I Think

Mine aren't from food, knock on wood. More animals and grasses and mold, a total of 64 things, some of which never showed up in real life.

My mother hated cats (they might smother me) and there were no pets in my early life.

When I was about nineteen, I had a multiple scenario - I had started to smoke, I had a class in an old building on campus that made me sneeze (great class, social history of u.s., sneeze), got contact lenses, aarrrg, and some other reasons I forget this evening. Not that I was allergic to the lenses, but that I got more fidgity bumpus.

Anyway, not being allergic is a good thing.

The ants bite me and I get nastyish reactions.

Mine allergies aren't from food, knock on wood. More animals and grasses and mold, a total of 64 things, some of which never showed up in real life.

My mother hated cats (they might smother me) and there were no pets in my early life.

When I was about nineteen, I had a multiple scenario - I had started to smoke, I had a class in an old building on campus that made me sneeze (great class, social history of u.s., sneeze), got contact lenses, aarrrg, and some other reasons I forget this evening. Not that I was allergic to the lenses, but that I got more fidgity bumpus.

Anyway, not being allergic is a good thing.

Sorry re the double.

I think a benefit of being poor and from a large family is the exposure to all sorts of things at an early age and immunity to allergies build at a young age.

I had a scare yesterday in late afternoon. I put a can of oil in my pick up. As I went to dispose of the empty can, I came eyeball to multiple eyeball with a brown recluse spider, perched the whole time on that can. It was about an inch or so from my fingers when I discovered it. Naturally I dropped the whole works on the ground. Seeing the spider still sitting on top, I was impressed by how it refused to act intimidated, while at the same time aiming my foot at it. It escaped and ran madly for the cover of nearby weeds. Peta be praised, but I raked it under my shoe until it became indistinguishable from the earth. I knew already that some spider bites can be painless at first and sometimes they hurt as badly as a wasp sting. Sometimes you will find a bite mark, sometimes not. The tip of my finger had a feeling that worried me. I could not decide if it was the result of the work I had been doing, the bite of the spider, or merely my imagination. So, I washed my hands, paying particular attention to my fingers and then elevated the hand in an icy bowl of water for about half an hour. Then I put an antibiotic cream on the finger and hoped for the best. Sometimes a bite will wait a few hours and sometimes up to nine, before the pain begins. Long story brought to an end, I awoke with no symptoms.

Flip side: I was raised affluent. Private schools, international vacations, fancy jewelry , designer clothes. When my parents divorced, my father divorced his children too (I was 17). He married a woman 30 years younger--that was that. I payed for my own university and made a life for myself. We still talk...but-- he's adopted kids and payed for them to go to to Ivy League schools, and I payed for my own tuition ( took me ten years to pay) . I'm proud. It's not where you are , but how far you've come.

Wow. I know we have them in New Mexico too. A cashier at the local Walgreen's was talking with a colleague telling about her time off, and busybody me listened - she had sat on a log and got a recluse spider bite and much travail. I don't know enough about the recluses to know if their sting is painful ordinarily.

I don't think I have them right here, knock on wood, but I do have black widows nearby, have had them in my house. (gaah) The neighbor across the street found some in the wall inset where the elec meter is. I'm used to them from California, but in no way fond.

Black widows like to hide. Brown recluses usually hide too, but not as much as widows. A recluse bite can be painful from the start, but it can also have delayed action for two to nine hours. I have seen the occasional widow at the apartments.

The recluse has some strange eyes, even for a spider.

On background, we were what I think of as upper middle class (the whole thing re class is a bugbear for me, always has been, re the stupidities) and then that fell apart when I was eleven, with a variety of sturm und drang after that, ever more, ever more. I'm odd in that I am not very money oriented. On school, I was very lucky, as back in my day, the UC system didn't have tuition and there was one near us. I did work 30+ hrs a week to pay for books and help my parents, but all in all, really lucky.

I did read somewhere recently that they do have some kind of no tuition program going even now, for students who qualify. No source link for that, but if so, that is a good thing.

Re allergies - we didn't have pets. I'm one of those people who think pets and dirt and so on are good in many ways, re exposure to antigens.

When I was in grade school, the school furnished everything until I reached high school. Then we had to supply our own paper, binders, pens and such.

Same with me. I went to catholic schools (even now I remember that should be a capital C), and I'm guessing that was what was going on in the diocese system at the time, and if that was so for you too, maybe typical of a bunch of places, in our mutual years..

I still like free pens. I have had some dealings with my local UPS store. Too long a story, but at the end the guy gave me a couple of free pens. That's not a dump from him, we got along, he has been a major help.

I take my pens from work.
I went to school in California, until a few months into the ninth grade. But Texas schools at the time seemed about the same.

My wife and I are discussing total retirement for us both. Maybe I will try to push it by early 2015. I can still work. So can she. But the rewards seem less worth it these days.

Just a casual observation; it seems your working keeps you healthier than would be otherwise. Since you don't work full time, maybe keeping some days busy with work is good for your physical and mental health.

Do you have equivalent activities in full retirement?

I have plenty of projects to work on. No problem there.

Shared Words, Shared Worlds
--by Naomi Shihab Nye, May 03, 2013
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,

I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

I think sarcasm is easily lost on these forums. Oh woe is me.

Sitting in the new Carls Jr, scarfing down a burger and waffle fries, I kept noticing a newer place about fifty yards off. Panera Bread. It appears to be an eating place. I guess I need to check it out next time.

We have several Panera's around our neighborhood. Sometimes my wife and I go there to share a breakfast sandwich with coffee, and they're usually pretty busy every time we go there.

As their title suggests, their bread is pretty delicious. Once one of their employees made me giggle like a little school girl. One of the customers in front of me asked the ditzy girl who was running the cash register if she was pro-life. She replied, 'No, I'm pro-abortion.'