I seem to have come down with a cold. (Not a surprise, considering where I work.)

I’m going home soon to curl up on the sofa with hot tea and a good book. So don’t be expecting anything profound until my head clears.

Freedom & Necessity (1997) Steven Brust and Emma Bull

Delving back into Brust section of my bookshelves, I came back with Freedom and Necessity, a book that I remember as complicated, although good. And since I remembered nothing of the plot, I figured it was a good candidate for re-reading.

I have to admit that as much as I like this novel, reading it makes me feel stupid.

Read more about Freedom & Necessity

I found out today that someone I graduated from high school with died earlier this month.

I had only 42 people in my graduating class. It was a Catholic high school and we were the next to last graduating class. Mismanagement is probably the primary reason the school closed, at least that’s how it felt at the time.

I hated high school—I’d even go so far as to say I despised it. I was painfully geeky, and brought down upon myself all the teasing that being smart and ugly brought you in high school.

My class has not held a class reunion, despite the fact that it’s been almost 17 years since graduation, and I’m not sure if I’d want to go if there was a reunion. Maybe things would be different after all this time, but the idea of seeing some of my classmates again gives me a sick to my stomach feeling—as if all the intervening years had dropped away to make me who I was then, instead of who I am now.

And today I find out that Amy has died, and it brings the realization that despite there being so few of us, there are those I graduated with that I hardly knew. I pulled out my yearbook when I got home. Found what she’d written to me. “I don’t really know you, but you seem like a nice girl…”

It doesn’t make me feel bitter, as much as it makes me feel sad and small. Sad, because I never knew her, and now never will. Small, because part of me still doesn’t want to know my former classmates. Small, because I fear that I’ll have turned out to be just as pathetic as they expected.

Oddly enough, the mortality part of it doesn’t bother me as much as I’d have thought it would. I’ve made huge changes in my life in past years—quitting smoking, reducing my drinking, increasing my exercise—all in theory to improve my health and extend my life. Except that for the most part it’s the short term benefits of those acts that have been important, not the long. Smoking seemed to exacerbate colds, exercise makes me feel better physically and mentally, and the drinking went out the door with the smoking.

In my gerontology class several semesters ago, we were supposed to tell the class how we imagined our old age. I, like several others in my class, can’t imagine my old age. Such a thing is almost surreal to me, like the idea of interstellar travel. I have no idea that tomorrow will bring, so it makes little sense to worry about things even further down the road. (Despite that I still set aside extra money into my retirement fund each paycheck. I may be blind to the future, but I’m not foolish.)

I was told that Amy left behind three children, at least one of whom will never really know their mother, and that does sadden me. Somehow, those children and their loss seem far more real to me than their mother.

And that too is sad.

In my on-going effort to learn more about CSS, I’ve redesigned the main page of my site.

I’ll probably be redesigning other pages in the site over the next several weeks, but you have to start somewhere.

…All the Other Rats are Doing It

Quiz Time!

Interesting that I’m as likely to become Republican as I am Nazi.
(more…)

There’s nothing like trying to learn something by yourself to make you feel like an absolute idiot.

And so as a reprieve from idiocy….

The Infinite Cat Project: Cats, looking at cats, looking at cats…

The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr. I have to admit that everytime I hear the name Aaron Burr, I immediately think of the milk commercial. (clip available here if you scroll down.)

And the bird flu, an on-again off-again threat since ‘97, is once again garnering attention and worry. Is the world prepared for a flu pandemic? Probably not. But then if we can ignore genocide, we can probably ignore almost anything.

First, science is fun.
Second, because of places like this.

Happy Birthday Erin!

The Phoenix Guards (1991) & Five Hundred Years After (1994) Steven Brust

Sometimes you just need to read a book that you know is going to make you happy. When those times come upon me, I frequently read Steven Brust.

The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After are two of the ‘Khaavren Romances’ centered around Khaavren the Tiassa, and written in the style of Alexandre Dumas.

(S)omeone once asked, in all seriousness, which was the best translation of Dumas’ The Three Musketeers into English. The two fastest answers she got were “Learn French, as nobody’s managed to make a translation that’s half as good as the original”, and “The Phoenix Guards.”

Read More about Steven Brust’s The Phoenix Guards & Five Hundred Years After

$#&$&@ stinkin’ spammers…

Due to the high amount of comment spam I’ve been getting, and the fact that Blacklist doesn’t seem to be working, currently comments require approval before they’ll appear.

Sorry.

So go ahead and comment, it’ll just take a few hours for the comment to appear. At least until the volumn of comment spam drops, or I get MT blacklist to work.

ADDENDUM the First: Latest version of MT installed…

ADDENDUM the Second: Latest version of Blacklist installed. Comments have now been set to previous status. Cross your fingers….

