Legwork and Life: Black Raspberries (and other rubus berries)

It's been a while, but I thought I'd say "hi" and "I'm doing okay despite the virus and stay-at-home orders" and also "here's what I've kept busy with."  There's actually a second post I should do on zucchini, but you'll forgive me if I keep it brief.

Black raspberry, or rubus occidentalis, is a wild growing bramble berry.  I've enjoyed the flavor since I was quite young and had very little idea what I was putting in my mouth (but Mom said it was safe).  It's smaller than domestic blackberries or raspberries, but very flavorful.  Like blackberries and raspberries, the brambles have thorns, but with care, you can get a delicious snack without too much trouble.

I gathered small handfuls here and there when I was little, but didn't think much of it.  Last year, one of my friends got into foraging, and I rediscovered rubus occidentalis.  Together we found several very worthy foraging spots for these delicious berries...  so this year, these happened:

Those are the same size of container, but it's three separate trips.  Each container is about the size of a large saucepan... so now you have a better idea of how many berries you're looking at.  Suffice it to say, I spent a lot of hours outdoors. 

I think this is one of those things being autistic helps with.  When I wasn't berrying with my friend, I'd put a playlist of podcasts on and just work my way through the area slowly but surely.  This allowed me to get into a state of hyperfocus: much of my mind could be occupied learning about mythology or trying to understand racial oppression in the US, and my hands and eyes were kept busy spotting and harvesting black raspberries.  Meanwhile I'm breathing fresh air and getting exercise.  Overall, it was a very positive experience.  My main gripe is that I don't have enough time in the day when I'm dedicating several hours to just berrying.

I only got ice cream after berrying once, but being able to throw fresh berries into my treat was really rewarding.  

There are actually five kinds of berries in the pictures above.  While the bulk of my harvest was black raspberries, there were also wild red raspberries, wild blackberries, some kind of hybrid blackberry/black raspberry, and what I assume was someone's escaped specialized raspberry plants. 

All rubus berries are safe to eat, so I consumed a few of those odd pale yellowish berries.  They tasted exactly like raspberries.  (Please note, not all berries are rubus berries!  Do not eat random berries off plants without IDing them.)

Because it personally amuses me: side by sides of domestic and wild berries.  Selective breeding at work!  I'm pretty sure raspberries weren't the size of my whole knuckle joint when I was little.  Though I think they were still bigger than that wild raspberry in the picture.  Maybe twice the size?

Anyway, once picked, I obviously ate some of my harvest raw...  but I also wanted to cook with them.  Which mean washing them.  From container to soaking (and picking little bits of plant matter out) to drying again. 

Pies were the obvious choice.  I actually made three, but gave the bulk of those pastries, including a half of a pie to my parents.  I also made a gluten-free pie for the first time, which would be more impressive if I hadn't used a baking mix.  The crust still came out poorly, because I couldn't use my gluten-infested rolling pin.  So I hand-shaped it and it was fine, but the crust cracked and filling leaked. There will be no awards for best in show, but they were still tasty at least.

There was also freezing them on trays...

And stuffing them into a gallon bag for later.  I may not be inclined to eat a whole gallon bag worth of black razzes (and friends) right now, but winter will likely be another story. 

Finally, I also made syrup.  This involved simmering the berries with water, sugar, corn starch (to thicken it) and a bit of vanilla.  The berries have to be mashed pretty good to get most of their liquids out.

You can strain all the pulp out of it, but I left a small amount in, just for some texture.  Leave it all, and you don't have a syrup, you have... I guess jam, kinda.  Leave none and you practically have store syrup.  Leaving some reminds you where the flavor came from without making you chew your way through all the seeds.

It's pretty good on ice cream!

I've made two batches of syrup now, and frozen most of it in ice cube form.  It'll last longer that way and can be thawed out when I want to serve it. 

The season is basically over now, which means I can stop braving the 90+ degree weather and focus a bit more on my plants and handling such things as dental appointments, getting an eye exam, and all that fun health maintenance stuff. 

It's been a very active summer for me, and I think I'm better for it.  Hopefully, my harvest and cooking work will brighten the gloomy winter days ahead.  

Looking Forward, Looking Back (2020)

Normally I do this sort of thing in January, but because of complications hosting Chris' younger brother, it just didn't happen.  Then the coronavirus stuff happened, and now the future is really kind of uncertain overall.  Still, you can't just sit on your hands and expect everything to work itself out neatly for you, so here's my best effort at my goals and future planning.  Things may change, but that's life, and that's okay.

Typically I want my goals to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.  This year, stuff is so up in the air that I'm not sure I'm going to rigidly adhere to those excellent criteria. 

2019's Goals:

1.  Exercise at least 3 days a week, at least a half hour each session, minimum.

I can't decide whether I succeeded here or not.  On one hand, I didn't have a regular Wednesday exercise day like I'd envisioned.   On the other hand, I definitely did go walking with my friend Tsushi nearly every week, and sometimes those times involved tramping through the outdoors picking wild food.

Life kind of went haywire starting around October in my personal life and in one friend circle, and I ended up being moving crew a lot for a significant amount of time.  It was great exercise.  On the flip side, I got the flu around that time.. which meant I got almost no exercise for a whole week.

I don't feel great about my progress on this goal, but in an effort to be kind to myself, I'm going to note that I technically achieved this... just not the way I wanted to.  One of the books I read recently notes that indoor exercise, the gym, my exercise bike, etc, is not really a good environment for humans, ie: boring.  So you want to do more with the outside.  I'm just not sure how I feel about going for a walk in biting winter winds.


2. Finish my catching up on the MBMBaM podcast and get started on the wider range of podcasts I've already set up for myself.

I succeeded!  And then promptly fell behind again!  But I did branch out to new stuff.  Sadly most of the blog-relevant podcasts turned out to be dead ends.  Still, I've gotten to bone up on a lot of more self-care relevant things, like mythology, books, and new/interesting ideas.  So, a success!  At least as written.  I don't know how feasible keeping up-to-date on 18 podcasts is, but that's how many I'm subscribed to.

If you have disability podcast recommendations, especially ones related to current news and issues, I'd love to hear about them.


3. Quantify the environmental downers around the house I can be susceptible to, and eliminate or treat the issues if at all possible.

