March 30
[Taken 25 November 2005 | Hallway in the Cleveland Public Library | Cleveland, OH]
My Mom's side of the family is having a little egg decorating contest this Easter. Apparently, one of my aunts has requested that I not participate in the contest as there were some concerns that I might... wreck the curve. So to speak.
I think that I ought to make and mail in (c/o my Mom) a pysanky anyway. It can be an... exhibition egg. Providing that it survives being put in the post and mailed to Cleveland, of course. Surely that would be acceptable...
Heh.
After all, it is pysanky time...
March 26
[Taken 18 March 2006 | Grandma in the kitchen | Cleveland, OH]
The spring Depression Glass Show was supposed to be last weekend. The show was cancelled, but I went to Cleveland for a visit anyway... I hadn't seen my Grandma since Thanksgiving, and had been promising to come up, so I didn't think that a little thing like the glass show being cancelled should stop me.
Saturday morning Mom and I went to the West Side Market so that I could take some photos (one gentleman asked me, jokingly I assume, if I was a 'Russian spy') and stock up on gourmet ravioli from Ohio City Pasta. We also picked up some stuff to have for lunch with my Mom's folks - my Granny and Gramps. After that we went to my Grandma's house to pick her up and take her home for dinner, and so that I could collect some of my Grandfather's old art supplies that she wanted to get rid of. She also wanted my to look through some of her Depression Glass collection, but we never got around to that part of the visit because I noticed and got distracted by her old scrapbooks and photo albums.
I don't know what I never noticed them before, and I wish that I had.
Now I think I know where I got my love of travel and my photography talent from... sure, from my Dad, but also from my Grandma. She traveled a lot before she and my Grandfather got married, and she meticulously recorded every trip in leather-bound scrapbooks. I found one scrapbook where she detailed her trip to the Great Smoky Mountains... I was really neat, looking at photographs that had been taken more then 50 years ago of places that I visited and had also taken photographs at just last fall.
Grandma was quite a photographer. The old photos were pretty amazing. The photos themselves were very small, almost miniatures, but so crisp and detailed... She had a good eye. She also said that she had developed many of them herself, which I had never known before. I asked her what kind of camera she had used, and she thought that it had been a Kodak Brownie. Kodak has been making 'Brownie' cameras for a very long time... I wonder what model she used.
I only got a chance to look at two of the scrapbooks, and one of the photo albums, before we had to leave so that Mom could finish dinner preparations at home. But I know that I want to look through them all.
Next time I visit, I want to sit down with Grandma and go through (or start to go through) her scrapbooks and especially her old photo albums. I would like to be able to put names to all of the people and places that she recorded.
She has kind of inspired me... I should be doing a better job of recording my trips. When I go to Montreal in a couple of weeks (one of the places she has also visited) I might have to try my hand at scrapbooking it...
March 23
[Taken 21 March 2006 | Crocus in the snow | Dayton, OH]
Crocus in the snow... in my front flowerbed. I hope (but am not sure) that my early spring flowers survived the late winter storm that we got as a first day of spring surprise present on Monday.
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So... I have had a bunch of tests run on me lately to try to determine why exactly I have such high blood pressure. This morning I went in to see my doctor to discuss the test results and to gauge how well I am doing on my medication. Basically, I am absolutely, perfectly healthy, and there is no reason for me to be so hypertensive... and yet, I am. My heart is normal, my kidney function is normal, my arteries are normal, my cholesterol levels are excellent, my thyroid is normal, my resting pulse is normal. I should not have stage three hypertension... and yet, I do. There is no reason for it that the doctor could find or guess at after all of the tests she ordered came up blank.
"Basically", she told me, "It would have been a chip shot if the problem was that your renal arteries were constricted, because that would have been a relatively quick and easy fix." But since my arteries were fine, no joy there. I doubt at this point that I will ever conclusively find out why I have high blood pressure. Maybe it is just the way that I am. All of the basic tests have been done, and since other then the bp I am healthy and feel fine, I highly doubt that any other tests will ever be ordered.
As for how I am doing on the medication... not as well as hoped. My blood pressure is down some, but it is still way, way, way too high. My doctor doesn't want to increase my dosage, since if she kicks it much higher then I will start to experience side effects. So now I have a second medication. This one is a diuretic. ("Not your Grandma's diuretic", according to my doctor.) I have to admit that I have no idea why this is supposed to lower my blood pressure, but I am willing to give it a try. I highly doubt that it will be able to lower to blood pressure to a zone that my doctor is happy with. My guess is that when I go back in a month for another check-up, I will be taken off of my current medication(s) and given something else to try.
