Musings from the Swamp
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Cync's LiveJournal:
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| Saturday, October 16th, 2010 | | 4:50 pm |
OVFF and Magnetic Elixir
I'm going to OVFF again this year. It's next weekend. I don't have a room reservation yet, although it looks like they have enough available. I don't have a roommate yet. But I'm going. Last year I went, and a lot of friends I hadn't seen in a long time said, "I wish I knew you were going to be here!" So I'm posting here and on FB, so there you go. Speaking of filk -- for anyone who doesn't know, Bill Maraschiello's surviving older brother Paul has given all of us Bill's music from "Magnetic Elixir". Thanks much to Paul, to Harold Stein for converting and cleaning up the old tape, and to Eli Goldberg. Pass the word. I can add some memories of Bill and maybe even pics when I get post privilege to the Filk Community -- it's here, and includes the download link: http://community.livejournal.com/filk/546458.htmlReally looking forward to seeing a lot of great people I don't get to see often enough again, and a weekend of music!! Yay!! Current Mood:  cheerful | | Thursday, February 4th, 2010 | | 12:13 am |
The Checklist Manifesto
It's possible to learn things from The Daily Show. That's one of the reasons I like to watch it. Tonight's guest was the author of a book called The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. He's a surgeon and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, Dr. Atul Gawande. He wrote a 2-minute checklist to be used by surgery teams going into surgery to reduce the chance of errors. A brief synopsis of what he said: Over 100,000 people in the U.S. die every year from complications following surgery. The first year the checklist was tested, 1,500 lives were saved as a result. Deaths were cut by 1/3 in the first 8 hospitals to adopt the checklist. 80% of surgeons who've tried using the checklist approved of it, liked it, said it reduced errors. Perhaps even more significantly though, of the 20% who hated using it, 93% of them said that if they were having surgery performed on them, they would want it used. So this quick and simple thing has already saved quite a few lives. The concept was inspired by similar checklists that have long been in use by other highly trained professionals in complicated fields such as pilots and NASA engineers, so the argument that doctors have so much training and experience that they shouldn't need a list is rather pointless. They're also human beings who can -- and by the statistics, do -- make mistakes. Yet the checklist has only been adopted by 20% of U.S. hospitals. If you, or a loved one, are going into surgery, this is something you might want to ask about. Does your doctor/hospital use the checklist yet? Two minutes per surgery. Thirty-three thousand lives per year that could be saved. Wow. How many more will die needlessly before this can be widely implemented? Current Mood:  frustrated | | Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | | 4:12 am |
Awesome book, and unbelievable sale one more day!
I finally got a copy of Faerie Blood tonight, which was written by my good friend and former housemate ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) annathepiper . All the books by her publisher are on sale right now for $1.99 or less, through Sunday, October 18th -- I'm going to do some serious shopping before the sale ends! I have always found Anna's stories fascinating, and she's gotten even better. So far, my only complaint about this engrossing urban fantasy is its format -- I really wish I could stick to my dinosaur ways a while longer and buy it in traditional hardcopy, as it hurts my eyes to read text on the computer monitor for hours on end like I've just done... I guess it's time to finally get myself a Kindle or Sony Reader, which I'd been thinking about anyway. I haven't finished it yet (need to rest the eyes) but thought some of my friends might want to take advantage of the sale, so I decided to post now instead of waiting. | | Sunday, July 26th, 2009 | | 1:18 am |
Recovery update
I am still recuperating far faster than I have any right to expect, but not fast enough to suit me. :-) I got out of the hospital the day after surgery, which is unheard of for this type of procedure, but I was doing too well to justify staying there, and I didn't want to be there, so I went home. I wasn't even doing any painkillers in the hospital the day after surgery except Motrin, which is just a little higher dose of Advil. (I did also take oxycodone after I went home, for the rest of the week, as it was strongly advised, until I tried not taking it, and realized it hadn't been helping much.) I'm supposed to walk every day, several times a day, but not overdo it, and I'm not doing too bad with that -- sometimes I don't walk as much as I should, and sometimes way too much -- Thursday I was out walking in the swamp for four hours straight, so I haven't done much since then because that was really way too much, and I've been paying for it. (It's not often I get a chance to explore my swamp with DEC biologists, though, and I just wasn't willing to skip any of that. I took the camera so I'd be able to remember what I learned from them.) The doctor said generally no driving for four weeks, but that the important thing was to be off narcotics and sufficiently pain-free to not be distracted, so I have been doing a little bit of driving, very short trips; started that a couple weeks ago actually. I was starting to feel ready to do more before the long swamp-walk, so