Literature Map

Dang, this is cool .  I found it accidentally while looking for some information about Sheri S. Tepper, but I imagine you could put your own favorite authors in.  (There are also some entries for "Sherri".)

Work

Some aspire to a three-day weekend.  I don't.  I aspire to a three-day week.

Lost Fossils

When I was little, maybe 6 or so, I was taking a walk with my mother's younger sister out in the Illinois farmland where she lived at that time.  She found a tiny fossil in the gravel of the road that she gave me.  It looked pretty much like a 1-inch corn-on-the-cob, but made of rock.  It was perfect; no nicks or chips or anything.  I h ave no idea what it was.  Some kind of trilobite that wasn't flat? I kept it for years. I think the last time I saw it was in the metal box where I kept my coin collection.  I didn't have that many material possessions, but many of them were ruined or disappeared during the year I was overseas as an exchange student in high school.  I wish I knew what that little fossil was, and I wish I could find it.  If I knew what it was, maybe I could buy another one on eBay or something.

I also still mourn the loss of my "real" birth certificate--the one with my little feetprints on it.  My mother kept it for me, of course, and I saw it several times growing up, but items pertaining to her and to me were thrown out and destroyed by her husband after she died, with no chance for me to get to them.  I am grateful for a few childhood photos that were sneaked out to me by family members, however.  Yet I'd like to compare my feetprints to my son's.  And I'd just like to have the certificate, anyway!  Just knowing that it was there, saved for me, so precious to my memory, and someone knowingly tossed it away--it's maddening.  I get really infuriated if I allow myself to think about it too long.

Getting Thanks

A client I had seen over the past semester dropped off a thank-you card for me today.  For various reasons, it's not really ethical to accept gifts (in most cases), but a card is okay to accept. It's usually people who do a lot of work on themselves anyway who do something like this, and this client was no exception.   Nevertheless, it was nice to hear that the person felt that I had helped them learn to deal with things on their own.  That's my goal, of course--making myself obsolete in strangers' lives.

Happy May Day

Splash of Spring - 1st May 2006
Originally uploaded by l'enfer

I wish these were in my yard.

(Maybe next year they will be, if I plan fall planting right.)

Swine Flu Map Roundup

I had a hard time finding this by directly searching, so here it is . 

I already had a flu phobia b/c of my asthma and the times flu's landed me in the ER; now everyone else does, too. Great.

*********

Oh, wait.  Here's another one.  Now that I think of it, there'll probably be a ton.

*********

And another.

Had enough yet?

Even More Random Stuff When I Should Be Writing Case Notes

Recently a friend posted in Facebook the query as to what others would do if they were given $50,000 and a year off work.  (I said: Research and margaritas.)  

And completely unrelatedly, I am currently reading The Multiplex Man.  The book's premise is a technology that can "implant" knowledge or skills from one person to another, which is (of course) being used by the military to create the perfect assassin.  He gets the wisdom of various individuals practiced in their skills for a lifetime.  I have been thinking about what I would want implanted (and it turned out that the assassin got a good number of the things I wanted, interestingly.)  

My list includes languages (German, Italian, French, Chinese, heck--Sanskrit and Russian, too--why not?); survival and traditional skills (woodcraft, plant identification, farming, fishing, weaving and sewing, carpentry, smithing, food preparation and preservation); athletics (swimming and diving, gymnastics, yoga, various martial arts, climbing, riding); shop skills (electronics, welding, motor repair); medical (assessment and treatment, medications, surgery) ...really, I can't stop thinking of things I'd want and just don't have enough lifetimes to learn them in.  Or in some cases, reasons to use them, unless society collapses, which honestly I've been imagining happening since my teen years.

I also think it'd be useful to extract the skills of a woman who'd given prepared childbirth birth several times under various circumstances.  Or breastfed several children etc.  Or somebody who'd memorized pi to a whole lot of digits...no, wait.  Maybe somebody who had photographic memory of something useful, like aquifer maps, or whatever you will.

So what would your response be to the time and money question, or else your most-wanted skills?  (And wouldn't it be cool to have all of that at once?)

Medical Humor

An article about medical humor , with one especially bad pun at the end that I loved.

Almost Out

We are in the new place, and now so is (nearly) all our stuff.  We haven't done the cleaning of the old place yet, but will do it next weekend. 

