Blessed by the Potato

Heartburn is a condition that seems to run in my family, particularly on my dad’s side. I don’t know if it’s an overabundance of acid, or a familial weak cardiac sphincter, or if our poor diet and stress-bunny tendencies are to blame, but a typical breakfast for my dad or I is a can of coke and an alka-seltzer. Most of the time I hardly even notice it when I’m awake, but then when I’m awake gravity is usually my very close and personal friend, keeping all that stomach acid mostly down. When bedtime comes though, heartburn can be pure agony, not really from the pain or discomfort, but because it is a condition that for some reason has an incredible ability to keep me awake. After all, I can sleep through almost anything else, including pain, daylight, (some) noise, headgear, and the cat walking on me.

What I find amazing is how some foods can affect heartburn, and how random it is sometimes. For the most part, I can drink as much coke and rootbeer as I want, but Jolt will usually give me heartburn (though admittedly I only drink Jolt during times of great stress, so I couldn’t say if that was the main culprit or not). Perversely, a single small glass of orange juice before bed will just kill me, which is just not fair since it’s actually healthy in other respects. Chips (not that I’m allowed to eat those any more) are fairly inconsistent. Often they’ll lead to terrible night-time heartburn, but sometimes I can polish off a whole large bag and suffer no ill effects. Garlic, particularly in the guise of garlic fingers (oh how I love garlic fingers) often has a very delayed heartburn effect, waking me up after I’ve been asleep for several hours. I find that strange, since after that much time I figure that anything with garlic should have cleared my stomach and be making its merry way through my intestines by then. Anyhow, once the middle of the night garlic heartburn sets in, it can be really stubborn, requiring separate repeated bouts of alka-seltzer to finally clear.

Two days ago, I found it very strange when I was scanning people and was suddenly hit with this garlic taste and attack of heartburn. Not just because I was awake and sitting upright, but also because I hadn’t had anything to eat within about 6 hours, and nothing with garlic all day long. Shortly after I first felt the sensation, the guys I was scanning started talking about going out for a beer and a bite to eat after the scanning was over. Since it was a friday night in London, I couldn’t think of a single place to go that wouldn’t be pounding obnoxiously with dance music… except for one: Symposium. And if we were going to go to Symposium, then I would probably order some bruscetta, and if I did that, I would get heartburn…

And the realization hit me: I was going to get some bruscetta so good, with such intense heartburn that it would rip a hole through the very fabric of time, and actually give me heartburn before I even thought of eating it! When we got there and I was looking through the menu, I was sorely tempted to order something else, like a waffle, just to see if that act would make my garlic-flavoured heartburn go away, but in the end I was helpless, and almost of its own volition, I heard my voice ordering bruscetta from our completely spaced-out waitress.

In the end, having delusions of time-ripping bruscetta goodness is not anywhere near the same thing as having a good plate of food in front of you in the real world. It was actually pretty terrible that night: they got the spice mix completely wrong, it was spicy to the point of making my lips tingle, with none of the garlic, oregano, or basil flavour that bruscetta should have. They also put icky feta on it (it’s not part of their usual recipe, and not mentioned in the menu — if it was, I would have ordered it sans feta), and there were hardly any bits of tomato on it (usually I have to fight to keep them all on the bread without making a giant mess; not a problem I faced then). Despite the fact that I was very hungry after a night of scanning without snacks, I just couldn’t finish it off. It also made my heartburn go away, making me realize that I probably had it in the first place because I was hungry and my stomach was churning in the lab.

So just before leaving for Japan, we noticed a vague burning plastic smell in the house when the A/C was on. Not finding any actual fire, we ignored it and got into the business of winning 3rd place poster. Upon returning, I noticed that the house smelled pretty foul, kind of like skunk. Of course, the skunks were working their way through the neighbourhood gardens, so I could really only hope that it would go away as the skunks moved on. Wayfare investigated a bit further, and found a dead skunk in the garden.

Eww.