maybe next week. I'm still on serious weight-lifting restrictions for a couple more weeks -- 8 pounds or 15, depending on which doctor I'm listening to -- I decided the most reasonable way to interpret that was no more than 8 for the first couple weeks, and occasionally up to 15 (but not too much, and carefully) after that. That's sometimes quite frustrating, because I'm used to being able to do so much more. But the purpose is to avoid internal stress during the initial healing, when permanent damage could occur without me even knowing it, so I'm being careful. I have less tolerance for sitting for long periods of time on hard chairs, although that's a different problem, not much related to the surgery. But because of it, I've been spending less time using the computer than I was before. Strangely enough, sitting on the floor isn't too bad, although it took a week before I could get down to the floor and back up again. So, for the most part, life isn't horribly different. I've been reading more, walking more, using the computer less, and not really doing much with Wii Fit except the daily weigh-in -- a couple times I did the body test (avoiding my favorite Agility Test as too dangerous), and once I spent some time playing with balance games and some light yoga. (Did rather poorly the first body test, with a Wii Fit age of 33, but the next day I was back down to a more typical 25. (Compared to a chronological age of 48. Although I don't entirely agree the criteria is fair, as it only judges based on balance and reflexes, which I'm quite good at, and not strength or endurance, which I'm not so good at, but I think should count too.)) I'm not getting as much done around the house as I'd like, but I expected that. I'm not just sitting around the house, idly doing nothing but healing. I've been listening to recordings to learn some birdcalls. And I've been starting to fix up signs for the frisbee golf course in the swamp and get it GPS mapped (I figure I might as well do something interesting with all this walking). And John and I are working with our ground-source heat pump expert and the DEC to figure out how we can get a ground-source heat pump installed that will make the DEC happy, given that we live in a protected wetland. (An interesting conundrum, since the DEC is in favor of environmentally responsible projects like this, but against anything that disturbs wetlands.) | | Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | | 10:06 pm |
| | Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | | 10:41 pm |
Surgery
I've avoided posting about this long enough now; it's time. I'm having surgery Tuesday. It's not emergency; not life-threatening; and not extremely risky (my surgeon gave me mortality odds of 0.1% or less); but it's not out-patient either, which is the only kind I've had before. I've never been in a hospital overnight, so that's a bit scary. The insurance company thinks I'm coming home Thursday unless there's a good reason not to; the doctor is planning on Friday but is willing to consider Thursday or even Wednesday if I'm doing well enough; I'm going to try really hard for As Soon As Possible. Then 4-6 weeks to recover at home; 6 months to a year for total 100% healing. For anybody who's squeamish about medical details in general or female issues in particular, or not interested, I'm using an lj-cut. ( Anybody who does want to know more, can. ) Current Mood:  anxious | | Monday, May 25th, 2009 | | 2:52 am |
Weird health stuff
I've been trying to get more exercise and be more active to get in better shape before the surgery. So my husband was outside a couple weeks ago putting up the latest trellis for the hops bines (and complaining on Facebook later that its dictionary didn't include the word "bines" LOL) and he needed a hand, so I was outdoors all afternoon stringing the trellis, and some stupid bug bit me and left this huge ultra-itchy red blotch on my lower leg. My primary care physician is closing his practice at the end of May; bad timing for me; so I figure I should get a new one ASAP because of the surgery, so I got an appointment for this past Wednesday. (Yes, these two things are related; I'm getting to it...) So the appointment is a week and a half after the trellis construction, and the huge red blotch is fading, but it's not gone -- weirder than that, it started fading from the inside out, leaving the target-looking blotch -- a ring with a spot in the middle and a clearing between. I thought it was strange, so I showed it to John, who said, "Look up 'Lyme disease' on the Net." So I did. It didn't look that much like the pictures I saw, and I didn't have any of the other symptoms... but I figured since I had an appointment anyway, it wouldn't hurt to point it out and ask. Since I hadn't had any other symptoms, and I hadn't seen any ticks biting me, Kathy said, just be aware of the symptoms and pay attention, and if I show any signs of it at all, let her know right away. OK. No worries. She called me Thursday, late afternoon. She had seen two patients Thursday with Lyme disease, at least one of whom had had three ticks on her dog, and she had been thinking of me, and thinking if there's this much Lyme around here now, maybe a course of antibiotics would be a good idea. I said, "Well, I've seen ticks -- in fact, I found a dead one on the carpet a couple weeks ago -- just not on me."So I'm taking antibiotics for Lyme disease. Just because I was trying harder to get in better shape. There's just something wrong about that somehow. Current Mood:  contemplative | | Friday, May 8th, 2009 | | 6:52 pm |
There's a BOOK!
