#these last few days of the halloween challenge are just my bread and butter i cant help it

[nikosasaki]

oc halloween challenge 2022 ⛧ day twenty-three; video game au

( insp. )

taglist: @kendelias @chlobenet @bravelittleflower @eddiemunscns  @lizziesxltzmxn @wokenhardies @delicateblackrose @eddysocs @heavenlysurf @arrthurpendragon  @villanele @nolanhollogay @stanshollaand @lovehermioneforever @raith-way @kiara-carrera @decennia @luucypevensie @waterloou  @connietheecunning @hiddenqveendom @foxesandmagic @jvstjewels @samwilsonns @ginevrastilinski @sunlitscribe @m1ke-wheeler @chrissymunson @partiallypearl  

[willow-salix]

Isolation update! I was planning on doing the prompt of "Sight" for @gumnut-logic challenge for the next chapter of the big fat fic (which I'm still gonna do) but this came out too. So I let the boys roll with it.

Day 76 of Isolation on Tracy Island

“Scott?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know anything about this?” I held up my headphones, which had been previously missing for maybe the last eight months and that I had just found in the cutlery drawer.

“Yeah, they’re headphones.”

“Thank you Captain Obvious, I meant why are they in with the knives and forks?”

He shrugged. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because you were hiding socks around the place for over three weeks.”

“Only because it took you so long to give them back to me. I started after we watched Half Blood Prince, I thought it would make you laugh but you just kept ignoring them.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t realise you needed to be freed!”

“Of course I did! I was your house elf!”

“House elves do chores! They don’t sit around being fed and demanding attention!”

“I’m a progressive house elf that is fighting for elf rights!”

“No you aren't, you’re a lazy bum!”

“Lazy? Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“I will never understand the conversations you two have,” John muttered as he pushed past us to fill his mug with the coffee I had just brewed.

“It’s affectionate arguing,” Scott laughed, sliding his mug over to John for a top up.

“So no one knows why my headphones have just suddenly turned up from wherever they vanished to and magicked themselves into the kitchen?”

“Nope,” Scott gave up waiting for John to pour him a drink and stole mine. I narrowed my eyes in his general direction. John slid a fresh cup over to me. Such a great guy.

“You know,” John mused. “I found one of my world geography books in the bathroom cupboard.”

“I found my utility knife in the piano stool,” Virgil added, wandering over to snag some toast that had just popped up.

“I just made that,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he continued to butter it. I stared at his plaid clad back for a few seconds but when he failed to burst into flames I gave up and dropped some more bread into the toaster.

“Now that I think about it,” Scott mused, “I found my guitar pick in the fruit bowl, the one that I got from that little shop in Texas. I thought I lost it for good years ago but it just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Something strange is going on,” Virgil declared. “If stuff we lost is returning there has to be a reason for it.”

“Parallel universe,” I answered confidently.

“I don’t think that's a thing,” Scott said gently.

“Apports then?” I offered.

“No, I don’t think...what’s an apport?” Virgil asked.

“An object conjured out of nothing by a ghost, obviously.”

“I don’t think this is the work of a ghost, love," John said, squeezing my shoulder as he passed by to take a seat. “There’s only one person that borrows things without asking and that’s Gordon.”

“That was going to be my next guess,” I admitted.

“Yet you went straight for ghosts and different universes?” Scott asked, clearly bemused.

“Well, maybe, just for once, I wanted something interesting to happen around here that I could actually deal with,” I huffed. “Sue me.”

“Only you could think ghosts and different realms were something that’s easy to deal with when you were the one that screamed and climbed me like a monkey because a crab ran over your foot on the beach last night,” John laughed.

“Crabs have pincers, any sane person would get away from one of them,” I pouted, reaching for some toast off Virgil’s plate. Honestly I don’t know why we don't just have communal plates in this house, no one seems to eat their own food.

“So what are we going to do about Gordon being a kleptomaniac?” I asked.

“We’ll deal with him after breakfast,” Scott decided, leaning over and biting the corner off my toast. See? No boundaries whatsoever.

***

The klepto in question was sneaking suspiciously around the lounge when we tracked him down and we caught him in the act of leaving a magnifying glass behind a book on the bookcase.

“Busted,” Scott yelled, making Gordon jump about a foot in the air.

“So it was you that’s been leaving our belongings scattered around the house,” Virgil sighed.

“Why are you doing this?” John asked, although his tone said he was debating the wiseness of even posing the question and was unsure he actually wanted an answer.

“Can’t a guy do something nice for his family?”

“He can when he’s not the one thats been stealing things in the first place,” I shot back, arms folded, foot tapping.