This one I didn't entirely succeed at.  Or to be more precise, I hit a dead end.  The idea was to find stuff besides mold and the algae that messes me up, but in all honesty, we couldn't find anything.  *Something* is probably messing me up and making me generate so many histamines, but it's not my diet, and it's not really my bedding either, given that I wash that once a week in hot water.

We could still shell out to re-tile the master bathroom (an area that was noted to be slightly moldy in the house inspection), and that's on the list of home repairs I'd like to have handled, but it's expensive, and the money isn't there right now.

I'm stalled on the histamine issue, too.  Vitamin C doesn't seem to be doing the trick, so perhaps when I can breathe again, I'll look into trying specific herbs or other avenues.  I simply haven't had the energy since about October.


4. Pick up an autism-related volunteer or paid job.

I did this!  And then there didn't seem to be enough work for me, so it sort of fell through after a few months.  So uh.  Success?  Failure?  Failcess?  I'd hoped to use this to get more hooked into services and people, but that didn't really happen.  So probably closer to failure.  I'm a little frustrated about this because I had a car and mobility, and now I don't as much, so trying to get a job at a further place would be significantly more difficult.

2020's goals:

1.  Gather and prepare more wild food.  

There's a few reasons for this.  First, it helps to have an additional food supply besides the grocery store.  We're not in danger of starving or running out of food money anytime soon, but stretching it as far as we can is smart.  Second, having a diverse diet is good for everyone, but especially people with unsteady biological systems, like myself and other autistic people.

This is a young dandelion greens salad I made a few weeks ago, with olive oil and salt. I'd like to eat more wild salads like this, but dandelions have to be picked very young or they're INCREDIBLY bitter.  

Third, the organisms that you come into contact with and consume in wild food can help strengthen and diversify your gut bacteria, which means less digestive issues.  This is very good news for me, because I have gut issues already and have for decades.  

2.  Pick up a volunteer or paid job.

Strictly speaking I already have this, at least in name, but in practice I'm just not sure how much work is actually going to come from it.  When the quarantine lifts, I may ask further in that organization.  I may also simply look into work unrelated to autism, like the local library.

My spouse is currently furloughed from his job, which is to say his job will be waiting for him in June sometime (hopefully).  Likely the local library is going to have a truly absurd number of job applications, on account of it being walking distance for a lot of folks.  Still, any income's better than none.  I have to think on it further, and there may be other places I could apply.  Libraries tend to be comfortable, safe places to me, though, and it's literally a mile's walk from my house. 

3.  Incorporate daily exercise into my life.

At the moment I'm not sure what this is going to look like.  I have Ring Fit Adventure, which I can use on days the weather is bad.  I have hiking/searching for wild food, which definitely qualifies as exercise.  I have my exercise bike and Dance Dance Revolution equipment.  And I have my bike.  So I do have options. 

What I'd like to do, I guess, is have at least 10 minutes of exercise built into every day (except Sunday).  That might be as simple as using Ring Fit every day, and whatever else happens, happens.  As video games go, it's kind and supportive while still being reasonably demanding, and you can absolutely work up a sweat playing it. 

I tend to do best with a schedule, so that's probably my best option.  And I should probably also build it into my morning routine so I have the good effects of exercise for my day, plus the accomplishment of doing that to boost my morale. 

My biggest irritation with it is that I have to move the coffee table to play the game, then move it back so we can use the space normally.  You'd think that wouldn't be much, but doing it day after day irritates me a lot for some reason.  Makes me not want to put the effort in. 

4. Survive the coronavirus/quarantine/etc.

This probably goes without needing an explanation, but the uncertainty of everything is kind of difficult for people that don't do well with change.  Such as most autistic people.  And myself. 

I'm less worried about physical needs, like food and shelter, at the moment, and more just entirely exhausted.  I'll write about why at a later point, when I'm not so emotionally overwrought about it. 

At any rate, with Chris home all the time now, and my still wanting to do this blog and possibly other work, there's going to be a lot of adjustments needed.  

Legwork and Life: the Familyening

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

This L&L is to note that my life has significantly changed as of last Saturday.  We went down for Thanksgiving to celebrate with my spouse's family.  That was significantly exhausting and I'm still recovering this week.  But we also came back with Chris' younger brother, Ryan.  

The area we live in has a lot more by way of job opportunities and educational opportunities than where he was living, so he'll be living in our spare bedroom for up to two years while he gets his feet under him.  Like me, he's neurodiverse, and may need some extra support for a time.  Unlike me, he's been able to keep a part time or full time job for longer than a year in recent memory, so that bodes well for his success.

It's a major change, as I'm not great at sharing space in the first place.  My spouse should probably get a medal for putting up with me.  I think it'll be okay overall, as he has his own space and we pointedly tried to hammer out basic rules, which he read ahead of time and was okay with.  Regardless, though, it'll be an interesting (and challenging) experience.  

I tend to spend a lot of time home, which also meant being alone prior to this.  Depending on how quickly he gets a job, this may or may not be disrupted too much in the long run.  For now, my ears keep picking up on noises I wasn't expecting, because he has friends he chats with via the Internet and he also moves around the house sometimes.  I'll probably adjust to that in a week or so.  In the meantime, at least for sleeping, I'm looking into using MyNoise more, due to its excellent range of white noise generators of all kinds.  

I find the rain options particularly soothing, but really, any of them help tone down how much I can hear, which helps.  It's a great resource.

Mostly, I'm just hoping this goes well, and that I'm not too big of a grump or a jerk in the process.  

The Last Legwork and Life?

This will probably be the last L&L for a while.  I'm suffering burnout, which makes me want to cut down on things so I can recover. 

Also, while I suppose technically my day-to-day life provides some insight on how autism can change your experience of things, I just don't feel like it's a super valuable part of the blog overall.  The hope was to make this blog a resource for parents, teachers, fellow autistics, and other interested parties, and I'm not sure a journal-style regular segment is really the most useful part of that. 

If you have strong feelings on the subject, feel free to email me at therealisticautistic(A T)gmail.com.  I'm willing to listen to my readers.  On the whole, though, this blog really hasn't garnered much by way of comments, feedback or really anything at all beyond my immediate family, so I'll be surprised if I receive an email. 

I don't anticipate never writing an L&L again, I suppose, but I feel like it'll probably be more like a bonus, when something actually happens in regards to my career or health.  

Legwork and Life, week of 10/2/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

"Recovering" is the word for this week.

