In the Headlights

In With the New

This holiday season seemed particularly difficult.  It seemed to take a long time to get people in the spirit, myself included.  Then one day I received a wreath in the mail from my friend Rita, and it galvanized me into action.  I put up the tree and sent out packages.  You'd think by now I'd do all my Christmas shopping on the internet, but no, I persist in finding boxes (usually from Amazon purchases...), filling them with purchases and mailing them. 

Anyway, here's my tree.  I bought some LED lights this year and liked them a lot.  I didn't realize until I got them home that there were two shades of white bulbs.  Anyway, they are great energy savers, the bulbs last forever (which is why they are a lot more expensive than the average string of bulbs) and the colors are vivid.  It's the way I'm going from now on.

In my last post, I mentioned my Dad had fallen.  One of the things that inspired me to put up the tree for the first time in a couple of years was the fear that it might be his last.  I brought him and my Mom over Christmas Day for dinner and presents, and we had a great time.  It's not so easy to get him loaded into the car anymore...

A new broom sweeps clean.  Can't wait to see what Barack Obama does when he takes office in less than three weeks.  Even with the crappy economy, I find myself cautiously optimistic.  Not only do we have a new president, my company has a new CEO as of the beginning of December, and my department has a new Chair coming in the beginning of February.  All this change makes me giddy.

My friend Sandy and I are going to

My friend Sandy decided to go to DC for the inauguration.  She has a friend who lives in the area and is going to go visit him and go to the swearing in, along with millions of close friends.  I thought it was a great idea, and called my bro and sister-in-law, who live in Arlington, Virginia to see if they wanted to share the experience with me.  They said no way.  It was going to be insanely large crowds and they were going to stay home and watch the spectacle on their new TV. So I decided against going, in spite of having asked for the time off work.  Then, a couple of days ago, I had a dance lesson with my long-time instructor, Tom, and he told me he was going to throw a tent in his car and drive to DC, camp and try to go to the inauguration.  That it would be a historical event.  I told him I'd see if he could stay with my brother and sister-in-law.  I talked to them and asked if they'd try to go with Tom.  The upshot is that Tom and I are going to fly up, stay with them, and we are all going to try to get as close as we can...it may mean trying to on the hill by Arlington Cemetery and use binoculars and a telescope (not at the same time), but it would be better than being closer in a mob and not being able to see anything.

My New Year's resolutions are about the same as they have been.  Eat better, get more exercise, drink less, be a better person, etc.

Sandy and I are going to get produce from Palmetto Organics, an organic farm that allows you to order fresh produce from them on a weekly basis.  Hopefully, it will help with the "eat healthier" New Year's resolution.

I was doing pretty well on the exercise end, but after Pop fell in October, my personal trainer sessions and dance lessons sort of fell off, and when the holidays arrived, it all pretty much stopped.  I have some arthritis in my hip, and have found that when I exercise regularly and don't overdo it, my hip is much better, and I can even stop taking ibuprofen (or at least minimize my intake).  Too much or too little exercise and I have to take an anti-inflammatory.  So the exercise resolution is pretty important.

Anyway, that's the latest.  Now I'm going to have a glass of wine.

It is, after all, New Year's Eve.

If you don't like this post, blame it on Deborah Jane.

 

Out With the Old

No, I don't mean me.  Except maybe as a blogger.  When Deborah Jane emailed me December fourth and asked if I ever intended to blog again, I promised, thinking it was a chip shot, two more posts before January first.

Here it is, after 5 PM December 31, and I am just now starting.  Add the extra burden that I think these posts should be in some way meaningful, considering they are now so rare.  I just looked at my blog for the first time in a long time and realize there are a whole lot of comments I need to delete. 

This is a new template for me.  I used to post and download links and photos without thinking.  Now it looks very mysterious.

As every year, I am glad to get shut of the old one, and look optimistically forward to the new.

The last few months got crazy when my Dad fell and sustained a pelvic fracture.  Non-displaced, requiring no surgery, it nevertheless set him back quite a bit.  He spent a few days in the hospital and the rest of a month in rehab.  Home now, learning to walk again, slowly, with a walker and help from physical therapists.  I'd like to thank the nurses and therapists who come to his house and have given him a new lease on life.  We weren't sure it wasn't going to be a nursing home.  He and my Mom are talking about assisted living...We'll see how it goes.

