Allergies, socks and twinkies

I finally went to my primary care physician and insisted on getting allergy tests. Which did not do me any good, since none of the stuff I brought from work produced a reaction. The doctor explained that the test is only for a short term reaction. I need what is called a patch test, so they can test for prolongued exposure.

Meanwhile, it was fun (though quite itchy) to see little rows of welts develop on my forearm and learn that I am allergic to grass, pollen, dogs and cats.  Since I've never had problems with any of those, I cannot take those tests seriously. Having a welt when you actually puncture the skin is very different from breathing in an allergen or rubbing it against unbroken skin. I certainly don't plan on getting rid of my dear pooch. The doctor recommended that I always wash my hands after touching him but guess what, I've been doing that with all pets all my life. That's probably the reason why I've never had any problems. He also says that the pooch must not sleep in our bedroom. Good luck with that one. We've tried that and all we get is hours and hours of howling. He does not like being away from the pack.

The Summer of Socks has begun and I never took the time to add a button to my sidebar. Heh, I have not updated my sidebar in years. I am a lazy blogger. Maybe this site should be the lazy knitter instead of the cheap knitter. I am counting my current pair of socks for the Summer of Socks. I don't know if it is against the rules, but I do know that this Summer is turning out to be much busier than I expected.


I am reading a foolish book: Twinkie Deconstructed. The author, Steve Ettlinger, picked the twinkie as a typical example of a processed food item, and then went through its label exploring the origin of every single ingredient. Some of those additives are incredibly complicated. They may be synthesized form petroleum, rocks and/or industrial by-products, and then end up present in the twinkie in really minute amounts. But they need to be there in order to acheive good taste and prolongue shelf life. I am not new to food chemistry, and yet I never realized how processed foods relied so much on some unsuspected sources such as mining or palm oil production in the third world. It is also weird to find out that some of those ingredients are also needed in a lot of non-food items such as vaginal lubricants or candles. I cannot remember when I last had a twinkie but I can confortably say it was really the last one for good.