The DC trip for the Autism Research Program went pretty well.  As in the last couple years, there were a few familiar faces as well as plenty of new ones.  I'll post about the program in more detail in an upcoming Friday post, along with the press release and such.  

The worst part of the trip was the travel, both to and from.  One of my flights home got canceled, in fact, due to nasty thunderstorms.  About the time I found this out, I also misplaced my driver's license, which nearly led to my having a meltdown in the airport.  Fortunately I was able to move myself off to a corner and upend my suitcase until I found it.  Thereafter an airline personnel was able to find me a later set of flights, which got me home about six hours later than I should've gotten home, but at least I did get home.  

Of course, as soon as I got home, my period started.  So I then spent the next couple days miserable, pained, and exhausted.  My brain has flatly refused to work for almost the entire week so far.  I'm really hoping this is temporary, because there's a lot of things I should be doing and haven't been able to.  It's kind of messing with me and making me feel like a failure.  

The histamine situation doesn't have a clear solution.  I'm going to try adding extra vitamin C to my diet.  I guess there's a certain threshold you can normally add before you get unfortunate side effects, and we don't know what mine is right now.  It's possible that I'm not at my vitamin C threshold, and adding more will help my body process all those histamines it's generating, which then make my attempts to exercise miserable.  

It's also possible that I'll need to try a DAO supplement, which is basically the substance your body is supposed to produce to prune down histamines on its own... but some people simply don't produce enough of it, so the histamines build up.  So that might be my problem also.  We simply don't have enough information.  

The vitamin C is the cheapest option, so I'm starting with that and praying it works out.  

Legwork and Life, week of 9/25/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

Today finds me in Reston, VA, quite near Washington DC. I spent a good period of time yesterday panicking or at least semi-panicking for the travel portion of this trip.  I'd mainly packed for the trip the day before, but some things had to be left for the day of, including some chores.  

I also spent too much time that morning beating my face fruitlessly on configuring an older model iPhone that a friend kindly gave me to use as an exercise buddy.  Between the fact that it's an older phone and I had an older copy of iTunes, many errors ensued while trying to get it set up.  I didn't manage to get it exactly the way I wanted by the time I needed to leave, which I blame entirely on Apple.  Still, it does have most of the music I wanted on it, and fiddling with it has been excellent practice for helping my mother set up her phone in a few weeks.  

Thankfully I'll be able to relax for the first part of today.  The orientation for the Autism Research Program (ie: why I'm in Reston) won't begin until early afternoon.  I'll be able to eat breakfast at my leisure and try to decompress from airport security.  Dealing with TSA is by far my least favorite part of traveling.  Apparently they won't be accepting driver's licenses as valid IDs soon, so I'll have to go get whatever they consider "Real ID."  Like a driver's license or state-issued ID is somehow fake ID.  Honestly.  I have half a mind to apply for a new passport and tell TSA that if they have a problem with my identity, they can take it up with the US government.  

Anyway, at least I'm prepared for this trip.  I got all of my assignments done, first and second rounds of reviews.  I'm extremely pleased to see that the two applications I wasn't impressed by also didn't really impress the other reviewers.  There's some dissension around the issues, but not a ton.  The one whose idea I hated actually got such poor reviews that I'm not sure we'll even bother discussing it.  Which is just fine by me, because it means less talky-time.  

I'm anxious about this trip, but not super anxious.  I've done this before a few times, and while I'm probably a bit more wound up this time than I have been in the past, I can still probably handle it.  The staff of the program seem to like me, and I haven't been too much of an ass since the first year.  So I don't know.  It'll probably go well.

Not going as well: my new supplement.  Apparently the extra side effects I've been experiencing, the bumpy skin, weird metabolism, and gurgly guts, aren't normal.  My doctor thinks I tolerate herbal type supplements poorly, based on this and my previous experiment with the Feminessence, where I broke out a rash, a vicious headache, mood swings, etc.  

I'm not really sure what to do with this information. I know my system is sensitive.  But at least in the case of the histamines, I really need something to handle the problem. I may see about lessening the dose, and see if I still have good effects with the exercise. I really don't want to lose this progress, because I've been able to go jogging twice now. It was really tiring, but not miserable.   I'm continuing to lose weight (1-2 pounds a week, which is the maximum healthy weight loss rate).  It's the first real progress I've seen on that front in literal years.  I don't want to give it up. 

We'll see what my doctor says when I see her next...

Legwork and Life, week of 9/18/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

Anxiety is probably the word for this week.  I'm scrambling to meet various deadlines.  It is not enjoyable.  I'm good on this blog at least 'til the end of the week, but no decent research articles have presented themselves for next Monday.  That's... worrisome.  Either something will turn up on my RSS feeds, or I'll have to go looking specifically for something... or I'll miss a day.  And I haven't missed a day since I established a schedule.  That's something like 2-3 years.  It'd be upsetting to me if I missed a day.

Friday also marks when the next round of reviews for the research applications go live... and I'll only have a couple days to manage that before I'm off to DC.  Whereupon I'll be expected to socialize heavily in between long stretches of socializing.  I really need a buffer to handle the burnout I'm likely to suffer, but I don't have one.  Ugh.  

Also on Friday, I need to be done with that fiction review.  My first draft came back with some potentially major requested revisions.  I kind of feel like I'm in school again.  I'm not used to such serious, in-depth critiques of my writing any more.  While I know in my head that every author, no matter how successful, could probably improve their writing somehow (and I am hardly a highly successful writer), it's still a bit of a shock to receive feedback that might well involve rewriting a sizable chunk of the review.  

I'm in the phase of "highly stressed and anxious" where everything is just going haphazardly and I avoid all my stressors as much as I can, then latch onto anything solid that seems like work I can handle.  I had one of these situations in my freshman year of college, and I handled it by putting up a whiteboard with all my projects and their due dates.  Then I broke those projects into doable chunks, prioritized them, and did them one tiny chunk at a time.  My current projects don't seem so "break-into-chunks"-able.  

I'd say "this too shall pass" to comfort myself, but it really feels, at the moment, that when "this too" passes, I'm going to not have done my best and disappointed myself and others as a bonus.  And I still have October, Month of All Birthdays, to look forward to (/sarcasm)!  