“I’m offended!” Gordon gasped dramatically. “A Tracy doesn’t steal unless its Virgil and a bell takes his fancy-”

“That was one time and it was an accident!”

“I may borrow things,” Gordon continued.

“For three years?” Scott snorted.

“I borrow on extended loan-”

“Without permission,” John added.

“But you always get them back eventually,” Gordon finished triumphantly. “I got bored and cleaned my room and it was like unearthing buried treasure. I may have forgotten that I borrowed a few things but you’ve got them back now, so no harm no foul.”

“Is that all you needed to return?” Virgil sighed.

“There might be a few other things scattered around,” Gordon admitted.

“Go and get them,” Scott ordered.

Gordon staggered in half an hour later weighed down by a massive box overflowing with his plundered loot.

“Seriously?” Scott gaped as the box thumped down on the table.

“All of that?” Virgil couldn't believe his eyes.

“Not surprised,” John muttered.

“How did you manage to borrow all that?” Alan asked in awe, having been summoned from his pit to claim any lost items that may have fallen into Gordons possession. “I’m not even allowed to borrow a pen.”

“It’s because he doesn’t bother asking,” John told him.

“That’s where I’ve been going wrong!”

Gordon shooty finger winked at him.

“No!” I yelped, intervening for the first time and grabbing Alan, pulling him into my arms. “Do not corrupt this precious bean.”

“Too...late,” Alan wheezed, trying to escape my python like grasp.

“Oh, sorry,” I let go and Alan took a dramatically deep breath.

“What’s in the box, Squid?” Scott asked.

Gordon tipped the box up and out tumbled a mass of things that shocked even me.

“That’s my baseball cap,” Scott snagged it.

“My gloves,” Virgil claimed them.

“That’s my camera,” John snatched it up. “I thought I left that behind on the beach and the sea took it.”

“Well, technically the sea’s representative did,” I giggled, then noticed something in the middle of the pile. “Why do you have my headscarf? You know that I use that when you guys force me to get in a boat, it makes me feel fancy.”

“Are those my sunglasses?”

“Yes, I broke mine and was going fishing.”

“Is that my lipstick?”

“Yeah, I used it to draw blood on my neck so I could be a zombie at halloween.”

“There’s my ocarina.”

“It was so weird I had to try it.”

“Is that my belt?”

“Yeah, remember that date I went on with Penny? It went really well with those navy pants.”

“I thought I lost that harmonica.”

“I was going through a depressed week and wanted to play the blues.”

“Is that my cologne?”

“Same date.”

“Why do you have my toothbrush?”

“I used it to clean the sand out of one of Four’s filters.”

“My playing cards!”

“Yeah, I wanted to learn card tricks.”

“My travel chess set!”

“Four of the pawns are missing now, sorry.”

“Seriously, my drill?”

“I wanted to put up a picture.”

“Why did you need my tie?”

“That's classified.”

“That’s my favorite pen.”

“Yeah, I’ve got no excuse for that, I used it, put it in my pocket and forgot about it.”

“Gordon, why do you have my flip flops?”

“Mine broke and your’s were nearest.”

An endless stream of lost objects had suddenly returned home and it was a tad overwhelming but along with his more recent acquisitions were items that hadn’t been seen in forever.

“I remember this game!” Alan exclaimed, grabbing the box. “John and I used to play it all the time when I was little. You had to be astronauts and fly through the meteor showers and land on different planets and fight aliens. It was great. We had the best scores, no one could beat us.”

“Actually, I had the best scores,” John corrected him.

“No way, it was a team effort, we played that together every night after I got home from school.”

Virgil chuckled.

“What?” Alan looked confused. “Why are you laughing?”

“I may have taken the batteries out of your controller and just let you think you were playing.” John admitted.

“What! That was one of my greatest achievements in life!”

“Alan, you went into space when you were thirteen,” John pointed out.

“Oh yeah!”

Virgil spotted a book and picked it up. “I haven’t seen this since we were little.”

“Oh, I remember that one,” Scott smiled. “Mom had it when she was small and she used to read it to us every thanksgiving.”

John was busy sifting through the pile. “Hey, my first star globe, why do you have this?”

“Remember when I used to get upset when Dad went away? Well you used to point out all the different stars to me on it and where the moon was near them.”

“Oh yeah,” John smiled, “I remember that, I let you borrow it to keep beside your bed so you could see where Dad was every night.”

“That’s my old teddy bear,” Scott smiled, picking it up and sitting it on his lap. “I left him with you when I went to college.”

