Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Caption contest

Okay, I think I have the picture for this year's Christmas card:

But I can't think of anything clever for the inside. You guys are funny. What should this card say?

I'll even offer a prize: winner can have a genuine homemake Hungarian beigli (provided you're willing to wait 'til after December 17, henceforth known as Baking Day.) Maybe I could even throw in some chrusciki, but I don't know how well that ships...

Rat models

The Rat has a long history of research in the biochemical, neurological, nutritional, pharmacological, and physiological components of biology and pathobiology. This research has made the rat one of the best ‘functionally’ characterized mammalian model systems. ¹

And as long as I have rats I can experience models of abrupt loss, gradual loss, acute injury, chronic illness, physical impairment, and mental and behavioral changes...i.e., everything with which I struggle.

¹http://www.iscb.org/ismb2005/demos/2.pdf

Olympic History

We were talking about the Olympics at work the other day, and in the course of the conversation I was trying to remember whether the 1972 winter games were in Innsbruck or Grenoble.

In fact, they were in Sapporo...Innsbruck was 1976, Grenoble was 1968.

The people in the conversation, women my age and younger, were amazed that I knew details about Olympics that happened when I was a small child, or before I was born. I was surprised that they didn't know at least the broad historical contexts, like the black power salutes on the medal podium in Mexico City in '68.

We finally decided that the reason isn't generational, it's that I was a journalism-history geek growing up, while these future chemists eschewed social studies for extra science classes.

Anyway, in the course of trying to determine the answer to the 1972 question, I found the IOC history page. Much fun for a geek like myself, remedial education for geeks like my friends.

Blast from the past

Often I have a song stuck in my head, but sometimes something will trigger the memory of a poem. That happened to me today, a random phrase caught my ear and next thing I knew I was trying to remember all of a poem from my college poetry textbook. Trouble is, I can't find the book. Thank God for the Internet...I'll be able to sleep tonight.

There were not that many Google hits, though. (Interestingly, two hits were pages from English classes, one is a page by a dominatrix. I'm glad I didn't do the search at the office.) There should be more. So unless Peter Williams asks me to stop violating copyrights and take it down, here's the poem stuck in my head today:

When She Was Here, Li Bo, She Was Like Cold Summer Lager

Her presence was a roomful of flowers,
Her absence is an empty bed.
--Li Bo (701-762)

When she was here, Li Bo, she was like cold summer lager,
Like hot pastrami at Katz's on Houston Street,
Like a bright nickname on my downtown express,
Like very custardy honey from the old art books:
She was quadraphonic Mahler
And the perfect little gymnast.

Now she's gone, it's like flat Coke on Sunday morning,
Like melted Velveeta on white, eaten
Listening to Bobby Vinton--
Like the Philadelphia Eagles.

Putting the cart before the horse

I was talking to my mother last night, and I think we have the menu squared away for the family Christmas Eve party.

I was feeling a sense of accomplishment until I realized all of the things I need to decide on and act upon in the intervening 59 days.

Recipe roulette

Victor gave me a page number to try in one of my church cookbooks. It wasn't the "Aunt Millie's Tuna Surprise with Peanut Butter Sauce" anticipated by Ted, but the recipe, a chicken casserole, looked a touch bland.

It also looked a touch familiar...a similar recipe (with a few more flavor-enhancing ingredients, like onion and pepper) is in my first church cookbook. That one was submitted by one of my grandma's neighbors (Grandma gave me the cookbook), and I used to make it on occasion.

Since it's my game, I'm changing the rules. Instead of the version on page 99, I'm making this one: Hot Chicken (or Turkey) Casserole.

Actually, I lied. I changed the rules one more time, because I'm generally not eating meat. I'm making it with tuna fish instead. (This is one reason I'm not a vegetarian...I can kick cheeseburgers, but not tuna fish.)

Oh, and the original page 99 recipe was the one at the bottom of this page, minus the pimento.

Of course I've never seen it, I live here

As I've said a billion times, I love Washington. But sometimes I realize that I might as well not live here.

Today was the Diabetes Association walk. It was a dreary day, and we walked in a heavy mist-light drizzle, but as always I enjoyed seeing downtown. But it struck me how few of the sights I do anything but see from the street.

The American Indian Museum, for example. It was still being built when I first saw the curved sides of Kasota limestone (I passed it during a charity walk, in fact, just after they'd taken down the construction fence) and I was struck by the architecture. But I still haven't been inside.

That's only been open a year or so. I still haven't been to the Holocaust Museum either, and that opened more than ten years ago. (I remember the seeing the tenth anniversary ceremonies on the news and thinking: It isn't new anymore?)

