Food trucks --with poetry

[asakiyume]

This past Friday was Food Truck Friday in my town.



So many marvelous choices! (This is just a sampling)



I got empanadas from La Mesa and some fried plantains from a Caribbean truck (not pictured). People were picnicking, but I was bringing my goodies home for family.

I did, however, stop to get a "wicked short" poem from Attack Bear Press's poetry vending machine:



I got an untitled haiku by Melissa Silva:
sun-shade dappled path--
beeeee-bzzz-see-seee-seee-dz-dsee
Blue Winged Warbler sings

Jason Montgomery, the Attack Bear in the picture of the vending machine, told me that on the trees at the front of the school grounds where Food Truck Friday was happening had the transcribed story of his grandmother's migration to the United States from Mexico in the early 20th century. Her story was vivid--here is the introductory placard and a few others from the trees:









It was very pleasant! Much better than my other main excitement of the week, which was to contract a TERRIBLE case of poison ivy for which I'm now on steroids ....

Comments

[pameladean]

Oh, I'm so sorry about the poison ivy! I had a terrible case of it when I was fifteen and had to have steroids too. I'm not sure this is medically sound, but my mother always wondered if that was why I suddenly quit growing. I was so unfavorably impressed by the entire experience that I haven't ever gotten another case, though it's meant staying well away from some beautiful areas. (Poison ivy doesn't generally grow in people's yards around here, though if the climate changes it could start.)

I hope the steroids take care of yours quickly. And the food truck day sounds so lovely.

P.

[asakiyume]

I've always been paranoid about it because my father is hugely sensitive, and I've had spots of it now and then, but this time, like Whoa. Where the rash is, it looked like Baron Harkonen from the David Lynch Dune movie. The steroids are definitely helping, though I've heard the rash can bounce back when you finish the course. The doctor assured me that no, that's why they taper you off the steroids, but I'm thinking, surely the other people whose stories I'm reading online also had their course of steroids tapered? But whatever; for right now it's headed in the right direction.

Poison ivy grows **everywhere** near me. It's like an apex plant or something.

[pameladean]

Baron Harkonnen-level poison ivy! EEEEEP. (I didn't have a defined rash; it was winter in Missouri, and I was sitting in a hole from which a tree had been removed in a nursery field, mostly bundled up and peacefully reading a book. My face swelled up like a balloon, but the doctor took one look and said it was poison ivy. Vile sneaky stuff.)

Here's to the lack of return of the rash.

P.

[asakiyume]

Ouf--and anything on the face is scary; you worry about eyes, or things happening to interfere with breathing.

[amaebi]

Sometimes even with a taper you can rebound, and once it's determined that you're steroid-dependent you have to taper off and take some really bad-stuff immunosuppressant drugs. Sheeyun had to do that.

But it worked, and all was well.

[asakiyume]

Delightful! Was that for poison ivy?

Well, one way or another it will all clear up. (How long was his course of steroids?)

[amaebi]

It was for a serious kidney ailment called minimal change disease. He was on three successive courses of high-dose Prednisone over about two years, tapering off the last with a drug called Cytoxin.Each of the courses was maybe eight weeks?

[asakiyume]

Wow, that sounds intense. I'm glad in the end he's well.

My course is just 10 days, so with luck I don't become dependent.