inherited the same problem I have, which is a huge difficulty with saying the word, "no," when it comes to the latest and greatest in dating disasters.

In the interim, I would probably rent the room in the basement with the en suite bathroom because it'd be a simple way to gain some income without the hassle of adult children being snots. He wanted to pay half rent, i.e., quarter rent, for us to maintain the room for him and I told him no.  I told him at 30 years old, he could rent a storage shed or let his sister be in charge of any crap he wanted to leave behind.  I am not moving crap for someone who no longer lives here. He decided at that point, that he'd just like to leave copies of important papers here.  Funny. Thing. That. I agreed to that, of course.

I'm so sick of this shit.  I'm so tired of the constant Battle Royale to get help with the house.  Genny has money to pay for a trip to a Furry Convention and they both have money to go to a Brazilian steak house and sushi, and we're both driving Uber to try to cover the fucking bills. I told her I'm not OK with essentially funding her nerd orgy.  She said that it was her money.  I said the only reason she had it was because she wasn't paying the rent we could actually charge for her room. The lightbulb went off.

After venting with friends, I've scuttled from the edge of murdering them all in their sleep and burying them under the raised beds. Not far from the edge, but more like I'd drop pure capsaicin on their foreheads in their sleep. Besides Turk is in his permanent home there and I wouldn't defile his grave for all the fucktards in the world, even familial ones.

Now, if I can just find the Holy Grail of my personal Arthurian legend, aka my bottle of oxy, I will be the happiest Morgan Le Fucking-Fay ever and I might even be able to walk to the bathroom without screaming obscenities.  This torn quad muscle has me begging for something deep and abiding and far larger than mercy. Calling PT, Podiatrist, and getting cervical ablation scheduled tomorrow.  

 Appropros of not a damned thing, I found an etsy listing for glow in the dark dildos with suction cups on the end.  I'm sitting there looking at that and I'm thinking, "Is that so you can stick in on a chair and ride it AND simultaneously be able to find it in the dark?" Then it made me think about what furniture in the house might be appropriate and then, the severe creeps ensued. Shut up brain!  WTAF! Good wavy gravy, all I could think is thank the great disinfecting wipe gods!

In the same ad, I found a listing for a bag of dicks and there was a neatly lettered little tote bag with, "Bag of Dicks," on it, and a bunch of gummy penises for said recipient to choke down.  Who do you know, who should really eat a bag of dicks?  I supposed I know a good number of people.  When that first came out, I thought it was genius.  I still do, which just goes to blow ya, I've got the mental maturity of a 12 year old.

I saw a doctor today that I loved, who does bariatric surgery.  I could pretty much cancel out the majority of my health problems, if I had it and sadly, with time, they are compounding.  It's so fucking frustrating.  Mike's new company has a rider preventing coverage of bariatric surgery.  Without it, I'm going to die, probably of heart failure because my vagus nerve is dying from being a long time diabetic.

Mike is considering changing jobs.  And I may just go ahead and see if I can get disability. I've worked close to a year now, so it is possible, but I'm getting less out of the low-dose naltrexone and starting to really experience more inability to work versus the other way around.  Not getting insurance to cover it is very much like finding a glowing green ween in the dark: gross, disturbing and completely aggravating to deal with. And yes, I think preventing someone from getting bariatric surgery makes you a candidate to eat a bag of dicks.  Mike's sent an email to HR asking about it and we'll see what they say. If they can't change/make an exception, they can eat a bag of dicks with the stupid totebag, and Mike will be looking for a new job.

I think I need to write about stuff I know.  No one seems to be putting all this stuff in one place for people.  I'm going to.  I'm going to write about my anecdotal experience of my fibromyalgia. 

For example, I was the one kid in my ballet class who could not do the splits.  Every other child in ballet at the age of five could do the splits.  I could not.  I tried.  I practiced constantly and I got a tiny bit closer, but basically, I could not do the splits. The other kids made fun of me and even the teacher did.  The presumption, of course, was that I wasn't practicing and that I wasn't working at it, even though from my point of view that's all I seemed like I was doing.

I also was the one child on the high school track and cross-country teams, who didn't seem to respond much to flexibility regimens designed to expand our flexibility.  While many teammates were able to lace their fingers together and drop them over the ends of the toes of their sneakers, I was the kid still straining down my shins to reach my doggone tootsies.

My body started showing a lot of the telltale signs of ligament/tendon failures that one expects with some of the EDS linkages that are starting to show up between fibromyalgia and Ehler-Danos Syndrome. I literally had to get taped for a year because my arches fell so severely that they took the ligaments and tendons down in the front and side of my legs had collapsed and had to be held up with tape to not be so much screaming agony for me.  I could barely walk, much less run.  The pain was excruciating. I loved running though and rather than give up, I was trying to adhere to the "no pain, no gain" adage to my detriment. 

Fortunately, the last straw for my body was athletically-induced viral meningitis, which finally knocked me down so hard, I had to stay down for a while.  When I got back up, I contracted mononucleosis and that took me down for an additional three months.  When I was finally able to run again six months later, most of the ligament and tendon inflammation was gone and I was running about a mile or two at a pop in Arizona on flats in college.

The problem is now, every time I work out, I tend to feel so good, I overdo and then get hurt again, making a return to working out difficult over and over again.  Now, with age, I'm hitting the usual burdens and hurdles of age and weight, of a deteriorating spine, which tosses other issues into the mix.  With Covid, I can't even swim because of all the high risk categories I fall into. It's pretty danged frustrating.

I'm trying to stretch mostly and bike when I can.

Unrest and Butterflies

I just saw the movie, Unrest. The title is supposed to refer to how people should be stirred up by the status quo and how poorly fibromyalgia/ME/CFS folks are treated.  I thought it was more of a reference to how people with fibro never reach deep sleep well, so are in a perpetual state of sleep depravation.  In her very severe case, she's in bed all day not because she's resting, but because she simply can't function normally to walk, talk, etc. without assistance, most of the time, so she IS bed-bound a good chunk of the time. I'm sure it's meant to be some of each.  I'm still mulling over the movie in my head.

Then, she had the millions missing march (https://www.meaction.net/tag/millionsmissing/)-- lots of empty shoes missing their people participating in life.  It *can* be like that.  There is that grieving process.  I still wrestle with that myself a great deal.  I'm trying to regain some of my shoes, so I can do more walking and biking and participating.  I still dream of hiking in the wilderness again.  I don't know if it will ever happen again, but I dream of that so often. I often cross-country ski in my dreams.  It's one of the places I live there.

Mike thought it was interesting that the cells of someone with the disorder don't produce energy correctly, so that someone with fibro is better served keeping their exercise in aerobic versus anaerobic levels, so that they aren't drawing on their own mitochondria to produce energy.  It makes me want to read more and hit the books again.

I cried for all the deaths listed at the end of the movie.  With the so-called war on drugs, that list is likely to grow by leaps and bounds for all of us, who advocate and live with these issues.  My butterflies are there now. 