I had every intention of going to the Newseum, but I missed my chance when it was in Rosslyn. The new one will open in 2007. I suspect in 2014 I'll still be saying "I gotta do that sometime."

On the Metro after the walk, I heard a couple of tourists talking about the Spy Museum. I'm always overhearing tourists talking about the Spy Museum, which gives me an excuse for not going there. On the other hand, it sounds kinda cool.

When my brother lived in Chicago, every time I visited him I went to the Art Institute. It helped that he was in school there and a few times I think he snuck me in (until then, I didn't realize that the Smithsonian was unusual with its lack of admission), but even if it was just a quick walk-through to pay Nighthawks a visit, I went. I also tended to go to the Cultural Center...always saw something cool on exhibit, and the building itself is beautiful. Funny, I was never in town more than three days, but I always squeezed those trips in.

Maybe if I move away, I'll see Washington.

Gone tomorrow

Saw that one coming, I'm sure.

It's tricky to take a picture of the back of your own head.

In other dull Nic news, I am true to my word and burning some of that use-or-lose leave today. A lovely day for it: cold and rainy. I was hoping to work in the yard, a project that has become more pressing than simple aesthetics. We have a rat, and I don't mean the (pause to count) eleven we feed and house on purpose. A few weeks ago I went to get something out of the shed and noticed droppings that looked awfully familar, although Victor tried to tell me it might be the local rabbit, or squirrels, or the return of the chipmunks. This morning, though, I saw the shed's resident as he crossed the yard, and he looks a lot like Georgie, only fitter.

He is a beautiful rat, actually, and I really don't care if he lives in my yard any more than I care about the rabbit or the squirrels. My only concern is making sure that as it gets colder he doesn't find a hole in the foundation and decide to come inside. I need to check for cracks around the foundation, and I figure it won't hurt to clean up the shed and make the yard a little less attractive.

But I'm not so concerned that I'm going to go out and do yard work in a 50 degree rain. Besides, when I saw Mr. Rat, he was heading in the direction of the neighbor's house.

Hair today

We'll see about tomorrow.

Red wine & sweet potato fries

Not a recipe...tonight's dinner.

One of my staff gave his notice today, another gave me notice that as soon as she finds a new apartment, she's gone too.

I just got the notice from payroll that even carrying over my four weeks of vacation, and cashing in my one week, I have five days I need to take off by the end of the year.

I think perhaps I'll get to work on that project right now.

Anybody up for a hockey game?

As Ted says, I did suggest possibly meeting up with other bloggers for a Washington Capitals game. (He neglected to mention that I actually phrased it "Are you masochistic enough to want to try and catch a Caps game?")

If we have enough people interested, I'll look into group tickets (we can pretend to be a children's birthday party and get a visit from Slapshot). On the other hand, if we keep the group down to 300 or so, we shouldn't have any trouble getting good seats from the box office ten minutes before faceoff.

We have a ton of Friday night games coming up, but I have a class on Fridays so I'd have to miss my own party. Anybody like Sunday, November 27, 3 p.m. versus the Buffalo Sabres? Or Saturday, December 3, 7 p.m. against the Rangers?

Ok, I'm starting to warm up

You can't expect a good picture from a crappy cell phone, but this is Alex Ovechkin taking the first Caps' shot of the OT.

It was a nice win, but the thing that is warming me up is that I'm seeing actual improvement...hockey worth watching.

There's hope for the winter yet.

Chocolate zucchini bread

Once again this year I pretty much lost my squash and cucumbers to the dreaded Diabrotica undecimpuctata howardi and and Acalymma vittatum: cucumber beetles, spotten and striped. At this point I'm guessing the bugs are overwintering in my yard, so switching pots and using new soil, not to mention the pyrethrins, ain't gonna help. Next year I'm going to move the whole garden to my parents' yard.

But back to this year...yesterday afternoon I decided to clear out the jungle of unproductive vines that had pretty much taken over my backyard, especially following that 24 feet of rain or whatever it was we got last week. The dog was starting to be afraid to go out at night. As I hacked away at the growth, I found one single zucchini vine that the beetles missed, and on it, two zucchini. One was normal-sized, and we had that with dinner. The other should have been picked some time ago, and it was bigger than my forearm:

Since the centers on overgrown squash tend to be kinda seedy and stringy, I figured I'd chop this up and just use the good part. I've also been craving chocolate (stay out of my way next week), so when I found this recipe for chocolate chip zucchini bread (scroll down, it's the second recipe of four) I knew I had a solution.

It looked a little healthier than most chocolate zucchini breads, what with the apple sauce, and I threw in a cup of chopped walnut too. I also went slightly light on the sugar, a good move. The bread came out nice and chocolatey and sufficiently moist.

One for today, one for tomorrow.