Did I mention that I initially moved us by stealth last weekend?  Not everything, but the necessary things to tide us over at the new place, such as beds, some kitchen things, bathroom things, and most of our clothing.  I did this because I really, really wanted to be at the new place and moving stuff in with us, rather than at the old place and moving stuff out before us.  Also the old place was starting to really depress me after the break-in, and since I'd been emotionally detaching before that anyway.  I moved the stuff myself because TheLimey was worn out with transitions and doing all the heavy lifting, and simply wasn't up to moving that weekend.  I decided that if I wanted us over there, it was up to me.

The crux of the move was the mattress AKA our bed, which gave two grown men great trouble to move it up the stairs at our old place (because of weight, bulk, and width--it's a queen--or is that redundant? Well, it deserves redundancy as it is really big, large, huge, massive, and also heavy).  I knew if I could get that darn thing down the stairs, then I could do all the rest and the move was on.  I had Friday off and didn't mention that or the moving part.

I struggled with getting it down the stairs and had to crawl all over  and under it, moving a corner here and bending a section there and dragging that side and so forth, until it was downstairs. Then a neighbor saw me doggedly tugging it towards the car and helped me hoist it on top.  I coulda done it, but it was a lot faster with help, I admit.  He was actually the neighbor who had helped to get it upstairs last fall, and wondered how on earth I managed to get it out all by myself.  "I'm a very determined person," I answered.

I got the smaller mattress down myself, tied them to the car with rope, and took them to the new place.  Again luckily, a neighbor helped me get the big one up the porch stairs, but I did all the rest myself.  I then went back and forth getting the essentials, including the giant heavy TV and microwave.  I also put in changes of address for us at the post office.  I picked up TheLimey after work and revealed what I had done, and he was flabbergasted.  He was pretty much speechless for a really long time, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, trying to picture me moving the things I had on my own.  The word "insane" kept coming up for some reason, when he was able to speak.  Well, whatever makes it believable for you, dear.

So we've been living at the new place since then--thank goodness.  Moving is hard, but it's worse when stuff is disappearing slowly and then you have to move yourself and your essentials in one day into a place with piles of stuff waiting.  Hmmm...now that I think of it, we're still dealing with the piles of stuff hiding our essentials to some extent, but I maintain that it's better regardless.  We had TP, shampoo, mugs, diapers, clean sheets on a made bed, and a can opener from the get-go.

Limelet likes the new place, especially the back yard, but he did ask to "go home" several evenings.  I'd started calling it the "old home" a while ago to get that term in place, as opposed to the "new house" in which we now reside.  We've taken him back to the "old home" a couple times so he could see it emptying and say goodbye to it in his way.  The first time he was sad (I think it was a shock seeing all our stuff gone), but the next time he seemed fine with it.

I did feel sad going to the old place Sunday.  Poor lonely and empty house.  Now that the shock of the break-in is over I can be melancholy, as I always am, about moving. There was one forlorn squirrel there that looked at me sadly from the back yard.  Luckily I had left a handful of peanuts in the cabinet for this return trip, so I was able to gratify his/her pitiful look by tossing some peanuts out there. I'll miss watching the full moon rise through the living room windows and the tall pine, and I remember Limelet's great joy at finally having more than 6 square feet in which to run back and forth.  

I planted vegetable plants at the new place this weekend with Limelet, which was fun despite his frequent treading on the onions and basil.  I really love the new place and the new yard.  The inside is absolute chaos with stuff everywhere, as we have not put things in their new homes yet, but that will come.

Jacked. So to Speak.

Last weekend was great.  No one was sick, we all got good sleep, we didn't get any scary information from daycare implying our child has brain damage, we had our lease signed and set for our new place to live, and the weather was nice.  We actually went out to the park on Sunday afternoon like a normal family!  It was great.  We couldn't get over how awesome it was to just have a weekend with no drama or trauma for once.  One nice weekend since we've been here!  

I wondered if we were jinxing ourselves by talking about it out loud, and apparently we were.

I got home yesterday with a struggling child under one arm and a pile of coats and bags under the other, only to discover that our front door was wide open.  Further inspection showed that our back door was also wide open, as well as our garden gate.  After several hours of waiting around for campus security and then police to go in with guns drawn and secure the premises (as they say), we learned that--indeed--our laptops had been stolen, as well as TheLimey's toolbox (which was in the office, too.)  

The adjacent neighbor (it's a duplex, or some other name like that) actually saw the guy with the toolbox and asked what he was doing--"Just picking up some stuff."  Picking up indeed.  Maintenance is kind of casual around here, so he thought the guy was maintenance.  I kind of think that if the neighbor hadn't challenged him, he might have gone back inside again.  We theorize he made two trips because of the muddy bootprints on the carpet near the back. I'm writing on my work computer now, of course.