Baby, I'm Back and Bananas

I haven't written here in a bit.  I've been writing a lot on Facebook, so it seems like my impetus for writing here has gone, but tonight, it came back.

A year ago, I had a hysteroscopy and my uterus was smooth muscle.  A few short months ago I had one and the inside of my uterus looked like an eyelash sweater.  Horrified by the polyps waving their little arms from my uterus, I remembered protozoans in college under a microscope bopping along in reaction to various stimuli.  Officially, my diagnosis means I just have polyps and they're currently, non-cancerous, as far as we know, but there's an element of clock-chasing.  The more weight I lose, the easier everything becomes in terms of insulin, recovery, and all that shit.

Every drop of blood that hits my pad or underwear is a scare though, in the interim.  I never know if that's the start of something worse. If I start bleeding heavily, it means that I've got to call in and the hysterectomy gets put on hold.  I would go see an oncologist and then I see if things have spread, etc. Sadly, I cannot schedule a hysterectomy sooner than around Christmas.  Mike is working mandatory over time for the forseeable future.  Genny will be on break at that time, so I'll have coverage at home. If we have to, Mike will work early and Genny will go in later and I'll have a half hour unattended.  It's about 8 weeks of recovery.

I find it well nigh on impossible to keep the panic from racing across my scalp like ants each day and I bicycle it away in this beautiful recumbent bike Mike and my friend, Robyn, bought me for my birthday, as often as I can.  I bury my hands in Muffin, too, because that cat knows the pain, panic, and depression that can accompany fibromyalgia, nevermind a cancer scare. I bury my face in Mike because love knows no bounds and I get hugs from Genny and Russell because hugs from your kids are the best thing since a good night's sleep.

I ended up here tonight because on a fluke, I was reading this article on Facebook about how what kind of banana you select can tell a lot about your health.  I was thinking about how I used to like the green ones, but lately, I've liked the brown ones.

"The spotted yellow banana, on the other hand? This banana is also rich in antioxidants and a great choice for patients who are currently fighting off tumors. The brown spots are actually a positive indicator. This means that the banana will help to break down various cells in the body, especially abnormal cells that are known to cause cancer." -- http://goodfullness.net/which-banana-would-you-eat-your-answer-may-have-an-effect-on-your-health

That last line, made me burst into tears and made me want to buy a big fucking box of bananas.

As I've come late to diagnosis of my fibromyalgia, I am coming to the realization that there's so much bullshit around the diagnosis, medication, and knowledge base of fibromyalgia.  There's a lot of similar traits that I've seen in many people with fibro.  Many of us have survived abuse.  It's a gross generalization to say that every person with fibro is the same, but I've noticed it's a common trait, often.

I'm in several support groups on Facebook.  I even started my own, which has been growing leaps and bounds, in just a few months.  It's been an adventure.  It's difficult sometimes to reckon with people like me, who simultaneously might forget to bring their butts if they weren't attached, due to fibro fog or some of that brain fog that goes with so many auto-immune disorders, people who get ticked off and then forget why they're ticked off, people who are simply ticked, sad or depressed because they're dealing with the results of PTSD-induced auto-immune symptoms, and people capable of deep love, support, kindness and gentleness, too.

I know with my depression and sadness that it's very much a tidal thing, as it ebbs and flows. Sometimes, I get triggered because I read something or there's my weirdness with hairbrushes and sometimes just talking about it, can get me in a funk.  At this point, though, my funks are very short-lived.  I get down.  I get funky with it. I move on.  I meditate.  I count blessings.  I feel very much like an explorer in a oft-visited cave. I spelunk through it on out to fresh air, sky and sunshine. 

When I start thinking about my blessings, that's often all it takes.  I'm breathing.  My children are healthy.  My husband is darling. 

One of the things that comes up for me a lot is when I read Facebook game things like, "If you could change anything in your life, what would it be?"  Sometimes, my mind heads right to that sore spot in my life, when I was so brutally abused. Then, I realize all the people I've helped and spoken to and for, and I know I couldn't have done that without that sore spot, without those wounds.  Learning to tend for wounds of the psyche remind me to be humble and that I am loved deeply.

The mother in me comes forward and cares for me.  She reminds me that I'm OK.  She reminds me that it's over now.  She reminds me to breathe.  She strokes my hair and off I go.

Well, I'm looking at trying a dill pickle recipe, shortly, because my cucumber plants are going nuts.  I was realizing, too that my squash are about to wax prolific, which reminded me of my mother's and my favorite relish.  My mother is the source of most of my canning recipes and inspiration, though, I have tried a number of variations as I've gone because I love HEAT in my food and she doesn't. I think living in California with access to so much Mexican culture and food changed my New Hampshire palate, for which I am glad.  When I have pictures of this in a month, I will edit the post and put them in here.

Mom's Zucchini Relish

10 cups cut squash (yes, you can use any squash like zucchini, summer squash, mexican squash, or even patty-pan squash) I've cut it by hand, but honestly, I think grated is better for consistency and you can use a food processor to do that.
4 cups of chopped onion
5 Tbsp uniodized salt (canning salt)
1 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp celery seed (I've also used mustard seed in lieu of this, but I don't like it as much)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp tumeric
1.5 cups white vinegar (I've used some balsamic vinegar in here because it's delicious!)
3 cups of sugar

Mix squash, onion and salt into a non reactive bowl or crock.  Cover and leave overnight.  Drain the liquid out and set aside.  In a large pot, mix the rest of the ingredients together and then add in squash and onions mixture.  Simmer for 45 minutes.  Pack into sterilized jars and seal.  Run in hot water bath for about 15-25 minutes with jars under water.  Remove and let cool.  This should make 6-7 pints. Because I never use a lot of relish at once, I typically use half pint jars for this.

How can I change this up?
Possible alterations include using jalapenos or serranos (I'd substitute at least 6-10 for a bell pepper and use seeds for more heat) and tossing in a Tbsp of hot pepper flakes.  I have also just tossed in a half dozen hot peppers and it really wouldn't do much other than add some heat.

I've also just used red bell peppers, as well as red, hot peppers that are starting to dry, so it's prettier. The green is OK, but I like the color of the red. It reminds me of summer in the winter.  I've also used more than just the two bell peppers. Usually, if I'm using zucchini, I have enough green color, but if I've used some yellow squash, I typically have used green pepper, with a red and an orange pepper.  I like the look of it and I like the fact that you get the color without using food coloring.

You could substitute honey for the sugar, if you're feeling that ambitious.  It seems like about two cups of honey would be sufficient, using this site as a guide.  It's not going to brown, but it will add a little liquid to the recipe.  I would guess that you can cut the vinegar down by a quarter cup and up the honey to 2.25 cups and you'd maintain enough acidity for keeping botulism at bay.

I don't think I realized how difficult it is for other people to can stuff.  I really am constantly surprised by people who say,"Oh, my jam came out like cranberry jelly and I could hardly get it to spread" or "Mine became pancake syrup." I used to make canning errors, but over the years, I've gotten very good at fudging it. I made a triple berry jam, like my mother used to make from blackberries, blueberries and strawberries.  (She used raspberries.) The recipe on the little sheet in the pectin box basically had blackberries and blueberries in equal parts to sugar for jam, but strawberries were their own category with measures that weren't easy to ration to blackberries.  I made an executive decision, however.

