today: baaaby migraine, oxalis tubers, ice-filtering fish spleens

[eub]

(1) While I was cutting open an Abutilon megapotamicum flower for breakfast, I couldn't see it well -- the light seemed bad, somehow. No, I had a little central scotoma, I found. I took two cups of coffee and two ibuprofen -- when I set one pill down and looked an inch to its right, it disappeared. The scotoma enlarged and crawled leftwards as a band, same way as the one migraine I had many years ago. Some headache, photosensitivity, so I holed up in a dark room, but really not much of a migraine at all. I give thanks for that.

(2) The stems got frozen and split, so I dug up the big pot of Oxalis tuberosa, oca. A good double handful of tubers from that plant. Raw, they're crunchy, a little starchy, and some nice flavor, with only mild oxalic acid tang except near the stem end.

(3) From a photo gallery of diving under Antarctic sea ice, some almost-frozen fish: "These fish actually have ice present on their external tissues (integument, gills, and intestinal tract) while their internal tissues (except the spleen) are ice-free. The presence of ice in the spleen suggests that the spleen removes ice crystals from the fishes' circulation."

ETA "This giant arborescent agglutinated foraminiferan Notodendrodes antarctikos stands up to 3.8 centimeters high -- remarkably large for a unicellular organism."

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I don't understand what you were eating for breakfast.

I like your description of a scotoma - I get something that's like the 'reel needs changing' mark on a movie, but on my upper left instead of the upper right like in a movie.

[eub.livejournal.com]

This plant that we have for the hummingbirds, Plants For A Future gives the flowers a "four apples out of five" edibility rating, and comments: "A pleasant sweet flavour, we find them delicious to eat raw." I thought the petals tasted a little like spinach, which I guess is the "tastes like chicken" of vegetable matter. Note: PFAF has kind of an ideological commitment to universal edibility, so you have to read them accordingly.

[via-lens.livejournal.com]

I used to take really expensive migraine drugs as a kid until I learned that they contained caffeine and ibuprofen, so your cup of coffee with Advil was a good call. That'll head off the vasoconstriction that causes the excruciating pain and nausea.

First time I had a migraine I was 11 years old and I was ironing a pair of pants when my right arm stopped working and I couldn't see anything with my left eye. Mom rushed me to the doctor thinking I was having a stroke; he brought in his two interns to pepper me with questions about what a migraine was like right around the time the headache started. That was the day that my mom learned I knew all of the swear words in the English language.

I don't get them anymore. I also make sure I have a cup of coffee before 11 a.m. every day.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Whoa, having an arm stop working would be pretty damn scary.