- Ammonia is the main active ingredient in anti-itch medicine. If you put it on a cotton ball and rub it on bites or rashes, it helps better than those tubes of overpriced placebos. I have no idea what happened to my right foot, but it swelled up like a burrito and I scratched like a crazed animal for days. Ammonia was the only thing that provided some relief. (Nope, not gonna show you a photo.)
Learned from Intern:
2. The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web where people can search through old websites; he found my first website from around 2003 or so.
3. People in Asian countries make vertical emoticons (°-°) instead of sideways :-). I’ve been having fun with this! (*U*)
4. Youth view using a period at the end of a sentence in a text as a method to makes things look really serious. Good grief, I must really scare them when I text.
5. “Frunk” is a real word, which in itself is a new piece of learning; do you know what it is? I laughed aloud when I heard it and when I saw it. It is the FRont trUNK on a Tesla, a storage place where an engine normally sits under the hood.
6. Seems as if everywhere I read, the name G. K. Chesterton appears. I finally looked him up and learned a little bit about this great thinker and prolific writer, using this site Who is G.K. Chesterton? I realized that learning about him could involve a great deal of reading. Information overload, so many books, so many sites, so little time; I simply read a few paragraphs, composed this entry, and moved on. Sigh.
7. “Nalbinding” is a needle art I have never heard of before. Here’s a definition: “Nalbinding stitches are created with a single needle, using a series short lengths of yarn (18-36″ pieces) at a time. Each newly formed loop is created when the tail end of the yarn is pulled completely through the added loop, making it unravel-proof. “ It is also called “knotless netting” or “single needle knitting” or “looped-needle netting”. There is a thorough explanation with examples and even video instruction here: nalbinding. (I don’t need any more hobbies that use up my exhausted wrists so I didn’t look too closely.)
8. “Dongle” is a little gizmo that goes into a computer to enable a mouse to work with a laptop instead of the trackpad. A friend misplaced hers, and used the word, which made me ask if it was a real word. Yeppers. We looked and looked, and it turned out that it had magnetically adhered to the bottom of her laptop as we were scrambling around with a flashdrive. So the word is new and the fact that it is magnetic is new. These tools and their words. . .!
9. DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide was featured on 60 Minutes several decades ago as a potential remedy (or at least a relief provider) for arthritis. It was controversial, but now it can be purchased without a prescription. A friend gave me some, and sure enough, it provides almost instant relief for my wrist (De Quervain’s Tennosynovitis is my diagnosis, not arthritis or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.) So far it hasn’t done squat for the peripheral neuropathy, and WebMD is rather dismissive of it. However, I am finding it to be helpful. Never mind. It messed up my stomach after 5 days. Go figure—it is applied to skin! But messed up digestion is one of the possible side effects.
10. Remember when I said that intermittent fasting didn’t work to lower my A1C? According to sources (isn’t this how the media gives authenticity to its reports?), I was doing it wrong. Doing it right (as my source says, who is not a medical professional but is a very smart person) is really a hassle, and I don’t feel desperate enough to mess with this method of deprivation and inconvenience.
11. WAIT stands for Why Am I Talking? so I will stop now. Thank you, Blog Readers!
7 Comments
Several thoughts–you seem to be very thought-provoking today 🙂
>Ammonia, good to know. Although I may have finally thrown out my ancient bottle of ammonia a year or two ago as I typically use vinegar for cleaning everything and I think the ammonia I had was from the early 1990s when I was first starting my own household and was told I needed ammonia in my cleaning supply stash.
>Wayback machine, also good to know. Now I foresee myself wasting many many hours online searching for things I thought were long gone.
>Asian emoticons look more realistic, the sideways ones always make me think “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”
>Frunk. Didn’t know it was a word, did (only recently) know that (some? all?) electric vehicles have a trunk in front. My Dh currently has a Sierra EV as his assigned company vehicle and the first time he popped the hood to put stuff in the cargo area there I inadvertently offended him by excitedly exclaiming “Ooh! A front trunk! Like on a Volkswagen!” (We had a couple of VW bugs in the 70s when I was a child and they are the only vehicle I had known to have the trunk in front). Apparently comparing the hefty impressive electric truck to a tiny VW is insulting.
>Love your hose holder!
>Curious minds (mine) want to know: did the DMSO give you an odd taste in your mouth? I am familiar with DMSO as a topical for relief of inflammation–typically tendons–on horses’ legs. And that if you didn’t wear good quality gloves when applying it you would end up with a really nasty metallic type taste in your mouth.
Kris, it is so fun to see your thoughts—thank you!
—I too am unsure that I want to go to the Wayback Machine because of an enormous time-sink potential.
—It took me awhile to even understand our emoticons, and I’ve had to explain them to multiple people. Your take on them is pretty good!
—EV drivers can be a bit snobby.
—That hose holder just cracks me up, especially when Tucker is posing the same way nearby.
—No funny taste or even a hint of an odor. Such weird stuff. If I hadn’t gotten slammed so hard by it (or if I had been warned), I might still be trying it gradually. But I just handed back the bottles with tremendous certainty that I am DONE with that stuff. (I wasted money on Amazon the minute I felt relief in my wrist, plus my friend had given me a little bottle.)
1a. I found a perfectly formed potato in the shape of a heart. Wish I could post a photo here.
2. I’ve used the Wayback Machine several times to find old websites. It’s a fun explore!
4. Youth seem to be punctuation-allergic.
5. My parents owned a Chevy Corvair many years ago. It had a Frunk, too!
8. I learned what a dongle was when I started using a wireless keyboard and mouse. I do prefer not having all those cords wafting across my desk!
9. As often the case, one must weigh whether the side effects are worth the cure!
10. See #9.
Sharon, I didn’t know that about Corvairs, only about VW bugs.
Sharon, P.S. email me your perfect heart potato and it will appear in the next Learned List.
I did know about the dongle, but not about the FRUNK. That’s hilarious (and convenient)!
Elisabeth, isn’t that a great word? VW beetles had frunks first, but there was no word.