Unlike Pericat, I’m okay with the top items in my referrer logs.

vlad taltos
odd things
plane picture
grass jelly
cirque dreams program
craft corner deathmatch
states admitted to the union
plush germs
stephen hawking iq
bathtub

Oddly enough, I know precisely which pages each request was sent to.

So, apropros of nothing in one of Pericat’s posts, I wondered whether countries other than Canada had flags with plants.

Belize has a tree, although it’s not the focal point
British Indian Ocean Territory has a tree, though I have no idea where they’re located
Lebanon has a nice tree in the center of their flag.
Norfolk Island also has a tree in the center of their flag.

So, from what I found, it looks like only Canada, Lebanon, and Norfolk Island have flags that feature plant matter. Of those three, I have to say that I think the flag of our great enemy to the North, Canada, is the most attractive.

I love the internet.

All flags in alphabetical order
Flags of the World

So, they’ve cancelled “Enterprise.” the last Star Trek show left on the air.

Michael and I have not watched it (he, for lack of access; me, for profound lack of interest) but my mother (who has a framed certificate saying she graduated from Starfleet Academy) hated last season, and pretty much gave up watching. (Though I know that this season she at least watched the episodes with Brent Spinner.) So I’m not really surprised at this turn of events. Michael, however, is a little saddened, since this will be the first time for years that there won’t be a Star Trek show on.

To be honest, I could care less, since the only Star Trek show I really liked was “Deep Space Nine.” I can watch “The Next Generation” but can’t stand any of the other shows (and I’m pretty vehement about it too. Michael watched an episode of “Voyager” where they landed the ship on a planet. I think I made fun of that for years. [Giant ship. Itty bitty legs.]).

But he’s right that it is strange. No more Star Trek on TV, and no more movies.

Whatever will I mock?

Oh, wait. Reporting like this:
“Star Trek” movies also have been released.

Really?

The schedule for this years Festival of Ideas is out. Except for “Ethical Leadership in Business” they all look very interesting. (Though come to think of it, ethical business values may be pure fantasy, so it COULD be interesting at that)

Monday, Feb 21 · Constance Morella
The Marshall Plan: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
The Legacy of the Marshall Plan
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Wednesday, Mar 2 · Julian Bond
Civil Rights: Now and Then
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Mar 7 · Carolyn Kepcher
Ethical Leadership in Business
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Mar 21 · Cyril Wecht
Role of Forensic Pathology in Modern Day Society
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Mar 28 · Moral Values Debate
Reds vs. Blues: The Question of Moral Values in America
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Apr 18 · Morgan Spurlock
Supersize Me
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Apr 25 · Seymour Hersh
The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

I’ve always been rather fond of today’s word.

fey \FAY\ adjective
1 a chiefly Scottish : fated to die : doomed b : marked by a foreboding of death or calamity
2 a: able to see into the future : visionary b : marked by an otherworldly air or attitude c : crazy, touched
3 a: excessively refined : precious *b : quaintly
unconventional : campy
Merriam-Webster’s.com

Mental illness is infrequently presented well in books and TV, but there is one type of presentation that I’ve found fascinating.

The first time came across it was in the Margaret Weis and http://www.trhickman.com/ series “Death Gate Cycle”, where the wizard Zifnab (Zifnab is what brought this to mind. There’s just something pleasing about the name.) spouts off crazy ideas and concepts that are recognizable to the readers as quotes and ideas from modern books, movies and television. It was as if Zifnab couldn’t function well in his world, because he was channeling ours.

The second was in the Deep Space Nine episode, “Far Beyond the Stars“, where Sisko has an experience that displaces him in time and space. He is no longer Captain Benjamin Sisko in the 24th century, but is instead Benny Russell, a science fiction writer in the 1950s. Upon being given a picture of DS9, Benny begins to write the stories of Sisko’s experiences, and then begins to see flashes of Sisko’s world. These flashes, combined with the racial segregation of the 1950s,make it harder and harder for Benny to function in his own time. (If you’ve never seen “Far Beyond the Stars” I highly recommend it. Avery Brooks did an amazing job in both acting and directing.)

The third was an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Normal Again“, where Buffy is led to believe that the past six years of her life have been nothing but a schizophrenic episode. In that case, Buffy couldn’t function in the “real” world because she was entirely immersed in another world or reality. As with “Far Beyond the Stars” Buffy cannot function well in either world during the disruption. Although what I found most intriguing about this show was its ending, which left it open as to which reality was true.

Of course there are significant differences in the three examples. Zifnab was channeling the distant past, Benny was channeling the distant future, and Buffy an alternate reality, yet the idea behind each was the same: individuals tune into a reality other than ours, and it drives them mad.

It leads to the interesting idea that those who are classified as insane might simply be channeling other times, places, or realities. Like watching ‘General Hospital’, while getting the sound from ‘Days of Our Lives’. Of course for most people scizophrenia is a chemical disorder that for many can be treated with medication. But it’s intriguing to think that there are alternate realities, other worlds, and that there are people who are blessed or cursed with the ability to see through space and time, into those other realities.