I stopped at Borders today, and saw this book. The Mighty Queens of Freeville, by Amy Dickinson. "Freeville?" I thought. "But... I live in Freeville. (Well, sort of. I'm actually so rural, I don't even live in Freeville, pop. approx. 500, but outside it. But it's my mailing address.) "Could this be the same Freeville?" I picked it up. Yes. It's the same Freeville. Amy Dickinson, famed "Ask Amy" newspaper columnist, successor to the legendary Ann Landers, and NPR contributor, is from -- and still lives part-time in -- Freeville. As has her family, for TWO HUNDRED YEARS. So I had to buy a copy. (After all, I'm a recent immigrant, having only been here for seven years, and I'd like to learn more about my new hometown, since I intend to stay here, forever.) I almost missed the book, because there were four copies, and I decided I didn't want to carry it around the mall with me -- when I came back out a few hours later, I bought the last one. Current Mood: amused | | Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 | | 1:12 pm |
| | Friday, December 12th, 2008 | | 8:29 am |
Fun with YouTube
I have my first video of Marty Brandon up on YouTube now. I'm reasonably pleased with how it came out, although I still need to learn how to get the still image to come out the way I want it. Marty's very happy! He's started working on getting gigs for next year, and everybody's been asking him if he has any video of himself interacting with a live audience. So I picked this one to start with -- it's called "Waltzing With Bears": BTW, blank ratings kind of bother me, so if anyone watches it, please give it a rating? Please? Naturally, I'd prefer a good rating, but anything's better than nothing, IMHO. My last video, much to my surprise, has gotten almost 800 hits in the year it's been sitting there, with no promotion or anything, and few keywords -- it's not even a whole song! (And four people have rated it. But at least it has a rating! Yay!) "Waltzing With Bears" is definitely representative of how well Marty interacts with people, but not at all typical of his usual material, which is more traditional Irish folk songs, and both songs and banter tend to be much more adult than this. The next one I do, I'll have to check YouTube's posting guidelines first... Marty's performing Saturday night at a new (for him) venue in Ithaca, a brew pub that might be interested in making "Irish music" night a monthly event if it works out well enough, so that should be fun. Besides, I recall going to a brew pub in Patchogue and being surprised that they had really great food. When I complimented them, they told me that it's necessary for a brew pub to have great food, because the beer will get people to come, but great food will get people to keep coming back! So I'm hoping this place has the same attitude, especially since beer's not my thing. :-) For more fun with YouTube, I stumbled across a video of Tom Smith's, the Shoggoth one, and if you haven't seen it, go watch it now! It's also on my page under the "favorites" list. I couldn't stop laughing! Tom Smith wrote a song earlier this year for the FuMP, a children's song about shoggoths and Cylons and vampires and mummies and all sorts of classic media baddies. And he sang it at a convention. Judi Miller, who was providing ASL interpretation, hadn't heard it before. The song was hilarious before. With the signing improv, it's just unbelievable. Current Mood: accomplished | | Saturday, December 6th, 2008 | | 5:21 am |
Wii exercise
I found a different way to get a decent workout (for me, anyway) on Wii Sports a couple days ago -- I wonder if anyone else is doing this. I decided to do some Wii tennis for aerobics (helps if you press the "A" button to skip all those tedious and time-consuming replays), and in the middle of the first game, I was thinking that it would be a much better workout if it involved both hands. (I had it set up to have two copies of my Mii playing doubles against the system; one Wiimote controls them both the same.) After a few experiments, I've created a second Mii for myself, a left-handed one that's recognizably different from the back (doesn't work nearly as well if they look the same from the back!). Then I selected a two-player game, and set my standard Mii as the back player and my left-handed Mii as the front player, leaving the computer to fill in the other team. So, two-handed ambidextrous double-Mii tennis against the machine team. I also bowled a "two-player" game with both of them, which felt much more balanced to me than the usual one-handed