When I don't know how something is going to go, I either leave it to blow in the wind because I can't do anything about it, or I obsess about it to the point of severe anxiety and the resultant face breakouts, alopecia, nervous tics and the like.
Examples of things that blow in the wind: getting on airplanes (i.e. once on), giving presentations at conferences (they either like it or they don't), grant proposals. In all of these cases I put my best work into preparing, but I don't get upset and then just go ahead with whatever happens.
Things that make me crazy: childrens' birthday parties, like the one I hosted for The Big One yesterday.
Big One turned eight years old this week. She is quite a confident child, and even when people say they don't like her (one of the girls in her class is a bit fickle that way) she just says it's hilarious and gos about her business. She is almost the tallest person in her class but looking down on a lot of other tiny little things doesn't bother her or anyone else, and she gets along with everyone rather than having any one best friend...or the best friend changes from week to week. Her usually calm demeanor is only upset by inequity, whether she experiences it or sees it inflicted upon someone else. Not to say the child is perfect; I've seen a few math books flung across the room this year and a younger brother who's been put in his place with a well-timed remark. Generally though, I am a lucky mum.
It took me ages to figure out what to do about a birthday party for this child. The Grade 2 class has >20 children in it, and over half are the girlies. I sent out the invitations once I figured out what to do, and requested replies for Wednesday of this week, thinking that most people would reply immediately and only one or two stragglers would leave this to the last minute. No, apparently I do not think like other people, or perhaps they take "...by Wednesday" to mean "Wednesday". They all called on Wednesday, and one called on Thursday. Aghgh...but okay, got that set up. From there I just had to wait until Sunday, and make a cake. The beauty of the party was that I wouldn't have to prepare anything, nor clean it up. I would only have to make sure that 12 little girls got into bathing suits and out of them again, that they ate and watched my child open presents. There was no good reason to worry about this, except that it was entirely possible that there would be idle time. Idle time with 12 grade two girls? Deadly. It caused my heart to do flip flops, my palms to sweat (my palms never sweat) and my teeth to clench (luckily I have a mouth guard for that. My dentist is wearying of my ability to break my own teeth.) . Twelve little girls, waiting for something to happen. It kept me up at night.
I kept them in the pool as long as possible. I couldn't believe that they cared about changing out of their bathing suits in front of each other, at this age. One of them yelled, "Don't Look!" when I went into the change room...so I averted my eyes and said, "Oh, you're right. I have never seen a child change out of her clothes before," which inspired a fit of giggling and then they just got dressed, except for one child who said that people were peeking in on her (she was hiding in the shower stall) .... I pointed out that if she wasn't trying to be so secretive, no one would care. She got dressed too. How odd, this modesty.
My fears were, of course, totally unfounded. Did I have to worry about blank time? No. There wasn't a spare moment. They finished in the pool, they ate chips and drank pop and I pointed out to Big One that maybe water would be better? "No, Mumma. Coke."
"But you've never had coke."
"I want to try it."
"How come she's never had coke?"
"Because I don't buy it."
"But it's a very refreshing and tasty drink."
"That may be. I don't put my money into it. I buy other things, like beans and rice."
"Beans and rice? Yuck!"
"Well, there you go."
For my own part, the girlies do think I'm hilarious, especially because I make them say please and thank you, and point out that "More coke please!" is not asking for coke so much as demanding it, and that it probably won't get them more to drink any time soon. They liked to show me every time the class clown did something with her chips (dipped them in the plum sauce or the mustard or dropped them in her drink) which was amusing and over which I would exclaim and throw my hands in the air and make some comment about the chips having a mind of their own.
End of the party comes, I am short one loot bag. I choose the child I know will not have a crying fit over the missing bag, and am gratified to see that I am correct in my choice. After party Big One and I make a five-minute stop at Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up extra treats for the girlie who had to wait 30 minutes for her bag...and yet this was not the thing that worried me most. I couldn't count to 12 apparently, but this is something I'll have to remember in the future, not something I could help at the time. Math is not my strong point. (Note to self: remember to count all the children who attend a birthday party and subtract one for the birthday child.)
Big One was totally thrilled with the party, and with the extent of the Hannah Montana loot she received, although by the time she got home she admitted that HM was just a tv thing, not as big a thrill as all that ... but she was more thrilled that everyone enjoyed themselves and had a good time and were happy and no one fought, and it was excellent.