Not a huge deal, I used to have to deal with that sort of thing for a living. We made plans to bag it and dispose of it in the morning (it being close to night when Wayfare found it), and thoroughly searched the internet for any sign of a city department that would handle it for us.

It being morning now, I went out to see the skunk with my own eyes, and well, eww. It looks like it’s been dead since before I left for Japan (which might just explain the earlier burning plastic smell), and I seriously fear for the structural integrity if I try to move it for disposal. So now we’re discussing our in situ containment options. I have considered a concrete sarcophagus, but wonder if that might draw too much attention to the situation. Since we don’t really want to disturb it to bury it deeper (if we thought we could move it without unleashing hell, we would go back to the garbage bag idea), that leaves us pretty much with the option of covering it with topsoil. The main complication here is that the damned thing decided to die right outside one of the air intakes for the basement — air that then goes into the A/C and thence into my personal space. So if we’re going to let it rot in peace, we’ve got to be damned sure that the smell stays down through these hot summer months. Currently, my plan is to cover it with drano, then bury it with a nice big bag of potting soil. Wayfare, however, thinks that plan is a little too crazy, partly because it would lead to a dead spot in the garden, and partly because I got the idea from reading about covering plague bodies with lye. I’m cool with a little herbicide, but I am concerned about the effectiveness of this plan. Particularly with regards to the ability of the sodium hydroxide to neutralize the specific skunk stink (it may work for other animals, but skunks have their own particular problems). Some hydrogen peroxide may be needed as well (as that forms the bathing solution to remove the smell from skin/fur).

Anyone with any knowledge or experience of this sort of thing care to chime in?

Also joining our garden woes is that whatever moved in under the front porch has been pooping right outside its entrance hole. I thought animals would be smarter than that… though perhaps its our dead skunk and we won’t have that issue anymore.

One of the “low hanging fruit” benefits of hybrid cars that improves their fuel efficiency and emissions is that they turn the engine off when it’s not needed, such as at stop lights. In fact, with a little bit of key-turning, this can be achieved in most other cars, even if not quite as often. Many cities (including London and Toronto) have anti-idling bylaws that hand out tickets for idling more than 3 minutes, though enforcement is weak to say the least and the laws don’t apply when the weather is very cold or very hot — which makes sense from a comfort point of view, but is also unfortunate because it’s on the very hot days that cars need to be shutting down for air quality purposes. The startup period in a car does cause more wear, but there’s obviously a point where it’s more beneficial to turn the car off: I’ve heard many rules of thumb regarding how short a period of idling makes turning the car off worthwhile, from 10 seconds to a minute. Personally, I try to go by about a 30-second period: if I know I’ll be idling for that long, I shut the car off, except at lights (but I do for trains crossing by me). So when I was at the carwash this week, I shut the car off, but felt a little weird doing it (except for train crossings, I don’t usually get into idling situations). I was talking to Wayfare about it at the time, and debated whether we’d be waiting long enough to make it worthwhile — it turns out it really was, as we were waiting at least 4 minutes for the infernal machine to be ready for us. Now thinking about it in hindsight, I feel strange for feeling weird at the time. Turning the car off should have been my natural reaction, I shouldn’t have had to think about it for so long…

The thing that bugs me most about idling is the cabbies. They’ll idle for hours in front of the hospital on some days, if business is slow. There are a few who are pretty good about opening their windows and turning the car off. If the weather’s really hot, there’s at least one that will simply get out of the car and sit on the grass, or lean against the car, or one time, pull out a folding chair.

