Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

World AIDS Day

The red ribbon and banner on the World Bank headquarters in Washington.

The first World AIDS Day was held in 1988. At the time I was working for a contractor that conducted clinical drug trials; the one I worked on most was a pediatric study. There were a lot of trials going then; AZT was the only drug approved and the research pace was finally picking up.

We had a few hundred kids enrolled, many of them "boarder babies" living in hospitals because they had been orphaned or abandoned. In May of '88, there had been 981 pediatric AIDS cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control. That doesn't sound like that many, but the numbers were going up steadily as children were born to HIV-positive mothers. Another study my company worked on was a maternal AZT trial; when that study concluded in 1994 they'd found that AZT therapy cut maternal transmision from 25% to 8%. I don't keep up with the research as much now, but I believe the protocols used today are even more effective.

I remember sitting in an NIH auditorium back then and hearing a speaker say that someday HIV would be a managable disease, like asthma or diabetes, not an automatic death sentence. For some people this has indeed come to be. Some of them are friends of mine. Some of them, I hope, are the children from the study I worked on fifteen years ago.

A press release I saw last week from the United Nations and the World Health Organization reminded me not to be so complacent about how far we've come in fifteen years, though. Instead I'm reminded by how much worse it has gotten. There are five million new HIV infections in the world this year, and the three million deaths from AIDS is the highest annual death toll. The number of people living with HIV/AIDS is somewhere between 34 and 46 million.

It is a crisis in Africa. Eastern Europe and central Asia have epidemics on the horizon. And we aren't out of the woods in the U.S.: the CDC estimate that a quarter of the 850,000 to 950,000 HIV-positive Americans are unaware of their infections and therefore aren't being treated. And if they don't know they are infected, they aren't necessarily taking steps to prevent transmitting the virus to more people either.

The 1988 numbers seem like drops in the ocean when I look at the number forty six million. It is frighteningly overwhelming...in 1988 I felt like my small contribution made a difference. Does it make a difference now, my bit of volunteer work at a local AIDS service organization, the occasional check? Such little drops, such a big, big ocean.

Yes.

World AIDS Day, December 1, is a backdrop for the big numbers and the huge challenges and actions on a global scale.

But it is also about little drops, things I can do, things anyone can do: Get a blood test. Teach a kid. Take part in a fundraiser. Volunteer.

Think about it.

Flatly fine

I get tons of junk email. Back before I knew better I had my e-mail address on a web page, some 'bot found it, and now it's just too late to escape. A couple times a day I wade through the spam, wearing out the delete key, trying not to miss the occasional legitmate message from my aunt about Christmas dinner or a joke from a friend that is actually funny enough to read.

Anyway, it's interesting the way the junk comes in waves. A few months ago it was all about Christian dating services. The latest wave seems to be for breast enhancement herbal supplements.

Susie recently explained to Victor the idea behind the "pencil test." I have never passed a test like I pass the pencil test. If the pencil test were the SATs, I'd have had a free ride to Harvard. There was a time when that bothered me, but no longer.

I'm an A-cup, barely. I could probably buy my foundation garments in the girls' section of Target (and come to think of it, that might be a cheap way of doing things.) When I was heavier I actually made it into a B-cup, and that's what I was shortly before my thirtieth birthday.

I was getting dressed for work one morning and noticed that my bra did not fit right. Weird, I thought, adjusting the straps. Still didn't fit. What the hell? I went to the mirror. Since I don't generally check myself out, it dawned pretty slowly...my left breast was bigger. (Bigger than it had been, that is, as well as bigger than the right one.)

Thinking this was probably not the growth spurt I'd been waiting for since I was 13, I looked around the medicine cabinet until I found the "How to do your breast self-exam" pamphlet. I never bothered with the self-exam. My breasts were small but dense, nothing but fibrous tissue. I figured I'd never feel a lump.

Well, this time I did. The lump itself felt about the size of a quarter, and the rest of the size change was just swelling. I went to my doctor. "I don't mind the increase, but I'd prefer to be symmetrical," I told her. She felt around, and called in another doctor to feel around, and finally said that the lump didn't seem consistant with a tumor, but they wanted a mammogram to be sure.

The first mammogram appointment I could get was the day of the office Christmas party, but I wanted an answer sooner rather than later. I made the appointment. The receptionist at the radiologist got rather snippy when I gave her my birthdate: "We don't do mammograms on women under forthy unless there's a problem."

No shit? Are women under 40 clammoring to have mammograms? "I have a lump," I said. And suddenly I was scared. There is a problem.

I was just getting over a rather rough patch...the end of my marriage, a layoff, a few funerals too many. Had it happened a year earlier, I probably wouldn't have even cared, but by the time my lump appeared things were looking brighter and I was actually pleased to be in the land of the living. I didn't particularly want that in jeopardy.