I didn't have a lot of strawberries, so I just used the recipe for the blackberries and blueberries because it was a double batch and there was no way it that pint of strawberries was going to really adversely affect the outcome.  I think the recipe for strawberry jam called for about half the strawberries and sugar that the blackberries/blueberries did, so I used the more dominant amounts of berries to sugar ratio to determine my recipe.

It came out perfectly. The strawberry flavor was just enough to soften some of the seed bitterness of the blackberries.  My mother typically used raspberries, but she also has a HUGE patch.  I literally wait with baited breath for my mother to bring me a jar of her raspberry jam.  It doesn't matter that it's the full sugar stuff.  You can taste the freshness of the berries.  She literally goes out, picks, and then cans it.  You can't beat that!

I also recommend canning the same day, but if you can't,  you can wait until the next day only usually with wild berries.  I don't recommend it, though.  Plan on a long day.  Pick in the morning and can in the evening. Strawberries you pick at a place in summer usually HAVE to be canned that day or they start to go.  Blackberries and blueberries are a bit more hardy, depending on how squished they get in picking or storage containers.  I typically try to put blackberries in a container that is wide, but not deep, to avoid squishing them too much.

Also, when a recipe tells you to hand crush the berries, feel free to ignore that and run them through the food processor.  It gives a better consistency to your jam and really can save your hands and wrist.  If you've already spent the day getting attacked by brambles, you will thank me because crushing them by hand with a pastry cutter sucks, as does a potato masher.

Almost any fruit can be combined with other fruit.  There are likely any assortment of recipes on the Internet.  The best recipe I ever found was plum-pear jam.  It seemed like it would be weird, but it was delicious.  It tasted like autumn, in the best sense.  It tasted like something that would go well with a bit of sharp cheddar on a good cracker.  It was that awesome.

I recently made nectarine, strawberry, blueberry jam.  It sounds weird, but it was really good.  The berries accented the nectarines beautifully.  The thing with nectarines and peaches is that you usually have to add some acidity to the mix, so I had about 2/3 of my jam mix from nectarines, so I used 2/3 of 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or 4 teaspoons to add enough acid to the mix. It came out beautifully.

My husband was mad as hell it had nectarines in it AFTER he ate it.  I had to use up the fruit, so I did and just didn't mention it to him.  He was mad that I'd tricked him into eating it. I just laughed and said, "Suckah!"  My daughter thinks it's pretty darned good, though she also loves the mixed berry I made, too.

I'm going to try to pick more berries between storms today or tomorrow.  I noticed the patch we hit has a ton of fruit again, this morning.  YUM!

Remember, you have to use the pectin for jam AS INSTRUCTED.  If you want a low sugar jam, you need to use a low sugar pectin.  Freezer jam maintains more of the freshness of the fruit and uses less sugar than regular jam, and there are also low/no sugar pectins for freezer jams. Not everyone has the freezer space for such frivolity, I realize.  If you want to make jarred jam low in sugar, you must by the low/no sugar pectin.  What sweetener you use is up to you.  You must also use low/no sugar pectin to use agave or honey, or it won't come out.

I hope this helps. :)

My mother taught me to can.  I am teaching my daughter to can, too.  My garden is starting to hit its stride, thus, my three cucumber plants went completely bonkers and I had a pile of cucumbers to contend with.  There's only so much cucumber salad any one family can eat, so while I was a pound shy on cucumbers to make a triple batch of my mother's bread and butter pickles, I added more onion and off to the races I went.

The recipe is here. I put dried hot chile's into a few bottles, but other than that, here's the recipe from my mother.

BREAD AND BUTTER PICKLES

6 lbs. cucumbers (about 4 inches long) thinly sliced, do not pare

4 large onions, sliced

2 green peppers, sliced

½ cup salt—do not use iodized salt

5 cups cider vinegar

5 cups sugar

1 ½ teaspoons turmeric

2 tablespoons mustard seed

2 tablespoons plus two teaspoons celery seed

16 whole cloves (I used a teaspoon)

Mix together the cucumbers, onion, green pepper and salt in a large bowl or earthenware crock. (Can use stainless steel pot, but not aluminum) Cover vegetables with with small ice cubes. Cover with a weighted plate and set aside about three hours. Drain.

Meanwhile, blend vinegar and remaining ingredients together in a large kettle.

Add drained vegetables and set over medium heat. Heat thoroughly, but do not boil, stirring occasionally with a wooden or stainless steel spoon.

Pack into sterilized jars and seal.

Makes 8 pints.

Racism isn't dead

After recently watching episodes of, "Wire" I am finding it difficult to not be surprised about the recent death of Freddie Gray.  I am horrified, nonetheless, but not surprised. 

It boggles the mind how stark our world is becoming against the backdrop of old hatreds, like racism of whites against blacks, the rich versus the poor, the police versus criminals, and women versus men.  I am sad that the gray areas that we have often found in these wars of absolutes are dissipating and it makes me so angry.

Education feels like a precious bottle of aged wine, spilling out of a bottle and to the floor, where it slinks down a drain to never be tasted. I believe it takes an education for the mind to handle grays and not jump to the absolutes that are so easy to sling on like a belt or shoe. It's like when your child tattles on her sibling and says, "He always does or says that."  You know there's no way in hell that your child could always be leaving his underwear on the floor because you've seen evidence of his underwear hitting the basket occasionally.

In the same way, there's no way that all white police officers attack black suspects inappropriately. On the other hand, the times that you do find that underwear on the floor is no less disgusting with its little racing stripes and soaking wet from a kid drying off from his bath over it.

I can't imagine what it's like to live in that level of fear, however, when those types of immoral things happen because I'm a ginger.  I've been given dirty looks because I'm a white girl in a diverse neighborhood, but I'm good at softening the hardest heart with a smile, a cookie or a learned phrase in the appropriate language like, "Thank you."  

Incidents like the Baltimore police department's recent behavior make it more apparent to me than ever that there needs to be a "Consumer Reports" overview group for things like Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Michael Brown in Ferguson and the Eric Garnder shooting in New York, so that we make sure that our law enforcement is behaving above reproach.  The ubiquitous nature of these shootings and the reactions people are having to them reveal that more than ever, we need to be sure that these types of things are not getting by without review by someone,  who has no vested interest in the outcome of that review.

My experience of living in the south is that racism isn't dead, but hidden.  You can color me stunned for the numbers of times that people assumed because I was a blue eyed white gal that I was amenable to racism, when in fact my silence was, simply being appalled and left wordless by the exposure.  We need to root out all of the hiding places it lingers in and root it out willingly and talk about it, so we have a chance of eliminating it from future generations.