A CityNews spot recently talked about the short enforcement blitz last week to remind drivers of the bylaw, and mentioned that delivery trucks idle a lot (they do), partly because refrigerated trucks have to keep the engine on to run the compressor. First off, I don’t want my ice cream to come all melty, so they do have something of a point that strikes close to my heart. I have a few problems with that, though. Most of the refrigerated delivery trucks have a coolant pod on the transport trailer — that means that the coolant system for the trailer must be electrically driven (the AC system on most cars is belt-driven directly from the engine, which is why you can run your fan but not your AC in engine-off accessories mode). If it’s electrically driven, then the truck’s battery should be able to keep it going for a while (at least 10 minutes I would estimate, and a battery upgrade to run the cooler for an hour should be extremely easy to install right on the trailer). Also, most refrigeration systems run in cycles (or are capable of doing so, unless they are taxed to their maximum capacity), so the truck drivers should be able to cut the engines for at least as long as the system usually cycles off for (my fridge, for instance, runs for about 5 minutes every half hour — I could have a 25-minute blackout at my house and the food in the fridge would never know anything out of the ordinary was happening).

Also, this tiny news snippet was a little disappointing.

…the premier says Ontario won’t implement regulations as strict as those of California…. Ontario will stop short of California’s tough new tailpipe emission standards because they could hurt the province’s auto sector.

I think it’s pretty backwards to resist emission standards because auto manufacturing takes place in the province — stricter emissions standards don’t, as far as I know, actually hurt the car industry in general. People still buy cars. They just buy cleaner cars. Perhaps that impacts the bottom line of the automakers, or perhaps it’s an indication that the domestic manufacturers (or the particular models manufactured in Ontario) have trouble getting any cleaner and more efficient. If that’s the case, then the province should still go ahead with the tighter emissions standards — after all, there are still plenty of “emissions equipment optional” states to sell Ontario-manufactured cars to, and I’m sure most cars driven in Ontario aren’t made in Ontario, so stricter emissions standards would help our quality of life. And, if say California enforces stricter emissions standards, but cars are built in Michigan and Ontario, then the car companies are pretty much SOL. If Ontario and Michigan implemented stricter standards (even stricter than California, say), then the province (and state) could directly help the auto manufacturers with various tax incentives and research programs, and would have the justification for doing so. If the province helped make sure all the cars built here had superior emissions controls and fuel efficiency, then that would also help the auto sector become more competitive elsewhere (California, Europe, as well as with anyone who valued efficiency and low emissions in the other states and provinces), and in the future as well. After all, California emissions may seem strict and tough to meet now, but they’re not revolutionary, not by a long shot (the revolutionary parts were killed over the years by lawsuits and lobbyists). The other states, provinces, and countries globally are catching up. Do the car companies want to be seen as the ones fumbling to meet minimum requirements at the last minute, or the ones that have been successfully meeting California emissions standards all along? (wouldn’t it be great to say “Ontario efficiency standards” in the same breath? :)

Warning: explicit, nasty, overly descriptive accounts of bodily functions gone horribly awry follow.

I’ve been pretty sick the last few days — I haven’t slept well the last few weeks, partly due to work, weddings, allergies, allergy medication-induced paranoia, and a nasty case of the nerves regarding the impending Japan trip. So it seems to have caught up with me in the last few days with some mild nausea, severe fatigue, and the sweats. I threw up a little yesterday, but after that I started to feel a bit better, and after taking the day off work and sleeping for 12 hours, I actually felt normal when I woke up yesterday evening (my sleep schedule is completely off-track now). Then today, it’s back to feeling sick again. I threw up a little again today — just a small purge like yesterday, but this time I didn’t feel better afterwards. I went to the sink to rinse out my mouth and brush my teeth, when I was hit with another wave. I took a quick step to the left to get back over the toilet…

Now, Wayfare has said that I’m terrible at throwing up, and apparently it’s true: I focus more on getting my head above the toilet than close to it. In other words, I don’t hit my knees fast enough (or, as is usually the case with me, at all: and leaning over while upright does seem to give more leverage, it doesn’t lead to aim)…