I went to the radiologist. First they put me in a closet...really, it was about half the size of a discount store fitting room stall, with a louvered closet door...and I changed from my shirt into a paper vest. After sitting in the closet reading an out-of-date Time magainze from cover to cover (twice) I got called in for the mammogram.

The plate your breast gets smashed on has a little outline...place boob here. The thing was, even in my swollen state, I was too small to hit the outline. On the right side, which they wanted for comparrision, there was not nearly enough breast to smash. The technician was extremely irked, and kept barking at me to stand closer to the machine. Normally I don't let people push me around, but at that point I was trying so hard not to cry that I couldn't give her the piece of my mind she so richly deserved.

She eventually got a few shots, but told me in a thoroughly disgusted voice that the films would probably be worthless, so I needed to keep my vest on and wait in the closet until the radiologist saw them and decided what to do. A few readings of Time later, the radiologist knocked on the closet door and told me that the films were inconclusive, so they were going to do an ultrasound. I didn't like the doctor either...he had slicked-back hair and suspenders, like Michael Douglas in Wall Street. He also had that "thanks for being so flat-chested that we need to waste more time on you" tone.

I had a different technician for the ultrasound. She was slightly less bitchy...she was at least sympathetic when I started uncontrolable shivering when she covered my chest with the blue gel. In August that might have been soothing, but it was December, and I'm always cold anyway. But when she frowned at the monitor and mumbled "ah, there it is," and I said "What? What do you see?" she would only answer "The radiologist will discuss the findings."

After I finally got dressed and was allowed into an office, rather than the closet, the findings were still inconclusive. The lump didn't look like a typical tumor. They told me to come back in six weeks to see if anything changed.

I guess it was a good sign that they weren't saying "Oh my God, operate now!" but the "wait six weeks" wasn't terribly reassuring. And I did not have my wits about me. A couple years ago a friend of mine had a lump, but she also had a close friend who is a radiologist. He told her to screw "watchful waiting" and get the biopsy right away.

Luckily it didn't take six weeks. By Christmas the swelling had gone down, and in another week or so I could no longer feel the lump. When I did go back for my recheck I had a different doctor, and he did the ultrasound himself. He was much better than anyone I'd seen on the first visit, angling the monitor so I could see it and explaining to me that based on what he could still see, the lump appeared to be a fluid-filled cyst. He told me it was probably hormonal and that it might come back.

It hasn't, at least not to the point where I notice a size difference. The next time my bra didn't fit it was because I'd lost about twenty pounds and dropped back to the training bra size range.

So I do laugh when I get the junk mail that says "Don't you want firmer, bigger breasts?" Been there, done that, I think, and no, I don't particularly care to do it again. Delete.

No leftovers

Well, there is still half a pie. The verdict was that the crust was good (kinda like an oatmeal cookie), but the filling was a bit blander than the usual recipe. That was my verdict, anyway; my mom thought the increased taste of the crust just made the pumpkin seem less powerful, my dad liked the whole thing. Then again, my dad's been on a low-carb diet (not Atkins silliness, but something his doctor has recommended because of high triglycerides and his family history of diabetes) and he's forgotten what sweet things taste like.

The pie is probably my least-favorite part of Thankgiving anyway. Turkey sandwiches are my favorite part. A dinner roll, a bit of turkey, creamed onion, broccoli, kielbasa, sauerkraut, and cranberry chutney...the rest of the family looks on in horror. I'm in heaven.

My mom tried to foil me this year with crescent rolls, which are much harder to use for a sandwich. I prevailed. I unrolled the roll. I made a wrap. Trendy and effective.

Anyway. I've pretty much wasted today, which I had off from work, so I need to get moving on Christmas plans if I'm going to be ready for that in less than four weeks. I realized last night that I can mark the transition from childhood to adulthood by the year my attitude went from "Yay! It's almost Christmas!" to "Oh sh[oo]t. It's almost Christmas!"

I will be relying heavily on Amazon, and I probably owe the UPS guy the best present of all.

The Pie

I know you are all wondering...what about the healthy crunchy pumpkin pie?

Dinner's not 'til 5, though. I'll report back.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Eddie Gallaher

Eddie Gallaher passed away today.

He was a Washington radio fixture since his start at WTOP in 1947. I listened to him on WASH when I was growing up. Every morning at about 7:25 he did the "birthdays and horoscope," where he read off the famous people born on that day, then said happy birthday to his listeners. He used to announce my name, which was quite a thrill when I was a kid. He used to announce my mom's birthday when she was little, a fact that amazed me then...because when I was five, my mother's childhood seemed like the stone age.

Another thing I loved about Eddie's show was his restaurant ads. He didn't just read ad copy, he'd start describing the dinner he'd had the night before at Alfio's la Trattoria or O'Donnell's, and next thing you knew you'd be drooling.

I actually followed him over to WWDC. I was probably the youngest "Music of Your Life" club member, but if he hadn't changed stations I might not have gained the appreciation I have now for Big Band and Swing.