Other news: the new supplement (Hista-Eze) I mentioned last Friday seems to have some extra effects.  My skin has been getting bumpy and scratchable at random spots, which is a phenomenon I used to have a lot more often.  It's why my arms are sheets of tiny scars.  It started with my forehead, though, which is odd.  Also, I seem extra gassy, so it's perhaps doing something to my gut flora as well.  Finally, I seem... extra hungry, I guess?  I had a perfectly acceptable breakfast and lunch today, but it's only been a couple hours and I'm hungry again.  So possibly my metabolism has been affected.  

I seem to have lost a small amount of weight (yay!) as well, though that could be simply the extra exercise I worked into last week's schedule.  I'm planning to try to add jogging into my schedule as a regular thing... or I'm going to try, at least.  It's really good exercise, and if only my muscles make me miserable while I do it, that's way more tolerable.  Especially if it's a nice day and I can get some sun.  

Weird and myriad side effects aside, I haven't taken any anti-histamines or vitamin C since starting the Hista-Eze.  I have yet to try jogging or intensive biking again, but I did 30 minutes on a higher difficulty than usual for my cardio on Monday without ill effects.  Well, other than demonstrating that I inherited my Dad's ability to sweat copiously from the scalp and forehead.  

This makes me wonder two things.  First, perhaps I needn't take extra vitamin C when I go exercising.  I'll try jogging without vitamin C or antihistamines today, if I feel up to it, and see how it compares to last week.  Second, perhaps the dosage of the Hista-Eze supplement is too high, if I'm experiencing all these weird side effects.  Or I could just be allergic to something in the supplement.  

I'm really hoping that's not it, though; it does seem to be doing its job, these side effects aside...

Legwork and Life, week of 9/11/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

Whew... September is busy.  I managed all my preliminary reviews for the government work, but in about a week, I'm going to have to go over those reviews again and rewrite and reconsider them.  In the meantime, I've been asked to read a fiction book and review it... which... you would think wouldn't be so different than what I already do for this blog.

But there's actually a major difference between reviewing a book for factual accuracy and reviewing a book for entertainment purposes.  In a factual book, you evaluate the facts first, and the presentation of the facts second.  In a fiction book, you evaluate the story and the believability of the world and the characters.  The former is more objective, the latter more subjective.  

I feel... a bit out of my depth, to be honest.  I shouldn't; I did the latter kind of work in school on a regular basis.  I guess anything subjective is... subjective.  I like solid, yes-or-no questions better than I like "the main character was highly believable, but personally I think if the world changed in X way, you wouldn't see people in general doing Y."  Or... something.  I don't know, maybe I'm even rustier than I thought.  Maybe I can do research on how one writes a book review on fiction books...  

Happier news:  I had a great breakthrough regarding the histamine issue!  I'll detail it this Friday, so look forward to that.  I'm really excited.  

Also happy news, this happened:

This is fancy ramen.  A friend of mine had some unexpected life complications and ran a bit short on money, so I hired them to make me... well, basically a meal kit of fancy ramen.  They found and prepared a lot of fresh veggies, including turnips, shiitake mushrooms, scallions, and bamboo shoots.  They marinated the soft boiled egg in seasonings.  They even toasted and seasoned bok choy leaves for a crispy topper.  Also, and perhaps most importantly, they made bone broth.  Like, the kind you have to boil for like 48 hours straight with tons of seasonings and spices.  

I've never had bone broth, and didn't really ever think I would, because I'm picky about my animal products, and very few restaurants care about serving humane products.  I provided my friend with humane meaty bones from a local farm, and they added some veggies and other seasonings to make this broth.  The end result was highly delicious, and there's plenty left even after serving myself and my spouse.  

There's so much broth left that I think even after the other ingredients are gone, I'll be able to make broth cubes and throw them into all sorts of recipes.  My mother did this, too.  You pour the broth into an ice cube tray, making frozen cubes of broth.  These store easily and can be thawed out whenever you need some flavor.  Even a single one of these cubes could seriously spice up pretty much any dish.  

Basically, my friend did an amazing job and the results will brighten my meals for a good while.  

Legwork and Life, week of 9/4/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

I had a weird occurrence this last week.  Usually my mood weather is mostly cloudy (lightly depressed), with occasional forays into cloudy (depressed) with thunderstorms (angry and depressed).  Sometimes I have a better day and have partly cloudy weather (neutral mood).

This week, I had a moment of emotional overwhelm... which would normally be bad... but it wasn't bad.  It was just overwhelming, so I started leaking tears, but I wasn't angry or sad.  I was sitting outside in the sunshine, on a nice day, with blue sky and puffy clouds.  I mentally puzzled over it for a while, and decided that I was apparently experiencing joy.  It was quite odd, because there was no actual pleasure or happy sensation, just the overwhelm.  And the timing was extremely peculiar, because it was the first day of my period at the time, which usually makes me more miserable than usual.

My mental math was informed by a pair of Invisibilia episodes on emotions, which told me that apparently the sum total of human emotion can be plotted on two linear spectrums: wound up-calm, and pleasant-unpleasant.  I ruled out the experience being unpleasant because the situation was pleasant, even if the overwhelm feeling wasn't really pleasant.  Obviously the feeling was off the charts on the "wound up" side of things.  In lieu of any other data, I picked "joy" because it was the most powerful "pleasant" feeling I could think of, and one that appropriately does sometimes move people to tears.

As is my tendency when odd things happen, I tried to pick apart the experience.  Sunshine on my skin in small doses is a pleasant sensation; it's why I was outside in the first place.  Perhaps the vitamin D was particularly essential?  Or the remnants of the maca root managed to rebalance my hormones for a short time.  Why didn't I feel the joy properly?  Perhaps my brain is improperly wired for such positive experiences, after two decades or so of depression?  Or perhaps the painkillers had some effect- positive or negative.  The type I was on, a Midol-knockoff specifically for period pain, contain antihistamines.

When I mentioned this to my doctor/therapist, she noted that it can be very easy for anxiety- and depression-prone people to mistake good emotions for bad ones, so she was very pleased I'd noted the difference here.  An easy example is excitement and anxiety.  Excitement is being wound up over something good, looking forward to it.  Anxiety is being wound up over something bad, dreading it.  If you're very accustomed to feeling anxiety, it can be easy to mistake excitement related to say, your upcoming graduation, or birthday, for anxiety.

She suggested this phenomenon might be more common in my life than I think.  I'm actually kind of dubious, since I did recognize the weirdness of the pseudo-joy, and in general feel like I have a good handle on my emotions.  But it won't hurt me to keep an eye out.  

