Gluten – To Be or Not to Be

After spending a week (give or take) with my cousin in Rhode Island, I ate a lot of gluten-free foods. They are pretty good and today I went out and was able to get the really yummy brand of raisin bread that she had in the house. Udi’s not Rudi’s! Important distinction!

I also bought some flour because I want to do some experimenting to see if I can make some holiday treats that cousin can enjoy. We’ll see how that turns out. 

I think like fat in yogurt, gluten in bread and sweets is something I can give or take. If I can make some things that cousin and others can eat because they have no gluten – then why not. I foresee some baking in my future! Pizzelles? Not sure it will work, but let’s see.

ISO One Mind

Trying a bit of Just Write on for size, an exercise in free-writing – otherwise known as a “core dump.”

There are times (more and more frequent) that I think I am losing my mind. I had a key in the keyed deadbolt on the front door. The key ring was a small circle with a cross. It was my mother’s. They key went missing. I remember taking it out of the door and “putting it away carefully.” Not sure why I did that but I did. I believe a vacation and some time went by and I couldn’t find it. I’d given up and today I found it on the floor of the living room closet. Just sitting on the floor. I have no clue how it got there.

This morning I did the usual move the things off the floor so the cleaning lady could vacuum. As I did so, I realized I couldn’t find the TiVo remote. Since the living room TV has no signal, all I’ve been doing is slowly watching everything on the TiVo, so the remote has been used a lot this week. Where did I put it? What the (@$$ did I do with it. Why on God’s green earth did I “put it away carefully?!?!” It was on the floor, under the chair. I think Basil probably pushed it off the table when he got mad at me for locking him out of the bedroom after he began dancing on my head at 4AM.

Last week I took, what turned out to be, a 1,770 mile road trip. This would have been a great time to listen to most of what is on my iPod. I put my iPod away carefully sometime after returning from Iceland. I may never find it again.

Oh and I’m pretty sure I have a slight touch of West Nile Virus. I must have received 50 mosquito bites while visiting family in Rhode Island, a place where it has been found in birds and people. I’ve had the slightest low-grade fever the past three days and incubation is 2-10 days so the math works and if I was a yummy snack for enough of them, then, there you have it. I’m certainly keeping an eye on this but right now it is an annoyance and makes me feel a little puny. Luckily (for the secondary benefits of possible weight loss), I’ve not been much up for eating too much so yogurt and ice cream are keeping me going!

As I mentioned, the cable signal on the living room TV is out and has been for seven (going on eight) days. I had a service call set up for 3-5 today with Comcast. They called at 2:30 to be sure I was home. I was and confirmed. The truck pulled up at 3:27 and pulled away at 3:35 without calling or knocking on the door. I called them at 3:40 to find out what happened. The lady put in a special escalated call to have them come back. They did not. At 5:40, I was on the phone with a supervisor (supposedly). She researched and told me that at 4:17 a call to my house went unanswered. I was in my house. I was not on the phone. They didn’t call. So, another day with a signal on the TV. Before my vacation they said I needed a new cable card which I drove to the cable office to get. They couldn’t get that to work either. This has been a nightmare cf. Hopefully it will be resolved tomorrow morning.

As if the still manageable but certainly noticeable hot flashes aren’t enough of a signal that menopause awaits – I believe the feeling that I’m losing my mind is also a documented symptom. The “putting things away carefully” and teetering on the brink of tears and meltdown has got to stop.

Maybe I’ll just go get more ice cream, that should help.

Mid-August

Book Group at church discussed our latest book – The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. That book was painful to read until I got to page 50. Around page 40, I wrote to our group facilitator and said “Please don’t make me read this book!” She said she was not going to make me read it but jump ahead to Book 3. Well, I didn’t and once I got to page 50 some interesting stuff happened and the rest of the book was pretty good.

Our discussion was very interesting. We had a large group that included a couple of folks from outside the church – they’d found the book group on the neighborhood listserv/website. 

Our next book is one I’e wanted to read – The Faith Club. Three women – A Muslim, A Christian and a Jew (walked into a bar) – got together to write a book for their children to explain the connections between the three religions. Many are surprised to learn of the connections. I knew about them but have learned so much   more about them. Reading about the relationship of these three women is fascinating. There was lots of conflict thus lots of growth.