Happy Meme (Part The First)

Isabelle tagged me to list six things that make me happy. I am going to go for somewhat frivolous, not deep, since the deep list would be so similar to that of everyone else ("my partner, family, friends...sunsets"). Here are my six, in no particular order.

1 - Blustery weather: not necessarily the blow your tent away with you in it stupendous winds you get in the California desert (though I kind of love them too); I'm talking about the unpredictably gusty weather that makes me regret the inability to tie my hair back. Even if it's cold and I'm a little under dressed, I find myself feeling excited and stimulated by the whoosh in my ears and the feeling of the air rushing across my skin. Scottish? Me? How did you guess. I also like rain.

2 - My cats: prompted to add this by Marble depositing herself in my lap, with one haunch obstructing the mouse pad. We got these cats as a consolation for having to move unexpectedly, Tali picked Matt out at the adoption center by marching right up to him and walking figure-eights around his legs. Matt was new to cats and had to ask me if that qualified as "a good thing". We were looking for a bonded pair, so luckily the cat that picked Matt came with an eccentric sister who stuck her entire head into a basket of toys to fish out the one she wanted form the bottom. They are both very affectionate, you don't just get a cat in your lap, you get well and truly sat upon, with purring and snuggling. Both of them will occasionally look up and want eye contact, and have been known to gently pat at my face for extra attention.

3 - Socks: I don't actually like the way goofy patterned socks look with shoes, not on my wide feet, but I love walking about in sock feet in stripy, bright coloured socks. Right now I'm wearing hot pink cotton socks I kept concealed all day under low ankle boots and jeans. I have a set of black dress socks with sparkly toe and heel caps in either hot pink, sky blue, or silver, they are my favourite, because they are unobtrusive, but when I take my shoes off at the end of the day, or at the gym, I get a little giggle out of the silly sparkly toes.

OK, it's beddy-bye time, Marble left me, but Tali has take her place, purring and kneading on the crook of my elbow. I'm in my pajamas and the pink socks have been replaced with a pair of fleece-lined men's slippers. It's not that I can't think of three more things that make me happy, it's that I don't have the time to write about why they make me happy, so I'm off to go to sleep.

Part Davis after all...

Photo 102.jpg, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

This is me bowing to peer pressure: wearing green on St Patrick's day.

Also please note the ruffle-butt cardigan, it makes me very happy.

Riveting History of Rosie (Now, with pictures)

I am very surprised that "Rosemary Riveter" is not already a common screen name. So I'm adopting it. "Rosemary Grace" is my first & middle names, but is not obviously a screen name. When searching for Rosemary Riveter all I found was a woman named Rosemary Corbin, who was they mayor of a town in California, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Rosie The Riveter Historical Trust. Who knew there was such a thing? The first image here is the original Normal Rockwell painting, I think it was a Time Magazine cover during the war, accompanying a story about women working in heavy industry "male" jobs during the WWII.

This image is more well known, a recruiting poster encouraging women to engage in "war work" in the US. I dressed up as Rosie the Riveter for Halloween a while back, and have a photo of myself in the classic pose, with the polkadot head scarf and signature red lipstick. My father insisted that I include red lipstick as part of the costume, which is unusual for a man who usually rolls his eyes when Mum and I discuss the merits of particular shades of red, or start debating exactly what to call the interesting blue/teal/slate colour of an armchair. I suppose Rosie is an icon he can relate to, my grandmother was a very strong, capable woman.

Ahpree orry

I did not intend to hiate for that long. I have been rather busy, I reduced my work hours, but then added a thesis project to the mix, so I'm almost back to where I started, but generally feeling a bit more productive, and I'm definitely enjoying having graduate school be assigned proper slots of my time, rather than squeezing it in around a 40-hour work week.

Isabelle participated in an interview meme, and kindly formulated five questions to respond to here. I am thinking about what to say, and look forward to answering them, but I haven't got around to writing anything yet. Academic work, visiting parental units, and trying to spend time with Matt before his break from school was up definitely cut into blogging time. He and I just spent a large chunk of the day going over last year's spending, and actually drew up a budget. This is a first for us, we live within our means, but haven't been saving as much as we like, which means that spending has to be strategically pruned. Especially since I am earning half what I did last year. My poor February paycheck looked very skinny and underfed indeed, being the first full month of 50% time.

