Monday, June 26, 2006
Bloggin' from Bloomington
Bit cooler up here than it was back in Mesa when I left this morning - downright chilly here in the hotel. When I opened my guitar case, my metronome was flashing merrily away, the on switch having caught on the tuner somewhereen route. Thank the holy ones it was in "silent" mode - I can imagine the panic if my guitar case suddenly started ticking - TSA would probably have blown it up!
Well, the vegetable garden's doing poorly, thanks for asking. Once again the spring growing season was too short and the summer heat hit nearly everything before it could set fruit. I do have one cute little eggplant and a couple peppers, and some tomatoes that cooked on the vine. One squash plant still survives and if I'm lucky will flower again in the fall. I seriously think that next year I'll let the veg garden go fallow, just plant a cover crop and that's it. The weather's been so fickle in recent years, it really takes someone keeping a close eye on things in late spring/summer, and I'm not going to be able to do that next year with production & promotion activities for Stardust County.
Peasie, I'm happy to report, is doing just fine; the cortizone shots cleared up her swollen face and she looks like a normal cat again. I'll just need to keep close watch on her; she may need additional shots periodically. Speaking of which, Savannah and Frodo went to the vet for their 5-in-1 boosters on Saturday. Frodo was a scaredy cat, but behaved. Savannah was a bundle of nerves despite having been there before, and kept jumping up on my shoulders. They both tolerated getting their shots well.
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Bit cooler up here than it was back in Mesa when I left this morning - downright chilly here in the hotel. When I opened my guitar case, my metronome was flashing merrily away, the on switch having caught on the tuner somewhereen route. Thank the holy ones it was in "silent" mode - I can imagine the panic if my guitar case suddenly started ticking - TSA would probably have blown it up!
Well, the vegetable garden's doing poorly, thanks for asking. Once again the spring growing season was too short and the summer heat hit nearly everything before it could set fruit. I do have one cute little eggplant and a couple peppers, and some tomatoes that cooked on the vine. One squash plant still survives and if I'm lucky will flower again in the fall. I seriously think that next year I'll let the veg garden go fallow, just plant a cover crop and that's it. The weather's been so fickle in recent years, it really takes someone keeping a close eye on things in late spring/summer, and I'm not going to be able to do that next year with production & promotion activities for Stardust County.
Peasie, I'm happy to report, is doing just fine; the cortizone shots cleared up her swollen face and she looks like a normal cat again. I'll just need to keep close watch on her; she may need additional shots periodically. Speaking of which, Savannah and Frodo went to the vet for their 5-in-1 boosters on Saturday. Frodo was a scaredy cat, but behaved. Savannah was a bundle of nerves despite having been there before, and kept jumping up on my shoulders. They both tolerated getting their shots well.
2 comments
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Good and Bad things about my trip to Minneapolis
Bad: The Bloomington Holiday Inn giving me a smoking room. The drivers for my network card disappearing. The spottiness of the hotel WAN in the bar.
Good: Ditching everything, going for a walk in the nature preserve next door, and seeing a pair of - egrets? herons? - one white and one brown. And some squirrels, and a big garter snake up in a tree. Actually getting something done in the meeting I flew up there for.
Bad: Center seat over the wing on the return.
Good: Catching the parking shuttle right before it left the curb.
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Bad: The Bloomington Holiday Inn giving me a smoking room. The drivers for my network card disappearing. The spottiness of the hotel WAN in the bar.
Good: Ditching everything, going for a walk in the nature preserve next door, and seeing a pair of - egrets? herons? - one white and one brown. And some squirrels, and a big garter snake up in a tree. Actually getting something done in the meeting I flew up there for.
Bad: Center seat over the wing on the return.
Good: Catching the parking shuttle right before it left the curb.
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Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Fafblog is back! Yay!
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My doctor went into a mini-rant when I saw him for my physical on Friday, about how medicine should be about science, not politics. We were actually talking about my prescription plan - the one I bitched about in this here blog earlier this year - but I wondered if he'd also been watching last week's Frontline program about the history of AIDS.