In two weeks, Little One's party. I cannot do the same thing for him and may have to have 12 children here at the house instead. That freak show hasn't yet begun, but you can bet it'll be a barn-burner.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Just Things
I have an earache, as I said yesterday. (Yes, two posts in a row. It's blowing my mind.) If I complain about an ache or pain in general, the first question people ask is, "Have you taken anything?" which always surprises me. No, most of the time I haven't taken anything. I get a whopping headache, I go with it. Right now I have an earache. I haven't taken any of the normal painkillers, but if I were going to take anything, it would be acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), as it has the best combination of analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic effects, as opposed to acetaminophen, which doesn't do so much on the anti-inflammatory side and which makes me feel weird. I might take ibuprophen (not helpful for fevers) if I had injured myself, but that is not the current case. As it stands, no, I haven't taken anything. It never occurs to me to do so. Why is that?
Because if I take a painkiller, I don't know what is going on with my body and I can't pinpoint the problem.
***
A few weeks ago Hub and I were involved in an NMR anniversary celebration, and in conversing about the people involved in the event it became clear that we were dealing with some fine NMR minds. I have worked with Big Brains, I have met Big Brains, but in this case the BB's that I met were the most self-effacing demure group I'd ever encountered. One older fellow did point out that it shouldn't have just been George Olah's Nobel, he could have shared it with Ron Gillespie, who got NMR data for all the black superacid crap George used to bring up from Dow.
In another case, RB (again, self-deprecating in the extreme) was the first person to have proposed the mathematical relationship for the NOE (Nuclear Overhauser Effect) experiment...he said that he was at a meeting, and all nervous because he had to explain the effect as being related to 1/(distance)^6 between the atoms in question to Big Brains. Within a very short time this distance/signal intensity relationship was in constant use, and even now the protein people, who prove a lot about folding and conformation from these experiments, use the basic principle that RB proposed.
***
I could go on, and normally I would, but Goldmember is on and I am a fan. When the first Austin Powers movie started out with the theme from the game show Definition which probably provided the worst prizes ever....but anyway, when that played and the dance scene ensued, I was hooked. Tonight Goldmember is on and I haven't seen it, so I will.
Because if I take a painkiller, I don't know what is going on with my body and I can't pinpoint the problem.
***
A few weeks ago Hub and I were involved in an NMR anniversary celebration, and in conversing about the people involved in the event it became clear that we were dealing with some fine NMR minds. I have worked with Big Brains, I have met Big Brains, but in this case the BB's that I met were the most self-effacing demure group I'd ever encountered. One older fellow did point out that it shouldn't have just been George Olah's Nobel, he could have shared it with Ron Gillespie, who got NMR data for all the black superacid crap George used to bring up from Dow.
In another case, RB (again, self-deprecating in the extreme) was the first person to have proposed the mathematical relationship for the NOE (Nuclear Overhauser Effect) experiment...he said that he was at a meeting, and all nervous because he had to explain the effect as being related to 1/(distance)^6 between the atoms in question to Big Brains. Within a very short time this distance/signal intensity relationship was in constant use, and even now the protein people, who prove a lot about folding and conformation from these experiments, use the basic principle that RB proposed.
***
I could go on, and normally I would, but Goldmember is on and I am a fan. When the first Austin Powers movie started out with the theme from the game show Definition which probably provided the worst prizes ever....but anyway, when that played and the dance scene ensued, I was hooked. Tonight Goldmember is on and I haven't seen it, so I will.
The Beat Goes On
Life can just keep floating past you if you don't stop to notice it. While many things have been happening, none of them have been remarkable and we've mostly just been plugging along at the business of living.
I took Katie to the vet on Thursday. Actually, Thursdays are usually full of appointments and busy things, because that's the day I don't go to work to do Science Things, and I do People Things instead. I visited the audiologist, who took 45 minutes to get around to me because her airy-fairy business partner strolled in and wanted a meeting with all the health care providers in the building. I suppose that if the person with the purse-strings showed up unexpectedly, I'd make some time for them, but not 45 minutes of time. Very annoying. My hearing aids had last been set at Head Explosion levels, and after a week of that I was out of my mind...so the adjustment was necessary and I had to wait. It did occur to me to walk out, but the fact that hearing too much along with whistling feedback was making me rather more edgy than usual, kept me in my chair. Church pew actually, they have no chairs there. So I sat, and turned my hearing aids off.
The adjustment took about five minutes, and of course there was no apology regarding the lateness of the appointment, and I didn't broach the subject either. It was obvious that she was late, it was obvious why, and so she did what needed to be done and made me more human, and I left. I'm not going to get the things adjusted again for a while, not because the appointment was late, but just because I'm sick of going to appointments all the time on Thursdays. Cutting one out is good.
Now I have an earache. (Today is Saturday.)