The best part of his show wasn't the music, though. It was his rich voice and his sign-off, which never failed to make me smile:

Here's hoping you have a good day all day long. It's nice to know so many nice people.

Thank you, sir. It was nice to know you, too.

Happy dance

We are closing at noon today! We are closing at noon today!

I'm going to go home and try that healthy Crunchy Pumpkin Pie recipe. That will give me plenty of time to make another pumpkin pie if I screw this new one up.

Fire it up

I was chatting with my sister about Thanksgiving, and she told me, with some dread in her voice, that her brother-in-law is intending to fry a turkey this year.

I understand the dread. Her BIL's idea of cooking is making a peanut butter sandwich, and he usually makes a mess doing that. He's probably going to burn the house down. (Coincidentally enough, I just saw a tv news story about people doing just that, complete with dramatic film footage of charred rubble that was a deck.)

I first heard of frying turkey a few (ok, I just counted, it's been 12) years ago when I was living in the Deep South. My ex and I had gone to Dillards to buy a huge pot for making beer, and the clerk said "Y'all fixin' to fry a turkey?"

We exchanged confused glances...is there anything Southerns won't fry?

Then we smiled what we hoped were polite smiles and tried to pay for our stockpot and get out of there. Before we could, though, the helpful clerk made us a copy of her own deep-fried turkey recipe. She swore we'd love it.

Gotta admit I never tried it. Something about trying to lower a turkey into a vat of boiling oil using a wire coat hanger didn't appeal to my sense of safety, and that was before I became a safety professional. For that matter, deep-frying one of the healthier meats seemed a little wrong too, and that was before I was health conscious.

When I moved home I filed fried turkey away (along with boiled peanuts, mullet, and swamp cabbage) as foods I never expected to see again. But then like NASCAR the turkey frying phenomenon went national. (Apparently Martha Stewart is to blame...for the turkey, that is, not NASCAR.)

Now Target is selling turkey frying kits and the Underwriters Laboratories is considering them so dangerous they refused to certify a single one.

And I know of at least one guy who can't boil water that's going to be trying his hand at turkey frying, so if you're in the Baltimore area on Thursday you might want to look out for the fire trucks.

Another rant

There are 70 people in this building. There are two microwaves.

What the hell kind of frozen meal needs to be cooked for 12 minutes, and why the hell do people have to bring it for lunch?

Coolest game on Earth

This would have been worth sitting outside in a sub-zero wind chill.

Montreal won the Heritage Classic (that sounds so much better than "old-timers' game") and Edmonton won the game that counted, but I think the coolest thing would've been seeing the players shoveling the snow off the ice, just like they did as kids getting ready for a pond hockey game.

The business side of things have really been clouding my enjoyment this year. (Well, that and the Caps' power play. Or their play in general.) But seeing guys play for the joy of it, seeing guys I saw play when I was a kid and didn't realize it was a business, that can part the clouds for awhile.

The game wasn't on tv here in the US, so I'm being a bit hypothetical. I'm assuming that when I do catch the rebroadcast of ESPN Classic I will still feel this way...

Walk in the park

Today was the Help the Homeless Walkathon on the Mall. It's a fundraiser for a variety of organizations in the area that provide services the the homeless as part of their mission...shelters, food banks, job training, foster care.

I took some pictures; clicking on the thumbnails will open a larger popup image. As you can see it is a beautiful day here in DC. I particularly like the shots of the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument...Victor calls these types of pictures "tourist shots," but when you live here you can lose track of why people actually visit as tourists.

Whoops

Sorry, family...I blew my Christmas budget on art. For myself.

But you can come over and look at it any time you want...

I bought a painting today, a watercolor. I've known the artist for several years, from when I starting buying his prints at shows. He is the kind of painter I wanted to be. His washes are delicate, his detail precise...even if I had his talent I'd never have the patience to do work like that.

I have three of his originals now. The prints are lovely, but even with watercolor there is texture and depth that you lose in a print.

The painting I bought today is a landscape, mountain in the background, stone wall in the foreground, blooming cherry trees in the middle. The blooms are bright white, the paint scraped away with a razor. The meadow is a wash of a hundred shades of green, like you see in spring. And I love the stone fence...it reminds me of the Frost poem: Something there is that doesn't love a wall.

Talking about a painting without showing it is pretty useless, isn't it? I'm afraid a digital image won't begin to do it justice, even if I scanned it at the highest resolution technically possible.

I feel a little guilty every time I buy a painting. Yes, it is an original, but probably not of the type that can be considered an investment. It's not like I'm ignoring the mortgage, but I wonder if this art money oughta be in a mutual fund or something, if I'm going to need it for medicine when I'm old.

But I fell hard for the cherry trees. And I'll be old and have to worry about it soon enough, for now at least I have my trees. To quote Housman:

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

For all your holiday gift needs

Who wouldn't love something from this catalog?