I really like my internist. Besides being very thorough and conscientious, I don't think that she is too much older then myself, which makes it easy to be comfortable around her. Also, she wears braces, which I find oddly endearing.
March 22
[Taken 9 May 2005 | Black and white blossoms | Dayton, OH]
I can always tell when I have skipped a week (or so) of fencing practice. My right arm (sword arm) gets tired a lot sooner then it should, and my grip weakens… which means that my point control gets really crappy. Perhaps I ought to step up the weight training on weeks when I don't/can't get to fencing…
I am also more stiff and sore then usual after practice. I caught a blade in the crook of my right elbow last night, and now I have a truly impressive set of welted bruises on the inside of my elbow and bicep. It is a good thing that the other people in my dance class know what else I like to do in my spare time, otherwise I would probably have been subjected to some sort of an intervention by now.
March 17
[Taken 9 May 2005 | Something spiky | Dayton, OH]
Since my middle name is Patrice I suppose that I could consider today to be my patron saint's day... or something like that...
On NPR yesterday I heard that the Catholic Church had given a special dispensation to allow Catholics to eat corned beef for dinner this evening, since as it is a Friday during Lent Catholics are not supposed to be eating meat. That whole thing just struck me as being a very odd and pre-Vatican II thing to do. Oh, so you will graciously allow me to eat my corned beef? How very generous of you! I wonder how many US Catholics got a bit of a chuckle out of that announcement, as they had intended to eat corned beef whether or not the church decided to approve. I know I did... it has been a very very long time since I thought about (or cared about) whether the church approved or disapproved of my actions. Though it did get me wondering... how many people actually do that "no meat on Fridays during Lent" thing anymore? And how many people just listen to what the church attempts to dictate, smile, nod, and then just go about their lives doing what they had planned to do in the first place? My guess would be, quite a lot.
And what did I wear today for good old St. Paddy's Day? I wore a green-and-black hat and an orange shirt. (green=Irish and Catholic, and orange=British and Protestant) I support either both factions, or neither of them.
March 16
[Taken 9 May 2005 | Yellow Pansy | Dayton, OH]
I really like the lomo-esque color saturation on this one...
I would rather like to get a Lomo Kompakt Automat 35mm camera, or a Lomo Lubitel, but for Russian/east-bloc film cameras they can be on the pricy end of things, and are rather difficult to get hold of in the US. I have seen them on eBay, generally from the UK, the Russian Federation, or one of the myrid Czech states. Shipping could get a bit pricy.... but one of these days I will cave in and place a bid...
March 15
[Taken 9 May 2005 | Apple Blossom | Dayton, OH]
The Ides of March. If your name is Julius Ceasar, today is a good day to stay at home with a book and a cup of tea.
Personal usability peeve: I f*ck!ng hate it when web sites (I am looking right at you, newsweek.com ) disable the browser "back" button.
I have been following the news on the death of Slobodan Milosevic... and have been listening to NPR and reading in the New York Times about all of the back and forth of his health problems, treatments, whether or not he had been denied treatments or medication, whether or not his rights had been violated, why he hadn't been allowed to go to Russia for treatment like he wanted to, blah blah blah, ad nauseum, etc. And I have to think - so what? Who cares? He was old and had a heart condition - everyone knew he was going to die (soon) eventually. Are 'we' (by which I mean the international tribunal at The Hague) mad because he didn't last long enough to be punished? Did 'we' want to keep him alive long enough to execute him? And if 'we' weren't intending on executing him, he would have died in prison anyway, so what is the big deal? That he died ahead of schedule, before he could be convicted? The man orchestrated genocide .... frankly I think that it is more then he deserved to get to die comfortably in bed, rather then being dragged out to an alley and summararily shot. I guess I just don't 'get' what the international community is in such a tizzy about. A guy pretty much everyone hated died in prison of a heart condition. Gah, politics. Moving on, now.
March 14
[Taken 9 May 2005 | Bright Yellow | Dayton, OH]
Since I haven't gotten out to shoot recently, I have been going through some of my older photographs from the Cox Arboretum... some that I took last spring.
Yesterday it was warm enough that I left my jacket at home, and considered whether or not to wear short sleeves. Today there was a bitterly cold wind, and I bundled up in my grey wool coat. Ah, early spring.