“I know, I told you that I was too old to have a plushie in my room but you insisted. I passed him on to Alan and when we moved I guess he got packed up with my things.”

“That’s the children’s guitar that Mom taught us to play,” Virgil picked it up and strummed a few cords but the tuning was terrible.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Alan said quietly. “In fact, I don’t remember much of any of this stuff.” He gestured to the pile of things that still remained scattered on the table top. “I don’t know that pencil sharpener, that snow globe or those shell bracelets, I don’t know any of it.”

“Neither do I,” I reminded him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“I don’t have any memories of them so they don’t mean anything to me.”

“But that’s what’s so great about things and why I keep telling your brother that not everything has to have a use all the time. Things are there to remind us of the good times, just the sight of them can conjure up images, but they are also there to encourage us to share those memories. I used to love looking through my Nan and Grandad’s cupboards because I discovered so many things that were interesting,” I told him. “I’d ask them about them and they would tell me where they got them or who they belonged to before they got them and it was so nice to see the joy that the memories brought them. Pick something and ask about them, let’s share memories.”

Slowly Alan reached out to touch the small pile of shell bracelets.

“Where did these come from?”

“We were on a trip to the beach,” Scott started.

“Gordon was running all over picking up little shells and bringing them back to Mom,” Virgil continued.

“She ended up with a huge pile of them,” John laughed. “But Gordon didn't want her to put them back.”

“She ended up asking Dad to drill a tiny hole through each of them and she made them into bracelets for us as a reminder of the vacation,” Scott picked up the story.

“We wore them for a few days but Gordon kept stealing them because he loved the shells,” Virgil added.

“I remember that,” Gordon smiled. “There’s a picture in the album of me wearing them all, I don’t look any older than five.”

Alan picked them up, rubbing one of the shells between thumb and finger. “Why are there five of them?”

“Because Mom was pregnant with you at the time and said that you were there too so you should have a bracelet,” Scott smiled, reaching over to take one. “This was mine.”

One by one the others each claimed a bracelet, leaving Alan with just one.

“You’re right, that’s a nice story to hear,” he admitted, slipping the bracelet over his hand.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” I suggested. “This has been a mad few months, how about we start a new memory box and in ten years time we’ll look back in it and remember the longest vacation ever.”

“Yeah,” Alan nodded. “That could be cool.”

The box slowly filled up with bits and pieces.

Here are some of them.

-Some of our finished colouring pages.

-Gordon’s tablet that hadn’t recovered from its unscheduled dip in the bath.

-Brains’s broken glasses and a broken piece of his microscope that fell off of Alan when we played human buckaroo

-A small pile of post-it’s which Scott had used on April fools day to label everything in the lounge.

-The rubber spider John had pranked me with.

-A pair of the bunny ears the boys wore to deliver Easter eggs.

-The empty bottle of ‘Chill Pills’ Scott got for his birthday.

-A selection of our pictionary artwork.

-The beauty blender Virgil ruined on Gordon’s face.

-An empty popcorn bag Alan found stuffed between the couch cushions from one of our many movie nights.

-One of Scott’s socks that hadn’t been found before.

-A gaudy necklace from our lip sync battle

-A clue list from our scavenger hunt

-A shell I picked up on the beach the day they taught me to surf.

-The evil Furby

-The purple wig we made John wear (he was very glad to donate it to the memory box)

“OK, so, we don’t take anything out but we can add more for as long as isolation goes on?” Alan confirmed.

“Yep,” I nodded. “Who’s going to be in charge of keeping it safe?”

“Gordon should,” Alan said. “Since he seems to be the keeper of everyone’s things.”

“Even without permission,” John muttered, tucking his pen into his pocket in case it went walkies again.

“Actually,” Gordon said, “I think Alan should look after it for us.”

“Really? You mean that?” Alan grinned.

“Sure, kiddo,” Scott agreed. “After all, they’re your memories too

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Why This Former Army Captain With Type 1 Diabetes Eats Low-Carb

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-type-1/why-this-former-army-captain-with-type-1-diabetes-eats-low-carb/

Why This Former Army Captain With Type 1 Diabetes Eats Low-Carb

Ryan Attar, age 37, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes a decade ago. At the time, he was stationed overseas and serving in the United States Army as a Captain and subsequently medically discharged. Right now he is in his last year of naturopathic medical school and just finished his master’s degree in nutrition. He’ll be a naturopathic physician in Connecticut at the end of the year.

There is a small population of people with type 1 diabetes who eats a very low-carb diet like the one Dr. Richard Bernstein recommends for the purpose of “normalizing” blood sugar levels. He writes that he was lucky enough to be able to spend some time with Dr. Bernstein at his office and blogged about it on Diabetes Daily a few years ago.