It's that time of year

I have to write my annual holiday safety article for the employee newsletter. I am sure that no one but the newsletter editor reads it...all my coworkers know that I'm a humorless hysterical safety fanatic. After all, I keep bugging them about not plugging their 20-year-old open-element space heaters into the overloaded power strip next to big stacks of paper.

So it's an exercise in futility. Here goes:

The holiday time is a conflagration waiting to happen. The deadly blaze can be started by an errant candle, an overloaded extension cord full of twinkling Christmas lights, or a spark from the crackling fire escaping the fireplace into the drying out tree. Make sure you have fresh batteries in the smoke detector to keep an inferno from killing your family.

What is more delightful than seeing a child's face light up as he or she unwraps the prized toy? It's all too easy, however, to give the happy tot the gift of death. The Consumer Product Safety Commission lists hundreds of toys that have been recalled because they pose risk of choking, electrical shock, laceration, or other injury. Giving clothes instead of toys won't keep them safe, either: CPSC has a section of recalls for them, too.

It's fun to lay out a holiday spread displaying all you culinary talents, but food prepared improperly or left out of the refrigerator too long can become a buffet of bacteria waiting to inflict nausea, vomiting, cramps, and dehydration on your guests. Such food poisoning can even be fatal in Grandma; the elderly and young children are at greatest risk.

Also remember that holiday cheer can turn bloody when your drunken guests stumble back to their cars to hit the road. Over half of the people killed on the roads on Christmas and New Year’s Day are victims of an alcohol-related crash. Have nonalcoholic drinks available at parties and make sure your drinking friends have designated drivers so that you aren’t ringing in the new year with a funeral bell.

Sigh.

Jonestown

At the risk of making everyone think that I have a creepy obsession with anniversaries of mass death...

...it was 25 years ago today that 913 followers of Jim Jones committed mass suicide in Guyana.

(Here's an overview of the events from students at Rice University, and a site that includes source material and personal information from former cult members and families at San Diego State. Also, a Google search on "Jonestown" can keep you busy for hours.)

This is not a date that's burned in my memory or anything. I just happened to see a news item about a memorial service being held by survivors in California. In previous years a friend of mine has e-mailed me reminders because he swears I've called Jonestown my first news memory.

It isn't. (Watergate is.) Jonestown was the first news story that I remember actually following, though...reading the articles in the paper, buying news magazines, paying attention to the news on tv.

[I've seen more graphic photographs since then, but none disturbed me the ways these did. On the off chance that you remember the Jonestown pictures and don't want to see them again, that's what the hyperlinks in the next paragraph are.]

I can remember so vividly the covers of Time and Newsweek on a rack at the drugstore.

The initial pictures were bad, but worse were the pictures that came after the first layer of bodies were removed, the pictures of the kids in front of the tub of cyanide-laced punch.

We thought it was grape Kool Aid. I've heard since that it wasn't, just some generic drink mix...but a kids' drink. I haven't had grape drink since then, either. It makes me think of the pictures.

I'm pretty sure the reason I read those news stories was because they were, in part, about kids. Watergate and Vietnam were adults. The election was about adults. Even the fall of Saigon, which I remember seeing on tv, with people trying to hang on to the helicopters as they took off, wasn't relevant to me.

I remember a Thanksgiving Day exercise for school that year: list things for which you are thankful. I remember mine: that I didn't live in Jonestown.

Blogging, and I hab a code

The Post had an opinion piece yesterday and a chat today about blogging. Made me a little self-conscious, actually...particularly chat comments like "Realized that most of the blogs made me want to gouge my own eyes out -- unbelievably boring stuff out there."

Eh. Well. Yeah.

On the other hand, when I started this whole thing I really had two objectives...learn to use Movable Type to see if it'd work for the rat page, and to get my lazy brain writing in the active voice again. It's really just my diary, and I've kept it up longer than any written journal I've ever had.

So what the heck. Now on to my eye-gougingly boring day:

I slept til 4:30 pm, when Victor called (for the third time) and finally woke me up. I've been fighting a cold for a week, and today I gave in and let the cold win. I feel like a total slacker and wuss; my parents never called in sick. Victor never calls in sick. My boss has only been sick once in ten years.

I'm still very achy, but it's a big improvement over 12 hours ago when I tried and failed to face the day.

I need black cherry Kool Aid. I know I'm supposed to drink fluids, but everything tastes nasty right now, even water...syrupy black cherry Kool Aid is the only drink I can stand when I'm sick.

I need chicken soup. I have some, but like the Kool Aid it requires standing in the kitchen and mixing it with water or something taxing.

I need a mom. Not my mom...my mom never called in sick, and even when she was sick she'd get home from work and still make us dinners that required more than adding water. My mom would have no sympathy. I need a tv mom, preferably one from a soup commercial.

Oh, and that big Kool Aid pitcher guy could come crashing though the wall; that would help, too.