Over the weekend John and I went to Jungle Jim's, since we wanted to re-stock on some hot sauces that we can't find anywhere else. Everytime we go there, we try to get something new to try, and this time we got a durian (aka "the king of fruit"). We opened it up outside because we had read that while the fruit was supposed to be very tasty, it was also supposed to smell bad. Well... it sure smelled pretty bad. The articles got that right. Too bad the taste didn't make up for it. John tried a little, and said that it was "very garlicky". I didn't even want to have any, the smell was so off-putting. Sometimes the "try something new" experiment works, and sometimes it doesn't. This time it really didn't.
March 12
[Taken June 2002 | A view from seven-mile beach | Grand Cayman Island]
I have been going through and editing some older photos lately, and found this one from a family vacation to Cayman several years ago. I would like to go back again... given the way the weather has been lately - overcast and intermittent thunderstorms - I wouldn't mind being there right now.
Another weekend project was to start cleaning out the flower beds in between rainstorms, though I didn't get quite as far as I had hoped to get. John and I trimmed back all of last year's dead growth, which was mostly the clumps of ornamental grass. We filled three 30 gallon garbage bags full to the brim with the "trimmings" from the clumps of ornamental grass. Still haven't gotten to cleaning out all of the dead leaves from last fall, but I figure I can get to those some evening this week. As long as it doesn't rain. I would rather clean out dry dead leaves then wet ones.
March 10
[Taken 25 February 2006 | Fungi | Dayton, OH]
This morning I found a message from my Mom on my cellphone voice mail... in it she rather tersly asked me to call "as soon as you can" because she "had news". That's it. Of course, I couldn't reach her when I tried calling first thing this morning, and again at noon, and so I sat at my desk the whole day, worrying about what the "news" might be and hoping that it wasn't something like "Grandma fell down and broke her hip".
I finally got through after I got home from work... turns out that the news is good news. My brother Jeff got accepted into the molecular and cellular biology PhD program at Case. Apparently the program is very very selective and very highly rated and was his top choice. When I talked to him he said that the director of admissions had come down to his lab to tell him in person about the offer, and that accepting him was (according to Jeff's quote) a "very easy decision". Go, Jeff! Hard work pays off, and all of that...
Maybe I ought to start thinking along PhD lines myself... look into getting started in a program in the next couple of years. After all, I don't want to fall behind in the academic arms race. *grin*
I also talked to Mom a little bit about the worrying message that she left on my phone. Mom said that she didn't want to give up the surprise. I told her that she could have left a message that she had "good news" without giving anything away. Sheesh.
Anyway. Congratulations, Jeff! Drinks on me when I am in Cleveland next weekend.
March 9
[Taken 19 September 2005 | A twist of wire | Lexington, KY]
I am just glad that tomorrow is Friday.
March 8
[Taken 25 February 2006 | Cattail | Dayton, OH]
Playing around with some stuff in Photoshop... various layers and color corrections and the like... been getting some effects that I really like.
March 7
[Taken 25 February 2006 | Pond | Dayton, OH]
Well, it is now early March, and since I have not yet heard anything from The Smithsonian Magazine about their photo contest, I can only conclude that my entries did not make the cut into any of the categories as finalists.
March 2
[Taken 25 February 2006 | Weeds in technicolor and monochrome | Dayton, OH]
March 1
[Taken 25 February 2006 | Leaf | Dayton, OH]
There are a couple of cats who wander my neighborhood regularly - a big fluffy orange marmalade, a big fluffy grey and white one, and a big black one with yellow eyes. John and I are really not sure if they are strays or not... they seem to me to be too fat and healthy looking to be strays. Someone has to be feeding those cats. Either that, or they are really good at catching and eating small suburban vermin.
Anyway, these cats have developed the annoying habit of coming into our backyard and sitting on the patio to look in the back doors. This habit is annoying because of its effect on Merlin... who completely and very loudly freaks out every single time at seeing strange cats. She runs around the first floor making as much noise as a herd of elephants, and yowls like someone is pulling her tail off and rubbing her the wrong way with a cheesegrater.
This display sometimes happens in the evening, but most often at about 3am. The wandering neighborhood cats probably also come by during the day, but since I am not here during the day to see/hear the display, I don't much care. I really mostly care about the 3am visits.
The first time, John thought that Merlin had somehow hurt herself badly, and went downstairs to investigate.
Lately though, we haven't been having as many problems. Probably because
we have been shutting Merlin in the basement at night. Out of sight, out of
mind....