Best book:  Who knows.  I just finished Wicked by Gregory Maguire.  A wonderful fantasy.  The musical might be the best theater I've ever seen.  The book is the story, in all its detailed glory.  In case you aren't acquainted with it, it is the story of The Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West.  True in detail to L. Frank Baum's book, it embellishes the story with the history, geography and politics and intrigue of Oz.  Easy to get lost in.  There are some differences from the musical, but when it comes to Jacksonville in April, I intend to be there, too.

I'm also currently re-reading House of God by Samuel Shem.  Another fantasy, this one about a medical residency at a major US teaching hospital.  With all the sex, it's a wonder they ever have time to take care of patients.  With some of the care, maybe it's better that way.  Still, entertaining with a lot of memorable catch phrases.

My electronic landscape changed a lot in the last month or so.  On a busy day, I heard a knock at the door, and tried to shoo away the saleslady standing there, even as I spoke on the phone with my secretary and tried to shoo the cat back inside.  She was persistent, and I wound up switching my cable TV company over to ATT U-verse.  This is a fiberoptic network ultimately sending a signal through the phone wires to the house.  I now get my home phone (unlimited free local and long-distance), my internet (with a provided full-house router) and my television (more channels, music channels, a box  that records TV shows, and is pretty much idiot-proof).  Great images.  And by combining the three, I'm saving $20 or $30 (don't rightly remember, but it's pretty significant) a month.

So with this neat setup, I started to think I should get me some HD technology to replace the 10+-year-old TV that was in the living room.  My research led me to a couple of stores on Black Friday to look at LCD sets, but I found no great deals.  I started birddogging Amazon and B&H Photo (great deals).  I wanted a Samsung LN52A750.  Specifically, I wanted 1080p resolution, 50,000:1 contrast ratio, and 120 Hz response time.  I loved the touch-of-red frame.  Ultimately, I was looking at the ads in the Sunday paper and found that Circuit City had a Sony Bravia XBR with the same specs.  The price was quite low, and they included a free Sony Blu-Ray DVD player.   It was a very good deal.  The Samsung and Sony were about the same price, so the player was free.  I had to pay tax, so it was equivalent to a very good internet deal.  I was going to wait until they informed me that they would refund the difference if I found any of the products for cheaper for 60 days.  Since that would take me through the post-Christmas sales and even through Presidents' day, how could I go wrong.  Also, while there, I picked up a 32" Bravia XBR for the bedroom.  The pictures are phenomenal.  I'm still trying to figure out all the programming, though, since they were just installed 4 days ago.  Meanwhile, I am recording "The Daily Show", "Scrubs" and "House."  I watched one movie a couple of nights ago:  "Love, Actually," which my friend Jill loaned me.  The movie was pretty good.  The picture was phenomenal.  And it wasn't even Blu-Ray.  I have "The Dark Knight" ordered in my Netflix queue in Blu-Ray.  Can't wait.  Saw it at the theater, but can't wait to see what it looks like in my living room.

Anyway, I like the look of the Samsung frame better, but the Sony black lacquered look is nice as well.  The Sony screen is more matte than the Samsung.  The Sony speaker is across the bottom of the TV and has great sound.  The Samsung speaker is invisible, pointing down under the frame.  The sales guy at Circuit City said the sound is better with the Sony.  Don't know if he's right, I didn't study it, but I have no regrets about my choice.

The final tech treat:  When we set up the ATT U-verse, my Logitech Click optical mouse stopped working.  I thought the software had gotten corrupted.  Reloaded that after changing the batteries.  The control panel said it was working fine...except that it wasn't working at all.  Finally, I threw my hands up in the air and called tech support.  Not only did the tech talk me through the step-by-step troubleshooting, when we couldn't get it to work, she said "maybe it's under warranty."  "No way," said I, "I've had it forever."  She said she'd check, and when she came back, she said there was a 5-year warranty, and that it was covered.  They sent me a new mouse in a couple of weeks, simplest installation ever, NO charge whatsoever.  So if you want mouse or keyboard technology, go with Logitech.  I was extremely pleased (and, therefore, extremely surprised!)

Happy Holidays, y'all!

Finally, your moment of Zen:

Gwen Roland

I recently did a post about the fact that Atchafalaya Houseboat, Gwen Roland's book was going to be the subject of a documentary on PBS, August 31 at 10:30 PM.

I said I couldn't find my 2006 post about the book, but just now found it. Thanks, Google.

I think one of the reasons for my fascination with Roland and the book is that it took us to a primeval Eden, one attainable, perhaps even today, with enough hard work. I guess I lived vicariously with Gwen and Calvin.  I found it interesting that her retrospectoscope, at least according to the documentary, doesn't view it quite that way.