Greek to me

I love Greek food. There's a Greek carryout up the street that makes the best Chicken Souvlaki I've ever had. Victor had dinner there Wednesday night while I was at the game, so because I missed it I've been craving Greek food.

It's not necessarily authentic, but this Greek-ish salad is one of my summer staples:

Combine chopped cucumber, tomato, red onion, and olives (approximately equal amounts of the cucumber and tomato, slightly less onion and olive. Kalamata olives are best. Do make sure they are pitted.) Toss with a red wine vinaigrette (olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, and mint). Let it sit for a few hours, then sprinkle with crumbled feta cheese before serving.

That's the basic salad. If I'm eating it as a main dish I add chick peas, and maybe orzo. If I have one, I'll add chopped green or red pepper. Tonight we're having it with grilled chicken, but for lunch tomorrow I'll stuff the leftovers in a pita.

Sorry about the lack of amounts...since I wing it, I just keep making Victor taste the dressing until it is right. I'm sure he'll be glad to do the same for you.

Day at the theater

Today was the third play in our "Broadway in Baltimore" subscription. No cross-dressing hilarity today, though.

I don't follow theater, but The Exonerated was the only play in the series I'd never heard of. (The rest are musicals and comedy: Hairspray, Dame Edna, The Graduate, The Producers, Les Misérables, and Mamma Mia.)

It's hard to say I liked it. It was good, though...predominantly monolouge, it told the story of six death row inmates who were eventually found to be innocent of the crimes. The words are almost all from interviews that authors Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen did with the five men and one woman portrayed, although the stories are fleshed out (rather unsettlingly) with quotes from the court records.

The core point was made by Kerry Max Cook, who spent 22 years on death row in Texas before being cleared:
"I'm no different from you -- I mean, I wasn't a street thug, I wasn't trash, I came from a good family -- if it happened to me, man, it can happen to anyone."

This play wasn't a hard sell to me, because I am opposed to capital punishment. I'm not a big activist and it's not a subject I really relish debating...it's a deeply held belief, I state it as a fact.

Interestingly enough, through all my questioning of religion and faith, I think the belief has a spiritual basis. Certainly it's one of the few issues where I never disagreed with the Catholic Church.

Around my office lately it's come up because of the John Muhammad and Lee Malvo trials. Of anyone willing to express an opinion as to whether they should be put to death (that they are guilty is an assuption we are all making), I'm definitely in the minority saying no. A minority of one, in fact.

If Victor, or my sister, or one of my parents, or my niece, or my grandmother...etc., etc., etc...had been one of their victims, would I still feel this way? I've asked myself that. And it's an academic question, but the possibility was there...we shop in those shopping centers.

A few years ago a priest in a parish here was killed in his rectory. The DA considered requesting the death penalty but decided not to because of the views of the Church and the family. The murdered priest had strongly opposed capital punishment and had published his beliefs. The legal decision was a bit controversial, though, even here in liberal Montgomery County.

Some people thought it was ironic that the priest had essentially helped his killer escape death. I know some people in the parish; they thought it was an appropriate application of his faith.

It's easy for me to explain my position when talking about The Exonerated. Who is in favor of killing innocent people? It gets harder when the evidence against a criminal is strong, harder when it is close to home. That's when I realize this is a faith, not an opinion, and if I were going to pray, I'd pray my faith abides.

Boat drinks*

I had to dig my heavy coat out yesterday. I'm not ready for winter. It's only November and I'm already indulging myself by browsing web pages from Ocean City, dreaming about summer vacation.

My second-favorite restaurant** in OC has a new web page, complete with a picture of one of my absolute favorite meals anywhere.

And recipes, God bless 'em. They even tease that they might add the recipe for the topping for the filet, oh please oh please oh please...

Speaking of food, Ted has some very practical Kitchen Tips today. He's right about the knives...cut yourself with a good sharp knife and you barely feel it, and and they can stitch your finger back on without leaving a scar!

To switch subjects wildly without a transition...cold weather has got me planning for the holidays. I'm thinking of making Christmas cards with rat pictures, but I understand that not everybody finds rats to be so cute and cuddly. So, if you got a card like this, would it freak you out?

That was a bit random. I'm a zombie...we've had some crazy wind the last couple of days, and it has scared the dog and she's needed to sleep with me, which means I'm getting no sleep. Well, I did nod off during the fourth quarter of the Terps game last night (sheer exhaustion; it was a good game), but I was jolted awake with a dream that I was trying to diagram football plays using the rats. They weren't cooperating.

Did I mention I'm a zombie?

*In that I gotta go where it's warm.

**I explained why the Shark is only my second-favorite restaurant in Ocean City in a blog back in August. I'd been home for less than a week and I was already missing the food.

