Thursday morning things

* Some current reading - still working on Moby-Dick but I find I need to intersperse it with lighter things. (Especially after this weekend, with the what-I-think-now was a GI virus and also the concerning news). I re-started Footsteps in the Dark, which is one of Georgette Heyer's mystery novels. This one centers on a small group (three siblings and the husband of one of the sisters) who are involved with the inheritance of an old house connected to a ruined priory.  The place is said to be haunted and there is some weird stuff that happens (for example, the alleged remains of a monk or priest are found walled up in the stairwell in what may have been a priest's hole from Cromwell's day) but the suggestion is that it's not so much that anything supernatural is going on but that someone who wants to get the new owners to leave and sell the property cheaply is tricking them.

I enjoy these kind of books; the setting is a big part of it. I read these things for an escape more than for contemplation about the human condition (such as Moby-Dick can lead to). It's not that different from re-watching a favorite movie or something. I keep some of these books and re-read them periodically - I find I forget enough of the details that I can re-read them.

I also started one of the later Campion novels by Margery Allingham - Traitor's Purse. I'm having to take this one chapter by chapter as it's kind of difficult to read, at least in the early part, because it's almost sort of nightmarish - or at least it's similar to the nightmares I sometimes have. Campion wakes up in a hospital. He doesn't know why he is there or even for sure who he is. He escapes, gets picked up by a woman (who he later finds out is his fiancee) and a man (who later turns out to be the victim). He has been given the task of doing.....something. He doesn't know what, he can't remember. There's a mysterious society, it's hinted that what he's doing is vitally important to national or perhaps even global security.....so he has to do something that he cannot fail at, but he does not know what that thing is.

The Campion novels are a bit more fanciful in some ways than many of the other Golden Era novels (Campion was originally devised as a parody of Lord Peter Wimsey) and you do have to suspend disbelief a bit (As much as amnesia has been used as a plot device down through the years, it really doesn't generally happen the way it happens in books; what is far more common is "transient amnesia," for example, you are in a car wreck but you cannot remember what let up to the wreck or what happened right after, but you can remember everything from several weeks before the wreck. Or, as sometimes happens in Alzheimer's patients, you lose your short term memory but remember who you are and things from your past). This novel is a little less "light" than some Campion novels given the trope of "there is this thing you must do but you do not remember it and you cannot reveal that you do not remember it"

* I made spaghetti bolognese last night. (Or, as in the breezy style of the British cookbook I used, "Spag Bol"). I admit at first I was slightly apprehensive about it given my couple month's stomach issues - would I tolerate the acidy tomatoes okay?

Turns out I did. And I am wondering if maybe, just maybe, the stuff is finally OVER. Also am wondering if the abdominal pains could in some way be related to the hives.....I had had a few days of bad hives every time the stomach was bad. (Is it possible for one to get hives on internal organs, or would that be deadly?). Also, I had a lot of little, what felt like "muscle pulls" in the abdomen that seem to have gone away.Or maybe this was just really drawn out aftereffects of either a virus or some kind of food poisoning I didn't realize I had? (I am still going to try to avoid Red #40 in case that does affect me, though I wonder if what happened Saturday was actually a virus)

When I heat the Bolognese sauce back up though, I'm going to add some oregano and a little salt - I didn't put any salt in at first, and the only seasonings this recipe called for was a bay leaf and garlic and onion. (The recipe in my "Mama D's" cookbook calls for oregano).

* Edited to add: a little medi-Googling (dangerous, I know) has revealed that yes, internal organs *especially the GI tract* can be affected by hives and they can be painful, crampy, and cause diarrhea and vomiting. Hm. I wonder if this was some kind of awful, long-extended bout of hives that affected my innards - definitely some of the weird random pains in weird random places made me go, "if this was out on the skin I'd say it was a hive"

Good news: I'm not gonna die.
Bad news: not sure how I get rid of it, short of going on corticosteroids, if I get it again.


* I will say I've been on a triple-species probiotic (Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium bifidum) for a little while (a bit over a week) and I think - hopefully - that is helping fix my stomach issues.

Also, I wonder: could adjusting one's gut flora have a slight anti-depressive/anti-anxiety effect? I don't mean for people with serious issues - they probably still would need something to alter brain chemistry - but for people who just feel kind of "blah" and mildly dysphoric like I have felt since January. (Oh, there have been bright spots: the weekend of my birthday when I went to Whitesboro was pretty good). But I feel much better, much more "myself" since I started taking these. (It's possible it's a placebo effect but I am not going to think to hard about that lest I convince myself it is and it stops working). It could also just be the absence of abdominal cramps makes me feel happier and more hopeful because that pain is gone and also the weird nagging worries ("What if this is pancreatic cancer?" "No, it can't be: they tested all the enzymes and things that show up in your blood in January and said your pancreas and liver and kidneys all looked very healthy." "But what if they missed something?")

It could also be something I'm allergic to has stopped flowering. I get weird psychological symptoms from allergies and also I need to sleep more, and I've noticed these past couple days I'm back to my old "bounce out of bed 25 minutes before the alarm goes off" routine.

At any rate: it seems like they are helping me so I am going to go ahead and keep taking them (and buy more when my 2-month supply runs out). They're expensive but if I continue to feel this good while taking them it's worth it.

* First gift mitt is done except for the thumb. I have extra reason to want to finish these as the person who is leaving gave me her floor mat (that plastic mat that sits under a rolling chair). Mine had all but broken up - I am kind of heavy and also I tend to fidget and roll around a lot in my chair, and the mats crack over time. I had used duct tape to try to get a bit more life out of mine but when she saw that I had it all taped up, she brought me hers ("I'm not taking it with me, and there won't be anyone using that office come fall"). It's a little thing but I appreciate it.

(Empty offices on a college campus are as much a sign of bad financial times as empty storefronts are in a downtown. And sadly, both my college and my downtown have way too many of both. And yes, I am STILL sad about the quilt shop closing. It is not the same to have to go to JoAnn's for fabric or having to wait until I have time to do stuff like drive to Whitesboro)