game. (I'm sort of ambidextrous, and bowling is something I learned late enough in childhood to choose to learn it with both hands.) When setting up a game of Wii tennis, the players can choose to insert their Miis in any playing position(s) they choose by clicking "A" on that position. Unless the machine is handling the back side of the court, the screen splits -- that's why I decided to let it handle the back side. But I wonder if I could do both sides for an even better workout, and play my two Miis against themselves. Might require more dexterity than I can come up with. But maybe that would be a useful exercise too! Anyone else out there have a Mii? I have made up a few Miis of some of my long-distance friends, just to have representations of them around when a game uses random Miis from the pool available. It'd certainly be better if I could use self-portrait Miis instead of my own attempts at Mii art! | | Monday, December 1st, 2008 | | 3:03 am |
Ruby pictures
Here she is, my adorable little scaredy-dog. Only scared of people and restraint, though, for the most part -- she has her own sort of bravery sometimes. She's a very athletic little animal, fast as lightning, and all muscle. We guess her to be a Shiba Inu-Pug mix. She's about a foot tall. Very strong hunting instinct. She once killed a wild rabbit in a matter of seconds, despite having no size or weight advantage, and the rabbit had quite a head start. Clean kill, too -- no blood or mess or anything. ( These pictures were taken by her foster people before we got her. ) | | Saturday, November 1st, 2008 | | 12:32 pm |
A busy year
This has been an incredibly busy year. We had a small kitchen fire; I finally sold my parents' house in Michigan; we had a housemate from January through September; my husband had his 50th birthday party; we acquired ten more acres of swamp; we continue trying to tame our semi-feral Ruby; we signed an oil and gas lease on our land; and I've been doing some videography for a local Irish singer, Marty Brandon. ( This is fairly long... ) Current Mood: contemplative | | 12:07 pm |
Ruby breakthrough
I guess I haven't really posted about our latest canine family member, Ruby. We adopted her from the SPCA in September 2006, after losing Simba. She was rescued that spring from a house with 63 other dogs, and was just a tiny bit away from being completely feral. Terrified of people and any sort of restraint, she would fly into a mindless frenzy, the sort of panic attack where she could hurt herself or those around her without even knowing it to get free, if she thought she was trapped. We couldn't put a collar on her, and if we had to pick her up, it had to be done very carefully, and was best done very briefly. (She still doesn't wear a collar, and we don't pick her up.) At first, we couldn't even walk into a room without her running out of it. But we've made a lot of progress in the past two years, and gradually built up trust. We've also been working with an animal behavioral specialist veterinarian from Cornell, who has helped us a lot with suggestions on how to work with Ruby and with prescriptions -- Ruby's on buspirone and Prozac, which help keep her less jumpy and anxious; not at all sedated. Anyway, this afternoon, she was frightened about something. I have no idea what was bothering her, but she was obviously upset. She was shivering, with her ears and tail down. And she came to me for comfort, and laid down under my chair! And let me pet her! She stayed there for a little while and gradually relaxed; I talked to her in a soft, soothing voice to help her feel better. When she stopped shaking, she got up and went back to her usual preferred spot on the couch at the other end of the room. From a dog who used to act like I was connecting her to an electrical socket when my fingertips brushed the edges of her fur, this is such a wonderful feeling! Current Mood: happy | | Saturday, June 16th, 2007 | | 12:21 am |
| | Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 | | 10:54 pm |
Amphibian puzzle
I don't know if they're frogs, or toads, or some of each, but I saw SIX on them on the road on the way home tonight -- normally a fifteen-minute trip. I know there's one special night a year when salamanders are on the move, and lots of them get run over -- some people who care about salamanders enough even get together to help protect their crossing spots, especially for the endangered ones. Is there something like this for frogs/toads too? Maybe the weather has something to do with it -- since September, we've only gotten a third of our normal precipitation, and today it's been raining all day. [several hours later] I think I've solved it. I went out walking down my entire one-long-block street, and found four of them out on the road alive, and one dead. Online investigation indicates that they're probably Pickerel Frogs, and one site I found includes the useful comment "Activity is encouraged by heavy rain." Current Mood:  curious | | Friday, June 30th, 2006 | | 1:16 am |