Well that wasn't so bad

Now I'm wondering if I oughta delete the whiny "Oh, I don't feel like going to the hockey game" post. They played well tonight. Olie had some really good saves (and got lucky...but I've noticed that luck and good play seem to go together somehow), Robert Lang had a hat trick, and in the first period they killed off a six minutes (ok, 5:59) penalty. (No, there's no six-minute penalty. With 1 second left in Gonchar's two minute minor, Kwiatkowski picked up four minutes for a high stick. I'm so giddy I'm not making sense...)

Anyway, good game. It's kinda crazy, this all-or-nothing play...three of the four wins have been lopsided: 6-1, 5-1, 7-1. I hope we saved a few goals for Friday.

Gettin' up for the game!

Now I'm being sarcastic.

Today's Post had an article about how much Capital's owner Ted Leonsis has lost since buying the team (approaching $100 million) and the chances of a lockout next year.

On the Cap's offical web page, Ted himself discussed the abysmal start and the economics of the situation.

Bleak. Maybe it's today's weather (bleak), but I'm not sure if I've ever felt so flat about going to a game and the team in general. I've pretty much been ignoring the CBA issues, but even without that cloud, I'm having a hard time caring.

Maybe it's because I don't "know" the players now. At the Cap Centre our seats were behind the bench and I got an idea of what personalities the guys had, which certainly added a dimension of enjoyment to the game. From where I sit now all I can see are numbers on jerseys. Maybe it's because the team is just a collection of numbered jerseys, not players, since half the team is trade fodder.

And I still maintain that keeping Cassidy is a mistake. When an entire group of players fail to "buy in" to a system, perhaps it's the system, not the players. And I don't think inexperience and youth is a good excuse either...Herb Brooks pulled a young and inexperienced group of players together and made a successful team of them.

Okay, so the team can't afford to hire a new coach. Give the job to Hanlon. He was actually talking to players on the bench, at least. (To be fair, Victor told me that Cassidy did talk to the players Monday night. My observation last week was probably a fluke.)

I dunno. I'm down in the dumps and rambling. I tell ya, though, when they lose a diehard freak like me, it's a bad time.

Your tax dollars at work

Often the phrase "your tax dollars at work" preceeds some outrageous example of government waste or overspending on some frivilous esoteric program. I don't doubt that outrageous occurances exist, but I say "your tax dollars at work" without sarcasm, maybe because I've worked on so many federal contracts, maybe because I take advantage of what I think are some pretty cool things...

Like recipes. I don't like cooking but I do like recipes, and the National, Heart, Lung & Blood Institute has a new cookbook out.

I'm particularly looking forward to trying the pumpkin pie.

And the National Cancer Institute, as part of the "5 a Day" initiative, has some soup recipes that sound good, too...like turkey soup with sweet potatoes.

(Yeah, I'm ready for Thanksgiving.)

And if you're cooking for a big crowd and you miss the creamed chip beef you had back in the service, the Navy has a searchable recipe repository online. (Dunno about the other branches, but everybody knows that Navy food is better anyway.)

See...cool stuff!

I also love the IRS web page, but that's a topic for another day.

Ships

Yesterday in Detroit the church bell rang 29 times, just like the Gordon Lightfoot songs says.

It's only because of the song that I know anything about the Edmund Fitzgerald. I have no real connection to the Great Lakes, to mariners, or to ships. But the song piqued my interest, and apparently the interests of many others as well.

I tend to assume that everyone has heard the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and if you have, you know the story (although she was headed for Detroit, not Cleveland. The load of iron ore, carried in the form of taconite pellets the size of marbles, was used in auto manufacturing.)

If not: on November 10, 1975, at about 7:30 in the evening, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. Earlier in the afternoon she'd sustained topside damage, a list, and lost her radars. Another freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, was following the Fitzgerald and providing her with their radar information as she headed for the shelter of Whitefish Bay, but after going through a squall (where winds reached 45 knots and waves 30 feet), the Anderson lost the Fitzgerald from her radar. Though the last radio contact from the Fitzgerald's captain said "We are holding our own," the ship and all 29 of her crew were gone.

In 1995 the ship's bell was recovered from the wreckage and restored; it is now part of an exhibit at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. A replica bell inscribed with the names of the crew was placed in the pilothouse as an underwater memorial.

More than 6,000 ships have been lost in the Great Lakes, and according to NOAA, November is a particularly dangerous month:

The fall storm season coincides with the economic constraints of shippers wanting to get as many runs in before winter as possible, with the need for harvested grain to make it to market, and raw materials (ore, coal) to be stockpiled for winter. As storms become more frequent and more intense during autumn, ships more often encounter dangerous conditions as the strong winds associated with fall storms create larger waves.

Or

Rant

Watching the Caps is just painful. My rant last night: if the entire team is playing this poorly, this consistantly, it's the coaching.

I'm not generally very quick to jump on a "dump whoever" bandwagon, but I'm publicly on it now...time to get rid of Bruce Cassidy. He's over his head in the NHL, which I've figured since last season, but last night I noticed that he's not even talking to the players on the bench. During the time-out at the end of the third, for example...