Back to the vet. The vet appointment was late in the afternoon, which is a bit of a problem because The Darlings play soccer on Thursday evening, but the next appointment next Thursday was also late in the afternoon and wouldn't save any hassle. The vet that I deal with is a tall woman, not terribly attractive, with man hands and greyish-blond hair tied back in a rough ponytail. She wears lots of makeup: her eyes are blackened and shadowed and mascara'd, she wears blush and lipstick. I can take the eye makeup. The blush and lipstick are unnerving, however, and mezmerizing. They are pale purple/blue. It looks like she has giant bruises on her cheeks, and her lips are pale and dead-looking. You stare at her while she's talking to you, and she rocks you into a vortex of new treatments and blood tests and the like. Or at least, that's what happened last year, when I found out that Katie's liver function was down a tad. This year Katie has dropped three pounds, and since she doesn't have any weight to drop, that's not good, but I resisted the purple and did not go for further tests. Katie is over 13 years old (she'll be 14 in the fall). She's an old dog, who is nervous and high-strung and who suffers from great separation anxiety. When we're not home we crate her, because she's destructive, and when we're home, she curls up on her bed and sleeps very deeply. She eats a lot, and her bowl always has food in it. She chews a bone when she's nervous. She's the same way she's always been, except for the deep sleeping, but she's old. I was able to resist the pull of the purple cheeks and dead lips and I did not go for further tests or anything else, and paid my $425 for the 30 minutes of visit and three shots and the heartworm medicine and got out of there.
Yes. $425. For 30 minutes. Honestly, I should have gone to vet school like I wanted to in Grade 12...but sadly, I had a clarifying moment when I realized that I didn't want to be a vet.
This is a long weekend, but the weather is going to be yucky and cold and raining and so we won't get the garden in, although we might get it dug up. The house needs a good scrubbing so maybe I'll finally get around to that too, although it's easy to find other things to do rather than cleaning, which I hate. It is the Big One's birthday on Tuesday and her party is next weekend. I am not fond of birthday parties in the least, so I hope that the three hours of pool party and cake-eating go well and that all the little girls enjoy themselves and that I don't have to deal with them very much. Hahahaha.....
I took Katie to the vet on Thursday. Actually, Thursdays are usually full of appointments and busy things, because that's the day I don't go to work to do Science Things, and I do People Things instead. I visited the audiologist, who took 45 minutes to get around to me because her airy-fairy business partner strolled in and wanted a meeting with all the health care providers in the building. I suppose that if the person with the purse-strings showed up unexpectedly, I'd make some time for them, but not 45 minutes of time. Very annoying. My hearing aids had last been set at Head Explosion levels, and after a week of that I was out of my mind...so the adjustment was necessary and I had to wait. It did occur to me to walk out, but the fact that hearing too much along with whistling feedback was making me rather more edgy than usual, kept me in my chair. Church pew actually, they have no chairs there. So I sat, and turned my hearing aids off.
The adjustment took about five minutes, and of course there was no apology regarding the lateness of the appointment, and I didn't broach the subject either. It was obvious that she was late, it was obvious why, and so she did what needed to be done and made me more human, and I left. I'm not going to get the things adjusted again for a while, not because the appointment was late, but just because I'm sick of going to appointments all the time on Thursdays. Cutting one out is good.
Now I have an earache. (Today is Saturday.)
Back to the vet. The vet appointment was late in the afternoon, which is a bit of a problem because The Darlings play soccer on Thursday evening, but the next appointment next Thursday was also late in the afternoon and wouldn't save any hassle. The vet that I deal with is a tall woman, not terribly attractive, with man hands and greyish-blond hair tied back in a rough ponytail. She wears lots of makeup: her eyes are blackened and shadowed and mascara'd, she wears blush and lipstick. I can take the eye makeup. The blush and lipstick are unnerving, however, and mezmerizing. They are pale purple/blue. It looks like she has giant bruises on her cheeks, and her lips are pale and dead-looking. You stare at her while she's talking to you, and she rocks you into a vortex of new treatments and blood tests and the like. Or at least, that's what happened last year, when I found out that Katie's liver function was down a tad. This year Katie has dropped three pounds, and since she doesn't have any weight to drop, that's not good, but I resisted the purple and did not go for further tests. Katie is over 13 years old (she'll be 14 in the fall). She's an old dog, who is nervous and high-strung and who suffers from great separation anxiety. When we're not home we crate her, because she's destructive, and when we're home, she curls up on her bed and sleeps very deeply. She eats a lot, and her bowl always has food in it. She chews a bone when she's nervous. She's the same way she's always been, except for the deep sleeping, but she's old. I was able to resist the pull of the purple cheeks and dead lips and I did not go for further tests or anything else, and paid my $425 for the 30 minutes of visit and three shots and the heartworm medicine and got out of there.