A couple of days ago, I received, to my delight, an email from Gwen herself.  It was prompted by the fact that she thinks we look like we might be kin, maybe with a not-too-remote branching of the family tree.  Who knows?  It pleases me to think it might be so.

In the meantime, Gwen is a writer on a number of topics.  She pens a monthly piece on sustainable agriculture for Mother Earth News, and continues to live a responsible, seemingly idyllic existence.  In this case, the grass probably really IS greener.

Thanks for the email, Cousin Gwen.  I'll be happy to attend the next family reunion.

[Image via Mother Earth News]

Atchafalaya Houseboat, 30 Years Later

I read and blogged about a book that was given to me by my friend Cate, who told me that it reminded her of me (for no reason that I can fathom):  Atchafalaya Houseboat:  My years in the Louisiana Swamp.  That was June 12, 2006.  I can find it by searching the archives, but can't seem to link to it.

It was the story of Gwen Roland and Calvin Voisin, who, in the 1970's escaped "civilization" by building a houseboat on which they lived in the Louisiana Bayou for nearly ten years.  They lived pretty much as our pioneer ancestors would have, catching and growing their food, trading for other goods. 

One of the people they met then was C.C. Lockwood a wonderful nature photographer.  He photographed Gwen and Calvin  over those years.  One of them was featured in National Geographic's 100 Best Pictures.

Now, thirty years later, Louisiana Public Broadcasting has produced a documentary about those days, as well as a retrospective view of the tim, hosted and narrated by Gwen Roland, the program features many of Lockwood's gorgeous photos of the swamp, evoking its beauty and making me yearn for such a life, surrounded by nature, sleeping when it's dark, working hard, eating well, sharing your life with animals and a afew Bayou denizens. 

The show airs August 31 at 10:30 PM Eastern Time.  I had the privilege to preview it.  The sheer visual beauty of the setting and the photos is enough to make it must-see.  Roland's commentary and her meeting with Voisin and Lockwood after thirty years is also compelling, as is her retrospective view of her life back then and the twists and turns it has taken since.   Looking back is somewhat difficult for her, perhaps not the idyllic hindsight I'd have expected, but the reality we all experience looking closely at our pasts.

[Purchase CC Lockwood's book at buy.com]

[Image of Gwen Roland today from Fresh Fiction]

Good Bye, Dandelion

Today, I had my beautiful, sweet cat, Dandelion put to sleep.  He was young, only about twelve.  Red found him on the back porch when he was a kitten;  I don't think he weighed an ounce back then (almost 18 lbs. at the vet today).  He was a ball of grey fluff, and looked like a dandelion week, hence the name, though he became "Dandy" or "Dan"  (officially, Dan de Lion).

He was a Mama's boy and a sweetie pie, a very loving cat.

He stopped eating about three days ago, and yesterday I found a lump on his chest.  I took him to the emergency vet today, because the regular vet was closed due to Tropical Storm Faye.  They did some tests while I went home, and they called me a little later to tell me he had had a respiratory arrest.  The chest x-ray they had done showed an enlarged heart and some fluid in his lungs.  He had congestive heart failure.  He wasn't breathing hard when I brought him in, so I guess the stress of being put in the cat carrier (he was always afraid of the carrier and going to the vet), plus several attempted IV sticks tipped him over the edge.

I returned to the vet and petted him, looking into his big green eyes as he was euthanized.

Goodbye, Dandy.  I miss you so much.

Five Anything But Easy Pieces

Recently, my Netflix queue spit up "Five Easy Pieces" into my mailbox.  I saw that movie when it came out, and it has always stuck in my mind as a landmark of sorts.

Early Jack Nicholson.  I saw the movie with a friend who said "what an asshole" about five or six times in the course of the movie.  Speaking of Bobby Dupea, Nicholson's character, not the actor himself, though he was so good as a cad you had to wonder if he was playing himself.

Bobby is the disenchanted scion of a rich musical family who left it all behind to become an oil wildcatter with a country waitress girlfriend with whom, it is obvious, he is not in love.

When he finds his father had a stroke and is not long for the world, he allows himself to be persuaded by his sister to return home for a week or so.  This leads to a bit of a road trip, followed by some family drama.

There are a couple of famous scenes, including one in a truck stop (a couple at truck stops, actually) in which Bobby orders toast and is told by the waitress that his meal comes with a biscuit, and there are no substitutions.  And the last scene of the movie, which I won't share with you.  You'll have to rent the movie to see it.

It was well worth it.

