And the truth shall make you broke.

Yesterday did not go as planned. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Beloved and I were bickering gently and lovingly about the word “late” as in “You’re going to be late for your appointment.” His sister and brother were already at the house, preparing for a long day of packing and sorting. I had an 8:15 appointment with my allergist (love her!) and needed to be there fifteen minutes early. I was not leaving as soon as Beloved thought I should. His siblings are delightful, and I was enjoying the visit. Beloved’s idea of on time is half an hour early. My idea of on time is (usually) skidding in at the last possible second, breathless but still technically on time.

I made it to the doctor’s office with a minute to spare. I made sure to tell Beloved about that as we were drifting off to sleep.

My allergist is a good ‘splainer, Lucy. She told me what the testing could and could not establish or confirm. The most important being that it is easy to find and treat allergies for which there is an IGE presence or reaction. I am guessing that IGE is ImmunoGlobulin[E-something]. That list is shorter than I’d thought, with a few surprises: no allergy to shrimp, nor to penicillin. ‘Tis a puzzlement. To be cautious, we did a penicillin challenge and a blood test for shrimp. I aced the first, and we will get the results on the second in about a week. We will be getting one of those allergen barriers for the mattress and pillows (dust mites; who knew?). I also learned that the casein in cow’s milk is identical to that in goat’s milk, sheep’s milk, and everything but mares milk. There is a distinct dearth of lactating mares, chez nous.

Now all this does not mean that I do not have sensitivities to all the things that the alternative practitioner tested me for, last September. It does mean that I now have a prescription for a nasal steroid spray that I am to start taking about a month before my seasonal allergies (cough: ragweed) and am to get an industrial size bottle of Zyrtec next time we are at Costco. And about $500 more in debt for my half of the testing yesterday, which I will start paying off, next payday.

I did not make it to my mammogram yesterday afternoon. We got stuck in traffic in Dallas, so through the wonders of cell phone technology, I rescheduled en route. This left us with five hours until the Rangers game, and Beloved was looking pretty weary, and the idea of sitting in the sun was not particularly appealing to me, so we blew off the game and dropped our tickets at the office for one of my co-workers to use. Then we came home and went out for pizza with Beloved’s brother and sister. No reaction to the salad, the salad dressing, or the slab and a half of pizza I inhaled. We came home, worked some more on their mother’s stuff, and called it a night around 10:00. I woke up several times, but nothing like it has been in recent weeks, and I got somewhere around six or seven hours of sleep. My ankles are suspiciously quiet this morning, not that I am complaining.

The sibs will be back for breakfast shortly. Beloved is making biscuits and gravy. With cow’s milk. I will wash mine down with a slug of goat milk and a tall glass of juice, and then it’s off to Secondborn’s for BittyBubba’s fifth birthday party while Beloved and sibs tackle more paperwork and memories and stuff.

I regret the necessity for their visit (I had already fallen in love with their mother, easy peasy), but I so enjoy having them here in our home and doing what small things I can do to help.

In knitting news, the pillow back has just a couple of repeats left, and the garter stitch border, and then the sewing-up. I most devoutly hope I will finish that today.

And in dolly news, Hope is here; she is every bit as enchantingly lovely as the picture on the website. I found Temperance’s black turtleneck and wrangled that on over Hope’s fancier hands (which are not held on with magnets like Chutzpah’s) and the black bloomers I got earlier this year cover her nether bits, so she is modest with a side order of Goth. Freud would probably have a field day with that. Her hair is a dark blonde, and very very long, as in longer than Crystal Gayle long. Her wig is an inch or so longer than she is tall, but it’s wavy, so she just manages not to step on it. Right now she is in a basket with Faith, Charity, Temperance, and Chutzpah. Once we get all the boxes from the storage unit emptied out (it looks crazier than when I moved in with all my stuff), then I can think about having my doll-inclined kids over for a play date.

This is the part where I put on what I’m wearing to the party and go out and flirt with the cook.