Tag: personal

How fun: I think I may have lost last night’s round of Takeout Roulette 😧

(I was low enough on spoons to risk going for delivery, but probably should have stuck with a known good place. Suspecting they weren’t as careful with handling/cross-contamination as they could have been. But, some variety.)

This evening I made the mistake of trying some peppered grillsteaks (now GF!) as a shortcut in some quick Salisbury steak. (Not exactly how I would do it, but close enough with the touch of tomato.)

They really were not kidding with the “peppered”. It looked like a decent bit on the patties, but I figured it would be OK if I didn’t add any more to the sauce.

Nope! The dish turned out barely edible with the level of black pepper. And I like pepper. We had plenty of rice, and it was still kind of overwhelming.

Simmer those a while in sauce: pepper intensifies! 😦 Not really a surprise, but yeah. Sitting didn’t help the situation either, as I was reminded just trying to eat some leftovers anyway.

If I ever get those again, I hope brushing most of the pepper off before cooking might help. Not sure I would want to try simmering them in a sauce again, regardless.

Yay, time for more anxiety attacks from trying to deal with that family thing I (barely) touched on a few days ago. This time I thought I had it together pretty well, and then I went to respond to an e-mail I’d left sitting over the weekend. Insta-adrenaline! 😦

Still don’t feel like I can talk about it much, but my biodad decided to try and get in touch. Called my (maternal) uncle and asked for my phone number and address.

(For even better timing, this month is also my mother’s 10th death anniversary. Which I’m sure he didn’t know unless/until my uncle told him. But, just to add onto the mental/emotional load.)

That was probably extra awkward, since they weren’t exactly friendly–to put it mildly–but that uncle would have been easy to find in the phone book. Anyway, thankfully my uncle thought he should talk to me first instead of just handing out that info and setting me up for quite a surprise. So, he sent me an e-mail a few days ago. I did respond that day, to say thanks for the heads up and that it’s a lot to process, but didn’t manage any further reply until now.

So yeah, I’m still not sure what to think about the whole situation. Not a word out of the man since like 1986, when he took off to avoid a court order for some serious back child support. Which was maybe the least of his behavioral problems then.

(It didn’t actually take long to find out where he went, because small communities. But, my mom decided she just didn’t want to deal with him anymore enough to pursue it at all. That level bad situation.)

So, come back 32 years later and he apparently wants to get in touch.

In the back of my mind, of course I had entertained such possibilities over the years. Though I have to admit that it generally went the other way in my head. I seriously never expected to hear from him of his own volition.

Mr. C’s immediate response? “You really don’t have to.” But, I’m rather morbidly curious about what he might have to say. (And, frankly, what he wants. Because I do have to suspect it’s something other than to make a genuine good faith attempt at building a decent adult relationship.)

I figure I would likely regret just ignoring him more than listening in a noncommittal way. Even if any conversation should go badly. I think I’m still too curious to just let it go.

But, in that mail a little while ago, I asked my uncle what else Biodad had to say–and if he left contact info, because I really wasn’t keen on giving him mine straight off the bat. Wasn’t even in a shape to ask about any of that when I got the original message. So, we’ll see.

In my defense, with pulling some extra-ridiculous shit around here?

On top of the recent baseline of burnout and brain fog, I’ve spent a couple of days barely functioning level stressed out by some extremely unsettling family garbage. Almost surprised I haven’t managed worse (yet).

Hopefully that will calm down some before long, but definitely one more thing I did not need.

Maybe the weirdest and most frustrating thing I’ve found gluten in:

Yep, dishwashing detergent with “wheat protein”. Another scent didn’t have that listed, but whey instead. I’m not allergic to dairy, but I was wary of the other scent anyway, with the possibility of cross-contamination if nothing else.

Sure, you rinse it off. Not sure I would trust that enough of the proteins would come off your dishes, besides the issues of marinating your hands in the stuff and maybe splashing it all over the place .

Thankfully, I found that when I was doing an ingredient-reading sweep, trying to clear out the kitchen after I found out about the celiac. I liked the detergent, too. (And still use a number of their other products. Only found one so far with a scent that bothered me at all.)