Teresa, over at Making Light, has just had an unfortunate/horrible/vile mixup with her prescription medication.

I’ve taken various prescription medications for various problems at various times throughout my adulthood (all of which made me glad to have health coverage that paid for prescriptions drugs) and never really thought much about it.

Which is quite odd, considering that for many people, such medications keep them alive and functioning in a way that would have been impossible a century ago. (See the recent article in US News about FDR’s heart disease.)

Three incidents in the past made me think more seriously about the medicines that we take for granted. The first was when my grandmother got her blood pressure prescription filled while visiting my Aunt. (Point: It was not her regular pharmacist.) She got the pills home and thought that they looked different–they were–they were the wrong pills. If she hadn’t noticed, well, things could have been bad.

The second was my great-aunt Sophie going into the hospital after her heart slowed to a dangerous level. She was taking several different medications, all of which affected her heart, and they call combined to cause a serious problem.

The third incident was when my husband’s grandmother went to a gerontologist. One of the things she had to do was to take ALL of her meications with her. The gerontologist was able to drastically cut down her medications by cutting out some medicines entirely, and suddently she felt better than she had in a long time.

The point of this is that it is impossible for a doctor to know everything about all the medications out there. The problem is even worse if a person goes to several doctors for different problems. A specialist may be familar with the drugs to treat the disorders of their speciality, but is probably not familar with drugs used outside their speciality. And if the patient does not get all their prescriptions filled at the same pharmacist, the problem is that much worse.

If you consider this with the fact that prescription drug errors are on the rise, you are looking at a serious problem, whose best solution is for patients to be proactive: to check their prescriptions carefully each month, to make sure that all doctors they see know they full range of medications they are taking, to make sure that their pharmacist knows ALL the medications they are taking, and to ask the pharmacist about OTC drugs that may interact with prescription medications.

And the elderly who are taking multiple medications should consider seeing a gerontologist, because as we age, our metabolism changes, and a dosage that may be acceptable for a 40-year old may not be correct for a 70-year old.

So take her post, and this one, as a reminder to check your medications every time you pick them up, and to let your doctor know about all medicines you’re taking–even over-the-counter drugs and vitamins.

It could be worth your life to do so.

1 bag Irish Breakfast Tea
1 Clove
Small portion cinnamon stick
Boiling water
Steep 3 to 5 minutes
Remove teabag, clove cinnamon
3 tsp sugar
Cream, to taste

Taking a minute or two to get caught up…

I received e-mail from Howard Chalkley last month, who kindly linked to my book pages. His weblog, where he occasionally talks about books, is hchalkley.blog.

I also discovered that a weblog called Reasonable Liberalism that had linked to me.

From Gina:
Go to: http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
1. In Start and End, pull down “Address in” and choose Norway. 2. In
Start, enter “Haugesund” into City. 3. In End, enter “Trondheim” into
City. 4. Press “Get Directions”

Engrish.com

It’s like walking through the foreign food aisle of Jungle Jim’s, only better!

Secondly, I’m listening to The Splendid Table and she just had on Russian Anya Von Bremzen, to discuss blini, which are (I believe) a traditional Russian pancake, made from a sponge (no, not THAT type of sponge). What caught my fancy was something about traditional Russian blini made for Shrove Tuesday, and how Russian grandmothers would sneak their sponges out to the woods, to absorb th powers of the full moon.

Firstly, I was listening to the State of the State speech, followed by the Republican response. Can ANY West Virginian politicians speak normally? Everyone who spoke seemed to mumble or lisp or have some weird extra-strong accent.

Happy Year of the Rooster!

Although some believe the year of the Rooster may be bloody, I hope for a happy, prosperous year, with lots of good luck for everyone.

ADDENDUM the First: I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh.

(sigh)

Happy Mardi Gras!

(Or Happy Fat Tuesday as it would be translated. For obvious reasons, Mardi Gras sounds better.)

A rather ecclectic collection of books that I’ve finished recently, but hadn’t gotten around to posting.

The Ethics of Star Trek Judith Barad with Ed Robertson

This book was definitely a disappointment. I’ve read The Physics of Star Trek and The Metaphysics of Star Trek both of which I found interesting. Perhaps because of this I had high hopes for this book. I was, unfortunately, disappointed.

Read More about The Ethics of Star Trek

Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis

I realized that I’d actually finished this book several months ago, but managed to forget that I had done so. Take that as you will.

Mere Christianity puts forth some interesting arguments, but I find that although they may have been convincing at the time C.C. Lewis wrote them, I found them less so, in the 21st century.

Read More about Mere Christianity

An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life The Dalai Lama

Unlike the previous book I read by the Dalai Lama, this book only took me about nine months to read. They’re not long books, I just tend to set them aside for something else, and then have to go back an re-read portions to get caught up again.

Read More about An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life