| | 12:57 am |
| | Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 | | 5:11 pm |
The trip, the funeral, and our unexpectedly early return home
Thank you to everyone who responded to my last post. I passed all the messages along to John as well. Our trip went as smoothly as it could have. We left home around 11am Friday, drove three hours to Albany. Our flight to Detroit was on time, we had a comfortable layover slightly over an hour, and another on-time flight to San Antonio. I took my new Christmas-present camcorder, and used it in the Albany and Detroit airports. People who fly all the time take airports for granted, but I don't fly often, so I can appreciate all that has been done to modern airports. Most of them seem to have artwork -- paintings or photographs on walls, sculptures, display cases. Many have interesting architectural elements, or permanent built-in artwork, like the mosaics in San Antonio. And some airports have interesting and useful technology as well, although not as many as I would like. The Detroit airport is a favorite of mine for connections -- there are people-mover walkways everywhere, and a very fast train as well. The walkways are divided into two clearly marked lanes -- "stand" on the right, and "walk" on the left. It would've been nice if I'd had enough time to go down into the tunnel between buildings with my camcorder -- my memories of it from Christmas 2004 are gliding swiftly and effortlessly along on the people mover, completely surrounded by beauty, with lovely relaxing music. We got in to San Antonio 12 hours after leaving home, around 10pm CST. Ben was flying in from Long Island, and was supposed to have gotten there 45 minutes before us, but he ran into some weather in Memphis. So we picked up a rental car and waited until Ben arrived at 11:25. Saturday afternoon we went to SAS (San Antonio Shoes) which is a really great place, and one of the few places that makes shoes that actually fit me. I did some more filming there, although I only got a small fraction of the neat stuff to see. I bought three pairs of shoes, and John bought two. The main reason we went, is that John forgot to pack dress shoes. His feet have gotten a little bigger since he bought his last dress shoes, so they don't fit him very well anyway. He was quite surprised when the SAS person measured his left foot at 10-1/2 and his right at 9! Hmm. Maybe his feet haven't grown. Maybe he only tried on the right one before. Saturday night the five of us watched the first DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King extended edition -- his dad hadn't seen it yet, and his brother had only seen part of it. The funeral on Sunday was held outdoors. I hadn't packed clothes for an outdoor funeral -- I've never been to an outdoor funeral, and being from Michigan, the thought never crossed my mind that a funeral in February might be held outdoors! My lightweight sleeveless dress would've been fine in the 60-degree temperature if it hadn't been for the wind. One of John's cousins had a wool coat in the car that she insisted on loaning me, and I was grateful. The service was performed by John's Aunt Kathleen, who is a Methodist minister, and she did a beautiful job of it, which was only marred by frequent pauses for loud aircraft passing overhead. I feel very strongly that a funeral should celebrate the life of the deceased, and she did an exceptional job of that. I wish she'd been available for my Dad's service. When I met with the Catholic priest for Dad's service, and figured out what he had in mind, I referred to it as a "generic" service. He was quite displeased by that, but it's accurate. If the service is all about God and resurrection, and not about the deceased, what's the point in even having a live minister? Aunt Kathleen included God and resurrection too, but it wasn't the entire service. Dad's priest said that if anyone wanted to actually say something about Dad during the service, they were welcome to. If it was brief. That was as far as he would go. I didn't really want to do it, but it was very important to me