the super mask, fish sauce, books, and nutmeg

Today I learned that I can go out with a hepa filter strapped to my face and trim trees for three hours in otherwise unbreathable air, and afterward, the world is a much better place. My husband used to take me out of town for the day when the air was bad, and even after I got home I would feel much better. Apparently getting out of stuff for a while is a thing, and I'm sure the exercise didn't hurt.

In other news,

• Thai fish sauce is made of anchovies and salt and fermented for a year or a year and a half. I don't think I need to try to make that at home.
• Simon & Shuster will ship books for a flat rate of $5, but their Groupon coupon is not good for mass market paperbacks, and I'm too cheap to buy hardbacks for more than the price of a paperback even with a coupon.
• Kids these days are trying to get high on nutmeg. Commenters on Fark tried getting high on nutmeg back in the '80s, and they report that that is not a good way to get high. If only there were some medium through which teenagers could learn things from candidly speaking adults.

Also, that blanket we picked up as a souvenir in Tijuana is no longer allowed in the house because even my husband can detect it. It had been sitting folded up with the other blankets waiting to be tolerated, which it now clearly never will be. I am stunned that it didn't kill us years ago.

fire, fire everywhere

Today at 3 am I learned that people in the crummy part of town aren't burning wood because they're cold; they're burning it for entertainment value, just like their richer counterparts. I was prepared to be a little understanding when it was suggested to me that they were cold (even though we didn't turn on our heat until yesterday), but when I was awakened by residual laundry contaminant last night instead of smoke, I wasn't inclined to be forgiving. I haven't been sleeping well, and seriously, the PM2.5 peak last night was a third of Saturday's, and it's getting colder.

how to make an oil pie crust, but maybe only if you're me

Today I learned that for me, trying to use a regular solid-fat-based pie crust recipe works as well as using a store-bought sewing pattern, which is to say, I should just throw such attempts in the garbage/trash before I start to save time.

So that I don't have to remember how to do this again next year, here is the proper way to make a single pie crust (no top):

1. Put about 1 1/3 cups of flour in a bowl. Add a little salt if you remember.
2. Put in 2 or 3 soup-spoonfuls of oil (canola, safflower, whatever) and stir.
3. Did it make pea-size globs in most of the flour? If not, add more oil.
4. Add about 1/4 cup of water. Stir just a little. If you can't pack the dough into a messy, almost-too-dry-to-stick ball, add a little more water until you can. If it makes a ball really easily, it's too wet and you should start over.

Then smear some oil on your rolling pin and flour it, throw some flour on the counter, and the rest is obvious. No butter, no remembering to put butter in the freezer in little pieces, no hydrogenated fats, no waxed paper, no food processor to wash. Seriously, this takes about four minutes, and it turned out nicely.

smoke blows

Today I learned that a house fire overnight drove the PM2.5 reading up to something like 70 µg/m³ at just one monitor station overnight, and 20 µg/m³ is enough for me. I don't know what time the fire was, but the smoke got over here by about 4:30 am.

In closely related news, I mentioned that we have a little problem here with the pressurizer filter -- it's not quite up to pre-Thanksgiving smoke concentrations. Tonight it's just recirculating house air, and we've taped the doors and windows like it's Christmas Eve, the smokiest day of the year excluding forest fires.

It feels like a cross between a blizzard and a holiday, both of which require desserts, so it's probably a very good thing I haven't made any pies yet.

fire trucks and eggshells

Today I learned from our neighbors that there was a fire truck parked outside our house on Saturday. The neighbors were worried about us, but they figured if there were firemen involved, we probably didn't need any neighborly hovering. Since this information was clearly news to me, we started wondering what my husband and I could possibly have been doing that we would have missed something like that.

It turns out this all happened at five minutes to six in the morning, so I know exactly what I doing. I was getting rested up to sleep through my alarm at 7:30, just like I do every morning.

In house-related news, I learned that our sliding glass door has two pairs of wheels under it, and that as of this morning, three of the four didn't turn if you put any pressure on them, so the impression we had that the whole works was dragging was 75% correct. The wheels aren't hard to replace, and somehow the door looks much better now, much like a just-paid-off car suddenly drives better.

In similar news, while my husband was off buying wheels, I unclogged the kitchen sink all by myself without even spilling any water when I took out the trap, which was filled with eggshells. Eggshells: the most well-known breakable on the planet, something this disposal has never had trouble with before, and exactly what it should be walking on if it wants to see 2011.

dollar coins and rolling pins

Today I learned that you can get free cash advances on your credit card in increments of $250 if you're willing to wait two weeks for the US mint to send you dollar coins through the mail. Whether or not you would ever remember to carry such coins is another matter.

