the danger of cashews

it's amazing how dangerous raw cashews are to me. when they're roasted and salted i can barely control myself from eating myself sick from them but raw cashews are just flat out dangerous. last year i had a pretty terrible incidence with raw cashews so this year had a personal ban on cashews. no cashews in the pepiniere. no working with them, nothing. i gave out dry, raw seeds but otherwise i refused to work with them.

but fatou and aram wanted a pepiniere and filled sacks but since then have done nothing about it (much to my irritation). i figured i would pretreat their seeds for them and then they would seed. so i filled a pot of water and threw in some raw cashew seeds to soak for 24 hours. last night i uncovered the pot just to take a look at them. i didn't touch them or anything but 5 minutes later my hand burst out into a burning, prickly rash. i tried to stay calm about it but now it's spread to the inside of my elbow, the other (left) arm, my neck, hairline, and jaw. it is very painful as it burns and itches and raises my body temperature. luckily it is pretty cool today (due to another disappointingly small and short rain) and everybody can see it so they all understand that despite a busy day i had planned, i just want to lie in bed and sleep it through.

the funny thing is that last year's occurrence was almost exactly a year ago (june 15). strange.