The new weekly schedule allows me to make it to Tuesday and Thursday morning yoga classes at 9, before going to statistics class. Bliss! Luxury! I've only managed one of the two sessions each week so far. Next goal is to make both, then add the preceding 8am "body sculpt".

The title: this is how my American Epidemiological comrades pronounce the term "a priori", which I expect to come out as AY-pri-OH-ri. It comes up a lot in statistics classes, and it took me a while to figure out what this apri-orry thing was. Apricot ornery? Apres orrery?

In brief

I have succumbed to Twitter. See sidebar.

Our cable company seems to be confused about which channels we get. Tonight we are watching BBC America. Tomorrow we might not be able to get it.

I am SO GLAD I reduced my hours at work.

Matt will be finished with his BS degree classes this time next year.

Tali is in my lap. I think he is drooling on my arm.

Bracelet for my man

Bracelet, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

I made this in a jewelry class I treated myself to in June, it turned out too long for me, but the perfect size for Matt's wrist. He loves it.

Wow.

Matt and I "took over" Christmas this year, meaning we took charge of the cooking. I still feel like Mum did a lot of the wrangling of where to put tables/chairs, and where the good china was hiding, etc etc, and I KNOW she and her sister did the majority of cleaning dishes and squaring things away after the festivities. All involved feel it was the easiest Christmas ever (even us), I suppose this means we were long overdue for a division of labor.

Hooray. Christmas was such a big warm busy party, 27 people, all over 18. The sweater we got my Granny fitted her just right. The drive back to San Diego went without a hitch, and Matt and I are relaxing with the cats, watching movies and drinking beer left over from the party.

But, ouch

Finals are done, I think I made it, I'll know for sure at Hogmanay when marks are posted online. I have been fighting off a migraine for the past two weeks. Every day I either wake up with an ok head, and end the day with a nauseous splitting headache, or wake up nauseous and headache-y and slowly get better over the course of the day. I have been to the chiropractor three times this week, and the general consensus is that my neck is messed up.

I have found my limit: taking 9 units of graduate study (full time being 12), but two of the classes had disproportionately large workloads, and attempting to work full time.

...and exhale

Both biopsies came back as normal - just moles, no further action required. My first exam is done, I think it went well enough, the big two are tomorrow: Biostatistics and infectious Disease.

Last week I got to put into action a plan I'd wanted to carry out for a while: I signed our lab up for an "adopt a family" program through a local youth charity. We got a note with the family size (three - single mother and two sons), the shoe and clothing sizes, their regular grocery store, and any special requests. This family requested home items and toiletries, and the notes said the 7 year old boy is creative, and likes making things, but gave no information about the 12 year old. I was able to phone and find out he's interested in sports. My lab was very generous, one PhD student even bought a hockey stick and a packet of balls for street hockey. In total we collected $335, plus the hockey kit, and I spent it on bulk-size toiletries from Costco, new towels, a pretty fleece blanket, a nice floral mug for the mom, shoes for the kids, a Lego kit for the younger boy, a pair of sketch books and a set of paints/pencils/brushes in a shiny blue case. Matt and I threw in a sports almanac, books on how to draw, and a blue purse I got for sale and have used all of once, I filled the purse with a toiletries gift set - a small luxury for the mom.

Of course, this coinciding with finals has not been the best timing, a classmate of mine came over so review survival analysis last night, and then we had dinner and she helped us wrap the gifts. It felt really nice to have this big pile of presents build under our tree, and picture these kids we don't know opening their presents. I feel a little like Santa. Loading the gifts into the car this morning in a hurry so Matt could take off to work certainly made me respect all those hard working elves loading up the sleigh.

I am more than ready for my finals to be done, work to be over for the year, and my family to arrive. This year Matt and I have put ourselves in charge of preparing the Christmas dinner, so the parental generation can take a well earned break. Just call me Ms Claus.

Security Hat

Urchin Front, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

I finished this hat on Thursday night, and I don't want to take it off. Friday I had my regular checkup with the Dermatologist, and he removed two more moles to biopsy, which is good, because they're off, and I don't have to keep an eye on them any more. Until the biopsy results come in it's difficult not to worry and expect the worst. Even if neither one contains melanoma, they are likely to be "abnormal" and require more tissue to be removed.