Legwork and Life, week of 8/28/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

My bicycle works!  While the good weather lasts, I'm going to try to bike instead of drive for short trips, like when I take library books back, or when visiting my parents.  This has actually come up time and time again in my research queues as a major life improvement.  I don't have a whole lot of places I normally go within biking distance, but on the other hand, even a little bit helps.

I picked up a cargo rack, so I could also do small amounts of grocery shopping at the local "fresh produce, flowers, specialty foods, and etc" store.  Even without the rack, I can still make the trip, but I'm limited to whatever I can carry on my back.  It also has the distinct danger of getting squished, which, if it's fresh fruit, really isn't optimal.  Having a container bungie-corded to a cargo rack would potentially solve that problem, especially if the container was padded.  

At any rate, I dosed myself up with vitamin C and biked off to my parents' a couple days ago.  I'm not sure I let it absorb long enough before doing the trip, to be honest.  I think it was only like 5-10 minutes before I started off, and I got pretty huffy, grumpy, and red in the face.  I think next time I should give it an hour, which was what my doctor suggested in the first place...

The whole high-histamine theory seems so probable and so promising for my exercise woes, to be honest.  I really want to give it the best possible shot, to see if it's right.  The trip not seeming any different was a little bit of a setback to me, but admittedly, I hadn't eaten, and I likely hadn't given the vitamin C long enough to absorb in...  So I'm not going to give up on it yet.  I do wish I had clearer evidence.  Anyone would, I think.  I hate all this guesswork and trying things one at a time and hoping for clear results.  

Speaking of adverse reactions, the maca root rash still hasn't entirely gone away, so that's on hold until I feel like I've detoxified as much as I'm going to manage.  My period is definitely on the way, and I have no idea if the 10ish days I took the maca are going to affect it.  I'm hoping yes, in a positive way, but with my luck, it'll be probably be "yes, very negatively."  

Nothing terribly exciting on the government grant review end of things yet.  They're still mostly doing preliminary setup, registration, and assignments.  I have my assignments, but haven't looked at them because I'm afraid to find out whether one particular dud of an application is on there.  The jury is out on whether it'd be a good thing if it was, so I could give it the chewing out it deserves, or a bad thing because the application irritates me so much.  

Sadly the applications aren't the only major irritants in my life at the moment.  I'm reading a particular book in hopes of reviewing it for this blog.  It's starting to look like a book I can't honestly recommend to anyone, but I might still review it just to point out how glaringly wrong it is.  

In the meantime, I'm re-learning the value of taking things in small pieces, so I don't have a fury-induced meltdown.  It should be a good and valuable post, assuming I can avoid said meltdown and also maybe being too vicious about my criticism.  

Legwork and Life, week of 8/21/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

The itching has thankfully subsided.  This is, naturally, because my doctor told me to stop taking the maca root.  I'm a little frustrated that the rash site doesn't seem to have returned to normal, but perhaps the supplement isn't quite flushed out of my system yet.  Either way, I'm going to give it a bit longer and then try it again, at a very low dose.  Chances are, the same result will ensue.  But on the off-chance it doesn't, I'm going to try, because I'd really like this to work.

We did finally get the bed moved away from the wall with the smart electricity meter.  I seem to be sleeping better!  We're not actually clear whether that's because the bed is now facing away from the curtained window, or because the electrical meter actually is a garbage machine that disrupts sleep... but either way, I'm really pleased.  I'm not as tired in the morning, and when I am tired, so far it's because I deserved it for staying up late.  

This change of bed location is in addition to keeping the wifi turned off at night, and having our phones/tablets/etc. in airplane mode at night, with wifi and cell phone data turned off.  I'm honestly considering just paying for more data per month and ditching the wifi router entirely... but again, that's a major change, and would need to be made with my spouse.  

I also managed to get myself and my bike to a different repair shop.  This one didn't try to sell me a new part... the repairman actually just fiddled with a few things (tension in my brakes and the gears, or something) and the gears stopped slipping.  So as far as I'm concerned, they're magic now.  They kept the bike a couple days to try to fix the barking sound it was making when it was pedaled, and they did manage that as well.  So now I have a working bike and just need to have a non-rainy morning or afternoon. 

In the meantime I've been noticing I get red in the face and such at relatively light exertion, which I feel like has been a thing for me growing up, but maybe not quite to this degree.  I'm not really eating a lot of high histamine foods, or even all that many histamine liberators... so it really makes me wonder about the algae outside.  The board has been kicking around the idea of simply filling in the pond out back, which would be far cheaper than fixing it ($45k versus $150k, or something like that).  I'm kind of on the fence about it, to be honest.  The algae is really horrible and bad for me, but I also really like having a pond and seeing the great blue heron and the ducks.  If the pond goes, so do they.  

Anyway, I'll be able to try the bike trials with and without the vitamin C as soon as I get a nice few hours.  It's been rainy and thunderstormy recently, so I haven't gotten my bike out yet.  Soon, hopefully!

Last news: it looks like I'm being called on again to review research proposals for the federal government.  I'm really happy it's not falling around Thanksgiving or Christmas this year.  It should be next month, which makes these next 30 days or so Crunch Time.  Lots of deadlines, lots of hurry-up-and-get-it-done.  I was just starting to manage getting a buffer together, too...  But this is also important, so I guess I'll do the best I can on both fronts and hope I don't drown in work.  Wish me luck!

Legwork and Life, week of 8/14/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

This week, I am viciously itchy.  I seem to have developed a skin rash due to my new maca root supplement, which... it's in the list of possible side effects, but I'm very displeased all the same.  There's probably a person out there that enjoys being itchy, but that person is definitely not me.  I've banned myself from itching with my fingernails, but I can't help but itch, so I'm using my knuckles.  Life is about making compromises you can mostly live with, right?

I'll be seeing my doctor tomorrow, so she'll probably get an earful on the subject.  I'm still really hoping there's some way to make this work that doesn't involve spending even more money or returning the product...  I've already halved the dosage twice over the course of the week, which you'd think would be enough... but likely I simply don't know enough about chemical interactions.  Which is what my doctor is for!

Anyway, I'm making the best of the situation.  Hydrocortisone cream seems to help with the itching somewhat, but it's not a permanent solution by any stretch.  And honestly, the whole red and white speckled itchy skin isn't really a good look for me.  Or anyone.  So hopefully the situation can be resolved fairly quickly and easily.  

