IN A BIG CATHEDRAL BY THE SEA

Five years ago today, we decided to be together.
One year ago today, we got married. We met a handful of friends at the Panama Hotel (a cafe, not a hotel) in Seattle, where Some Guy Named Paul asked us the important questions and signed a document. He was wearing, among other things, an i-shuffle with a Mr. Yuck sticker on it. We drank tea, signed our names, and it was done. Too quick for the taste of some of our guests, I think. I had warned them all ahead of time there'd be nothing to see. But they came anyway, and brought flowers, and I'm so happy they did.

Then we hopped in the back of John Galt's ambulance and got whisked off to the Six Arms for some drinks. I think he took the long way to give us some time alone in the back. He even piped in some music for us. Then when we walked into the pub, all the strangers clapped for us. I guess because the ambulance lights had been flashing and so everyone was watching us climb out, flowers and all. Our favorite couch in the corner was empty, so we had ourselves a cozy little party.

We said it didn't mean anything more than we already had. We said we didn't want anything to change in our relationship. We said we weren't going to make a big deal of it. All these things were true. But we did get a little giddy. And we did go out and get rings the next day, after wandering happily around the Asian Art Museum and enjoying the sunny spring morning in the park.

P.S. Goofy drawn-in glasses to protect the identity of the Mysterious Jason. All photos taken by our friend Sonya Walker.

THE BACK FORTY IN MY MIND

In the backyard of my dreams, this is who greets me. She's very friendly and chews happily and gives me milk to make cheese. She also likes to be petted and follows me around like a puppy. She is named Fawn Eyes, after the pet cow on the farm I worked on when I was 13. The backyard has a big garden full of vegetables, and orchard with apples and pears, and also this field:

This is the entrance into my imaginary backyard. We only open the huge part for big carts and horses, or for giants.

You can come visit if you want.

p.s. the prototype for my backyard is Cowbridge, in case you are a stickler for details and accuracy.

THE BACK FORTY

Spring has finally sort of started, and boy o boy is life better in Cardiff when it's sunny and warm. I know the cold rain and snow isn't over, but the last couple of days have been beautiful. The garden's doing fine, daffodils are just about ready to bloom, and the birds are singing their little hearts out. They kind of sang all winter, really, but it's nicer when they do it now. That picture above is the cold frame set-up J. made for me, and it's growing rocket and lettuce all winter, along with the struggling little spinach bits that the slugs have been kind enough to leave. I put in some new spinach and lettuce last week, too. I've wanted to put in some peas behind the boxes, but then the daffodils and other bulbs came up and surprised me in exactly the spot I was going to put them, so I haven't. I guess it won't hurt to put them in together--presumably the flowers will be dying off by the time the peas are big enough to get in the way.

Last week I brought in some lettuce to make room for the others to get full-sized, and I found the world's tiniest snail. I tried to take a picture of it, but you can't see it in the photo, it's so small. But I will tell you, it's tee-tiny antennae were about the cutest thing you've ever seen. I brought it in to show to Jason, but it wouldn't put its head out again. Actually, it didn't ever. Nor did it ever move. Then I dropped it and, obviously, it was way too little to find. So, oops, I guess. Not that I wouldn't have killed it in a beer trap as soon as it was old enough, but I was sad to have taken it's life at such a tender age.

Oh yeah, and for those sick souls among you who asked to see special Welsh slugs drinking themselves to death in my clever traps, here you go:

Hello, world. So nice to see you again.

Today I made an apple crisp and put cardamom instead of cinnamon because the words looked similar to me and I failed to notice that cardamom is not cinnamon-colored at all. I added some cinnamon and decided to give it a try anyway. It was surprisingly good—even after I went and fell asleep and left the crisp in the oven for nearly an hour and a half. We added some water and put it back in the oven to reconstitute itself. This is an example of how useless I am after four days of intense headache.

I’ve had a migraine since Friday morning. A bad one. That’s four days. My skin’s all splotchy and red and dry. I haven’t been able to stay hydrated no matter how much water I drink. And sleeping, which is the only thing that sounds good to me, is difficult. Four days out of an intensive grad school schedule is bad news, but reading, writing or even constructive thinking has been out of the question. I’ve cooked some, because it gets my blood flowing a little to move around and because it doesn’t involve reading or complex thinking. And while chopping and organizing and cooking things, I’m somewhat distracted from the pain.

The worst thing is I know it’s my own fault. Yep, I brought it all on myself. I ate cake without reading the ingredients list. I knew better. I’ve known I’m allergic to corn and all its products for a couple of years now, and it’s taken that long to learn all of the places that corn can lurk. I read somewhere that of an average 10,000 items in a supermarket, 2,500 of them have corn in some form. And I believe it. Once you know all its names, its shocking how many things you can’t eat. Dextrose, maltodextrin, sorbital, corn syrup, modified starch … And in Britain, it goes by different names: maize starch, glucose syrup … And even worse, more and more corn products are being developed every day and more and more food companies are switching to these ingredients, which are often cheaper sources of such things as citric acid, alcohol for vanilla extraction, anti-caking agents for salt, powdered sugar, spices …