We were finally getting our affairs in order, moving from "desperate" through "urgent" and finally getting to "basic and important"--really for the first time since we'd gotten married.  

One of the things we finally did was to get the new drive ordered for....my laptop. So we could rebuild it in preparation for my using it to work on this summer.  I spent weeks and weeks waiting for that drive earlier this year, but this time it shipped the day we ordered it.  Pretty ironic that it will likely arrive today, the day after the laptop  was stolen, since we've been trying to do this rebuild for THREE YEARS!  Conveniently, I had gathered all the software (and the paperwork from my computer) together and clipped it with an office clip, and set it on our desk next to my laptop.  Because there it isn't, any more.  I hope that possibly Dell may have a record of what the serial number is, which I will go to see about in a minute.

One good thing about that, though, is that I backed up all my stuff to Dropbox.  Thank heavens.  Because I have exactly two more lines to edit on my dissertation before it's accepted for binding, as of last Friday. After that I can apply for graduation. Also because I realized this morning that Dropbox will tell me the last IP address where my computer was used online, as well as when.  Unfortunately I would have to delete all my files for another user to not be able to access them, which means that then I can't access them.  However, I have a feeling that whoever has it is probably not going to dig past my password into my files, but will simply wipe it for their own smug stolen-goods sales use.

If Huge Ships Are a Problem for You...

..then I recommend you read this NYT article to see where you can get information on avoiding them.  As well as other really odd books.  Although this year's winner is someone I've read about before, and I think his works shouldn't count!

Bipolar Weekend

Not in the clinical sense, just had lows and highs, though I believe the highs won out overall.  

Limelet was up for two hours in the middle of the night again on Saturday after having a pretty good night Friday, so Sunday I was exhausted and really looking forward to taking his nap with him midday.  We had a 2:30 app't to sign our lease, so I had to make sure that he got up in the morning early enough to be sleepy for an early-ish (or at least not late) nap, and I did get him up on time.  It worked--to a point.  He fell asleep on the porch in my arms pretty early (before I could even get his lunch in him), and I took him upstairs to bed.  However, he woke up as soon as he hit the bed, and despite nursie and everything did NOT go back to sleep.  I tried repeatedly, but he just was not doin' it.  Which is weird, because he usually takes his midday nap quite easily.  

So at that point I was miserable.  Not just the lack of sleep from the night before, but cumulatively.  I so desperately wanted to sleep.  Just a little!  I was so tired it hurt.  And we had that meeting to go to, that I had so carefully planned the day around. I was actually crying by two hours later.

Luckily, the lease meeting went well, though TheLimey showed great faith in my character by asking [for verity of storytelling read in mock-dopey voice] "You're not going to break down in front of them or something, are you?"  Now, has he not been at all watching me function under these conditions for the past three years?  Anyway.  The house was even better than we remembered it being, and the yard even larger.  The landlord & -lady both showed up for the signing.  Did I mention there's a peach tree and an apple tree?  And the supposedly double lot is more like a triple lot?  And the little fish pond actually still has some fish in it that apparently survived the winter?  And it has four bedrooms (!?), and is even closer to Limelet's favorite on-campus playground and to my current work? We were pinching ourselves (metaphorically, anyway) at having gotten this great place, for so much lower than most places in the area.  It was cheaper than a couple pretty crappy, tiny places we originally looked at.  We have been experiencing the opposite of buyer's remorse, if there's a name for that.  True, we will be paying two months' overlapping rent, but it's still a cheaper year, and definitely cheaper over two years or three.  The guy mentioned that there were a lot of disappointed people that day (apparently from his vast stack of applicants.)  

We lucked out with this one.  I wonder how much the "Dr." on my business card helped, though.  I bet my 22-year-old self wouldn't have been as much competition.

So anyway--we hung out there for a while letting Limelet play in the yard (overfeeding the fish, of course) and gawking at our various rooms.  It did improve my mood greatly.  I just start completely losing control of my emotions when I'm that tired, but outside events help.  We went home at 5 (still no sleepy Limelet) and TheLimey took Limelet to the back yard, directing me to take a nap.  