In the meantime, I seem to be sleeping a little better.  Still haven't gotten the bed moved, though.  I'm going to blame family hubbub and such for that.  We missed one set of aunt and uncle due to life things, but caught the other for a few relatively relaxing days.  I say relatively, because being out of my comfort zone isn't precisely relaxing.  Still, getting to go kayaking and spending time with them was pleasant, and I even managed to avoid popping the blisters I got from the kayaking.  Thus they healed up exceedingly fast and didn't trouble me after the first day.  

I do have further evidence towards the high histamine theory now.  I have, in the past, really enjoyed kayaking.  This time?  I was actually pretty miserable.  The conditions were fantastic: just barely a wind to keep the bugs away, calm water, warm but not too hot.  But once I got out there and put my arms to work... miserable.  It wasn't exactly like I was struggling to breathe, but it kind of reminded me of my experience with the cold, where I just... wasn't getting enough oxygen, and it affected my mood.  

Adding to this was the sure knowledge that I'd eaten two relevant foods in good quantities: spinach (high histamine) and tomatoes (either high histamine or histamine liberator, depending on which source you ask).  So that was valuable to note.  The plan now is to get my bike fixed (it's slipping gears and basically unusable), and then try biking more vigorously and steadily than usual.  Then I'll do that again with a big dose of vitamin C powder-infused water, and compare the two experiences.  

This plan does rely on me managing to get my bike loaded into my van, driving over to a new bike store, walking in, and demanding they use an aftermarket part to repair my bike, which...  so far hasn't gone well.  But I'm almost getting ahead on this blog, so maybe I can pony up the energy soon.  

Legwork and Life, week of 8/7/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

My wifi experiments are bearing some fruit.  I can't say I feel all that much better rested yet (haven't been sleeping enough), but when I shut off the wifi at night, it feels almost like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  This has happened every time I've turned it off for the night, which... I mean, I could be imagining it, that's definitely possible... but I feel like if I was going to confirmation-bias-hallucinate something, it'd be something more akin to "feeling less brain buzzing" or something.  

So I don't know, it's potentially beneficial anyway.  Still trying to decide whether it's worth the annoyance of having to have my data plan on while reading in bed.  I like checking my webcomics and reading research articles before going to bed, but that has to be done on the data plan if I don't have wifi available.  

Finally, regarding the wifi/dirty electricity experiments, I still haven't moved my bed away from the smart electricity meter yet... maybe I can do that this week, with my spouse's agreement.  It's his house and bed too, after all.  

And because my supplementation regimen isn't complicated enough/I still have problems, I've added something new to my lineup.  I'm biologically female, and therefore suffer periods roughly once a month.  Keyword here is "suffer."  Apparently curling into a miserable ball for a couple days a month is not supposed to happen.  Discomfort is expected, misery is not.  So I've started on a (my) doctor-recommended supplement, which will hopefully, in a month or so, make my periods less misery-inducing.

I don't, as a rule, have any particular feelings about my biological sex or anyone else's, but at least once a month, I resent my internal organs' ability to cripple me for a time.  As I imagine anyone else might resent something if it disabled them with such regularity.  Hormones end up being the issue.  I have unstable, non-clockwork hormones, for some reason.  This supplement will regulate those hormones, but in a way that doesn't add any more to my system the way birth control does. 

I've always been kind of leery of hormonal birth control, and as it turns out, that was a good thing.  Apparently hormonal birth control can come with some really "fun" side effects, particularly for a system as sensitive as mine.  I'm very uninterested in massive mood swings, any additional weight gain, soreness, nausea, or any messing around with my libido. 

This supplement isn't hormonal, but the herb it's mainly made of is apparently involved in supporting the hormonal cycle.  So I guess we'll see.  

Histamine Overload Day

The Theory

When I was at my doctor's office (my LENS doctor, not my primary care doctor who I rarely see), we were chatting about my health and she suggested, based on my previous complaints, symptoms, and observations about exercise, that I try experimenting with high- and low-histamine foods, as I might have an intolerance or simply be flooded with them.

Essentially, the theory goes that some people may have too high of levels of histamines in their bodies, and this has bad effects on your brain, your immune system, and your digestive tract.  You can tailor your diet to avoid high-histamine foods, which are mainly fermented foods, and thus live a healthier life... but this is only likely to help if you actually do have the intolerance or systemic overload.  

My doctor explained this as kind of like having a low level allergic reaction... except all the time.  So you're always dealing with things like congested airways, itching, a skin rash, watery or itchy eyes, etc.  The thing is, it may be so mild you don't even notice it, yet still have bad effects on your life.  And in fact, allergies like this can entirely bypass your nose and just affect your brain instead, causing depression, misery, and anxiety.  Now, the reasons she brought this up included the apparently-not-insect-bite-after-all bumps I came back with after one expedition for black raspberries, and my lifelong hatred for exercise.  

The latter doesn't immediately make sense.  The thing is, there are two categories of foods you have to watch out for with a histamine issue.  The first is foods with high histamines, of course.  More histamines is bad.  The second category, though, is histamine liberators.  Your body stores histamines, and histamine liberators elbow your body into releasing them, which makes you feel worse.  

Exercise, as it happens, has that exact same liberation effect.  So a person would reasonable hate exercise if it felt like they were dying every time they did it.  Like, say, if their throat closed up, they found it hard to breathe, they itched a lot, and in general they felt terrible.  Which... isn't an unreasonable assessment of my feelings on jogging and most other forms of exercise.  

There's also the fact that in the summer, I'm basically marinating in toxic algae spores due to the pond outside, which... I'd assume would produce histamines, given its deleterious effects on my system if I go outside and breathe for like two minutes.  I also find myself sleeping with my arms over my head, which is notably helpful for opening airways, but does a number on my lower back... so you'd think I wouldn't be doing that on purpose.

Counter-evidence is that I tested negative on a battery of allergy tests at the beginning of the year.  Like, I'm allergic to nothing they tested.  Literally nothing.  The test included various local plants that often set people off.  I also haven't personally noticed regular congestion and such until recently.  It's like my cold never truly ended.  I cough a bit here and there these days, and occasionally need to blow my nose.  