One is from my right cheek, the sticky bandage starts just below where this photo cuts off, the last straggler mole left behind after everything else got taken for biopsy when I had the cancer diagnosis. The other was on my left ring finger, right above where my wedding band lives. I had some trouble getting my wedding band off.

After the appointment, I went to work, and got really upset, mostly worrying about the possibility of the one on my finger coming back as abnormal, how do you take a half centimeter margin of skin surrounding the biopsy from a finger that's only a couple of centimeters across? Typing was difficult because of the gauze taped around my finger, then I got a mildly snippy email from a professor we share some expensive equipment with and I just started to cry. Maybe I should have gone home after I got biopsied, but if I plan to take a day off every time I have a dermatologist appointment it would get a bit ridiculous.

Fortunately I work with a really nice bunch, though it's always embarrassing to be weepy, they all know something of the ongoing saga, last year I had the impressive red marks on my face from the laser treatments every month, and this August I had stitches on my arm from another abnormal mole. I emailed my boss to say I was going for a walk before the weekly meeting, and went to find my fellow knitting nerd Fiametta to come get coffee with me. She suggested I talk the doc into taking off every mole we can find, get it over with all in one go, part of me is tempted.

So I'm sitting on the sofa in my pajamas and new orange hat, trying not to mope about my sore finger (funny that I'm barely concerned about having stitches on my face now - it's the FINGER that bugs me), and reminding myself that there is no point worrying, especially when I have finals in a week and a half. Which is when the biopsy results will come in too, I'm not sure if that's such a good thing, but the timing can't be helped. Mutant moles and cancer threat notwithstanding, life goes on.

Besides, I have my hat to protect me

Belief-O-Matic.

Seen on K's livejournal. Interesting that Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestant scored higher than nontheist, I suspect this is cultural influence from growing up in Church of Scotland schools.

1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3. Liberal Quakers (93%)
4. Neo-Pagan (85%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (80%)
6. Taoism (71%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (70%)
8. New Age (68%)
9. Nontheist (65%)
10. Mahayana Buddhism (62%)
11. Orthodox Quaker (60%)
12. Reform Judaism (53%)
13. Jainism (46%)
14. Scientology (44%)
15. Sikhism (42%)
16. New Thought (39%)
17. Baha'i Faith (38%)
18. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (32%)
19. Hinduism (32%)
20. Seventh Day Adventist (30%)
21. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (28%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (20%)
23. Eastern Orthodox (16%)
24. Islam (16%)
25. Orthodox Judaism (16%)
26. Roman Catholic (16%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (14%)

Week 1, Day 1

Please ignore the two week delay in actually beginning the 100 push up challenge. I did the first intervals on the arm of the futon, as I did the initial test. But I moved to the kitchen counter because I wasn't able to get the proper depth on the futon arm. I managed 5 total at the last set. I'm going to keep going with the counter for a bit, then try moving up to a lower prop. Matt was a good cheerleader, monitoring my arm angle and saying "go go go go" when I was flagging. Besides telling me "you've always got TWO MORE in you!"

PS~My triceps feel like jelly. I'm having slight difficult lifting my glass.

PPS~It's fantastic.

America Decides

Tomorrow morning Matt and I are going to head over to our polling station early tomorrow to vote. I'm glad we're going along together, this feels like such an important election, even more important than 2004 felt (which is probably why it went the way it did - it didn't feel THAT important, so enough people just didn't bother), going together somehow acknowledges the event. I have voted every election since I moved here in 2001, a lot of them going along at the same time as Matt. The past few I've left for work early, pulled into an empty parking lot, and walked into an empty polling station to exercise my democratic rights as a citizen. Not to mention earning my "I Voted" sticker. I have been hearing stories about showing up to cast an early vote, and waiting in line for hours. I hope I don't get stuck for four whole hours, but I admit that showing up to vote and finding a line of people waiting to do the same would be somewhat reassuring.

I am fervently hoping that Wednesday morning will find us with the first African American president (by a landslide please), reinforcement of the rights of all to marry as they see fit in the state of California (No on prop 8), teenage girls still able to pursue termination without enforced parental notification (No on prop 4), and improved conditions for farm animals (Yes on prop 2). We just spent some time talking through all the initiatives on the ballot, so we have our cheat-sheets of how we intend to vote.

