I got two walks, one with M. and one around the long loop after dark.

When I checked, the ants were swarming like mad. So I discussed with R. what kind of ant trap to buy at the hardware store. I don't like to do things that have distant effects (dragged back to the colony and kill the queen type of thing), but these ants are driving me nuts and I've already found and corrected two leaks and dumped the one not entirely sealed container of desirable food (sugar with a pour spout).

Apparently, the ants are listening. No more ants for the rest of the day or that evening (yes, I kept checking). I didn't think ants could listen, much less make sense of what I have to say (which is not completely coherent under the best of circumstances). I haven't bought a trap. I'm going to wait and see what happens next.

I vacuumed out several of the drawers under the island and decluttered while I was at it. I even vacuumed under the drawers (flash light and a vacuum wand, if you are wondering) once I realized (a) there were dish towels that had fallen down there some time ago -- years at least -- and (b) those towels had a bunch of saw dust / construction dust on them when I retrieved them.

ETA: I had a really nice conversation with my friend K.

I took A. to the library to watch _Rock Dog_. Best set up I have ever seen for movie at the library: chairs, lots of people, really nice screen, popcorn and water. Alas, power went out about an hour in and didn't recover in a timely fashion so the balance of the movie was canceled. Some kids played on the playground; we went home.

I walked with M. It was a really hot day, but we got out in the morning so it wasn't too bad yet.

A. had a good time in the afternoon hanging out in the sitter's pool. She ate at a different restaurant. While she didn't care for the bun this time on the cheeseburger (that's a new one for her), she was apparently happy to eat the patty by itself. Go figure; the hamburger steak returns, and not just for low-carbers.

R. and I went to Red Raven before he headed up to Pepperell to pick her up. We still haven't eliminated the ants, but their numbers are once again reduced. I trimmed some house plants and did a bunch of vacuuming. I think I've finally gotten most if not all of the sand out of the house. Until more gets tracked in. For people who live absolutely no where near a beach, we seem to wind up with a lot of sand in the house. Road treatment explains the winter sand. The summer sand is a little mysterious; maybe it is just leftovers from the winter. Some of it came from Nara.

I watched some more Marvel Agents of Shield; I think I just have one episode left.

I'm still not sure if this is the first time I read this, or a reread. I have no idea. I went camping on Isle Au Haut once.

Saga of Isle Au Haut from pre-kid days:

http://walkitout.dreamwidth.org/6017.html
http://walkitout.dreamwidth.org/6977.html
http://walkitout.dreamwidth.org/10725.html (This last has the actual trip description.)

Those entries don't mention _why_ I wanted to go to Isle Au Haut; I'm pretty sure it was part of a multi-year NP visit thing I was doing while reading Nevada Barr novels.

Anyway. The island is a little odd, but nice, if you can survive the mosquitos. Greenlaw's family has been on the island (they used to own the Keeper's House, apparently, and the land the light is on before that) for a long time. She went off to swordfish, and was played by Mastroantonio in _The Perfect Storm_. Junger's recommendation is on this book. In this book, she describes a mediocre-bad lobstering season as she tries to fulfill her life goals of settling down with a family and a house. She makes some progress in this book -- indications are she makes more progress in other books.

The book has great narrative momentum. The stories are light and funny, despite what is sometimes some tragic material. If you like to feel like you learned something, she's happy to teach you about a variety of topics, historical and natural. I read it as this month's book group selection for Mayberry, NH (<-- not its real name). The group gave is about a 3.5 collectively on a 5 point scale. It was tricky keeping discussion centered on the book. Usually this means that we were all more or less okay with the book, but it didn't strike a chord deeply enough in any of us to get riled up enough to be passionate about talking about it.

C. talked a little about what she saw as odd decision making by the author / protagonist. I noted that a lot of what she wound up saying and thinking -- as depicted in the book -- looked to me like conflicting impulses (wanted to get married; aggressively hostile to actually being set up with someone). In conjunction with some other funny but not necessarily entirely positive descriptions of things like the EMT project, I concluded that a lot of what makes Greenlaw seem odd (and the other people on the island) is a set of adaptive mechanisms that are basically what let them _stay_ on such an isolated rock, with all the attendant dangers of being more or less stuck there whenever there is bad weather especially in winter.