There are two informational documents I was sent by my doctor, so here they are: The Healthline Summary and the Topic-Specific Site.  I read them both, or at least skimmed them both, and paid careful attention to the list of foods.  Surprisingly, I don't really like most of the high-histamine foods.  So most of them aren't in my diet.  I can't say the same for the histamine liberators, though.  A good number of those rotate through my diet regularly.  

So there's cause to test this theory my doctor has... and I intend to.  Slightly recklessly.

The Plan

I am, as of yet, still fairly young and thus resilient.  I am therefore going to take a single day to present my system with many high-histamine foods and histamine liberators.  The results will either be dramatic and prove the point, or minimal-to-non-existent, and strongly suggest that this is not an issue I have.

I should note my doctor specifically told me not to do this, and instead suggested trying a couple foods here and there, and seeing if I noticed differences.  Which is why I'm terming this "slightly reckless."  I don't think I'm putting my life on the line, trying this, but I do think I'm probably setting myself up for an extremely miserable day.

To do this experiment, I read over the foods, and prepared a menu for the day, incorporating enough of them to hopefully give a good test result.  While devising this menu, I made efforts to make the meals healthy, because it's already known that eating junk food makes you ill, and eating horrifyingly mismatched foods (like, say, jerky, pickles, and chocolate in the same mouthful) would also complicate the results by making me miserable as I ate them.  

I also had to allow for my particular diet choices, which meant only humane meats.  I know where to get bison jerky, so I can still try the fermented meat option, but things like store salami and most smoked meat products are out.  

With that in mind, the menu is this.

Breakfast: Cup of Greek yogurt with fresh pineapple and strawberry slices mixed in.  Sourdough toast with mixed nut butter on top.  

Lunch: Fancy grilled cheese with tomato soup.  Sourdough bread with aged cheese and shredded bison jerky.  Pickle and a handful of spinach for a side.  Orange for "dessert."

Snack (if desired): chocolate and/or handful of roasted mixed nuts. 

Dinner: Marinated chicken (apple cider vinegar and soy sauce marinade), served over brown rice, with a banana and spinach salad with vinegar dressing for sides.  

Beverages: Green tea, black tea, and possibly a serving of booze at dinner.  

For extra credit, I may try to exercise that day as well, which would help free up any stored histamines I might have.  I haven't quite decided on this, because exercise makes me miserable, and I don't want to muck up my experiment by biasing it

Now, assuming this theory is correct and I have this problem, the resulting suffering will be misery.  I'm young enough to try this, but not so reckless that I don't have a backup plan for alleviating my misery.  When discussing this theory with my doctor, she mentioned that while testing foods, I might keep vitamin C on hand, as it helps clean histamines out of your system.  So now I have a nice jar of lemon-flavored vitamin C powder, which I will mix into water and consume at regular intervals, should the effects be overwhelming.

I also have various decongestant medicinal products that served me fairly well during my cold a few weeks ago, and I might see about acquiring an anti-histamine as well, which would help curb any impressive acute symptoms.

The Day Of

The day started fairly normally for a summer day: not enough sleep because of the light levels.  Here's my ingredients:

Some of these we had at home, but most had to be bought specifically for this experiment.  This isn't even all the things, it's just what would fit neatly in the picture.

Breakfast commenced.

My yogurt cup didn't hold nearly as much fruit as I wanted it to, so I had some on the side.  I decided tea with breakfast was going to happen.  I like tea, but I usually don't treat myself to it. So that was nice.

After the first few bites, I had a cough, which left about as fast as it came.  I've had those on and off in the last couple weeks, and still have no real idea what's going on.  A more lingering effect, which I didn't test because I was focusing on work and other things, was the seeming difficulty breathing.  My work is sedentary, thankfully, so that was not a crippling issue.  But it was very definitely notable.

More interestingly, and more detrimentally for sure, was the brain fog that really shouldn't have accompanied such a healthy meal.  It could be the yogurt, which I'm not really accustomed to eating, and is dairy, after all.  I've had poor effects with dairy.  That would normally be a factor I'd eliminate for this test, but I had enough trouble coming up with a meal plan without that.

I also felt kind of like my stomach lining was... overwarm.  "Burning" implies actual pain, and this wasn't a form of pain I recognized.  It was just uncomfortable and a little worrying.  It didn't really feel like acid reflux, either.  So that was definitely worth noting.

Lunch was late, because I guess I had too large a breakfast in my enthusiasm for this experiment.

I... still really really do not like pickles.  Like wow, yuck.  I ate all four on the plate, but unless I can foist the rest off on somebody else, I don't think I'm going to eat them.  The rest was basically fine, thankfully.  I ate the banana for lunch instead of dinner because of how ripe it'd gotten, which was fine.  I was originally going to shred the jerky and put it on the sandwich, but I ran out of time due to needing to run errands.

I did again feel the sort of burn on my stomach lining, which was definitely disconcerting.  I noticed a certain difficulty in breathing again, like I had to work harder for my oxygen.  I may or may not have been imagining that, or letting confirmation bias run away with me.  This experiment couldn't be done double-blind as easily as my other experiments.

After lunch, my day's pace picked up, which, combined with the brain fog, caused me to forget to take a picture of dinner.  It was the meal as planned, though, vinegar/soy sauce marinated chicken over rice, with balsamic vinegar dressing on spinach, and the orange.

At dinner, I also decided to be a strange person and mix a mug of green tea with a shot of vodka, which wasn't as horrifying as you'd expect.  Actually, I didn't really taste the vodka after it had mixed in with the tea and warmed to the correct temperature.  I have no idea if that's normal, or just a function of the particular brand of vodka (Grey Goose).

The burn in my stomach lining re-commenced after consuming two types of vinegar (but before consuming the alcohol, which does its own form of stomach-burn sensation).  I felt kind of warm in the face, which was new.  I would also say the brain fog returned, at least to a degree.

I finished off the night without needing to resort to my safety net:

"BioFizz" is maybe not the most marketable name I've ever heard, but the product is quality.

Vitamin C is excellent for helping the body filter out histamines, so mixing either of these powders into water and consuming them would have helped flush my system of the mess I'd forced into it.

The Results

I wasn't, I suppose, really expecting to break out in hives or suddenly have my throat close and have to be rushed to the hospital, but I guess I'd hoped for something a bit more dramatic than "slight trouble breathing," "kinda burny stomach lining," and the ever-debilitating "brain fog."  These were clear and obvious symptoms, but not the type I wa expecting.