Autoimmune disorders in real life

One of the things I'm finding out about having fibromyalgia is how interrelated everything in our bodies is. Autoimmune disease leads to more autoimmune disease, so that co-morbid conditions are really the norm.  If you have this, you are more likely to have this and this. It's freaking creepy, honestly.  I feel like I'm always waiting for another danged shoe to fall and it blows.

I have Hashimoto's thyroid disease.  I have fibromyalgia and the associated IBS.  I have diabetes.  I have fractory chronic uticaria (hives brought on by auto-immune reactions).  These are all auto-immune issues.  Two out of four of those can kill you (Hashimotos and diabetes).  The other two can make your life freaking hell with pain and itching. (fibro and chronic uticaria)

I've gotten the first three managed, finally. Now, I just have to get off prednisone and on immunosuppresants to stop the raging itching and I have to wait for the latter to build up.   I swear, when the hives are present, it looks like my husband gave me two black eyes because my eyes are ringed with welts.  My husband said I remind him of a Trill from Star Trek. (Google Jadzia Daz)  My hives though, aren't limited to the sides like that.  I get red lumps everywhere!

I get hives clumping on my ears, so I'm standing there scratching my ears in this very cautious and fervent manner that looks like I'm a raving lunatic. If you were to shave my head, it would look like my brain was not protected by my skull because I get so lumpy!  A friend, who also suffers with this stuff said, the boobs covered with lumps is horrifying.  I find myself trying to surreptiously rub my hivey boobs and trying to make it look like I'm just adjusting my bra. Yeah!  That's the ticket!

As if the other diseases weren't indignities enough, I think the most humiliating is the middle-of-the-night back hump on a door jamb.  I get leaned up on a door jamb to get the middle of my back and I catch myself in a mirror, looking like I'm screwing the hell out of the doorway backwards. I just roll my eyes, and I'm screaming in my head, "Fuck it!"  The cats think I'm a little weird, but I feed them and pet them, so they put up with me.  My backscratcher periodically shows up from hiding from whereever   I stuffed it last and I put that thing to task, regularly.  Some women are really into a BOB (battery operated boyfriend).  I am really into my back scratcher.

It's taken so much time to figure things out and track down information.  I feel like the Fates.  I feel like I've been handed scrambled strings and I'm trying to weave a life out of them.

You get so much information, advice, anecdotal evidence and general bullshit to wade through.  The information you have to determine if it's medical or commercial because someone's always trying to get you to buy their crap because it's going to fix everything.  The advice you have to decide if it's well-meaning, but worthless or medical and useful.  Trust me, when I tell you, being desperate means you'll try everything once. The anecdotal evidence you have to compare to teensy weensy widdle studies done all over the world with minimal results and larger studies with better results.  The general bullshit is just that.

Getting through that pile of strings and putting together the fabric of a life is a source of outrage, frustration, and occasional breakthroughs.  Much like gambling, with its occasional reward, people with autoimmune disorders are constantly on the lookout for those occasional clinks of coins hitting the slot machine tray.  My coins are things like yoga, meditation/prayer, exercise, and my family and friends.

Clink, clink, baby.

Pinterest

I just discovered Pinterest.  As one person said upon hearing this, "You, of all people?"  Yeah, I know.  I just keep all my recipes that I like on my computer.  Ones I've made, I print a copy of and stick in a plastic sleeve in a 3-ring notebook in the kitchen.  Ones that have never quite made it from my computer to my table, are stored in limbo on my computer.  If I need a fancy cake or something, I look through those first, after reviewing my usual suspects.  I have a few key books I review.  I haven't yet figured out how to deal with recipes stuck on my kindle and I have like 500 cookbooks on there.

Some women are shoe whores.  I am a cookbook whore.  Don't judge me!  I found this recipe and made a lot of adaptations.   The crust recipe is absolutely untouched because it's delicious.  Of course, I use whole wheat flour, because while you can take the hippie out of California, you can't take the California out of the hippie.

(Derived from Betty Crocker's Red Spoon Collection, Best Recipes for Chicken, 1989, ISBN 0-13-073065-3)

Mexican Chicken Pot Pie

3-4 cups of cooked chicken (3-4 skinless chicken breasts)
1 can cream of something soup (I prefer cream of mushroom, but in a house of fungi haters, I use low-cal cream of chicken.  I have also used cream of celery to good avail.)
1 cup of sour cream (substitutions include a cup of nonfat yogurt or a cup of nonfat sour cream or half and half of each)
1 can of chiles, drained and/or a half cup of chopped jalapenos or bell peppers
1/2 cup of chopped onion
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup of green onions
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tsp chile powder  (may be omitted for lightweights or increased for chile heads)
1 tablespoon cilantro
Optional:  1/2 c. chopped spinach, grated zucchini or summer squash

Crust:
2/3 cup of shortening
4 cups of flour (I do half whole wheat and half all purpose unbleached)
1-2 tsp of salt ( I use less salt)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1 1/2 cup of warm water

Preheat over to 400 degrees.  Make the crust first by cutting the shortening into flour, salt and baking powder until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Stir in water with fork until dough comes off the side of the bowl and rounds into a ball.  On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough just until smooth.    Cover and let rest about 15 minutes.

After the dough has rested, roll it out about 1/8"-1/4" thick.  The original crust recipe was half the recipe I put up, but that was never enough, so I always double it, so therefore, the recipe above :)  I use an 13" by 9" pan.

Put your dough in your pan with a good 4-5 inches of dough hanging over the sides.  Put the chicken on the bottom.  Now, take the soup, sour cream, chiles, onions, oregano, chile powder, and veggies and mix together over medium heat until hot and cooked through.  Then dump over chicken.  Sprinkle cheese and green onions and cilantro over chicken mixture.  You're going to pinch off one end of the crust, so stuff doesn't leak out.  Then you're going to pull and pinch the dough together on top.  Then either knife or fork through the crust a few times to let steam escape.

Put your little stuffed pouch o' dough in the oven to bake 45-50 minutes until the crust is a golden brown.  I like to serve this with salsa.  Although some ranch blended with cilantro on a nice green salad is good, too.

I've been feeling like crap the past couple days.  I overdid on Saturday.  I've been keeping track of my sugars and fighting through the prednisone, but I way overdid on Saturday, so I've been paying.  Yesterday, I spent most of the day cooking and enjoyed it, but I was so exhausted.

My sugars are pretty nuked, but hey, it's prednisone.  I see the specialist tomorrow, so here's hoping.

Today started off at 550AM.

I woke up with a round or two of IBS.  We dropped Genny off at school, went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  I had eggs, bacon, and whole grain harvest pancakes.    I used a combination of maple and no sugar syrup and ate half the pancakes.  It was a lot of food.

I dropped Mike off at work, dropped Russell at the pulmo for his allergy shots, then, I got my favorite drink in the entire world, iced sugar-free cinnamon dolce latte from Starbucks.  I had started hiving before that, but I seemed to get worse after, so suspicious of the syrup.  I grabbed water and jerky for Russell and I, while we waited on Genny to get off school.  With his stomach issues and the several times I had been to the bathroom thusfar, I figured I'd better eat some protein. Then we picked her up and I took them to lunch at an Indian Buffet.