One problem I've been mulling over for weeks...what NHL coaches are available? I had a brainstorm early this morning...coaching experience in the minors, NHL hall-of-famer, local hero, strong defensive sense. Draft Rod Langway!

Turns out he is already working, dammit. He's coaching the (6-0) Richmond RiverDogs in the UHL.

Richmond. Hey, that's only about two hours away. I wonder if they have season tickets available...

P.S. The Panthers fired Mike Keenan this morning. Personally I don't like the guy, but he can coach...

If I'm a geek, why can't I fix the magic box?

According to the geek test, I'm geekier than Ted, who pointed me there in the first place.

I come up 27.0217%, a Total Geek. However, that score is skewed...females automatically get an extra five "yes" answers by virture of being female. Now, I'll concede that role playing games and science fiction (I was young!) contribute to my geekdom, but being a woman doesn't. I think it saves me, actually. It oughta be minus five...

But anyway, I am not a total geek. If I were, I would have been able to figure out the Magic Box curse of the week:

I get home Friday and can not get to my web pages. I assume the server is down, so I e-mail my host, which is in Texas.

Server's fine. They can get to my domain fine. Suggest I try another ISP.

I dial up on my old ISP and lo, there's my site.

Now I blame the ISP. Except when I call a friend on the same ISP, he can get to my site no problem. He suggests releasing and refreshing my IP address, and pinging and route-tracing and some other things that I only barely get, because I am only a poseur geek. No dice.

I start to take it personally that I can get to every site in the world except mine, and everyone on the Internet except me can get to my site. I get cranky. I go to bed.

Saturday morning the problem has not spontaneously resolved.

I have to turn it over to Victor, the King Geek (who is such a Pure Geek that he couldn't even be bothered to take the Geek Test because it was "too long"). He fiddles with "firmware" or something on the wireless network, and I can get to my domain again.

It's wireless. It's invisible. It's the @#$%^&* Magic Box and it has beaten me again.

Comfort Food

Some days weeks you just need mom's meatloaf.

(Mom is a very good cook, but her meatloaf recipe is pure back o' the box. And it the only meatloaf I like. I won't order meatloaf in restaurants. Don't bother recommending using salsa instead of ketcup, or sending me the recipe for spinach-basil meatloaf. I'm sure they are awesome, but I am a one meatloaf girl.)

Oh, and that's not gravy, it's A-1 Sauce.

Recommended wine: Koala Blue Shiraz.

And since I'm on such a gourmet roll tonight, here's Sunday's SPAM and eggs.

Shoes

Yes, shoes. It's right there in the blog title, right? Next week I'm blogging about ships.

One of my errands last week was to buy shoes. I have a few charity walks coming up in the next few weeks, and my running shoes (yeah, I walk in running shoes; walking shoes don't do it for me) are shot. Too many miles on 'em, I guess.

It took trying on every pair in Sports Authority, but I found some. After getting home I realized that I need to clean up the closet, my shoes are getting out of control. I feel like Imelda Marcos.

The inventory:

• New running shoes
• Old running shoes (now gardening shoes because they got pretty muddy this weekend)
• Cross-trainers (for the gym, and they have a stiff enough sole that I can bike in them)
• Bike shoes
• Light hiking boots
• Heavier hiking boots (if I had to keep only one pair of shoes, I'd go with these)
• Lined heavy-duty boots for snow
• Cowboy boots (very plain brown leather Fryes. I bought these in high school and have resoled them twice.)
• A pair of "sneakers" that look like Keds. (I was thinking that wearing my running/gym shoes for errands and so on was wearing them out too fast, and since althletic shoes are expensive, I got these cheap shoes. The funny thing is, when I was a kid, sneakers pretty much came in the Keds style for girls and the Chuck Taylor All-Star style for boys. I wanted Chucks and got Keds.)
• Chucks (lowtop, blue. A frivolous purchase, but I heard rumors that Nike was going to discontinue them when they bought Converse.)
• Sandals (the sport kind...heavy soles and wide straps)
• Sandals(the other sports kind...black rubber slides)
• Sandals (bought to go with a pair of accidentally-purchased ankle pants. Worn once. Likely destined for Goodwill.)
• Black leather short boots for work
• Brown leather short boots for work
• Black pumps (to wear with my one black dress, suitable for weddings, funerals, job interviews and court appearances.)

Clearly I need a job where athletic shoes, hiking boots, or Chuck Taylor All-Stars are acceptable footwear. Or better yet, a job I can do in my socks.

Spring and Fall

To a young child

Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

One of my rats died today while I was at work. I didn't expect it...he was getting over a respiratory infection, and I was treating a burst abscess, but neither of those should be fatal. He was an old guy, though...three years and some...I'm not sure exactly how old, because he was a lab rat from the behavioral science classes at UNC Greensboro.