that it be done, and no one else would. So the night before Dad's funeral, I was busy writing something to say. I wish I'd just gotten a better priest. After the service, there was a small reception at John's Dad's house, mostly family, and a few very close friends. The reception went well. When everyone had left, we finished watching the movie. Ben left very early Monday morning, and John's brother was also gone before noon. Shortly after that, John came into the front room where I was eating breakfast (the front room is the only part of the house I can stand to spend much time, because of my severe cat allergy). He handed me a telephone directory and a cordless telephone. He said that his Dad wanted to be alone, and wanted us to leave as soon as possible, and told me to change our flight reservations. So I threw away a hundred dollars to come home three days early. When the airline person asked what date to change our reservations to, I said, "Tomorrow." I hadn't slept more than a couple hours each of the previous two nights, and I just didn't feel up to rushing through packing, dashing off to the airport, and spending 12 hours travelling, on that little sleep. I tried to ignore John's muttering while I was on the phone, "Yeah, I suppose it's too late to get something for today." Monday night John and I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the IMAX. I had wanted to see it in IMAX, but the closest IMAX showing was several hundred miles from home, so I had given up. I also wanted to see The Producers, which was showing in San Antonio but never made it less than a forty-minute drive from home, but had to give up on that. Goblet of Fire is definitely my favorite Harry Potter movie yet. I thought the huge IMAX screen would be great for it, but was surprised to find the biggest difference was audio. The sound was amazing! We were running a bit late to the airport Tuesday morning, but it turned out our flight was also running late -- it had been rescheduled from 11:53 to 12:25, because the plane was coming in late. I wouldn't have chosen a 50-minute connection time, but how much choice do you have when changing reservations last minute without an Internet connection? So it was looking doubtful that we would be able to make our 20-minute connection. Kudos to Delta for giving us a backup reservation on a later flight, and letting us know about it, when we didn't even ask for it! So we knew if it was too tight, we wouldn't have to run through the airport to catch the plane. As it turned out, our San Antonio flight left about ten minutes earlier than predicted -- I guess people were pretty fast about boarding and such -- and a tailwind made up the rest of the lost time. The 50-minute connection wasn't excessive, but we didn't have to run to make it. The biggest disappointment was spending almost two hours from Atlanta to Albany on an uncomfortably small Canadair Regional Jet, in particularly uncomfortable seats 1A and 1B. Regardless of anything else, though, it's great to be home. | | Friday, February 10th, 2006 | | 5:23 am |
Loss
My mother-in-law passed away Friday afternoon. She had not been doing well, and was in the hospital, but seemed to be improving, so this was rather sudden. Anyway, John and I are off to Texas. I've been up all night hunting down airline tickets. It's really a pain to find airline tickets at the last minute from the middle of nowhere, that don't cost a fortune and have two or more layovers. We have a friend who's willing to stay at the house and take care of the doggies, so that's a good thing. John and family (Dad and brother) seem to be taking this pretty well. Her health had been poor for forty years or so, and we were very, very close to losing her fifteen years ago, so one way to look at it is to appreciate having had her as long as they did. Also, since she's been in the hospital, they've realized that she might not get well enough to return home. Compared to the possibility of spending years in a nursing home, passing quietly in her sleep with her husband by her side holding her hand, doesn't seem quite as bad. One of these days I should post about some happy news. It's not that there isn't any, just that I'm often too busy enjoying it to post. But for now, I must sleep and pack and get ready to go. It's been less than two years since I lost my Dad, and now John and I are down to one parent between the two of us. I guess that happens when you reach this age, but I don't have to like it. We will miss her. |
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