The book has been out for a while, but it has aged fairly well.

No track today, because T. had track yesterday. I actually slept in until almost 9. Bliss!

T. wanted to go to McDonald's today. We got him a haircut first, because he was looking a little shaggy. Then we dropped some things off at the library (2 books, one I read and reviewed already; the other I abandoned rapidly when I realized it was really awful; one DVD that didn't play. If they had been open, I would have gone in and shown them the problem with the disc. Didn't feel like hanging onto the disc long enough to go back again, so I just left it in the drop). After that we got lunch at McDonald's, so he could get the Happy Meal Toy with Balthazar Bratt's Rad Speed Boat from D3. We had a long discussion about super villains in this and previous despicable movies. We keep saying Benjamin Bratt, but that was the guy who did the voice of El Macho in D2.

Then we went to Roche Bros to get groceries. We dropped them off at home, and then went to the horse.

At Roche Bros, I stopped T. from running ahead and potentially tripping up a gentleman who had some kind of movement disorder -- looked like Parkinson's, of course you can never tell just at a glance with a total stranger. The gentleman said as I went by that he wasn't drunk, he had Parkinson's. I circled back to reassure him I hadn't thought he was, but I was trying to teach my son who had autism to be careful of other people and to give them the time they need. I said I had extended family with Parkinson's (true) and had assumed that was the case here. We wound up chatting on and off as we kept re-encountering each other in the store. Some other parent had commented within his hearing to a child that he's had "one too many". That's a real shame. He said he's missed taking his medication. All I could think of -- didn't say it -- was that I was glad he had medication that was generally pretty effective. That's not always the case. I have a lot of trouble finding the line between being "I see you as a human" -- something that a lot of people with visible disabilities benefit from, because so many people immediately avert their eyes -- and getting up into people's business. Today seemed to work out, which was really nice.

Revise Energy soaked up the entire morning. They're going to do some more insulation and similar around the basement and the attic. That'll be nice. They also swapped a bunch of light bulbs for LEDs; they dim a lot better.

I took A. up to the baby sitter around noon. Then R. and I got a quick lunch at home. I walked with M. After the walk, R. and I went to Hudson to go to Lowe's to get fertilizer, a shower faucet and a smaller bin for road trips for food, that can serve as a place to set things while driving. After that, we went to Horseshoe for an early dinner.

I had learned about the Less Than Greater Than bar in the Microcreamery from J. at the liquor store in Acton next to NYAJ. So we went over there a little after 5 p.m. (so really early). We got a Little Italy, an Old Fashioned and a Manhattan -- I think the Little Italy was the best but they were all good. R. got one of the pork belly tacos; it smelled fantastic. The staff is fun, the ambience is impeccable and of course they take their cocktails very, very seriously.

I've been reading _Is it All In Your Head?_ by Suzanne O'Sullivan, MD. On the whole, it is a very good, very important book. Unfortunately, there are a few things in it that I had a problem with. All of my complaints involve when O'Sullivan steps outside her neurology arena and starts applying what she is talking about in patients she sees in her neurology practice who have symptoms (seizures, paralysis, weakness, loss of feeling, etc.) in her area of expertise which do not behave the way those symptoms should behave when objective tests are applied (EEG, electrical stimulation of nerves, reflex testing, etc.) in areas in which she has no expertise. Especially allergies and food intolerance.

Some people have meat allergy which appears for the first time in adulthood, and which in some people disappears after a few years. The onset of the allergic reaction tends to be quite delayed vs. most food allergies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy

This is a _classic_ instance of "Oh that must be medically unexplained but surely can't be a REAL allergy because real allergies don't behave that way." Adult onset. Delayed. Etc. ON TOP OF THAT, it's a reaction to a _carbohydrate_, and allergies are reactions to proteins. Right. RIGHT?!? (ETA: I am describing a rhetorical position here; it is not mine.)

