Archive for November, 2010
parenting, viewed as a spectator
We spent the weekend having a Thanksgiving visit with Ted’s cousins Greg and Kris, who are living near Stuttgart, Germany, about five hours away – or it would have been, except for snow on the way up and getting spectacularly lost in Stuttgart on the way back. They are American also; he works at the [...]
maunderings
I have officially been living abroad too long; yesterday I gave someone a US address and forgot to include the state *facepalm* (Both Taiwan and the Netherlands are small enough that addresses go “street, city, country”, or in the case of Taiwan “floor, number, lane, street, district, city, country” with no need for a state [...]
embarking on the annual Challenge
Yep, it must be Thanksgiving. No, not because of time off or impending turkey; that’s been a bit chancy the past few years. This year we’ll have it Saturday, weather permitting (we have no snowtires, snow or freezing rain are possible). No, it’s because of something much more inevitable: tonight I erg the first meters [...]
was going to title this “If I could give you three things”, after a song, but if I could it wouldn’t be these three so I won’t.
1. I felt awful last night – our best guess is that it was a spot of mild food poisoning. I didn’t feel queasy, but suddenly got very sleepy around 7PM and my gut was otherwise unsettled the rest of the evening. (I also, somehow while food-shopping on the way home, got what tasted like [...]
:-(
Well, spit and dirty socks. Yesteday I had the conference with the doctor to discuss the results of my 24-hour blood pressure test. I don’t trust that meter to be accurate – whenever I was moving around or even just moving my arm it had to take two or three attempts, and in my experience [...]
can you really take yourself too seriously?
Lately, I’ve begun to get annoyed at the number of people in my life, especially at work, who take themselves far too seriously, henceforth to be called The Ones Who Matter, or TOWM. That feels strange to me, because for most of my life I’ve been on the side of the ones who are accused [...]
24 hours of ow
You know what’s not a heck of a lot of fun? Wearing a blood-pressure cuff for 24 hours, that’s what. I was hoping they’d have some sleek futuristic version for this, but nope, it’s only slightly thinner than a normal cuff and the meter is only slightly smaller than a normal home sphygmomanometer. The meter [...]
the perils of over-vibration
It turns out that if you use a vibrating implement (such as a leaf-blower for two hours straight, your arms will not be of much use to you for the rest of the evening. This lesson courtesy of my mother-in-law. I wish we were getting as much usage of our house in Oregon as they [...]
a useful review
This guy claims not to be much of a reviewer, but his writeup of PC Cast’s Goddess by Mistake is my idea of a useful review. This shows exactly why I say that a good review isn’t one that tells me if the reviewer liked the book, but whether I will. As it happens, he [...]
on the brink of a weekend
1.4 sleeves done, more or less. It feels like we have always been at war with Eastasia I have always been working on this sweater. Work’s been eating my brain too – not long hours, just intense. Then there was knitting Wednesday night, Rib Night with a bunch of local expats last night, and a [...]