Ryan says he makes no insulin endogenously according to his c-peptide tests and has been eating low-carb for about 7 years and yet, has a latest A1c level of 4.9%. He took the time to answer my questions regarding how and why he follows this way of eating.

DD: Why do you choose to eat low-carb?

I want to live complication-free. The complication of diabetes all stem from the damage that occurs during hyperglycemia. A normal, healthy eating, insulin sensitive individual is almost always between 80 to 99 mg/dL. For many people with diabetes spiking up above 120+ after meals is standard. Damage from elevated blood sugars happens much lower than most think. I like this summary of studies on that topic.

How many grams of carbs do you eat per day?

I don’t really count carbs because I just try to avoid altogether. I am definitely 30 grams or lower. Protein is always the bulk of my meals. I also eat lots of non-starchy vegetables to ensure I have all the nutrients I need. Even things like vitamin C are found in vegetables. For example, a serving of cauliflower has the same amount of vitamin C as an orange! Additionally, vitamin C uses glucose transporters to enter cells, so glucose is competitive with vitamin C, so you’re actually getting less from the orange.

I’ve found there is almost no food that can’t be made low carb. I even eat pizza, but with crusts made from almond or coconut flour, cheese, or ground chicken. They are delicious! And don’t spike me. A great resources for low-carb recipes is the Type One Grit pinterest page. Grit is a community of low carb individuals with diabetes or families with a child with diabetes. The pinterest page is organized into different types of meals like breakfasts, dinners, “breads,” and even holiday foods like Thanksgiving and Halloween.

Do you think physicians should recommend this way of eating to their diabetic patients?

Yes, they absolutely should! Sadly, most physicians, even endocrinologists who see many people with diabetes do not. Most are still stuck in the old low-fat, high-carb paradigm. Physicians who keep up with the latest research and see the outcomes of those eating this way understand the benefits of eating low-carb. Many see my A1c and equate a low A1c to hypoglycemia, but this is just not the case. When you eat low carb, you use very small doses of insulin, and have very shallow spikes. Even moderate amounts of carbs are difficult to properly cover with insulin resulting in a spike either up or down after meals. Bernstein stresses this with his “Law of Small Numbers”, small inputs (insulin and carb) small mistakes, large inputs, large mistakes. When physicians understand this, they are usually onboard for low-carb diets.

Do you use a pump or CGM?

I use a Dexcom CGM and I love it. I think everyone with diabetes should wear one. Its not perfect, and finger sticks are still needed to verify, but the technology is getting better and better especially with the latest model.

Why do you think some people don’t follow or know about low-carb eating for diabetes?

Their physicians and dieticians not giving them the option is a big problem. High-carb foods are also very addictive. But once one is weaned off them, and they see how much better they feel without roller-coaster blood sugars, people do great with the diet. What is great is that lately it is becoming popular for non-diabetics to also eat low carb. Making food options very accessible. They too realize the health benefits, especially how easy it is to stay at a lean weight.

What is your opinion on the ADA’s recommendation of an A1c below 7% for people with diabetes?

Its far too high! The goal should be for non-diabetic blood sugars and A1cs. Someone with an A1c of 7% means their average blood sugars are between 123 to 185 mg/dL. Even an A1c of 7% is an average of 154 mg/dL. These numbers are well into the range where tissues and organs are being damaged by glycation (see that summary above), the root of all diabetic complications.

Read more about translating your A1C into a blood sugar reading here.

Is low-carb eating challenging for you?

Not at all. I love the food I eat! For example today for breakfast I had a veggie omelet. Lunch was a chipotle chorizo salad (hold the rice and beans), and dinner will be salmon, steamed veggies with butter and some cauliflower “rice.” Great, healthy food and my numbers will be in the 80s all day. I take small doses of R Insulin (an older, gentler insulin that covers protein perfectly) with each meal.

Anything else you’d like to say including reasons for or against low-carb eating that you’ve heard from others?

For anyone wishing to embark on a low-carb lifestyle I’d recommend joining a community like Type One Grit on Facebook. So many great people to help you along the way.

More articles with Ryan Attar on his low-carb diet:

My Ketogenic Low-Carb Diet (including lunch at Chipotle!)

3 Days with Dr. Bernstein

WARNING: The Paleo Diet Will Change Your Life with Diabetes!

PODCAST: The Paleo Diet & Diabetes

Photo Credit: Ryan Attar

Diabetes Type 2 Treatment 800 Calorie Diabetic Diet Diabetes Destroyer Video Reviews Original Article