I've eaten there before without much trouble, but towards the end of the meal (I'm pretty sure I ate my weight in nan, vegetable rice, and onion pakora) I started realizing I was going hoarse and my throat was closing.  I quietly got the kids stuffed into the car, messaged Mike and drove the couple blocks to his work to have him drive me to the hospital.  Tonight, I told Russell if my throat is closing, that he should drive me to Dad, next time.

Six benadryl later, I got to the hospital, I took my sugars two hours after I ate, and they were like 161, which wasn't bad, so I piggybacked a little bit of insulin on because they gave me a couple shots of steroids and benadryl and made me down some tagamet type stuff (a lot of the belly meds have a form of antihistamine in them).  After I rested for an hour or two, while Mike took the kids away to Walmart to get Genny's school supplies, I messaged him that they were going to release me in a bit, so he came back and eventually, took me home.

I slept for five hours and I had a hamburger on two slices of ww bread from last night, a giant bowl of salad, two celery sticks and a probably a half cup of almonds Mike brought me along with a bit of sf candy to deal with my sweettooth from the steroids..  I wasn't very hungry, after I woke up, but I ate anyhow.  I think that's just kind of me being used to my diabetes.  I really wish I hadn't.  My after sugars, even with some jiggling was 275, so I took insulin for that.  Then, the most recent test was 195, so I took insulin for that, too.
I'm going to take my metformin and hope for the best.  Not looking forward to steroids tomorrow.
___

So I am here at 230AM, not sleeping and starting to sprout hives across my scalp and face.  I'm so desperate.  No one understands what it's like to suffer under the itchy uncertainty of hives.  Not knowing, if it's suddenly going to affect my breathing, speech or general features.  It'd be nice, if I could at least be wearing long sleeves and not be in the hell that is August in Tennessee.  Humidity of 94%.

I can't breathe well in that, even when uncompromised.

My doctor wants me to lose weight, but I've got to take steroids again, just to survive.

I'm beyond desperation.

I pray our Heavenly Father keeps me safe, keeps my weight down and holds me up, when I can't do that myself.   I'm tired.  I'm scared.  I'm sad.

I called the emergency room and told them my hives were coming back and asked if it was OK to take my steroids earlier than anticipated.  I was told yes by the nurse and to take benadryl for another day or so, along with the tagamet.

Please God, keep me safe with the tools at my disposal.  Amen!

Fasting sugar was 150 again.  Gah.

I had an almond butter and jam sandwich.  I slept a lot. I slept from 12-330, 5:30-830, and 1130-300.  Yeah, it was erratic and I was sooo tired from it.  Two cups of coffee didn't make much dent, sadly.

After a couple hamburgers and a bunch of salad, I went to bed.  I had to piggy back on some insulin (175 and 195 sugar) and then, I woke up at midnight, hungry, so I had a couple chobanis.  My sugars were 92, so I overshot a little.

My hives were horrendous after dinner head to foot, so six benadryls later, I conked.

I'm writing this for Thursday, even though it's Friday. :P

I have to get up, drop Genny at school, drop Mike at work, take Russell to breakfast and then to a couple of doctor appointments.  Then, I need to swing back to get Genny from her first half day and pick up some school supplies and grab her brother and lunch.

I'm going to try Indian food and hope it works out for my splurge.  I found the dessert seemed to set me off last time, so going to forgo that and try to stick to rice, nan, and entrees.

My weight is up again.  I don't know why.  I'm not eating like a ton, but I guess I'm not moving lots and lots either.  I'm looking forward to Genny being gone, so I can get stuff done.

Pain upon wake up was pretty nominal, so like a 3, but the fog, was severe, like a 9.

I woke up at 1230. Fasting sugar was 151.  To be fair I slept for 13.5 hours.  I went to bed last night about 1030 because I had to take a lot of benadryl for some really bad hives.  I'm still pretty hive-coated, so meh.  Brunch was whole wheat bread and a slice of  bologna.  My feet are still pretty swollen, but not quite as bad as yesterday.

Exhaustion-wise, I'm feeling pretty wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.  One would hope after that much sleep, I would be, too. Today's tired rating puts me at a 1.  I'm still a little foggy-brained, but mostly pretty good. Pain is another matter.  I slept on my back for several hours, so I'm at an 8 in pain. My low back is very stiff and sore today.

_________

I had a couple cheapy hamburgers because I was ravening, which caused hives and two benadryl down.  Had Tuna melts for dinner with salad.  Going swimming.

In the middle of the night, I got up to take my meds and had a couple of chobani.  I checked my sugars after the two and it was only 129, so I guess I woke up for a reason.

So I am going to keep a food/caffeine intake and "how are you feeling" journal for a couple weeks.  I have a friend who's been really into this vitamin program and while I take vitamins (prenatals if you must now) because of my leaky gut, I've been feeling kind of crappy this summer.  Between taking a ton of benadryl on a daily basis for the hives reaction I'm having to foods I eat and a reduced dose of thryroid, I'm wiped.

Last night, I got about 8.5 hours of sleep.  I'm still pretty exhausted.  I've started off today with a cup of coffee, my meds, some pretty bad swelling in my feet and an almond butter sandwich.  I toes feel like they're swelling, too.  (After I ate my almond butter sandwich, I took a 3 hour nap.  I really was tired.)  I also drank my diet root beer without caffeine.

My sugar after breakfast and coffee was 226, which can make a person tired and I think that played a part, but waking up tired sure didn't help .  I should have done a fasting sugar before my , but forgot, but that indicates I was probably fasting at over 150, which my doctor wouldn't be happy about and well, neither am I.    I did forget to check before bed last night, so I'll work on that tonight.  When I woke up from my nap, three hours after eating, my sugars were pretty stable at 132 and my edema got better from the water pill.

I wasn't sure if I'd given myself my longacting insulin, so I just took that because apparently, I did not. :)

Yesterday, I slept a lot, but I did a lot of canning last night, putting up 16 pints of freezer jam. :)  Today, I'd like to put a bunch of squash into a brine or parboil it for freezing.  There's also buckets of wash to get through.

It's overcast, so I'm feeling draggy and foggy-brained from the fibro.  On a scale of 1-10 for exhaustion, today is an 9 at wake up.  My pain is a 4.  My feet and legs hurt from the swelling and I'm a little stiff.  After nap, the exhaustion is down some, to more like a 4.  Still yawning, my brain is still struggling to come up for air, so still feeling wiped.  My pain is still at a 4, as my edema is making my feet hurt and my body feels like a front is coming in, for lack of a better way to explain it.  I just feel a little bit like a person living under a heavy blanket, like I'm trying to come up for air.

I still have some hives.  Took 2 benadryl at 530.  Hoping it doesn't make me go swimming back under the sleepy blanket.

Dinner of Thai Green Curry Chicken on brown basmati rice did not make me hive, surprisingly enough.  I was worried because there was some kind of weird citrus something in the curry paste.  After dinner and dessert, my sugars were 156, but that means I can swim and not pass out. I am feeling more alert.  Making dinner was kind of a production, but it was delicious and I used a lot of the fresh peppers from the garden for it.  Sometimes, I wonder if I could possibly grow enough garlic and onions to keep this household going.