BTW, the "Five Easy Pieces"  refers to simple musical compositions.  Though in this movie it could have had other connotations.

Okay, I tried to embed the YouTube clip.  If it doesn't show up, here's the link for the diner scene.

Reading More, These Days

I recently discovered how easy it is to decide to do a post every few days instead of one or two each day.  Now I understand why some authors sit at their computers at the same time every day and dedicate a certain number of hours to writing.  Otherwise it all unravels so quickly.

Thanks to the folks who noticed I haven't been posting.  I'll blame some of it on my work schedule, and some on an ennui that has descended on me.  Hoping for changes soon.

Today, I'd like to share with you a trilogy I just finished.  Thanks, Bro for the birthday present.  I'd never heard of Kim Stanley Robinson, who is apparently quite prolific.  The "Science in the Capitol" trilogy consists of Forty Days of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting.

The books feature an intelligent take on science and spitirualism, with Tibetan Buddhists figuring side by side with National Science Foundation eggheads.  The character dynamics are charming and intelligent, the political commentary (though it's a novel, many real people are cited, and some of the characters pretty transparently represent real people.)

The books are intelligent without being condescending.  Love and betrayal, espionage and spiritual enlightenment are woven throughout.  There are many LOL moments, and many more thoughtful bits.

The background is the global warming crisis, and weather catastrophes figure prominently. These books, however, propose to actually DO something about the weather.  It goes through national and global political hoops to suggest some scientific suggestions (Would they work?  Who knows?  It's a novel.) to try to combat and reverse rising carbon dioxide levels. 

I marked many passages, here's one, near the end of the final novel.  The Panchen Lama (the one chosen by the Chinese, who is in exile) is speaking with Frank and Charlie, two of the books' main characters about reincarnation.  Frank has just said that the Dalai Lama claims to be just an ordinary man.

"I am even more ordinary, as you know."

"So why should you continue to believe you are the reincarnation of some previous person?"

"We are all such.  You know---one's parents."

"Yes, but you're talking about something else.  Some wandering spirit, moving from body to body."

"We all have those too."

"But identifiable, from life to life?"

Drepung (Panchen Lama) paused, then said, "I myself think that this is a heuristic device only."

Charlie laughed.  "A teaching device?  A metaphor?"

"That's what I think."...

"And what does that teach us?" Frank asked.

"Well, that you really do go through different incarnations, in effect.  That in any life, your body changes, and where you live changes--the people in your life, your work, your habits.  All that changes, so much that in effect you pass through several incarnations in any one biological span.  And what I think is, if you consider it that way, it helps you not to have too much attachment.  You go from life to life.  Each day is a new thing."

All this spiritualism and a good recipe for a marinade too, from President Phil Chase's blog:

"What I do is mix soy sauce and a dry white wine about half and half, and then add a big dash or tarragon vinegar, and some heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar, and a tablespoon of olive oil, about a teaspoon each of ginger and mustard powder, and a dash of garlic powder.  Mix that up and the longer you marinate things in it the better but just dipping in it will do too.  Best on veggies, chicken and flank steak.  Sear the meat and then cook at a lower heat."

I loved these books.  Hope you will too.

The Mane Event

I have a lot of odds and ends of shampoo and conditioner lying around.  When my Mom buys something to try and doesn't like it, she gives it to me.  Then there are literally dozens of little hotel bottles I've accumulated over time.  I like to switch them around.  I think it works better that way.

I used to like Vidal Sassoon conditioner, and Mom gave me an old bottle a year or so ago, which I just finished.  Next time I went to the store, I looked for more, but couldn't find any.  Don't know if they no longer market in grocery stores, but it wasn't there.

However, I spotted something else I had heard of:  "Mane and Tail" conditioner.  I'd read about this stuff.  It was originally used for grooming horses, then word got around that it did a great job on human hair as well.  So I bought a bottle.  Something like $3.59 for a quart.  I've used it a couple of times, and it does a great job of conditioning my hair, leaving it shiny and tangle free.

It's a real animal product.  The horse pictures on their website are amazing.  I'd kill for hair like that... 

Next stop:  Mane and Tail shampoo.

The conditioner is a great product.

Broadway Ballroom

Last weekend, a friend and I went to see "Simply Ballroom" at the Times Union Center in Jacksonville.

It was fun.  Hosted by a couple of American Idol finalists, Anthony Federov and Vonzell Solomon (season 4)who did introductions and sang, it featured ten couples dressed in ballroom show gowns doing numbers which showcased typical dances, like the quick step, waltz and swing, with a bit of introduction about the dances themselves. 