The disease of the week is Alzheimer's

By that, I mean that this week's charity event is the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk. Saturday's weather is looking good for this one, thankfully.

I was surfing around the Alzheimer's sites on the web, looking to see if there were any useful tips I might be able to pass along. I was prompted by a news item that I saw earlier this week: Eating fish regularly delays dementia, which is popular-press speak for the Archives of Neurology's Fish Consumption and Cognitive Decline With Age in a Large Community Study.

(One of the things that I thought was interesting was that the study participants were specifically asked about "tuna fish sandwich, fish sticks/fish cakes/fish sandwich, [and] fresh fish as a main dish." As far as I know, tuna is only moderate in omega-3 fatty acids, and pollock, the usual fish-stick fish, is on the low side*. This is addressed in the study conclusion: "Further study is needed to determine whether fat composition is the relevant dietary constituent.")

I found another site that I thought was really good: Alzheimer's Disease Education & Referral Center from NIH's National Institue on Aging. If you have any curiosity about what's going on in the brain, check out Alzheimer's Disease: Unraveling the Mystery. I've mentioned before how difficult it is to make scientific information accessible to lay people without losing the science; here's an example where it is done well.

I am firmly in the ounce-of-prevention camp, so I looked to the news from the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia held this past summer. In a nutshell:

To prevent Alzheimer's, current research suggests you should:

-Stay socially and mentally active
-Eat a low-fat diet of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and fish, with moderate alcohol consumption
-Maintain a healthy weight and engage in regular exercise

Never heard those before, eh?

And finally, why care? If health itself doesn't grab your interest, there is always economics.

* I did remember it right. Here's a citation: http://www.med.umich.edu/umim/clinical/pyramid/fish.htm

Looking at a long short season

Brendan Witt started with the Caps as a holdout, drafted in the first round in 1993 but sitting out his first season because he thought he was worth more than the team was offering. That didn't endear him to me, and when he did start playing, I was ambivalent...he took a few too many dumb penalties for my taste, but at least he was a defensive defenseman.

He's grown on me, and I've nothing against him now. But I gotta say...if he's the best defenseman on the team...well, I guess you end up seeing 7-2 games.

I keep telling myself: It's a rebuilding year.

We suck by design, and it's not like I've never seen a bad season before. I don't know why I'm so discouraged.

I'm going to the game tonight. Right now the big excitement is that there's a new Five Guys on H Street, so I won't be eating overpriced Aramark crap for dinner.

I miss baseball.

Yes, yes, I do realize that they are still playing baseball...I guess I should be accurate and say that I miss the Nationals.

I especially miss the Nats on the radio.

I have the hockey game on now, but hockey is a game to watch live. (Although in seasons past I have managed to fall into a sort of light sleep with games on the tv or radio, and I "dream" the action. I imagine the game from the vantage point of my seat...the one at MCI, that is. When we were at the Cap Centre I had enough youthful energy to stay awake for an entire hockey game.)

But I'd rather be listening to baseball.

I miss Charlie and Dave and "Bang, zoom!" I miss "A curly W is in the books!"

I even miss the Road Sprinklers Union commercials. (And Vonage. But not the Heineken keg can...that has to be the dumbest ad campaign in the history of radio.)

I used to think that baseball was a ridiculously long season, that games virtually every night was too much.

By June, I was depressed by those Thursday afternoon games, because by the time I got to the car it was the eighth inning.

There's a little two minute audio clip montage of season highlights on the WTOP web site (scroll down, it aired on Oct. 3). Would it be pathetic to admit that I keep playing it?

More Return of the Snakeheads Looking for Revenge

The snakeheads are back!

Actually, it's looking like the snakeheads are here to stay, seeing as how they caught more than 80 of 'em in one creek on Sunday.

I'm no fisherman, but this sounds atypical:

"We would throw one in the cooler, two others would jump out and we'd have to chase them through the woods."

When is Bruce Boxleitner gonna show up?

How to pick wine

I go to the wine store and say "I'd like a robust, spicy red with a...awww, this one has a doggy on the label!"

Get cooking

The last month or two have been hectic and disorganized, and I've been relying on take out a bit too much. Now that things are settling down I need to start cooking real food again.

Perhaps I'll get some inspiration from the Carnival of Recipes. I'm so far behind in my Carnival reading I could probably use the archives to plan meals from now to Christmas.

I also mentioned the new stack of old church cookbooks. I was thinking of playing cookbook roulette to get random recipes...perhaps somebody could give me a number, and I'll grab a cookbook and make what's on that page. Anyone want to play?

The Tour of Hope

As Victor mentioned, the local ride portion of the Tour of Hope was cancelled due to the weather. I'm a bit more sanguine than he is...I doubt riders would have been hammering to the finish leaving wrecks in their wake...but it would not have made for a safe group ride.

