I hadn't known I was allergic to them.
I'd had what you might call foreshadowing experiences. In Camden Market I had been so charmed to find little baskets of them that I had bought one. Rather expensive. But I had had falafel too so when I found myself running back and forth to the less than charming public toilet I blamed falafel. Plus I was distracted by Body Shop products. Distracted and charmed by eye de-puffing gel and lip balm. These things wouldn't hit America for a few years yet.
Then like fifteen years later I had a salad with fried bits of chicken on top and house made raspberry vinaigrette. I'd had plenty of raspberry vinaigrette and it never caused me any concern before. DSoo, as you may have guessed, I blamed the chicken. In retrospect those others were bottled. Cooked raspberries don't seem to be a problem. And when do you see fresh raspberries? I mean maybe you do. You and your fancy life. I'm not used to seeing more than three raw raspberries at a time and that more of a garnish.
So when I was in the little grocery store in Patagonia and saw the big big bag of frozen mixed raspberries and blackberries, well, I saw no obstacle.
Then on the last day I was sitting in the little three room guest house-- bedroom, bathroom, everything else room-- watching tennis. I should say trying to watch tennis. I don't really understand tennis. Or maybe I do a little but not like something I really understand. I was trying to absorb it because I liked a guy who was pretty into it.
Then I realized it was the last day. Well, I mean, I had known that. But as I started to think about cooking myself dinner, it came crashing down on me just how much food I had not eaten. Some things were canned and could be taken. Some things were perishables like milk and eggs. Aside from making scrambled eggs there just wasn't much that could be done.
Then there was the giant bag of mixed raspberries and blackberries. What on Earth had I been planning to do with that?!
It was frozen and unopened so maybe the landlord could have done something, used them somehow, but they were expensive and looked delicious. No, I'm eating these!
I didn't thaw them even. I just poured them into a bowl and started shoveling them in like a trigger food.
Then things get a little hazy.
I didn't feel too good.
How much later was that? Not sure.
I decided to go on to bed.
The local radio station was on fire. So I was listening to that in bed. I kept having to run to the bathroom. It was like the worst food poisoning you've ever had. Competing orifices. But really, it seemed more like just straight up poisoning. All systems in my body screamed one setting: PURGE!
The room started breathing.
The music on the radio was a pulsing channel to the far flung alternate dimensions of the universe.
It's a hard
It's a hard
It's a hard
It's a hard
It's a hard rain's gonna fall