Now, luckily, I’m not as allergic as some—I don’t have anaphylactic reactions, and I haven’t noticed a reaction to many things that others are unable to tolerate. And I’m not also allergic to wheat or dairy or something. But even just the corn is pretty extreme. For instance, last summer, I was on two daily medications (unrelated to corn allergies). I let one of the prescriptions run out and just didn’t bother to take it for about a month. When I got it refilled, I started feeling not so hot and by the end of the first week I had a horrible headache. When I tried to figure out the trigger (I can often tell when a headache is corn-based) I suddenly had the idea to look at my medicine labels—sure enough, they were made up of the drugs in a corn starch base! So I switched to new brands with different bases (though these bases are of things that can be derived from corn, they aren’t always, and I had no choice but to try them. They seemed better). Another example of the sensitivity is that I seemed to get all tired and cranky and headachy when I ate orange cheese. Hm. That’s weird. I looked at ingredients and the only thing the orange foods had in common was annatto, a plant-based coloring. It kept happening, so I assumed I had a separate allergy to annatto and stopped eating orange foods. Then once I looked at a package of organic mac-n-cheese and there it was: annatto (annatto, corn starch). Aargh. So, bottom line, yes, I’m sure beyond a doubt that it’s corn.

This time round I was at a friend’s birthday party and after a couple of glasses of wine, I made the very very stupid decision to have a tiny piece of cake without being able to read the ingredients list. I knew better. So why did I do it? I don’t think it’s just the wine to be blamed for my lack of good judgment here. I think it’s this:

Sometimes, I just get sick of the whole thing. Tired of reading labels and not being able to snack at public events. Tired of trying to pick and choose what I can eat without having to either offend or explain to the host. I don’t want to be the person who always talks about her food issues, especially given that it’s so weird that many have a hard time believing I’m not imagining it. Sometimes, it just seems easier to take the risk and eat something. Of course that’s crazy. Cause then I get three or four days of horrendous headaches and tears and stretching and hot/cold showers and drinking gallons of water and tea to try and clear my system and not being able to take pain killers because they are all (and I do mean all) based either obviously in corn starch or in a range of bases that may be derived from corn but aren’t always.

Here in the UK, I’ve had to switch my prescriptions and just cut one out altogether because there was no corn-free version. My migraine medication (which rarely works for very long, if at all) is now in the squirt-up-my-nose form. And while the outside box of my birth control pills says the inactive ingredients are other than corn, I just realized that the insert list says maize starch. Which means I’m taking a tiny pill of poison every day, just so I have a nice baseline of irritation in my system at all times. I’m furious, but I’ve done my research and there are no other options. I’m on the pill partly because it controls hormone headaches, so I could quit and trade off one kind of headache for another. But even then I’d also have to find a new contraceptive method and none are really appealing to me. So, a tiny bit of poison every day until I get home to the States. (yes, I will talk to my doctor and look for other options, but some that would work in the US I know are not available here and others involve risks I’d rather not take.)

On the other hand, I feel better now and I have renewed faith that it will always stop hurting eventually and that I can get through it without resorting to stabbing myself in the head with a steel rod, which sometimes sounds like the best plan. If I can get a good night’s sleep tonight, all should be well by morning.

SMALL THINGS

In Cowbridge

COW + BRIDGE

This past week was "Reading Week" here at CU, which means that lots of the UK students go home for the week and get their laundry done and eat some homemade food. It also means that I (who have greedily been home cooking my own food all along and doing laundry in the comfort of my kitchen) have been reading and reading and reading, and then worrying that I'm not reading enough, and then trying to shape the crammed reading ideas into some thoughts about what an essay might look like, and then reading some more. Read, worry, repeat, as much as my poor brain can handle. But I did require some break time. So my dear Jason, who had been scouting ahead of time, took me to Cowbridge for a day hike through the hills and dales and farm country.

The sun was out, the air was fresh and all in all it was a great day for a mind clearing walk. Seven and a half miles of pastures and villages and seriously old churches, along with some smelly sileage, a couple of rabbit corpses, and a closed pub with a toilet you can't use. We saw kids who hide behind a stone well and jump out to make faces at passing cars, and a woodland teeming with paint-ball dudes who J. says had terrible battle skills. We saw elegant, languorous windmills, which are a "blight on the landscape" if you ask the locals, and lots of huge electrical towers and wires, which are apparently invisible to those same British countryside lovers.

It was a great afternoon, begun with a visit to the farmers' market for some farmhouse cheese and a loaf of bread with rye stalks that looked like hay embedded in the bottom of it, and ended at a pub with some fish and chips and mushy peas for me, and some delicious salmon and pesto on rocket for J.

P.S. Mushy peas are not as bad as you'd think--and peas were my hated vegetable as a kid!

Happy Dewi Sant Day!

Today is St. David's Day! You're supposed to wear a daffodil or a leek on your lapel and go to parades in your Welsh National Costume, which looks like this:



I skipped the parade because I had an appointment at a community garden in relation to a coursework project. Also, I wore this instead of Welsh costume:



I made it myself. The hat, that is. It's dang cold here lately and I'm sick of being without a warm hat just because I'm too stubborn to buy one when I'm perfectly capable of making one. So I made it. In one night. Last night, while watching McLibel. Because watching McLibel is kind of homework for my Agri-food class.

And just in time, too. This morning we woke to a snow-covered back garden, then the sun came, then it sleeted for a while, then sun, then a blizzard, then sun, then freezing cold and light snow. It's like this all the time here. And I thought Seattle weather was changeable.