Peanut Allergies and the Peanut

Since the little porpoise was diagnosed with a milk allergy, allergens have become one of my biggest pre-occupations and neurosis. While her diet is basically just Soy formula and rice cereal right now, it's been very easy to manage the milk allergy. My bigger concern is that I somehow created an allergic kid. What allergies have yet to be discovered? Mostly, I fear the peanut allergy.

My husband's love for peanut butter borders on obsessive. He eats it all the time - peanut butter on English muffins for breakfast, peanut butter granola bars for snacks and peanut butter ice cream for dessert. His favorite part of the holidays - Reeses Peanut Butter Christmas Trees.

Now, while he's chowing on peanut butter by the spoonful and showering the Little Porpoise with loving kisses and playful zerberts, one news story sticks in my mind - the girl who kissed her boyfriend after he ate a PB&J and died!

Laundry Explosions

Hi there. It's been awhile.

While I've been gone for over a year, I'm still neurotic about the same stuff. As proof, my first post back has a similar theme as the last post before I left: Home Explosions.

Here is a story I heard over the summer. An old lady had a gas dryer (so do we). She smelled gas and went down to the basement to investigate. Realizing it was coming from the dryer she thought it would be a good idea to open the door and air it out. So she did, and the door sparked, igniting the gas-filled bowl inside. The explosion knocked her back, action-movie style. She died.

Crazy way to die, right? The thing is I am certain that I would have done the exact same thing. Have you ever had a pilot light go out on an old gas stove? You open the window to air out the house, right? So that would have been my thought with the dryer. I would have opened the basement window, then opened the dryer. Boom! Dead. I asked my husband what he would have done. Boom! Dead.

So, now I am neurotic about both house fires, AND our poor decision-making skills and lack of common sense.

A Gaseous, Fiery Inferno

I've mentioned before that one of my biggest fears is my house exploding due to leaky gas pipes.

I feel like they are more common than ever this year, and that concerns this neurotic wife! My co-worker says her next house will be electric heat for this very reason. (Although my feeling is, unless you can guarantee your neighbors' houses are also electric, you're still at risk of explosion.)

The Boston Globe recently reported on my gut feeling. It makes me wonder if gas lines built years ago just aren't holding up. Has the recession caused gas companies to delay repairs?

The Globe reports, "These blasts, killing three and injuring one, have served as a reminder of the dangers associated with the massive underground pipe system tunneling beneath streets and delivering a flammable product to nearly 1.5 million customers in the state. The system's 21,000 miles of gas main would be nearly enough to travel around the circumference of the Earth. More than a third of the system relies on old, antiquated pipes."

Yikes.

Under Water and Dreaming

My friend and I head into the GAP dressing room to try on overalls. As we walk into the stalls, we are suddenly under water. Then my friend is eaten by a shark.

This was the dream I had over and over again when graduating from high school. I had the same dream when graduating from college. Admittedly by the time I graduated college overalls were hopelessly out of style.

This is an anxiety dream, and according to Astrology.com the ocean or any tumultuous water can represent uncertainty and an inability to completely control events.

I have had anxiety dreams before getting engaged and again while house hunting. My anxiety dreams are still about the water, although thankfully the overalls are gone. Typically a massive ocean wave separates me from a group of loved ones.

Right now my husband and I are in a blissful lull. We're enjoying life before we take the next big step. With the exception of a small thing I like to refer to as the global economic collapse, there has not been much for me to truly obsess over. But, I am a neurotic wife, and worrying comes naturally to me. So I have managed to take on my friends' worries and have anxious dreams on their behalf.

One of my friends and her husband put an offer on a house Saturday; and we met them for dinner that evening . She wants to be settled in a home and nest, and she had fallen in love with this one house. I could feel her anxiousness as she sweat the offer process. That night I dreamed that a massive flood created a crevice in the earth. As my mom, my friend's husband and I stood on one side of the flood, my friend was alone and helpless on the other side.

Mexican Drug Cartels

Somehow I managed to avoid learning that drug cartels had taken over Mexico until the day before we left for our vacation. Since my mom told me about, I immediately assumed it was hyperbole-- after all, she's seriously neurotic.

I have to say I felt totally safe and comfortable at the Excellence Playa Mujeres (highly recommend it). I also felt plenty safe at the airport given the many armored tanks and machine-gun toting soldiers at Terminal One of Cancun International. We were flying out of Terminal 2 but our driver dropped us off at Terminal 3. We hopped on the free airport shuttle which took us through scenic Baghdad, Iraq (aka Terminal 1) before dropping us off at Terminal 2.

According to the Fair and Balanced reports on Fox News, the drug cartels only control the border towns, not the resort towns. The US border towns. Comforting.

A Message from Beyond

My husband and I recently went on vacation to Mexico. Here is just the first of many neurotic moments I had while on vacation.

I wrote a postcard to my nieces while on the plane headed home. I was trying to keep the note light and fun, and with a message that a four-year-old and a two-year-old would understand. After a quick line about playing on the beach I wrote:

"Aunty's advice: wear sunscreen and always order dessert."

And then I realized what I had done. I had just written a perfect life creed:

Wear sunscreen - be careful.

Always order dessert - have fun.

And from that point on I became paranoid our plane was doomed. I could just imagine someone recovering our belongings from the crash, finding that postcard in the rubble and mailing it to my nieces. Aunty had sent them a message on living life-- from beyond.

So naturally I addressed the postcard with their names and addresses and put it safely in my bag, waterproofing it in a plastic baggy I had. If something were to happen, I was going to make sure this note had every chance of making it to my nieces.

I made it home safely, obviously, and mailed the postcard from work. Instead of being the perfect life creed my nieces carry with them to college and beyond, the postcard will probably just be posted to their fridge until being discarded in spring cleaning.

Sibling rivalry

My sister and I are generally supportive of each other, but every now and then we fall into that familiar sibling rivalry, here, we attempt to out neurotic each other:

Me: My husband's boss' home was broken into last night-- while he was home!

Sister: That's scary. We sleep with one baseball bat on either side of our beds.

Me: Really? That's pretty neurotic, especially considering your condo is on the third floor.

Sister: Eh, I sleep better that way.

Me: What if you have a nightmare and while in your sleep you grab the bat and hit your husband in the face?

Sister: Wow, now that's pretty neurotic. You think I'm going to sleep walk and beat my husband.