I thought if I could just get half an hour's sleep it would save me.  At first I had trouble falling asleep because I could hear Limelet crying for me, but then things quieted down.  When I woke up I was shocked to find it was already 7:30!  TheLimey brought a sleeping Limelet in to the bedroom.  We both thought he'd wake up when put down, but he stayed asleep.  Then we thought he'd wake up at 8 and be awake until 2 or 3.  In fact, he stayed asleep (with minimal help) until 6 this morning.  Amazing!  We actually watched 40 minutes or so of our Dr. Who Netflic that's been gathering dust for the past few weeks.  I was able to get about 6 hours of sleep in a row, which is not a record (he slept for 6 hours once before), but pretty close to it.

We'd like to think we could do this again, but I'm sure it was a one-off.  I still feel fried, but a lot better.

New'ome

As I may have mentioned, we have been looking for a new place to live.  We love the place we're in, but it's college-subsidized and we can't live in it after our lease is up because I will no longer be employed full-time with the college.  Boo.

I think we may have started looking too early, because all the places we have seen want someone to move in on April 1st.  Our lease is up on May 31st, so that means we'd be paying rent in two places for two months.  That's quite a bit of overlap.

We've had a couple places we were interested in, and today we just got word that the landlord of a place we were very interested in accepted our application (above the "pile" of apps he got).  I'm not surprised, because it was a really reasonable rent for the size of the place and the location--which incidentally is a really great location for us. It's right near the college, in close walking distance to TheLimey's work and to Limelet's favorite familiar on-campus playground and possible part-time work for me (if I play my cards right, I guess). The only bad thing that I can see about it is that it's one of the places that wants us to start our lease April 1, so now we have to hunker down and make a firm decision if we really want to do this.

If we stay two years or more, which is our plan anyway, we would end up saving money because of the low rent ($300 less per month than most similar places, or even smaller places!), but there's that initial outlay of paying double rent for two months.

The place has a front porch, and a great back yard, especially for the area, which has mostly those long, thin little yards.  This one has that, but then at the back of it, it has a huge yard joining onto our little thin one, like a mini-park.  With trees and presumably squirrels. Ooh--I'm envisioning toddler splash parties already, now that I think of it...  And the back is South-facing, so the kitchen (with gas range!!) would be facing the sun all day long (though there is a covered patio behind it).  There are about twice as many rooms as we need, certainly more than most places we looked at, partly because the attic is finished.  The only lackluster aspect is probably the bathroom, which is small and unprepossessing.

So--decision time then.  I think we are, or at least I am, leaning towards a yes. But we are supposed to sign a lease Sunday, so that'll be the deadline.

Opening Time on Procrastination Street

I have tons (tons!) of clinical notes to write over this week, as we don't get time to actually write them during the semester.  No, really, that's how it works here.  Too bad that the 5 days of paperwork time I was expecting over break are down to 1.5, due to a college-closed day as well as Limelet's getting yet another illness this week.  So here I am procrastinating instead of working! 

But we did have a record two weekends in a row with no sickness!!  Really, that is a record since we got here and started all getting sick, all the time. (In fact, I'm sick again now, but hardly even count it since it's just a cold.)  We took advantage of it by having our next-door neighbors over for dinner.  They have a three-month-old little girl, which is another reason why we have been avoiding them.  When we're constantly sick over here, we don't want to pass it on to the little tiny one.  The mother is on an allergy-restricted diet (for the baby), so I think she was discouraged about the possibility of coming over to eat.  But I took down her list of allowed items (about 20 of them) and came up with some experimental things.  I know it is really hard to be inspired to eat when you can't have milk, wheat, corn, soy--in fact any grains at all besides rice, tomatoes, citrus, yeast, fish, onions, meat (besides chicken), spices (even pepper)...the list went on.  It really was easier to get the list of items she could eat.  I made a lot of stuff with rice milk and rice flour, chicken, and a couple of fruits she was allowed, olive oil--and I assumed olives were therefore also allowed (meaning I could make tapenade).  I think this was the first time we've had people over for dinner in about two years.

We are in the midst of a (rental) house search, but I think we may have actually started too early, as a common conflict has ended up being that they want someone to move in April 1st, while our current lease isn't over until May 31st.  That's a big overlap to pay rent at two places for two months.

I keep thinking of stuff to write but am currently experiencing great fuzzyheadedness.

'50s Lady?

...where are you? The dangers of sharing too many items on Google Reader. I can't remember when I shared it, but it was sometime since September. This was a little video featuring how our lives would soon be better through consumerism (plastic perhaps?) and it had elevator music under (or over?) a montage of wifely type duties. There was also a curiously quiet baby in a cage. Er, playpen. If you remember this or still have the link, let me know. People are asking.

