"Pine Mouth"

Well, a lot has happened in the last month, and obviously we're not posting most of it here, specifically because it is mostly the highest form of simply enjoying being with our family and friends here in Tennessee, and we're too busy enjoying it to post about it.

And we're really OK with that.

But blogging continues to be a way to denote some of the odd little details of life that might otherwise be forgotten, and so we share the random:

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Monday, we traveled down to Chattanooga to see Jena and Brian, and our two nieces.  On arriving there, we got to spend an awesome afternoon with our friends the Chaffins, who know how to put together a mean lunch and otherwise make you feel totally at home.  Then we descended the mountain on which they live and headed over to Jena's.

Wednesday morning:  Why does my coffee taste so bad?  Why isn't this going away with brushing my teeth?  Why does everything taste terrible today?

Well, it turns out that I have "Pine Mouth", a recently described (by the FDA) syndrome where you eat pine nuts, and an as-yet-unidentified something makes everything have a bitter and metallic taste. Thankfully, it goes away spontaneously after 4 days to 4 weeks with no longterm effects.

Actually, our friend Chris, while serving us the absolutely awesome pine-nut-containing orzo on Monday, mentioned to Rachel that she had had this problem.  I missed that conversation, but was thankful that it existed, so that Rachel could correctly diagnose me 2 days later.

No big deal, but it is messing with my US weight gain plan.  Each time someone mentions a yummy meal of the future, my first thought is "man, I hope I'm tasting things normally by that time."