To prove we made a go of it, though, here are the pictures. (Click the images for full size.)

Through the rain-splattered windshield: a volunteer in a yellow slicker breaks the news to another rider. For us, it was a disappointment, though I'd be lying if I didn't admit that one of my throughts was "You mean I could have slept in?" But I really felt bad for people who'd come into town just for the ride, like a lady we met from Alabama. Her crestfallen reaction was "What will I tell my donors?"

Also cancelled was the Grand Finale. I was looking forward to the health-related exhibits, the video of the national ride, and honestly, the inspiring speeches. This was where I thought I could really honor the memories of my family members. We drove past the Ellipse, which looked swampy and empty.

What was left of the event was moved into the J.W. Marriott, which is not exactly the size of the Ellipse. Victor and I went...not turning in the transponder would have cost 50 bucks, and I was still hoping for an inspirational speech...but it was a touch crowded. I remember the AIDS Rides and 3-Days where I crewed, particulary when I managed crews, and it's never fun to have to go to Plan B. Every time I saw people with credentials and radios rush by, they had my sympathy.

I was starting to feel a little claustraphobic in the crowd, though, and it from what I pieced together from overheard staff conversations and muffled announcements, Lance Armstrong wasn't going to be making an appearance, and the families of the nation team members were going to another part of the hotel. We decided to give up and leave, figuring if there were inspirational speeches, we wouldn't be able to hear them anyway.

It took awhile to make our way out of the hotel, but we finally exited onto 13th Street. And as luck would have it, the national team was just arriving as we stepped out into the rain. I raised my camera up over my head and tied to get a picture over the crowd.

So I shot a few more pictures...I thought I spotted the rider from my town...and when I brought the camera down I realized that the throng was pushing closer because one of the arriving riders was the man himself.

At that point, I traded Victor the camera for the umbrella, and he got a few better shots. Not that I'm star struck, but I was glad to see that Armstrong was out there getting wet with the rest of the team. I still feel bad for people like the woman from Alabama, and the people who intended to do the 50 mile ride...I'm sure for a lot of them, riding with Armstrong, even in a group of 1300, was a big motivator.

So today wasn't the experience for which I'd hoped, but I can't be too upset about it. For perspective, there's a Lance Armstrong quote that that I saw on a few t-shirts today: I now have only good days and great days.

Esophageal cancer

My cousin passed away this morning.

Esophageal cancer is a bitch (relative survival rate: 9-16% after five years), and it's on the rise (a specific type, adenocarcinoma, is the fastest increasing cancer in the United States).

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has a list of risk factors and information on screening.

My cousin didn't smoke. And she wasn't the type to whine about not feeling well, she was the type to pop another Tums and get back to work. By the time she went to a doctor (because she was having trouble swallowing), the cancer was fairly advanced.

Why am I posting this?

Just in case somebody clicking through here looks at those links, and sees a doctor for the GERD or the lump in his throat that hasn't gone away, and gets an early diagnosis or finds preventative treatment, and nudges those statistics up for survival rates and down for prevalence.

For the same reason I raised money for the Tour of Hope.

Because I have to do something.

Tour of Hope

A statistic I found on the Lance Armstrong Foundation page:

Of adults diagnosed with cancer today, 64% will be living five years from now.

Thirty years ago the five-year survival rate was under 50%. When I was a kid, the very word cancer was spoken in hushed tones. Today you hear it paired with fight, battle, and beat, and it isn't whispered.

Except when you also hear lost.

My cousin's husband lost last week, pancreatic cancer. A cousin on the other side of the family has esophageal cancer. She's not really able to speak any more, but over the weekend she had a day good enough to call my grandmother to say goodbye.

All the yellow wristbands in the world aren't changing these two stories, but if I have to shift with my teeth I'm riding the Tour of Hope's DC Fundraising Ride on Saturday.

Summer lovin' had me a blast

This is something. Victor was telling me about the Caps game he went to on Friday, my mom was telling me about the Ted Leonsis interview she just saw, and I was saying "It's still baseball season!"

One of the times I mentioned that I'm still oddly disinterested in hockey's return, Victor said it was because I felt jilted. I guess he hit the nail on the head. And while hockey was away (seemingly indifferent, after all those years we had together!), a cute new sport moved in. I wasn't looking, but night after night it was there, mellow voices on the radio. On the weekends it offered sunny afternoons. I didn't realize it was serious until last month, when I woke up every morning needing to find out the games-back situation for the wild card race.

Maybe it's a fling, maybe it's the real deal. I have one more date tomorrow, then I guess I'll see about taking hockey back.