To be clear, O'Sullivan makes no mention of meat allergy or alpha-gal. (ETA: Technically, it is not hers, either.) I am using it as an example. We got really incontrovertible evidence of the _mechanism_ that alpha-gal delivered via tick bite causes adult meat allergy when scientists wanted to figure out why there was regional variation in negative reactions to cetuximab. (ETA: My position is the science-y one. Science has shown conclusively that at least some adult onset meat allergy which behaves very unlike some allergies is caused by a tick bite.)

O'Sullivan is ALSO very clear that every year, something with no medically known cause is found to have a medical cause. She just figures that it happens so rarely that people are really bending way too far over backward looking for medical causes and not looking for psychological causes and that needs to change. I don't actually disagree with her general thesis.

On page 190, she talks about candida and candidiasis, and that period of time now past when a lot of people thought they had it but actually didn't test positive for it even when medical professionals looked really hard. On the next page, she says:

"In the twenty-first century the exact same symptoms are more likely to be attributed to gluten sensitivity or allergies."

I'm not necessarily going to argue about the basic idea: there is a fraction of the population -- not trivial in size but not by any stretch of the imagination most people -- which will tend to latch on to the latest Oh This Is Causing All Your Problems, adopt an associated set of health prescriptions (usually diet oriented Don't Eat This / Do Eat That) and try to pester everyone they know into doing the same, while claiming that it cured all their ills. I'm not even _opposed_ to the general phenomenon. I figure each one of these things helps some subset find the thing that really was wrong with them, they stick with what worked for them, and the herd moves on to the next thing. My theory is that some day, everyone will have finally found the thing that worked for them and we'll all feel about as well as we can. (Is my progressivism / optimism showing? Oops! I'll try to cover that up again. I know it is unseemly.)

Here is what she says:

"I recently went to a dinner party where every person bar two, at a table of ten, reported that they had an intolerance of or allergy to at least one foodstuff. Most had developed the allergy in middle age, which is not how an allergy typically behaves."

She's a neurologist. How did she become so expert at allergies? Adult onset allergies are not particularly uncommon. Adult discovery of allergies is also not uncommon and sometimes deeply tragic. And every time someone decides to actually do a general population study for food allergy, we learn all kinds of new things, which means the field is by no means all caught up with reality. (See alpha gal above, but did you know that 2-3% of the general population is allergic to shellfish? I didn't. I am, and I didn't know how common it was. Legal Sea Foods has employees who have been quoted in the press saying that every little bit somebody shows up from the Midwest, eats something they've never had before and drops from anaphylaxis at the table and often is never revived. Don't you think this is something that maybe shouldn't fucking be dismissed so readily?)

I live in an area where food allergy is taken very seriously by restaurants, in part because of restauranteurs like Ming Tsai (mmmm Blue Ginger):

https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2015/09/22/when-food-allergies-dine-out/bflRHxlP0y3Gv4blUw13pO/story.html

I've got food allergies and intolerances (yes, Dear Reader, both the proteins AND the sugars in milk cause me problems -- and not just cow's milk either, alas), some of which were detected in infancy and some of which I learned about the hard way as an adult. My husband has food intolerances. Many of my friends have food allergies and intolerances. The group that the author encountered may well have self-selected -- this was a party, I'm assuming some of these people hang out together on purpose. I know it's much easier to socialize with people who have or know someone who has food issues. Dealing with doctors like that one at T-weekend a while back -- or Dr. O'Sullivan -- is the worst. Here we've finally figured out a way to stay out of the doctor's office, and the doctor is now joining us for dinner and trying to tell us that it's just a phase.

No, dear doctors. No, it's not just a phase. It's not all in our heads. And just because food allergy now doesn't look like we used to understand it before is actually reflective of progressively better understanding of food allergy. Which it would be nice if you put some effort into catching up on.

She also disses IBS as probably psychosomatic; she seems blissfully unaware of FODMAP.