Took 2 more benadryl at 930, and I don't have hives, but my lips are swollen really really badly, so I took another 2 at 1030.

I'm more alert now at 930, so exhaustion is like 5.

Tomorrow, I want to hoe the greenbeans out and put in leafy spinach or lettuce with some rabbit deterrent.

At 1AM, my sugars were 151, so I piggybacked some insulin on and went to bed. :)

I'm having some kind of food reaction.  It's been getting so freaking bad.  I mean sometimes, I get dots that look like bug bites, but aren't.  I mean they're itchy, but they fade away.  I had a friend joke that I should play connect-the-dots.  I found a pink pen at the time, connected them, and then sent her a picture.  We both snickered.

Other times, I get giant continents of hives reaching toward each other like watching the continental plates in reverse, where it's all slowly going back to Pangaea.   Mind you these aren't just for show hives. These are excruciatingly itchy and painful and extended at one point from my ankles to my scalp.  I found my back scratcher and was going to town because by far, the worst spot is the center of my back where the bra hooks are. Mike would come by and scratch my back for me and I'd moan like a porno track.  I have had moments where I have been quite pitiful, feeling like I'd happily take the chance of being accused of doing something sexual with a fence post, just to get my back scratched.  Around home, I've taken to free-boobing in camisoles because the bra on that spot just makes me holy crap itchy and then having to pull the damned things off and remove the tags.

My skin, over the course of the past month, has taken on bizarre and ever-changing textures and degrees of pink and fire engine red.  I joked with the emergency room doctor that my body is a canvas for hive art.  He was taken aback and then, started shaking his head and laughing.  As miserable as it is, laughing helps me not want to flay myself.  Buffalo Bill would be so happy in a Wendy-coat.

I'm going into day five of steroids, after just losing the last seven pounds put on from steroids a few weeks ago.

Then I had a thought, when despite steroids, a holy crap-ton of antihistamines later, my lips began to swell. The only time my lips have swollen in my whole life due to an allergic reaction is from citric acid or oranges.  I remember distinctly being about seven years' old and after lunch on the kickball field feeling my lips swelling and having to go off the field, fuck up the teams to the dismay of my classmates and go see the nurse.  After a few rounds of that, my mother talked to the neighbor, who was a lunch lady at my school.  They went round and round on the menu and discovered that the school added citric acid to fruit cocktail to keep it from browning. (Can you imagine food so freshly canned that it needed that?)  I got fruit cocktail without citric acid from then on.

My mom would load me up on benadryl until the reaction ended.  In those days, my pediatrician, Dr. Purington was at least a half hour drive away, and the hospital was about an hour away, so my throat would have been closed and I'd have been dead by the time she ran me to either location so she treated at home.

I've been mostly treating at home.  First I was using three zyrtec, per the allergist, who informed me that I don't show "true" food allergies.  Translated that means that the leaky gut from my fibro is letting food sensitivities re-erupt.  I went off that and was taking benadryl.  I had a doctor tell me that the only reason I shouldn't take more benadryl is if it was knocking me out.  No such luck.  I've been generally taking it every two hours when it's bad. I suspect I'm waking up after 4-5 hours because I need another round.

After the first lip swelling incident, I started reviewing the food I'd eaten that day.  Nothing with citric acid.  Nothing with oranges.  Then, I checked my splenda coke.  I've been so proud of the fact that I've gone off aspartame and just to splenda to help my fibro.  Not far into the ingredient list was the evil citric acid. Dammit!

Mike made me splenda sweet tea with cardamon. I have a big vat of it in the fridge.

Yesterday, the hives were more like dots again.  Today, I'm hoping they'll fade entirely.

___

Meanwhile, in the realm of everything else that could go wrong with my health, I found this big hole in my cpap hose.  The past month, I've been sleeping all the damned time. As soon as my head hit that bed, I was out and I seemed to be no good to anyone unless I had 12 hours of sleep, plus naps.  This has been going on for a month or more.  I'm used to sleeping seven to nine hours and feeling pretty good.

I got up after five and a half hours and did chores like a crazy person.  I cleaned places I haven't cleaned in months.   I weeded the garden.  I did laundry.  I did floor boards.  I picked up all sorts of stuff.  Lately, I had hardly been able to move around the house just from the bed to the chair and back.  To do all that stuff, means that true sleep has returned.  Two nights running now, I am waking up after four or five hours and doing all this stuff, including this blog post, and then crashing for a few more hours, waking refreshed, rested and ready to roll.

My entire household would like to have me duck-taped to the ceiling or wall. Ha! Sucks to be them!

I am thunderstruck by spring.  I mean, there's that whole adoration of my husband that happens this time of year.  He has been humping anything on my body (and I want him to) like he's a sex-starved single male baboon at the zoo lobbing feces at the tourists in boredom and suddenly, the zookeeper brings him a ravishing she-baboon with a pink bow on her head.  It's freaking spring!

Our love-life aside, spring in Tennessee is just like a post card.  There are all of these homes that scream neglect and sharecropper tossed between mansions of some country music mogol or some master of old that seem ill-placed interspersed between vegetation and dilapidation. Blooming dogwood looks wonderful in any yard with its big, creamy, floppy flowers floating in the air like the peace one finds in a Japanese tea garden. Forsythia in bushes everywhere, sculpted and not.  Magnolias bloom like Georgia O'Keefe paintings, flowers like huge biblical revelations of life after death.

I find myself eyeing over thickets hugging fences and looking for the sign of blackberry blossoms and poison ivy.  I'm finding places to put strawberries as groundcover in my front bed amongst the bulbs -- daffodils, crocus, hyacinths and the occasional wild onion.  Every newly mowed lawn smells like a slice of freshly sliced vidalia onion and I find myself leaving the windows open to inhale it.

The true revelation of the South is the azalea bush.  I saw some with buds with the petal colors starting to show through the edge of the outer green.  Pinks, reds, oranges and whites like cotton candy at a carnival will explode here for weeks and then just as suddenly, fall silent and die out.  While it continues, it's as if to give a distraction from that awkward stage where the trees are starting to leaf, but the forests aren't yet completely green and dark with decidiuousness.

In a month, it will be lilies everywhere, wild in ditches and in carefully constructed yards with mulch and bricks. Someone somewhere will be selling them from their house and their yard will have a fence that does not require posts because there are lilies to support it.

I find myself watching people's porches for chairs that look like they will be used and thinking about what I will do with Genny this summer, how many of my chairs will be used, if Mike will ever fill the umbrella stand with the sand I finally convinced him to buy, swimsuits and flipflops.

Spring is that harbinger of summer, much as this winter seemed to go on like the nightmare you can't wake up out of for a while until you are good and terrified.

We covered up a few plants, as we are trying to get the garden in, but Mother Nature keeps stamping her feet and keeping Old Man Winter around for her pleasures before she laces the flowers of spring into the hair of summer.

