yeast allergy

one of the things i've wondered has to do with my allergy to two kinds of yeast. i've been tested and found allergic to both brewer's yeast and baker's yeast. and i have had--and cleared--candidiasis, an overgrowth of the yeast Candida albicans.

kefir (the dairy kind) is one of the best probiotic foods you can ingest, according to many nutrition experts. it has both probiotic bacteria and yeast that populate the gut and keep it healthy. (yogurt has only bacteria.)

i've been consuming kefir fairly regularly since spring 2007 when i felt but didn't know i had cleared candidiasis.

i've been puzzled, though, about what yeasts it contains. does it contain brewer's and baker's yeasts? should i be consuming it?

yesterday i did some online research that listed 10 kinds of yeast found in kefir. none of them are baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Torulaspora debrueckii).

in fact, two yeasts in kefir--Candida kefir and Candida pseudotropicalis--destroy Candida albicans, and two other yeasts--Saccharomyces kefir and Torula kefir--control exogenous yeasts, which i understand to mean any yeasts that are destructive in the digestive tract.

i've also wondered if i am allergic to other yeasts that aren't included in the tests. i don't know. since i don't seem to be suffering from consuming kefir several times a week, i think the benefits must outweigh the risks.

if anyone knows diffent, please comment.

osho quote for love

veruschka normandeau read this beautiful quote at the marriage blessings for both adele and chris, clarita riccobono's daughter and her fiance, and for lara and mat, fantasia london's daughter and HER fiance.

i loved it so much, i requested it by email, and veruschka graciously provided it.

Nothing ever repeats; everything is new every day. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, "I have known her" or "I have known him". In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.
~Osho~

waiting for redbuds...

yesterday and today my energy has been low. low for me, that is. i still walked to and from work, but monday, i caught a dillo once i got to congress in the morning.

it seems like this happens every year in february. we have some spectacularly springlike days, with sunshine and temps in the high 70s/low 80s. people are outside soaking up the sun. the trails are crowded. lots of people are outdoors, riding bikes, walking, skateboarding, wearing shorts, flip flops, etc. you can feel spring in the air.

then winter comes back to bite us on the ass, and this time it really hurts, not like in december or january. ow! i just want to withdraw. stay home with a good book, make stew, take long hot baths, go to bed early, sleep in. the cold, the gusty north wind--enough already! let it be spring!

my paperwhites are finally blooming. they are later than usual. they've bloomed in mid-january before. the yellow jasmine blossoms near the street are popping out.

my redbud remains bloomless and leafless, though. it's on the north side, and i usually see them in bloom elsewhere before at my house.

february is always the month when i spot the first redbud in full bloom, and that is a major milestone that spring is coming, in my map of the seasons.

the north side of 2nd street, in the block just east of congress (where tesoro's and las manitas are/were) has some redbuds with unusual dark reddish/purple blossoms, i've noticed in years past. notice them, if you can (and say a little prayer that marriott leaves them there when it builds what it has to build).

here's a quote from the color purple:

i think it pisses god off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.

maybe i'll take a detour on my way to/from work tomorrow and check those redbuds out.

allowing enlightenment

currently reading: emptiness dancing by adyashanti, a californian zen teacher.

one day when i was in maui, after i'd been there a few days, i was in my room at peace of maui lodge, and i was in motion. i was arranging my stuff, and i remember i was on my feet, in motion from right to left.

and suddenly i had no identity. no name, no history, no future, no drama, no emotion, no words, no story, no identity. just me, in motion, no baggage, just present. i experienced myself as being lighter. it wasn't unpleasant OR pleasant.

it was as if i had just stepped out of my identity for a couple of steps, like stepping out of a dress. yet something remained! the me in motion, my senses, awareness.

i'd never experienced that before that i can recall.

and then my mind kicked into gear and went, "wow, this is different!" and immediately began trying to find words to describe how it was different.

i'd been reading carlos casteneda books where he wrote about "losing the human form". i wondered if this experience was related. i don't know. it seems possible. in a conceptual framework, it was perhaps an experience more akin to a buddhist awakening than to shamanism, though those two paths share the emphasis on actual experience.

i am open for experiencing that again.

two firsts in biking around austin

i rode my bike to the farmer's market and jo's coffee shop on west second street mid-day. i used 4th street, which has a bike lane. then i went on the hike & bike trail to south lamar to bicycle sport shop, where i got an austin bike map and the cutest horn--it is a plastic parrot that sounds like a squeeze toy but mounts to the handlebar.

now i can be renegade biker PIRATE grandma! AAARGH, matey! i plan to take full advantage of becoming more eccentric in my old age. i'd like to push the edge on that. going carless at 55 feels like such a gleefully subversive act. i love it!

i like going by the dog park at auditorium shores. those dogs and their owners are having so much fun running around. some dogs retrieve things from the water. it's quite a scene on a mild winter weekend day like today.