The current ingredients list on their website doesn’t say anything about wheat protein or whey. Maybe they figured out that including major allergens wasn’t a great plan, and/or got enough complaints. I’m still hesitant, though.

At least Mr. C did think to tell me as he was heading out this morning, that he was planning to stop by the pub with some people after work. We’re a great pair with the executive function 🙄

Kinda disrupted evening anyway, and I had probably better find something to eat soon. Without the prompt of any other humans needing food. It may be past time when somebody going off about How Not To Chicken And Dumplings can make you that hungry.

Feeling a little more human after I managed to get a couple of hours of decent sleep a little while ago. (Plus another about an hour of keeping waking up coughing, but it was just about tolerable and I was so not getting up yet if I could avoid it at all.)

That’s probably better than I managed in a stretch after bedtime earlier, with the inhaler and plenty of Robitussin before getting down. And propping myself as close to sitting up as I can. One benefit to already having the ridiculous pillow nest going: a little adjustment, and we’re good to go 🙄

So yeah, it’s turned into one of THOSE cold/flu asthma flares. The neighbors probably want to strangle me by now, never mind Mr. C sharing a bed with that hellacious cough. (More an issue with some of the attempts at napping, given our usual sleep schedules.) And it’s still early days, from past experience 😩

Even if it’s not doing as much as I would like, at least I do have rescue inhalers which are helping some now. And I have a lot better idea of what helps/does the opposite. Unlike with all the bouts of “asthmatic bronchitis” when I was a kid. No blackouts yet, so far! And I’m doing much better at keeping warm food down with inhaler access! *fingers crossed*

The situation right now is still reminding me too much of that.

Though, maybe best of all? I don’t have to look forward to sitting in a classroom all day–on maybe a few hours of bad sleep, with what feels like broken ribs. And likely with the teacher acting like I keep having coughing fits on purpose to be disruptive* 😑

(I did end up staying out a lot with that every winter, but when each episode hangs on for weeks? Really can’t stay home until it stops. Even without abusive attendance policies then.)

Really wishing this crud would hurry up and finish, but it could definitely be a lot worse.

* Unlike this one professor late on,, who got very concerned at the sound of it and kept trying to get me to go to the ER. A more reasonable response to someone having breathing problems in front of you, but kind of funny in another way.

Reminded by clutter blindness (useful term!) coming up in the context of posting notes for yourself not always working.

I know I’ve vented some before about my partner’s pretty extreme version of clutter blindness, and how badly that can interact with my tendencies in the complete opposite direction there: getting easily overwhelmed by clutter. To the point that I can end up way less functional in a number of ways, including ability to try to fix the clutter situation 😦

Anyway, for a while now I had been getting more irritated at Mr. C, because his clutter generation has increased a decent bit and he has seemed to notice/care even less. To the point of leaving a bunch of just plain trash lying around where he sits in the TV room floor, so it’s in the pathway and causing more problems. (And more clutter elsewhere, but it’s been super noticeable and aggravating there.)

The way my health has been getting worse, I just haven’t had the spoons to do much about it. Though it’s been causing me extra problems, on several levels. I figured at least part of the issue was probably because I haven’t been able to do nearly as much around here, prompting him to notice more and try to pick some of the shit up too.

(Not too surprisingly, I’ve also been working through a lot of trained reluctance to even say much. Especially when I “won’t” even do the thing myself. Yeah, that OCD loop programming sucks, but it can be frustratingly hard to work around with very limited mental energy.)

Another place where better communication earlier might have helped, though. After that little talk about a week ago? A number of other things started making more sense. Including the apparently increased executive function problems and clutter blindness.

With it likely coming from depression/burnout of some type? I’m a lot less aggravated at his behavior, and more concerned.

How to try to support/encourage him in dealing with that is another matter, but yeah. Complicated by the fact that he does hesitate to talk about things, to the point that I really didn’t pick up a lot of clues there might even be a problem earlier. I feel kind of bad about that, but here we are now.