General Internet Etiquette for G+ and Facebook

1. Do not post amber alerts about missing kids, if you haven't verified that the child is "still" missing. That's just stupid and inconsiderate.  You freak a lot of people out for no good reason.  I always check those and I always find that the kid is safe and sound or dead.  That's messed up.  Check that stuff before you flop it out there on the internet.  
2. Do not post stuff quasi-weird garbage and waste my time, if you haven't actually researched it to be true, telling me that you haven't verified it.  I will unfriend you so fast you'll feel like the last kid picked in gym class.
3. Do not go whole-hog nuts posting your crap into my feed about your Libertarian, Teabagger political view, if you know I don't want to read that crap.  Just set up people you'd like to send that garbage to and be so kind as to not send it to me. I was guilty of it and then I started getting a dose of my own medicine and realized that it truly sucks.  Join a group of like-minded people and let that come through your feed and you can post all day long to your groups.
4. Don't post 10-30 inspirational pictures a day in my feed.  I know you're going through emotional turmoil, but honestly, if I wanted that crap, I'd get one of those balloon posters that says, "Inspiration" on it, like I should be inspired by hot air balloons.  I think they're really cool, but I can't say I think of those as inspiring.  After the first five inspirational quotes from the Dali Lama, I'm totally done.  He's cool.  He's awesome, but for the love of turnips, turn down the volume.  Pick a couple that are essential. Print them out.  Put them on your wall.  Please keep them off mine.
5. Don't post anything on anyone's feed that you would mind your grandmother hearing come out of your mouth.  If it's a little risque, then just message it.  I have had ex-boyfriends in front of my children, husband, and in-laws, make reference to how I looked in spandex 20 years ago.  My in-laws, parents, husband and kids don't need to know about who I had sexual intercourse with before I met my husband.  My husband knows it all already and he's politely not expressed jealousy, but if you keep that crap up, things can change.
6. Do not post vague references about your state of depression without explaining it.   "I"m so depressed" should be followed with "because my kids are driving me nuts" or some other explanation.  I don't mind helicoptering you a little, but work with me a little.  That vague stuff puts me over the edge and ticks off about everyone else I know.
7. When you put pictures of yourself and your friends on the Internet for me to see, give me an explanation of what you're doing and with whom.  I actually like knowing what you're doing and I enjoy going through your pictures.  I have so many friends I've met via the 'Net that I know your story, but I may not know your face well, nor do I know your family.  It's nice when you tag and explain a little.  It gives me a face to put with the personality I've known for 10 years.  
8. I hereby declare that all pictures of the old Willie Wonka and all cute meme's associated with it, are fucking banned.  Enough said. (That goes for all cartoon characters from Looney Toons, too!)
9. Take the time to spellcheck what you say.  If you're on your phone, I forgive you.  If you're on a computer, you're a lazy douchebag.
10. If you must rant about something, do it in your damned blog or have it as a note for a specific audience and warn me.  I will brace myself and commiserate as appropriate.

Dear Manufacturers of Clothing for Females under 20,

Please consider the fact that most schools require that straps be the width of a dollar bill, skirts must be no higher than a dollar bill above the knee and that they can't just throw leggings under it or whatever at a lot of schools, especially here in the Bible Belt of the Volunteer State, where I exist with my secret identity of Liberal California Hippie Chick, hiding amongst some Seriously Scary Baptists.  

Additionally,  I am tired of her saying, "Mom, I can't wear that to school" because she's got really long legs and that dollar bill doesn't begin to make that short mini-skirt skort work.  When she was 3 feet tall, that skort length worked -- not so much now.

So, when you make clothing for someone's daughter, realize that if it were your daughter you wouldn't want to purchase a wardrobe that only crack whores use and neither do I. 

• Make shorts with a little more length, make skirts with some length -- even adjustable with ribbons or buttons -- and for goodness' sake, do the same with dresses. 
• Please do not make the neckline too low either because she doesn't have the chest to pull it off just yet and if she did, she would be completely mortified to show it off.  
• Do not produce something with spaghetti straps and claim it's for school because I'd get a lot of phone calls if I took your word for it. 
• She wears camisoles as undershirts NOT regular wear unless she's in the house and going to bed. I cannot and would not purchase something missing a strap either for school.  I'm not getting the kid expelled.  
• Think uniform coverage, but with cute designs, details and fabrics.  

Additionally, if I can picture a 60 year old hooker in it, my daughter isn't wearing it. Thus, a spaghetti-strapped, low-cut tank top with animal print and sparkles, won't touch my child's skin, nor will a dress that's short enough to see her navel, nor spandex, for the love of all that is holy. Unless the cleavage is covered and it's long enough for her to bend over at the waist without anyone seeing her Hello Kitty underwear, it won't be purchased. I'll just sew a few.  

Deplorably yours, 
Ruby, A pissed off mother and devoted seamstress until she's 18 and can legally make her own choices

You know those vague, awful emails that the world is going to end or that we're on the edge of catastrophic, mass genocide?  My mother sent me a version of this fallacious one, which I easily found in Wikepedia, snopes, and other true/false sites.  I read the email thinking, "What a load of crap!"

This is what I sent her:

Mom, this is bs.  Snopes and other sites have information about this.  I do not think that putting an Islamic symbol is any different than claiming foods are kosher.  There is no way that communities like that would take place in the US, nor have they.  This kind of article demonstrate a common logical fallacy, a call to authority.  "The basic structure of such arguments is as follows: Professor X believes A, Professor X speaks from authority, therefore A is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. "   The truth is that that doctor didn't say it, nor is he from Germany.  It was written by someone else, who didn't have much in the way of a pedigree of authority, frankly, as he was a Canadian and a blogger. 

The Truth:  Dr. Emanuel Tanay is real and a holocaust survivor but he did not write this article, nor is he German.  This is an opinion piece that appeared on the web site of  Paul Marek, who wrote it in March 2007 under the title of "Why the Peaceful Majority is Irrelevant."   Click for original version of article.

Dr. Emanuel Tanay, the son of Jewish dentists, was born in Russian occupied Vilna in 1928, which is now part of Lithuania,  according to the personal account of his life in a Polish ghetto during the Holocaust.

Marek's article was apparently altered and posted on several reader and comment boards on the World Wide Web. Some altered versions include Marek as the author and cite Tanay as the original forwarder of the story.  

^This is where I stopped because pitching a fight with someone who is going under the knife for both heart surgery and breast cancer in the next two months at the ripe old age of 72, deserves not to have dumb political arguments with their kids.  I think that merits a "Get out of political arguments free" card.  

Here's what I didn't say to her, but what I'll say to you:

I also think that many of us would actually stand up and do.  I still go, with my walking sticks and children, to pro-choice rallies.  If it's wrong, we should all stand up and say so. That's our right.  That's our duty as Americans.  If we don't vote, don't write letters to our representatives, we aren't in fact, represented.  I think it's more important to instill the idea that every voice counts and that every voice needs to speak in our children.  I think showing them a copy of the letter you sent to your Congressman counts for more.  I think dragging their butts in the cold to stand witness to legislators, who are attempting to pass legislation that most of their constituents do NOT agree with, is excellent practice. I think taking them to their legislators' offices and showing them how to find that information online, is also excellent practice.

