I have been on a low-carb diet since the first of the year, and sugar has not made much of an appearance on the menu. The cup of Double Rainbow Ultra Chocolate was my first in a long time, and I enjoyed every last smidgen. Let me add here that I am very sensitive to caffeine, and can’t sleep at night if I have more than one (so-called) caffeine-free soda. When I was little, my mom would let me have a taste of her coffee, and I would tremble afterward.

It is not good to tremble while doing taxes. I had to deal with the mailman at the gate that day, and it was all I could do to stop my legs from shaking. I was worried he would ask if I was sick. I didn’t know if it was the large sugar intake, the caffeine, or both. After a bit I realized I should dilute as soon as possible, but it was hours before I was calm again.

I don’t want to say goodbye to Double Rainbow Ultra. I like to think we will come to some sort of compromise when the diet is over.

Not to get a double quarter-pounder (now I know why my kids told me not to watch it while eating), but for the vanilla cone. I don’t know what’s in the cone, but it

a) does not give me hives, as ice cream sometimes does
b) is only 150 calories
c) is not overly sweet

Keith Jarrett, The Melody at Night With You. More suited for nighttime, but at this point in the taxes, I need something soothing. I will dig deep into the library for livelier stuff in a bit.

Mangoes were a great treat in the hot summers of my childhood. One day, to get the last of the sweet flesh, I grabbed the skin of one, and scraped it with my teeth. The next day, the lower part of my face was bright red, with large, incredibly itchy blisters covering my lips. These crusted over, so that I looked like part of my face had been battered and fried. Others have had a similar experience, and found a way to eat mangoes again. I’m not that brave. Cross-reactivity occurs in people who have had an earlier, nasty brush with poison ivy or a similar antibody-producing substance.

Years later, I found I had an allergy to latex , and that has opened up a whole new world of foods to avoid. So I would say no, thanks to that enticing fruit salad with honeydew melon, fresh pineapple, kiwi fruit, and bananas. Life is just not fair.

It’s a vine, it’s a shrub. It has three leaves, it has five. It’s green, it’s red. It looks dead, it’s alive.

In high school, my biology teacher sent us out to look for the variety in leaves. These were then smoothed out, and carefully pasted onto pages that were then hole-punched, and put in a binder. That was my first, and one of the worst cases.