I wish I'd had more time this year to involve myself and be more of an activist than a couple of small donations and a lot of online petitions.

Drumroll...

My husband just mailed an acceptance letter for a new Systems Analyst job at a small local military contracting company. He had another interview in September, during the evil on-call week, but that job feel through, and he ended up hearing about this one through a former colleague. Also during an evil on-call week, which just ended on Monday. The new job involves some travel, mostly short trips, but no pager duty. No on call, and no weekend duties. This is a very nice way to head into a long weekend holiday to wine country!

Also, I can graduate 6 months sooner than I have been planning, IF I go full time 6 months sooner, and think up a thesis subject lickety split. I want to do it, it would be great to knock a whole semester off. I'd be defending this time next year, and finishing in December '09. Crikey.

The Challenge: Initial Test

Three.

Three measly incline push ups, using the arm of the futon as a bench. Week One, weakling column here I come.

I would do 100 push ups (just to be the one who fell down at your door)

I've been thinking about doing the 100 push up challenge a la Dietgirl, but I'm pretty sure that right now I can't even achieve one good form push up. Since I've been thinking about it, and my lack of ability, I've realized that the inability to perform even one is the perfect reason to make this a project. Push ups and squats are excellent simple indicators of basic fitness and right now I am earning a big fat FAIL at basic fitness. At least I used to be pretty good a squats, even though I never managed decent push ups.

This sounds like an excuse, but I am really feeling the difference of living in a car culture metro area, in a neighborhood that is not conducive to walking (neither by it's infrastructure nor it's climate). I'm grateful to the experience of going back to university for showing me how little I now walk and climb hills/stairs as part of my normal life. For the first month or so of this semester I was parking in the same structure as everyone else with classes on my side of campus, this involved at least fifteen minutes of trawling for a parking spot, following people as they walk to their car, playing chicken at intersections because whoever gets ahead of you MIGHT STEAL A SPOT FROM YOU...until I noticed that I was chronically late for class and getting mileage from my car that would be more appropriate for a small truck. Now I park in an unpopular lot close to the freeway and down a hill and a staircase from the campus. My thighs complain on the ascent, and it's less than half of The Mound in Edinburgh, which I used to trample up and down with no trouble.

So...I've been thinking that it would not be a bad idea to take the 100 push ups challenge, starting with bench push ups and working up (or down, really) to the floor version, and taking the same simple scale-up type approach to simple unloaded squats.

Feeling weak and achy sucks. I want to feel strong. I want to be stronger. It's about time I did something about it.

Sneaky Knittings

A perk of working in a lab (and being in charge of ordering surgical gloves) is that I know, when plotting to make fingerless gloves for my lab mates, that S. has slim hands, but fairly long fingers, and V. has hands pretty close to my size. It's nice not to have to rely on guesswork when putting in the time to hand knit something. All I have to worry about is picking colours (royal blue for S. and pinky red for V.)

We all spend a lot of time in an overly air-conditioned computer lab, looking at highly magnified photographs of nerve fibers, and using software to analyze those nerve fibers in excruciating detail. Last winter we all had very cold stiff hands. I can't make myself a pair of fingerless gloves to wear while my compadres suffer with stiff chilly hands.

Mouse 'flu* sweeps through laboratory

Over half the lab is down for the count. I'm in, but functioning on low brain power - only slow and steady computer analysis for me today, no sectioning or anything else involving sharp things.

*no such thing, but we work with rodents and I just had a class on avian 'flu.

For Isabelle

In explanation of my previous anecdote.



Monty Python's Holy Grail, the bridge scene.

Did somebody hide a rotten banana under my sofa?

I am plagued by fruit flies. Every day I'm finding one drowned in whatever I'm drinking. Matt and I have gone around the kitchen double-checking to make sure there's no bits of fruit half dessicated and hiding behind the coffee jar or toaster, no culprits.

I have my first quiz of the semester tomorrow, and am beginning to think about thinking about midterm exams. But not actually thinking about them. Yet.

One of the new crop of medical students is a Monty Python fan. A blackboard in our hallway had "Questions 23a-28b" written on it, and one day I noticed someone had added near the bottom:

"29a - what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

So of course I added "African or European?". A few days later I was gratified to see "I don't know! Aaaaaaaaaargh!" had appeared underneath.