In unrelated news, new rolling pins are free. It was recently pointed out to me that both the available replacements were better colors than my existing rolling pin, and I'm leaning toward blue:


Now that I've looked a little closer, I'm leaning toward a set of rolling pins. Do wine bottles come in yellow?

mistakes were made

Today I learned that the PM2.5 peak in the middle of the night is from fireplace smoke. The smaller peak around rush hour is from rush hour. Then I learned that we forgot to order new MERV 16 filters for the pressurizer when we contaminated the last one during that whatever it was in April and May. Those filters aren't that easy to get, so I'm going to pray for rain and hot weather.

So happy Friday before Thanksgiving.

this totally sounds like an ad for something, but there's more

Today I learned that a friend of mine who has CFIDs is walking around like it never happened. Granted, she's the only person I ever heard of whose CFIDs would go into remission sometimes, but as she's gotten older (she's in her early 70s), she got totally knocked out. She didn't move around much or make any sense for a couple of years, but today she looked great, and she attributes it to thymic protein A. Plus some boswellia, which is apparently frankincense.

From what I found online, thymic protein A regulates the immune system -- up or down, depending on what you need. I am not really clear on that, and I don't really know what it really does for people who aren't sick, who appear to be snarfing the stuff in the hopes that they'll live forever. I'm not even sure it's supposed to make CFIDs patients wander around looking terrific; that could just be my friend. But the thing is that it's not that expensive as supplements go, and it's supposedly a highly-purified protein, so it probably wouldn't be that hard to tolerate.

This is probably as close as I'll ever get to trying a miracle pill -- writing about it -- but now it's written down so maybe sometime I'll ask the local naturopath about it.

In other news, if the PM2.5 reading gets above about 20 µg/m³, I get major heart palpitations. It spiked last night at a monitoring station across town from me about 2 hours before I woke up from a nightmare about being in a flood in the 1940s, except the flood turned into annoying people. I had to put the pressurizer on recirculate until mid-morning, and then the problem recurred around 6 pm, which is about when that monitoring station got above 20 µg/m³ again. It's below that now, and I'm fine, and hopefully I'll get to sleep through the night without any any people (particulates) coming in under a door (through the pressurizer).

And this story about moving part-way across the country with a couple of dogs is hilarious.

UPDATE: My doctor said that thymic protein A is good for shoring up immune systems. There is evidence that chronic fatigue is caused by a virus, so then an immune boost would be a good thing, and maybe that's what's going on for my friend. If your problem is a straight chemical injury, a more powerful immune system will just make you react to more stuff, so that wouldn't be any fun. There was a time when I was reacting to so much stuff that my immune system got overwhelmed, and maybe that protein thing would have helped back then, but now I don't think I need to react harder to anything.

scanners, strains, and cookies

Today I learned that if your scanner breaks, you can just take pictures of your documents with a point-and-shoot digital camera. I supported the camera between two short pieces of baseboard across a couple of plastic tubs and put the papers on the floor, thereby saving us a trip to the store to buy something we didn't want. At least on this side of Tucson, the only way to get a flat-bed scanner that is reasonably compatible with your stuff is to order one online, which doesn't help if you want to send something today.

In other news, I'm up to learning things again because after almost two weeks to the day, I'm mostly recovered from my pollen-and-mold-induced "cold." I've had two-week pollen problems before, but this one was the kind of thing that makes you forget that you ever felt good before or could again. Unfortunately, the mold part is not as gone as the pollen, and I get a calf cramp from this kind of outdoor mold. (Don't ask me why, but it's consistent.) I got away with running in the national park yesterday, and I would have gotten away with running in the wash behind the subdivision today if it hadn't been for Laundry Fest (every Sunday, all day, and if somebody didn't finish, it starts again on Monday morning about 6 am.) The cramp turned swiftly into probably a low-level strain, so it was a very short run.

So I'm sitting on the couch with ice on my calf looking at recipes for granola bars and girl scout cookies, which I will not make because then I'd eat them, and if I can't run, that would make me fat and hyper.

borax and real coats

Today I learned that borax takes out that hard water/vinegar/detergent residue laundry contaminant I was complaining about. And as soon as I get the borax washed out, I will already have back-up underwear for the next laundry contamination episode. After five years, I will finally be ahead of the laundry situation.

In weather news, the highs here lately have been around 80. I learned about an hour before my doctor's appointment today that the high today was going to be 65. 65 doesn't sound that cold, but if you're used to 80, and every time you have a doctor's appointment, you have to stand around outside for an hour, you should wear a real coat.

this boring post is really just bookkeeping

Today I learned that if you're going to have to communicate by typing instead of talking, it's better to use a word processor program instead of the text editor because you can resize the text for myopic audiences. Also, this homemade cough medicine recipe didn't do anything for my cough, but I had to use lime juice instead of apple cider vinegar. It wasn't a total loss, though -- it tastes interesting.

For the record, this started when Mr. Brokenphysicist and I noticed a spike in the pollen outside. I may have gotten a cold that started at the same time, but I detect unfiltered outdoor air as an airway irritant, and exercise knocks me flat, which never happened in the old days. So, a heck of a hay fever reaction or that plus a cold.