I discussed my findings with my doctor.  She mainly told me it was something to be aware of, when considering why I might be feeling poorly.  It's clearly not the beginning and end of my health considerations, since I didn't end up in the hospital, but the difficulty breathing is suggestive, as are the other effects.

Something of note here is that many of these foods, I wouldn't normally eat.  They simply don't taste good to me.  Pickles and vinegar in particular come to mind, but in all honesty, I didn't really enjoy the jerky either.  There can be a correlation between "what tastes good to you" and "what is good for you."

This is obviously not always the case, as per the various cases of autistic children (and sometimes adults) refusing to eat all but a very limited subset of foods.  Sometimes those refusals aren't merely based in taste, they're based in texture and sensitivities thereof.  I would guess that the "if it tastes bad, you shouldn't eat it" concept of eating is probably only referring to taste.

A good test during this histamine overload day, which I should have done but was so brain-fogged and tired that I didn't, would have been to go biking or power-walking.  The difference in my ability to breathe that day, versus regularly, would have been valuable information.

I'm not entirely out of luck on that front.  While I probably won't redo the high histamine diet, I can attempt the opposite thing: dosing myself up with vitamin C, and then exercising at a moderate intensity.  If the experience isn't horrifying, that's all I'll need to know.  Perhaps I could even try jogging again.  Being able to tolerate high-intensity exercise would make it possible for me to burn calories easier, which would go a long way toward checking the slowing metabolism/rising weight effect of middle age.  Exercise also burns energy I tend to use being anxious, so it might also do wonders for my mental state, too.

In the end, it seems that high histamine levels are a factor in my life, but not an all important one. Fixing my histamine intake would most likely have positive effects, but is unlikely to solve all my health problems the way I'd like it to.  I'll make note of any future testing I do on the subject, particularly the exercise/vitamin C test.

Edit (9/2/19): Histamines are definitely the bane of my exercise.  While apparently overdosing on histamines didn't really change my day-to-day experience, taking an anti-histamine and then exercising as hard as I could?  Yielded no misery at all, just hard work.  It was extremely weird to have those two sensations divorced from each other.  Exercise has always been a miserable experience for me in the past.  I'm going to write an exercise-related post update for this.  As it happens, I know of a researcher that might well be interested...

Edit 2 (9/12/19): Yyyep, it's the histamines.  I tested my archnemesis of exercise, jogging, with an anti-histamine on a muggy swelteringly hot day.  I got very tired and my muscles screamed for mercy, but I did not get miserable.  I wrote another post about the exercise experience, which is here!

Legwork and Life, week of 7/31/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

I'm tired this week.  Between the bright summer morning light and my spouse getting up in the morning, I can't seem to sleep in at all.  In addition, I abused my system a bit yesterday in service of science and improved knowledge, which I'll explain in detail on Friday.  I haven't had to go to the hospital, but the experience definitely took a toll.  I'm now trying to recover from it.  With luck, it won't take the rest of the week.  

I'm going to start getting more serious about the wifi restriction stuff I mentioned wanting to try last week.  Starting with turning the wifi off at night.  I miss being able to sleep in, and while the summer light levels probably mean that's an impossibility, I'd like to exhaust my options.  

It's been kind of a busy week.  There was a work party at Chris' workplace, which we attended.  We didn't stay long, because it was supposed to be a family-friendly thing, and we don't have kids and also don't know many people at the company.  But it was free food, at least.

We also had two sets of friends visit the house, which was fun but also draining when you're already low on energy.  The first was a dinner and game night combo, the second a dessert and movie night.  Good times were had.  Another friend will come by tomorrow.  This is all good for my social life, but bad for my energy levels and attempts to get work done on this blog.

Lastly, still another friend got into a car accident, which totaled her poor car and gave her and her wife some ouchy bruises (though thankfully no other injuries, apparently).  She's having kind of a bad time right now, so I'm helping out by serving as transportation to work, and occasionally errands.  Considering I have the luxury of my own car, this is a service that's easier for me to offer than it could be.  It does take time, which I'm making the best of with podcasts.

I'd been neglecting my podcasts for the last month or so.  I can't listen to them while I'm trying to work, because I need my words-processing capability for formulating ideas and turning them into words.  It's a shame, because I missed listening to my various folklore, history, news, and comedy podcasts.  Possibly, I should simply set aside some time each week to simply do that, rather than expecting opportunities to pop up.  In the meantime, though, I get to listen to a podcast, then spend time with my friend for a bit, then listen to more podcast on the way home.  

Legwork and Life, week of 7/24/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

I did end up making a mixed berry pie from the summer black raspberries.  I needed to supplement it with a few store raspberries and blackberries, but I think the end result was pretty good.  I froze about half the pie after it had cooled, because a whole pie is a bit much for two people to eat in a few days.  

I'm still coughing and sniffling a bit.  And the red bumps aren't really going away.  My doctor has a theory for this, which I think I'll try out next week.  The test will likely be misery-inducing, but hopefully educational, and it's only as expensive as buying some extra food ingredients and planning a day's meals.  I'll make a Friday post out of it, so look forward to that next week.  

Also this week, I finally received my birthday present from last year, which was put off by weather- and people-related shenanigans until now.  My spouse bought me a 5,000 foot glider ride, which was fairly fun.  I like the fluffy clouds and seeing the patchwork quilt of the landscape.  Generally I only get to see such things from a commercial aircraft, and even then, not very often.  So it was kind of fun to try this kind of flying.  I probably wouldn't go again, especially not with that particular company (because of said people-related shenanigans), but it was a good experience to have had.  

This week I've been experimenting with having the wifi turned off on my tablet at bedtime.  My spouse has kindly done the same.  The theory is that wifi, dirty electricity, and cell phone signals can mess with peoples' brain signals, which can disrupt sleep and such.  

I haven't noticed a whole lot of changes with the lack of wifi, but then, I've been having to get up for various reasons, so maybe this hasn't been the best test.   I'd like to try a couple more things before giving up on the endeavor.  First, I'd like to start turning off our home's wifi overnight.  It's not like we're using it while we're sleeping anyway.  And second, I'd like to move the bed away from the wall.  It turns out that our electricity meter (which is a smart meter) is right against the wall the bed is on, which... isn't great, by the sound of what my doctor tells me about the theory I'm testing.  I'm not really 100% clear on the theory in question, so that's something I'll have to ask about before I write on it more.