Update: here it is!

Da*@#light Savings

Here comes my twice-yearly ranting about Daylight Saving.  Made worse this year by having a toddler who is now already behind an hour due to weeks and weeks of illness.  Here, I'll let someone else rant for a change .  

My idea?  Just make sunrise in each time zone the new 6:00 am every day.  That's right; reset all clocks every single day.  Now, we'd still have time zones so it'd be a little arbitrary, but, whatever.  At least it'd make sense biologically.  There's be lots of retail and manufacturing activity as people rushed to create and sell "one-push-reset" clocks and whatever paraphernalia would link us all to some service or other, for those who can't or won't see the sunrise themselves.

My other idea is to have "Fall Back" every week.  So you'd reset your clock back one hour every Saturday night.  Yeah, we'd be awake in the dark sometimes and sleeping in the day some times, but whatever.  At least it would follow our circadian clocks (generally speaking.)

Job Opportunities!

Boy, if that won't get me spammed, I don't know what will.  (Nevertheless, I still don't need that blasted "prove you're human" password thing, >a-HEM<, all-yall.)

Anyway.  According to my RSS feed jobs section, if only I were a bilingual, pediatric, alcohol-and-drug residential counselor for prison/V.A./schools, I'd be able to find a full-time job every minute of every day.

Diagnosis: Not Murder, Just Feels Like It

I'm feeling particularly proud of myself today, in a professional kind of way.

I have a patient* who was referred by a health professional a few months ago for frequent intense nausea and occasional vomiting.  They couldn't figure out any treatment other than pretty heavy sedatives (in my opinion), and thought psychological factors could be an issue.

I discovered in my interviews that she had a family history of migraine, so I wondered if this might be some kind of atypical migraine.  Upon discussion with the physician, we couldn't find anything that exactly matched the patient's symptom profile.  However, the physician did take my recommendation and he began prescribing migraine meds for the patient.  They work pretty well when she takes them, so that part is good.  

And then just yesterday, when I was researching some narcolepsy issues for another patient, somehow I came across this syndrome.  That's totally it!  I'll tell you what, you are glad you don't have this.  The interesting thing is, the syndrome profile is just as I "conceptualized" it (improper English, but proper jargon).  Also, even some weird little aspects that the patient said that seemed like they wouldn't really be related, are discussed, such as weather.

So basically, it validates both my conceptualization and treatment and the patient's experience.  It doesn't change the treatment,  but it may make it easier for her to accept it, now that there's a name for it (including treatment focusing on managing anxiety, which no one likes to hear when they have physical symptoms).  Oh, and it also  means that I figured out the diagnosis of something that baffled the physicians.

It even comes with support groups and a website that shows medical trials going on all over the world that is searchable by disorder and by location (the maps tab is pretty darn cool).  I don't think they're doing any near her for this patient, but still, it's pretty cool.  Even though it is mostly corporate and probably eevyil, as far as I can tell.

*Important aspects of this case are made vague and changed to protect confidentiality.  However, the diagnosis is real.

Romance (?)

So I tried reading my first romance novel* in over 20 years.  (The last time was when I was 18 and in another country, and was desperate for something--anything!  In English.)  

I read it (what parts I did read) sitting up holding Limelet through the night so he could sleep (ear infection).  It sounded like it would be an interesting, albeit superfluffy and escapist--kind of thing to read.  International travel! Ghosts! Swords!  Semi-ruined castles!  Sex! Jewelry making!  But the "plot" reminded me of the time I was sick at home for a week and watched some daytime TV.  There was so little going on, and what was going on was so predictable, that I had to skip large sections just to get to the end of it.  The parts that weren't predictable were pretty much silly.   

And the very ending was really conservative (as I'm guessing most romance novels are) in that what started with ghosts and enchantments ended in plain ol' marriage and pregnancy.  Wonder how that sexy ghost will be doing with that kid a year later, when they have to change diapers, be barfed on, get vaccinations and lose sleep.  He'll probably want to return to his 700-year ghostly roaming.

*If you must know, it was this book.

Employed!

TheLimey's job interview(s) went very well.  He is now among the employed again, although the lucky so-and-so gets (once again) to take some time off (perhaps a week or two) before starting. And this job is actually more what he wants than the one he got laid off from.

As for me I'm trying to finagle a possible tantalizing teaching opportunity for the summer.  I sure hope I can do it, because it would open a lot of doors.