later i rode to my friend clarita's near live oak and south congress. this is the first time i've biked on south congress. it's not bad until you hit the diagonal parking just south of guero's. you have to share a lane with cars for a few blocks. it was a little nerve-wracking, but i made it through.

after the very nice party to bless lara and mat on their upcoming wedding, i biked home going north on south congress after dark. i have a little red light that i clipped to the back of my backpack and set to a steady blink. i also have a white light on my handlebar that can blink or shine solidly. so i was visible. it was downhill most of the way and pretty easy. i got alert around the continental club about the possibility of diagonally parked cars suddenly pulling out, but all was cool.

i got my first bike at age 10, and it represented freedom. it feels like this now, the more i learn to negotiate austin via pedal power. to freedom!

new biofuel finding

the new york times today ran an article saying that the use of biofuels as an alternative to conventional petrochemical fuels actually worsens greenhouse gas emissions.

this is due to the fact that converting rainforest or scrubland to cropland where the biofuel materials are grown deprives the planet of natural "sponges" that can reduce carbon emissions. cropland absorbs less carbon. plus, burning and plowing contributes to greenhouse gases.

so... there goes my attraction to biofuel cars.

i learned from bruce hughes about a new car that runs on compressed air. the company, MDI based in luxembourg, that makes the miniCAT has a contract with tata motors, the ford of india. it should come onto the market in india later this year!

it just might be that these nonpolluting cars could come into the US market in the next few of years, selling for $5K or so.

and...they're very cute. cuter than a bug!

in my opinion, this is THE issue of our times--relearning how to live in harmony with our mother earth, which could easily shrug the human race off like a dog shakes off a flea. i don't want hannah to grow up and say, "what did you do about global warming, grandma?" i want her to connect with the earth and to respect it.

birthday dinner

i had such a sweet, low-key birthday celebration yesterday, i just want to write about it. lela, my daughter, wanted to take me out, and i chose casa de luz, one of my favorite restaurants. i sent an email to a dozen or so friends, just telling them i'd be having dinner there on my birthday and to join me if they'd like. no rsvp, no cards or gifts, just them.

lela picked me up in her lovely cabrio with her daughter and my granddaughter hannah in her car seat, and we drove to casa. lela had slept through two alarms and was late for her first physiology test that morning. she took the test and thought she did okay. it's her last difficult prereq for nursing school, and this is the second time she's signed up for the course. lela can pull it out when she needs to.

john gough, my dear RC partner of several years, was there when we arrived. john took the NLP intro workshop last weekend and is planning to take practitioner training. john suggested mixing some jalapeno sauce into the sweet potato and ginger soup. yum!

we've been emailing and will finally do our first RC session in two months next week. i'm looking forward to it. john's a rock for me.

then my dear friend clarita riccobono joined us, with news about her daughter adele's wedding and creative ideas about mixing in some sprouted beans into the soup as well as the hot sauce. i love being exposed to clarita's advanced olfactory and gustatory sensitivities, coming from a new orleans restaurant family. we agreed they (olfactory and gustatory senses) are an extension of kinesthetic sensing.

clarita also shared her difficulties remodeling a south austin duplex. she's changed her mind about it. live and learn, she said.

then zoe hill came with a haircut i hadn't seen, beautiful and stylish as always. she updated us on her health issues. she's been studying macrobiotic cooking in massachusetts and doing research and making plans for some huge lifestyle changes for the next year. zoe is dear and smart, and if anyone can pull off the recovery she wants, she can!

bruce hughes, lela's boyfriend and my much-appreciated next door neighbor, came for a little while, gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. he's got his own band now and plays gigs at the saxon on tuesday nights. i haven't heard his band yet but will soon. i like his songs, and he's got a fantastic tenor. plus, over 24,000 people have viewed his myspace profile! that's pretty famous!

clarita said in an aside to me that bruce and lela look good together. she sensed the sweetness between them.

hannah was her fully engaged self as usual. she got excited because her teacher, jim karabaic ("mr. k"), showed up at casa for his evening meal. she ran to greet him and later told everyone excitedly, "his name is jim!" she polished off two child's plates full of food and then asked about dessert. growing active girls need their fuel! lela started her on her homework of writing sentences with this week's spelling words, and she worked diligently and nearly got finished.

i got a coconut sorbet and a blueberry vanilla pudding for everyone to share. yum. we were all very pleased with the food.

it was perfect. just the right number of people so that i could connect with everyone and they could connect with each other.

notes on going carless

yesterday after work, i decided to route my walk by CVS at 12th and i-35 to get some contact solution. from 11th to 5th, i walked on the sidewalk right next to the northbound access road of 35.

i noticed it was very lonely. i was one of the few people on foot, and both i-35 and its access roads were jammed with people in cars.