The dancers were good, though we could tell they weren't all ballroom dancers.  Some appeared to be Broadway dancers doing ballroom numbers. Equally adept doing amazing things on stage. Tom would comment "You can tell she isn't ballroom trained.  She keeps bending her knee doing the cha-cha," and the like.

Some didn't seem very into it, though one part, when they competed against each other seemed to bring out the best in the dancers.

Debbie Reynolds was the featured star.  She held the stage a few times, telling stories about her days in Hollywood, and jokes about her multiple husbands.  She talked about her first role in "Singing in the Rain" with Gene Kelly, and pretending to Mr. Kelly when she met him that she could dance.  She even sang one of her hits, "Tammy."

The show was a lot of fun.  I take ballroom lessons whenever I can fit them into my schedule.  Good exercise and incredible fun, so I can at least appreciate some of the moves the dancers were making. 

You are What You Eat

I just finished a bowl of cereal.  Why is that worth blogging?  Because it's the first time I've had organic milk.  I guess I didn't really differentiate organic milk from raw milk in my head before, but organic is pasteurized, or, in this case, ultra-pasteurized.  It is milk produced from cows fed without added antibiotics, pesticides or added growth-hormone (I assume the "added" is there because cows already have their share of growth hormone, as do we.)  They utilize milk from small farms, and the animals are treated better (how could they be treated worse?).

Anyway, I was talking with Kim at work recently, and, apropos of I don't remember what, she mentioned that she bought organic milk.  Her reason was that being a single lady, she often threw out milk, and hated waste.  The organic tastes creamier, and lasts much longer, she said.  She feels it's economic to buy this milk, since she won't throw any out.

Next time I was at the store, I checked the carton.  The sell buy date is May 7, over five weeks away.  No surprise.  I've bought ultra-pasteurized heavy cream before, and it is edible for months.  So I know I'll be able to drink  this whole half-gallon of milk.  It's pricey, though.  I don't think I'll really save money.

So why will I continue to buy organic milk, and probably organically raised meat as well?

I've commented recently on the large number of personal friends I have who have battled breast cancer.  I work in a hospital, so I see a lot of it anyway, but to factor that out, just focusing on my personal friends, well, it's been a bad year for mastectomies.

Breast cancer is on the increase.  There are a lot of possible reasons, including that we live longer, and things that come as we age are manifesting more just because more of us reach that age.  I think there's more to it than that, though.  I think it has a lot to do with hormones.  We are in the generation that first used birth control pills, initially marketed at much higher doses than currently.  We just finished an era when all women were put on hormones post-menopausally, before finding that the gospel that it helped against heart disease, was false, and that it probably increased the risk of breast cancer.

Finally, we are in the era of food treated with growth hormones.  These have a huge effect on the human body, and may well be an important factor in a number of cancers (breast, colon, prostate).  Plus, have you wondered how it is that teenagers are so big, that guys sport significant facial hair in junior high (a far cry from my school days...long ago, but not in human cycles), that girls still playing with dolls may wear a "B"-cup bra? Think that growth hormone they're eating might have something to do with it?  Yeah.  I sure do.

That's why I'm goig organic.

*    *    *    *    *

  Sandy sent me a DVD of a safari she wants to go on this fall.  I tried to watch it on my DVD player and couldn't get it to work.  Worked fine on my computer, though.  It looks great.  Minor things that give me pause are that you see the wildlife from open vehicle, canoe or foot.  The shots of the open vehicle are really open, passing by lions and elephants and leopards and hippos and boar.  If one of those animals decides to go wild, there's not much between you and them.

Speaking of wild animals, the last few days of the safari are at Victoria Falls, in Zimbabwe.  There are lots of game parks and wildlife there.  However, the wild card may actually be President Robert Mugabe.  Hope he doesn't decide to make one of his murderous points while we're there. 

The trip sounds great.  I still may try to go, depending on how things look at work in the next few weeks.

*   *   *   *   *

Hoping to have a new boss soon.  Cross your fingers.  We've been interviewing.  There's one candidate I really hope takes the position.  Naturally she is being pretty blase.  We'll see.

And, in two weeks, we move to a new hospital.  We sold the one we were in, bought a new one, and it is about completed.  It is newly equipped, state-of-the-art everything, beautiful and spacious.  As we approach the date, the stress mounts.  It will be worth it when it's done, though.  This might be an unprecedented type of move, as we are relocating all the patients in one day.

[Image from Reliable Answers]