However, sending stuff like this is also something I don't care for -- it's slanderous, it's full of falsehoods, and the logic stinks.  Read further on logical fallacies:  logical fallacies. It's not Muslims that are wrecking our economy.  It's very rich guys who have every intention of staying that way and are manipulating voting areas by the people they contribute money to and voting rights(limiting people's voting access in numerous ways), funding anything that would in effect avoid making them pay the taxes they should.  I dislike that heartily.  We're struggling to pay our bills day-to-day and a lot of families are in the same boat.  We lost our house when the stock market tanked and Mike lost his job along with a 3,000 people at his company.  There still are no jobs in Nevada, as they sport a nearly 20% unemployment rate.  Bush bailed out the banks, when he should have let them fall on their faces and just let the FDIC do its job.  The banks are continuing to rack up record profits and throw bonuses to their vp's, and they're more slippery than eels in oil.

I think that moment of silence in schools is there so that anyone can silently pray or whatever they want.  The pledge of allegiance isn't going to disappear and that mentions God.  I don't think it means only a Christian god, or a Jewish god, or an Islamic God, but just God.  

I also think that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  If you're loud and proud, you get heard and you get the grease needed to shut you up.  I think that goes for ALL Americans.  Be loud, be proud, BE HEARD!

I think the only way  to be both a responsible American and a responsible parent is to show your family what a responsibility being a voter and being an American is.  I've shown my kids.  They've written their letters. They called their offices.  They are the next generation of activists, actively watching, calling and participating in their country's process.  They are Americans that are both proud and of whom I am proud.  My husband, who never voted before, votes now.  He knows that his vote counts.  

If I've fucked up everything else in my life, I've made three intelligent voters in my life, who understand that voting is a privilege and that a free society requires vigilance to be maintained. 

If my mom and I have disagreed politically, I think she can be proud of the American and the voter I've become and the voters I've taught.

Fat Kid in a Chocolate Factory

I have started seriously looking at bariatric surgery.  I had them run my insurance even.  It turns out that Mike's company's insurance has a rider that doesn't cover bariatric surgery.  In talking with friends, it seems I can probably appeal that on the basis of my medical conditions.

I have a half dozen friends who have had the surgery and only one who has actually done most of what she's supposed to on it, but she's new to it and a practicing Mormon.  There is a second friend who comes close, but she does drink, occasionally, which you're not supposed to do because it goes straight to your bloodstream without passing Go or collecting $200. A third is kind of close, but she eats all things sugar-free and is on a heart monitor. I guess on a heart monitor, I'd go on the straight and narrow sans booze or crap of any kind until things were more stable.

I also realized that thanks to my mother, I don't eat poorly.  I eat whole grain everything, even in stuff that shouldn't probably have whole grains, like lemon pound cake.  Even there, my mother rarely used whole grains in baking and I actually do.  I usually use half and half.  If there's a way to puree vegetables into it, I do. I have friends who complain that they're more regular after they leave my house.

I have three friends here in Tennessee, who've gotten the surgery and there are some disturbing things I am seeing.  It reminded me of things I saw with another friend.  After surgery, it is essential that you do not return to your old eating and exercise habits.  Just because you can eat cake, doesn't mean you should.  Just because you can get away without regular exercise, doesn't mean you should  The surgery doesn't cure your crappy eating habits, it just makes it a lot more difficult.

I went with my three friends to a Russell Stover chocolate factory yesterday at their demand and behest.  I hadn't planned on going and had hoped they might forget and they didn't.  I had all three of them in the van and there was a unanimous demand that we go to the chocolate factory.  I guess if had been See's chocolate or Godiva, I might have been more enthused, but Russell Stover isn't my idea of actual chocolate I'd lose sleep over.

We go to the factory.  I watched as my three friends circled out on a mission to find the specific chocolates of their choice.  One of them was wearing a heart monitor.  One of them had a leg infection.  The third is morbidly obese like I am and had been diabetic before her surgery.  I picked out a bag of chocolate covered cherries because is basically one of my favorite treats (dried cherries) with dark chocolate (better for you than milk) and sugar-free black licorice.  I picked up a few other things for the kids and headed for the cashier, where I spent less than $20.  I saw a wooden-handled umbrella with a brass release button for $5 on the way out and that's when I was completely gaga and had to have something.  I know I'm getting old, but geez, an umbrella?  It reminded me of my mother commenting that she was turning into her mother when she saw some enormous head of garlic in California and just had to have it.  She then put it back, realizing that hauling a head of garlic back on a plane was crazy and that, indeed, she had turned into her mother for a moment.

I had to have that damned umbrella with Russell Stover's logo and crappy chocolate on it.  It's been pouring here for five days solid pretty much.  It's July in the South, and I'd been cold from being drenched to the skin.  I wanted a big enough, wooden-handled with brass release umbrella for five bucks.

I went with my new umbrella and Mike to the car and waited for everyone else to come out.  And waited.  Genny came out next with a stuffed animal and a candied apple.  Then my friend with the heart monitor came out with $85 of sugar-free candy.  I was floored. This wasn't Godiva or Ghiardelli's or See's.  This was freaking Russell Stover's.  She has the same hideous gas issues I do with sugar-free anything, so she'd rather have hideous gas from so-so candy.

Then came my last two friends.  They both had big bags like my previous friend.  They'd clearly spent similar amounts.  They're married.  I happen to know he keeps a stash of candy.  Most of what I saw from said stash was sugar-free, but still, I looked at that behavior pattern and thought, "Wow, I'm glad I made a different choice than that."

I guess I see that kind of behavior as destructive and self-destructive.  Five morbidly obese people go into a candy factory and the three with gastric bypass surgery meet the expectations of the cashier.  My impression of the reasoning behind that is because the "dumping" syndrome that occurs with that choice will make them sick enough to expel it and they've managed to trick the system, rather than use the tool of bariatric surgery to make better choices.

I remembered a different friend from many years ago who started regaining weight after the initial loss from surgery and wasn't exercising and had lots of excuses and ended up diabetic again.  I could totally see that happening to me.  I am AFRAID of that happening to me.

Yesterday's experiences and observations made me sad and scared me.  I don't want to be someone who eats too much crap she shouldn't, doesn't exercise sufficiently, and remains morbidly obese three years post-surgery.  I'm already making better choices.  I mean if the worst snack choice I can make right now involves low-fat yogurt spinach dip and whole grain crackers, I think I'm doing well, not perfect, but better.

I shouldn't be the weird one with whole grain buns, pasta, and veggies, in that situation.  I just shouldn't.

I hope that after I finally am able to obtain surgery to help me, that I will use it as the gift of health that it can be and that I will lose weight, continue to set aside bad habits, and work at exercising as regularly as I possibly can, doing whatever I can.