it doesn't feel lonely to be on foot downtown. downtown is designed for walking. it was created when people walked or used horses. it is a seamlessly walkable area of austin.

but in places there are gaps. places where there's no sidewalk, only footpaths showing caliche, like between red river and 35 on 12th street. also between sabine and 35 on 4th.

and oddly, there are places where sidewalks don't match up from one block to the next. you have to wonder, what were these people thinking? "hey, i think i'll make my sidewalk...DIFFERENT! whee!" the block between san jacinto and trinity on 15th, north side, is like that. it even has a detour around a tree, but it is yards away from matching up with the sidewalks on adjacent blocks. go figure!

on a better note, i learned that capitol metro sells half-price bus passes at its store at 323 congress. i stopped in this morning and bought a $5 bus pass that gives me 20 free rides. then i caught a dillo up to 11th, which is free.

the mouse and the turquoise

from oceanofdharma.com, quotes from the late chogyam trungpa. today, besides being my birthday, is shambhala day, new year on the tibetan lunar calendar.


There is the Tibetan story of a certain monk who renounced his samsaric, confused life and decided to go live in a cave in order to meditate all the time. Prior to this he had been thinking continually of pain and suffering. His name was Ngonagpa of Langru, the Black-faced one of Langru, because he never smiled at all but saw everything in life in terms of pain. He remained in retreat for many years, very solemn and deadly honest, until one day he looked at the shrine and saw that someone had presented a big lump of turquoise as a gift to him. As he viewed the gift, he saw a mouse creep in and try to drag away the piece of turquoise. The mouse could not do it, so it went back to its hole and called another mouse. They both tried to drag away this big lump of turquoise but could not do it. So they squeaked together and called eight more mice that came and finally managed to drag the whole lump back into their hole. Then for the first time Ngonagpa of Langru began to laugh and smile. And that was his first introduction to openness, a sudden flash of enlightenment.
So a sense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. It involves seeing the basic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caught taking them seriously, so that one does not seriously play their game of hope and fear.

From "A Sense of Humor" in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM pp. 114-115.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

using carshare for the first time

tuesday morning, i had orientation for new members of austin carshare. guess what? the car wasn't in its spot at 2nd & colorado, like it was supposed to be! felipe, who works for carshare, spent several minutes on his cell phone notifying various others about the situation and then went ahead and told us how it worked, showing on another vehicle where the electronic card reader is located.

i'm hoping this is as rare as he says it is.

there were 3 new members besides me getting oriented. felipe says it takes about 35 members to support a car, and that carshare should have a couple more cars soon. they're looking at a south austin location.

as an aside, i'd love to see them locate one closer to my home on the near eastside, maybe at saltillo plaza, which eventually will be a transportation hub, with a bike trail and light rail station as well as bus stop. there are a lot of lofts, condos, and apartments going up on the eastside, inhabited by people who want to live close-in. there are also a lot of bike riders, many many more than when i moved into the 'hood in 2000. carshare might actually do pretty well on the eastside.

anyway, at the orientation, felipe gave each of us an information packet with the member handbook and a couple of things to sign to square the deal. he explained how the program works and answered our questions.

i walked back to work from 4th & congress, one of the carshare spots, to see how long it would take me. 19 minutes.

i tried to make a reservation online tuesday afternoon, evening, and wednesday morning, but couldn't get in. it didn't recognize my login info. i finally called the reservation number (phone reservations are $1, online it's free). it took the operator some time, and she put me on hold for several minutes and then said i may have been billed, credited, and billed again...

i'm thinking "first-time glitches"... with my fingers crossed.

so i had a reservation from 11:45-1:30 wednesday for my noon chiropractic appointment. i left work at 11:30 and walked to 4th & congress. that took 20 minutes. i swiped the electronic key against the reader to unlock the scion and got in. it took me awhile to find the ignition key. i adjusted the seat and rear view mirror and drove to my appointment. no problem! the car handled well.

afterwards, i stopped at whole foods for celebratory potato soup!

when i got back to the spot a few minutes before 1:30, there was a young man impatiently waiting. he said he was late for a doctor appointment! well, excuse me, but i had the car until 1:30, and there's a 15-minute grace period after that! it's not my fault that he was late.

anyway, i swiped the reader again to check the car in and took a bus to 11th street, walking through the capitol to get back to work.

it takes a bit longer than if i had my own car in the parking garage. with carshare, i have to use little more leave time for errands and appointments during the day, so that's a "cost". i imagine the health benefits of walking 15 miles a week to and from work probably outweigh the cost.

the monetary cost for this expedition was probably about $10. i'll find out when i get my bill in march and post it here.

i'm making an appointment for cranio-sacral therapy, and i need to take my cat to the vet. will use carshare and report back on those adventures.

so, so far, so good. a few glitches but nothing major.