Yes. $425. For 30 minutes. Honestly, I should have gone to vet school like I wanted to in Grade 12...but sadly, I had a clarifying moment when I realized that I didn't want to be a vet.
This is a long weekend, but the weather is going to be yucky and cold and raining and so we won't get the garden in, although we might get it dug up. The house needs a good scrubbing so maybe I'll finally get around to that too, although it's easy to find other things to do rather than cleaning, which I hate. It is the Big One's birthday on Tuesday and her party is next weekend. I am not fond of birthday parties in the least, so I hope that the three hours of pool party and cake-eating go well and that all the little girls enjoy themselves and that I don't have to deal with them very much. Hahahaha.....
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The other night I decided to get started on the first Year of Lace shawl...seeing as the second package is due to arrive in a month or so, I thought I should at least start the first one so that I can get used to knitting with what is equivalent to silk thread, on tiny needles, in the dark. "In the dark" because the livingroom doesn't have a lot of direct light, and the yarn is brick orange-red, and the contrast isn't great. Not a huge bother, because it's the hands that need to get used to the feel of things, rather than the eyes needing to see all that much, save for the pattern on paper, and I had enough light for that.
I was knitting away on the tiny needles with the very fine silk yarn, thinking, "Oh, this is going so well! I will be able to get through the first chart in no time!" No time being the one hour that ER was on, a stupid show that I watch when Hub goes to the pub on Thursday nights. I actually wanted to write something after I finished the knitting, and thought I'd have lots of time for that, even including the fact that I'd have to get up at 5:00a.m. to go to work the next day.
I looked down to what I'd knit, and stretched it out a bit to see the pattern, and what do I see? A gaping, massive hole. When I pulled the yarn a little more to get a view on this abomination, I realized that there was no possible way that I'd be able to sort of fix it a little bit by drawing another thread through here or here or here or....nope, now the hole is bigger, and considering that the piece of lace that I'd knit was only five cm square, the problem was growing. Hmph. Now normally I'm a fixer rather than a frogger, but I saw no choice and pulled the lace off the needles and took it all apart to re-knit it. Near the end there was a bit of a knot, and forgetting that silk is impossible to break, I tried to break the yarn. Why did I not get up to get my scissors? Because it was late and I was tired and I'd had a long day and because in truth, I am totally lazy. I tried to break the yarn, but all I did was break the skin on the side of my right index finger. It didn't really hurt, but it reminded me of this time last year, when I had the same break in the skin on that finger, and that turned into Frankenfinger and resulted in a three-day hospital stay, and that, that was way more upsetting than ripping out a few rows of lace knitting.
The run-on sentence up there is mildly upsetting also.
In other updates, I'm going to start an MA in the fall, through Athabasca University. I am not really an MA sort of a person, but I'm looking to push my brain through some gymnastics and will try to do a degree with a Cultural Studies sort of a bent. Part of the final application was an English test, and while I did fine on the editing/grammar section, I was totally blown apart by the section where I had to answer questions about a particular piece of writing. Firstly, the piece used too many words. I am myself a wordy sort of person (according to the director of the funeral home that took care of Dad's arrangements. When they saw my obituary, they called it "wordy". Hmph.) but I try to actually get around to the story or the opinion rather than tossing in a bunch of $10 words to fill in the 10,000 word quota. It seemed to me while I was reading this bit about adult education and how it fails to reach all the adults because it's just not being done right, and you can't convince the people who make decisions about how it's being done that it's being done wrongly, because they think they're right, but they're not, and really, I'm going to whine some more about them...that I was getting lost in all the words, rather than finding the point about the fellow's thesis. Highly annoying.
Then I realized that if I found this one short excerpt from a paper to be annoying, how on earth was I going to get through a whole two years worth of coursework and analysis and breakdown and deconstruction of every idea?
With aplomb, I figure. I am not party to the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" sort of school. If they let you in, then you should point out the errors of their ways, is more my mantra. In speaking to a friend who is in that social/cultural course of study already, she just nodded and smiled, and said well, you have your point of view, but there's nothing that needs to be changed, just things that need to be discussed. My problem with the discussion is that it never goes anywhere, it just sits in a circle and holds hands and acknowledges that there are problems, but that's it. It victimizes itself (much like the little passage I had to analyze) and says there's nothing to be done really, but at least we know the problem.