Oh, and as near as I can tell, this book is further evidence that in the UK, when people say "learning disabled", they mean something super-different than people mean in the US.

I have no reason to disregard O'Sullivan's neurology based expertise. I agree with her that there is a population over-using (to their own detriment and our shared expense) the medical system in pursuit of something which would be better found through the mental health professions. We part ways whenever she steps out of her area of expertise, which leads me to suspect she hasn't really understood the mental health side of this problem at all.

I walked with M. at 10 a.m.

T. got me up really early and I don't even remember why, but I didn't get back to sleep. I took a nap in the early afternoon.

A. wanted to do chalk on the driveway this morning, but it rained, so it was wet which doesn't really work with driveway chalk.

The sitter picked up A. at school, so that was nice. They went out to lunch, but A. had already had lunch, so I'm assuming that was A.'s dinner. She's rewatching _The Pirate Fairy_. She saw a trailer for it on the discs for the Little Mermaid II. She had watched it a while back but forgotten about it.

I used the CamStand to take pictures of receipts and other vacation ephemera (ticket stubs and similar) from trips this year, and stashed them (me only, so if you are friends and family on flickr for me and want to see them, let me know; I'm assuming no one is interested in these otherwise). I'm debating the merits of going back through the entire file and doing the same thing for earlier vacations. The alternative is to sort of treat it like a coffin and let it age in place -- or to just pitch the entire file. Which is really, really tempting.

I decluttered my sock drawer. I don't know if that counts as a worthwhile activity, but at least I can now put stuff away again.

I came to the depressing realization today that teachers and other people working in public school systems are primary amplifiers of urban legends. *sigh* _Not all teachers_, I get it. But more than I had realized.

We packed up in the morning and checked out, stopping to tell them about the electrical problem.

We drove to Santa's Village. We got there around 10:30 and had to park across the street, but the lines were not too horrible. It was a _really_ sunny day; I think I got too much sun because I had a wicked migraine by the end of the time in the park, and sitting in the sun driving home did nothing to improve things.

A. did the water park this time, and the alphabet game. We had lunch at the Mess Hall. I only got a couple pictures (A. with Santa) because we didn't do the log ride (A. is opposed to them currently) or the monorail (it is getting cramped for all four of us and the line can sometimes be long).

We unpacked very quickly upon our return and got through the laundry. I had done laundry twice at T.'s request at the hotel. I could probably bring fewer clothes for A., since T. keeps wanting to do laundry anyway. My sister travels that way and has really reduced the amount of clothing she brings for the family.

No dinner out -- mostly just snacked. We were happy to be home. Both kids have school on Monday.

We went to StoryLand. R. made A. pancakes in the room; I took T. down to breakfast for waffles. I remembered to bring my own english muffins so I didn't resort to eating a bagel (this is good, because they are huge, and they are all white flour and I'm a middle aged woman who needs a little whole grain in the morning).

Our season passes having been set up at Memorial Day weekend, it was easy getting into the park and we had a nice day. It wasn't hot, but A. wanted to do water rides, so we did Splash Battle and Doctor Geyser after changing into swim suits. We got really cold, but it was fun. We had lunch in the park and left in the early afternoon so R. could get a bike ride. The kids and I hung out in the room; they didn't want to go swimming.

We went to dinner at Applebee's after R. got back. T. left his headphones at the restaurant; they are lost now.

ETA: I had a brief conversation with my friend K., but I just couldn't maintain focus on the call and do stuff at the park so we gave up. I'm a little bummed; looking forward to next week's call.

Today was A.'s first day of her summer program. She came home telling me that K. had invited her to his (their, properly speaking -- K. has a twin, G.) birthday party. I hope we get to go! We really like the whole family and haven't seen them in months (since A. quit gymnastics, basically).

A.'s Blundstone's arrived from Zappo's. I'd never heard of these before attempting to find wider paddock boots for kids. They seem to work, altho getting her used to a pullon is tricky. They are purple, which helps a lot.

T. is off with his sitter. I had a nice walk with M. I have been bragging on my husband's behalf as I run into friends in the neighborhood.