What struck me about that show was the irony of this one congresscreature proudly saying that by refusing to fund any AIDS-prevention program that mentions condoms, he was resisting pressure to be "politically correct" - when in fact he and his ilk are just pushing their own brand of political correctness. Condoms work at reducing the spread of STDs. Needle-swap programs work. Educating prostitutes works. Yeah, abstinence works to a certain extent, for people who have that luxury. This kind of mealymouthedness has squat to do with science. Or morality, for that matter.
Look at it this way: Most people who are vegetarians make the choice not to eat meat based on moral or religious grounds. It's also no secret that some of the biggest health scares in recent years are the direct result of people eating meat, or raising animals for meat or other products (such as eggs). Mad cow, for example. Bird flu. Now, I'm a vegetarian, but it's painfully obvious to me, and I think to any but the most fanatical sprout-chomper, that telling people they shouldn't be eating chicken would not by itself be an effective means of stopping a worldwide pandemic of bird flu. Nor will you see me arguing that the USDA dismantle its meat-inspection programs because those immoral people who eat meat know what risks they're taking, and if they get trichinosis or e. coli, it's because of a lifestyle choice.
Why? Because that's dumb. It wouldn't work. And I don't believe in a vengeful vegan Goddess punishing naughty people with mad cow disease.
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My doctor went into a mini-rant when I saw him for my physical on Friday, about how medicine should be about science, not politics. We were actually talking about my prescription plan - the one I bitched about in this here blog earlier this year - but I wondered if he'd also been watching last week's Frontline program about the history of AIDS.
What struck me about that show was the irony of this one congresscreature proudly saying that by refusing to fund any AIDS-prevention program that mentions condoms, he was resisting pressure to be "politically correct" - when in fact he and his ilk are just pushing their own brand of political correctness. Condoms work at reducing the spread of STDs. Needle-swap programs work. Educating prostitutes works. Yeah, abstinence works to a certain extent, for people who have that luxury. This kind of mealymouthedness has squat to do with science. Or morality, for that matter.
Look at it this way: Most people who are vegetarians make the choice not to eat meat based on moral or religious grounds. It's also no secret that some of the biggest health scares in recent years are the direct result of people eating meat, or raising animals for meat or other products (such as eggs). Mad cow, for example. Bird flu. Now, I'm a vegetarian, but it's painfully obvious to me, and I think to any but the most fanatical sprout-chomper, that telling people they shouldn't be eating chicken would not by itself be an effective means of stopping a worldwide pandemic of bird flu. Nor will you see me arguing that the USDA dismantle its meat-inspection programs because those immoral people who eat meat know what risks they're taking, and if they get trichinosis or e. coli, it's because of a lifestyle choice.
Why? Because that's dumb. It wouldn't work. And I don't believe in a vengeful vegan Goddess punishing naughty people with mad cow disease.
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Thursday, June 01, 2006
I'm back from synchronicity
Here's some pictures of my "Easter lilly" cacti, which decided to bloom yesterday and today. Too bad the blossoms only last a day.
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Wednesday I took Peasie in to the vet for a cortisone shot, which seems to be doing some good for her itchiness. While I was waiting, I got into a conversation with another woman, who was bringing her kittens in for their first visit. It seems her eldest two cats had recently died, leaving her with one adult cat, named Sierra. She'd just adopted the two brother-and-sister tabby kittens, and wasn't sure how Sierra would react to them. I'm thinking this whole series of events is oddly similar to what I went through over the past year; but it became really eerie when the assistant called my cat's name. "Peaseblossom?" said the woman I was talking to. "She's Sierra's mother!"
See, going on eleven years ago I was visiting the same vet to get food for Omega, and saw that they had two black cats up for adoption, a very young cat and her kitten. I was living in an apartment at the time, and I thought to myself, "I could pass two black cats off as one cat, and not have to pay extra pet rent!" Eventually I adopted the mother, whom I named Peaseblossom. I'd met the woman who adopted the kitten once, but that was long ago. Sierra's going grey, which is funny because her mother isn't, and she had an allergic rash when she was young which responded well to cortisone, so I'm hopeful for Peasie now.
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