…so I lean over the toilet, and a huge wave of projectile vomit flies out. I’m pretty sure it was the entire contents of my stomach in just two heaves. Now, the interesting thing about this is that it makes a huge mess. In the force of my expulsions, I managed to create a cone that was wider than the toilet bowl — there’s mess on the back, on the sides, on the front… ugh. My eyes are all tearing up and my throat burns, and I don’t feel much better. Then I see that there are little droplets that have bounced off the toilet bowl and flown around the room — there are even a few on the wall behind me! That’s some crazy reflection ability! In fact, I’ve always kind of been a little bit in awe of just how hard my stomach could convulse when it wanted to. I always figured that disgusting slurry would lose some velocity on the way up, since I doubt reverse peristalsis is going along that quickly (or can handle a bolus that big), or at the very least when it has to make “the turn”. Although, to get even more disgusting, sometimes I get some in my sinuses that way (and all it takes is a drop to ruin breathing for the rest of the afternoon).

Of course, that leads to two very unpleasant conclusions: the first being that I am likely inhabited by some kind of demon, or possibly a hostile alien parasite. The second is that it is highly likely that if I got… ick… on the wall behind me, then I almost certainly got it on the nice, clean hand towels behind me as well. So I have to go down to the basement and do some laundry. And of course, as soon as I get to the bottom of the stairs, there’s a giant black spider waiting for death. I don’t get the creepy giant black spiders I’ve been seeing so much of lately; for years house spiders were small and pale yellow and liked hiding in corners where they didn’t bother you and you didn’t bother them. Now they’re these great big scary looking things that like hanging out in the middle of the floor or halfway down the wall — places where they look intimidating, ready to strike. This is also just perfectly horrible because part of the reason I haven’t been able to sleep is that I had a run of nightmares about spiders last week.

I think I’m going back to bed.

Warning: the following post may contain information of a graphic and disgusting medical nature.

My parents, in the wisdom of keeping small children away from medication, have for decades stored almost all of our medicine in their bathroom. This is a bit of a pain now though, because it means I have to wake them (no matter how small a flashlight I bring and how softly I tiptoe) whenever I need something in the middle of the night. Usually, what I need is Alka-Seltzer for heartburn. I’ve tried, at various times in the past, pepto-bismol (the thick pink nature of it made me want to vomit), and a few other antacids (TUMs always sounded promising, with their use of calcium salts rather than sodium, but believe it or not I could never figure out how to take them — surely you don’t swallow that giant tablet whole, or chew it?), but Alka-Seltzer is always what I’ve come back to: it works pretty well for me, and pretty quickly. It does of course, have it’s own fairly nasty taste, but even as an extremely fussy child I could pinch my nose and get it down — at least it looks kinda like water.

Stuck as I was this last night with heartburn, no sleep in sight, and no desire to wake my parents (my dad has such trouble sleeping lately that it would be a sin), and no Alka-Seltzer, I decided to be creative. “What,” I asked myself, “was in Alka-Seltzer really? Just baking soda and aspirin, right? And the aspirin is an acid just there for pain relief — the antacid effect comes just from the sodium bicarbonate neutralizing the stomach acid…” So I got a glass of water, stirred in a spoonful of baking soda, and downed that. (Did I mention I was sleep deprived and not thinking too clearly?)

It tasted gross, even worse than Alka-Seltzer. Then pretty much immediately, I started foaming and puking. I had forgotten my grade 5 science fair volcano principles: baking soda, added to an acidic environment produces lava! Err… carbon dioxide, that is, which in a liquid — like vinegar in a volcano or stomach acid — produces a foamy, disgusting mess.

So, my chemistry lesson is that the fizz-fizz stage in Alka-Seltzer is really the sodium bicarbonate letting off the carbon dioxide so you don’t fizz up when you take it. The real antacid properties come from the reaction products left over (sodium citrate, sodium acetylsalicylate), the ones that bring the pH back up without producing gas.

Contains:
• Aspirin 325 mg
• Heat treated sodium bicarbonate 1916 mg
• Citric acid 1000 mg
• Alka-Seltzer in water contains principally the antacid sodium citrate and the analgesic sodium acetylsalicylate.