Oh no, no, no. Knowing the problem is a good start, but once the problem is known, then we start in on solutions. We look for a light at the end of the tunnel. We don't just sit there and sing together and feel the kinship, we get out and fix things and at least feel as though we're making some headway, even if we end up butting our heads on the wall and having to back up and start again.
A scientist in social scientist clothing? So far, even without the first bit of coursework, it's an ill fit.
I was knitting away on the tiny needles with the very fine silk yarn, thinking, "Oh, this is going so well! I will be able to get through the first chart in no time!" No time being the one hour that ER was on, a stupid show that I watch when Hub goes to the pub on Thursday nights. I actually wanted to write something after I finished the knitting, and thought I'd have lots of time for that, even including the fact that I'd have to get up at 5:00a.m. to go to work the next day.
I looked down to what I'd knit, and stretched it out a bit to see the pattern, and what do I see? A gaping, massive hole. When I pulled the yarn a little more to get a view on this abomination, I realized that there was no possible way that I'd be able to sort of fix it a little bit by drawing another thread through here or here or here or....nope, now the hole is bigger, and considering that the piece of lace that I'd knit was only five cm square, the problem was growing. Hmph. Now normally I'm a fixer rather than a frogger, but I saw no choice and pulled the lace off the needles and took it all apart to re-knit it. Near the end there was a bit of a knot, and forgetting that silk is impossible to break, I tried to break the yarn. Why did I not get up to get my scissors? Because it was late and I was tired and I'd had a long day and because in truth, I am totally lazy. I tried to break the yarn, but all I did was break the skin on the side of my right index finger. It didn't really hurt, but it reminded me of this time last year, when I had the same break in the skin on that finger, and that turned into Frankenfinger and resulted in a three-day hospital stay, and that, that was way more upsetting than ripping out a few rows of lace knitting.
The run-on sentence up there is mildly upsetting also.
In other updates, I'm going to start an MA in the fall, through Athabasca University. I am not really an MA sort of a person, but I'm looking to push my brain through some gymnastics and will try to do a degree with a Cultural Studies sort of a bent. Part of the final application was an English test, and while I did fine on the editing/grammar section, I was totally blown apart by the section where I had to answer questions about a particular piece of writing. Firstly, the piece used too many words. I am myself a wordy sort of person (according to the director of the funeral home that took care of Dad's arrangements. When they saw my obituary, they called it "wordy". Hmph.) but I try to actually get around to the story or the opinion rather than tossing in a bunch of $10 words to fill in the 10,000 word quota. It seemed to me while I was reading this bit about adult education and how it fails to reach all the adults because it's just not being done right, and you can't convince the people who make decisions about how it's being done that it's being done wrongly, because they think they're right, but they're not, and really, I'm going to whine some more about them...that I was getting lost in all the words, rather than finding the point about the fellow's thesis. Highly annoying.
Then I realized that if I found this one short excerpt from a paper to be annoying, how on earth was I going to get through a whole two years worth of coursework and analysis and breakdown and deconstruction of every idea?
With aplomb, I figure. I am not party to the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" sort of school. If they let you in, then you should point out the errors of their ways, is more my mantra. In speaking to a friend who is in that social/cultural course of study already, she just nodded and smiled, and said well, you have your point of view, but there's nothing that needs to be changed, just things that need to be discussed. My problem with the discussion is that it never goes anywhere, it just sits in a circle and holds hands and acknowledges that there are problems, but that's it. It victimizes itself (much like the little passage I had to analyze) and says there's nothing to be done really, but at least we know the problem.
Oh no, no, no. Knowing the problem is a good start, but once the problem is known, then we start in on solutions. We look for a light at the end of the tunnel. We don't just sit there and sing together and feel the kinship, we get out and fix things and at least feel as though we're making some headway, even if we end up butting our heads on the wall and having to back up and start again.
A scientist in social scientist clothing? So far, even without the first bit of coursework, it's an ill fit.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Words That Do Not Go Together
Sometimes I am in the middle of something, like today when I was brushing my teeth, and my head will explode with a fabulous title:
Words That Do Not Go Together.
Actually, the title popped into my head after the words did, and the words popped into my head why? Because I opened my mind to the words, and they came in through the tiny little hole and screwed themselves into the right hemisphere of my brain, right behind the big blue painting.
What are the two words that do not go together? Are you desperate to know? Clearly I am desperate to tell you, otherwise I would not have kept you in such suspense. Before I tell you, however, sit back and do not think, or else do something mindless that you do every day and do not think. Keep your awareness at a base level, so that when the words come, they are straight out of a combination of dangerous medical complications and Lisa Simpson’s miniature rendition of Oliver Twist.
Bloodclot Diorama.
Do with them what you will.
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