I feel a little stupid being grief-stricken. I have a co-worker out of the office this week for the second death in the family in six weeks. There's a war going on. Last week a teenager was shot to death at a local high school. I'm crying because my rat died.

On the other hand, were I comforting someone other than myself I would say: loss is loss. Grief is grief. My loss and pain do not belittle anyone elses, they don't need to be compared. There is no sliding scale.

And I have read that one can...one does...mourn every loss. Death. Divorce. Loss of a job. Why not the loss of a friend, even a small, bitey friend who peed on my every chance he got? (He had character, Curly did.)

I don't have a particular faith in what comes after death. I appreciate the Buddhist idea that everything is a continuous stream...no before, no after, you just keep flowing along in different states. (That's how I understood what I read, anyway. I could have it wrong.)

Of course the notion that after death there's a big reunion with all the loved ones who've gone before has appeal, but as I said, I have trouble putting my faith in something just because I like the sound of it.

And if I understood the Catholic Church, there are no animals in Heaven because animals have no souls. That wasn't the deal-breaker for me with the Church, but it seems like a rip-off...God made all these animals, these sentient creatures, many of whom live abused lives and die brutal deaths, and they don't have any reward in the end? Sounds cruel to me.

I have a theory of my own that something happens after death...I just suspect that the something is beyond comprehension. We have no frame of reference. It is so totally different from human existance on earth that the concept doesn't exist.

It's a cop-out theory, I suppose, probably what one would expect from someone searching for faith. And when I lose someone...rodent, cainine, person...the search seems more critical. I get a bit more desperate.

It is Margaret I mourn for.

Hey, aspirin is just willow bark

There's an intriguing article in the month's Annals of Internal Medicine about the effectiveness of leech treatment for arthritis of the knee.

Yep, leeches.

Hey, if it works..."In this randomized, controlled trial, patients with osteoarthritis of the knee who were treated with leech therapy experienced clinically significant improvements in self-perceptions of pain for a limited period. Moreover, a single application of leeches improved functional ability and joint stiffness for at least 3 months."

One thing the ancients didn't quite get with leeches is that it wasn't the blood-letting, it was the saliva that provided the benefit. Leech spit contains anticoagulants hirudin and hemetin as well as other chemicals, including anesthetics.

You don't lose that much blood, only 5 to 15 mL a leech. Of course if you do try this, for heaven's sake practice safe leeching: bacterial and viral infections can be transferred from an infected person. Don't share leeches!

If you don't have a handy leech-filled creek by your house, you can always go on line.

It's natural. It's been around since 1500 BC. What more can you want in a medical treatment?

Weekend update

I really don't understand anything about electronics, microprocessing, semiconductors, programming, or anything that makes my computer work. Really, for all I know that tan thing at my feet is a Magic Box, and I should be in awe of it as if I were a serf from the Dark Ages.

Then my Magic Box stops working and I curse my cruel fate. Why, Magic Box, do you punish me so? What did I do to bring down your wrath?

I'll burn some offerings later and hope it has mercy.

Anyway, since Ted's rocket launch was scrubbed, I spent Saturday morning doing yardwork...pulling weeds and dead annuals, raking leaves, and dividing day lillies and black-eyed susans that were out of control.

I live in a townhouse. It doesn't have much of a yard. But since I hate yardwork and only do it oh, twice a year, the semi-annual cleanup took me about three hours. The worst part is that my hamstrings are so sore from it that I'm hobbling around here today like a...much much older person. Obviously I should have warmed up and stretched before I got to work. (Yeah, that's it. I'm sore because I forgot to stretch, not because I am woefully out of shape from being so slackass lazy all summer.)

The Terps were my bright spot for the weekend, although the Caps did win on Friday night. Saturday night was a different story. Victor went on at some length about their woes in a post the other night, and the Halloween win doesn't change what he said.

And the less said about the Redskins the better.

And I did have SPAM! SPAM and eggs, to be exact. But because of the Magic Box's caprice, I don't have the mouth-watering pictures.

See the tree, how big it's grown

I am listening to the local oldies radio station, which does a request show on Saturday nights.

Some guy just called in to request Honey by Bobby Goldsboro.

If Honey is not the most mawkish, dismal, over-orchestrated pop song ever, it must at least be in the top 10...what kind of freak calls to request Honey? He was home alone and depressed on a Saturday night and wanted to bring the rest of us down with him?

(Incredibly, Honey was a number one on the charts for five weeks in 1968. Well, maybe not incredibly...1968 wasn't all fun and games, come to think of it.)

Anyway, if by chance you are too young to remember this sentimental little tune, it's about a nice young couple, she wrecks the car, he buys her a puppy for Christmas...then she dies.

It is a song for people who lack the attention span to read Love Story.

I hate this song.

I hate this song because it is maudlin.

I hate this song because it has lame lyrics with first-grade rhymes.

I hate this song because it makes me cry.