Two quick things:

* Came home yesterday afternoon (before piano lesson) to a phone message from the other driver's (the one who hit me) insurance. They wanted me to call them, left all kinds of contact information. I dutifully copied it down off the message. My natural inclination is to be helpful and I planned on calling them right back. Then, as I was about to call, I thought, "Wait. That was a university vehicle. Maybe the university needs to know about this before I call."

That was a smart move. I called the Lady At Motor Pool and told her about the message. "Oh, really?" she responded. "Did they give you contact information? They haven't called us and we've been trying to chase them down. As long as you weren't hurt in the accident, you have no need to talk to them. In fact, if they call back, just tell them to call us."

I was only too happy to give it because (a) if I don't have to deal with something like that, it's a bonus, (b) the university will be less likely to be able to be persuaded/brow-beaten/whatever* and (c) It's always good to be on the good side of Lady At Motor Pool.

(*I don't KNOW that the insurance company would try to make me think it was my fault or some such thing, but I've heard of those kinds of things happening, where they try to get the "injured party" to either settle for something less or somehow manage to twist things so it looks like they were responsible)

My general tendency in this life is to be as gentle as a dove but sometimes to get by, you have to be a bit more wily and serpentlike, I guess.


Edited to add: in class today, in the course of explaining where I want the students to meet me for me to pick them up for lab, I said, "And I'll try not to meet up with a speeding driver this week" and got a laugh out of the class. So at least there's that.


* I may have figured out the source of the mouth hives. Cucumber. I did try a bite or two of tzatziki sauce (which contains cucumber) with the gyros before I got the bad hives. Then, last night, I used some "sensitive skin" make up remover wipes I had bought - I wasn't terribly careful with them close to my mouth and as I wound up "tasting" a little bit of the scent on them, I must have got the stuff in my mouth. Very shortly after I started getting a bump, which swelled up into a hive overnight.

Guess what one of the botanicals in those cloths is? Yeah, cucumber extract. I never normally ate cucumbers (never liked them) so I hadn't really been exposed to them much. And I think without being able to get the allergy immunotherapy (long story but it can interact badly with the beta blocker), my pollen allergies (which contribute to oral allergy syndrome, which is the hives in my mouth) are probably getting worse.

Not a nice trade-off, but my blood pressure is so well controlled on the beta blocker I'd hate to have to try changing to a different class of drugs just to be able to do immunotherapy again. I just have to avoid cucumber (and probably melon, which is in the same family). Cooked cucurbits don't seem to bother me too much - I can eat things with cooked pumpkin in them.

The hive is almost gone now. I will say for these that they tend to go down fast after I take my antihistamine, and also if I get some blood flow going (I did a workout this morning; it does seem exercising helps with those types of hives and I assume it's because it encourages more blood flow, which carries away the histamine....)

So cucumber is now my nemesis. I can imagine myself seeing one in a grocery store, and giving it this kind of a look: