I was shocked this evening to learn that Michael Jackson at age 50 died today of a cardiac arrest.  He was a very talented man.  I remember Michael Jackson back when he was “Little Michael Jackson” and a cute, diminutive member of the Jackson 5.  I was in the 9th grade when their songs rocketed to the Number 1 position on the Billboard Top 40, and I added them to my 45 rpm vinyl collection, as many of my classmates and friends did.

One of my favorite Michael Jackson songs was first sung by the young lad during this era when he was still a boy, backed up by his siblings.  “I’ll Be There” was a beautiful song, and I love it to this day.  I found this haunting video this evening of an older Michael Jackson singing a few strains of this song at the piano, the younger Michael Jackson looking on.  It’s symbolic of there being two different Michael Jacksons: the young, innocent boy with a melodic voice and the older Jackson, severely plagued by his own demons and unable to successfully navigate the responsibilities of adulthood.  This haunting duality is what I perceive when I think of Michael Jackson.  May he now be at peace.

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Dale and I are celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary this Sunday.  It corresponds with Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth this weekend so going anywhere within a 50 miles radius of there is out of the question.  No lodging available unless we want to sleep in our shed in Two Harbors.  That is fine on occasion but not on our wedding anniversary.

Instead of heading north as we customarily do, we are heading in a southwesterly direction.  About two hours from the Twin Cities is New Ulm, a town founded on German culture and tradition.  We’re staying at The Bohemian Bed & Breakfast Friday and Saturday nights.  A tour of the Schell Brewery will problem be on tap (so to speak).  I don’t kn ow what else we’re going to do, but we’ll find some entertaining things to do during our little get-away. 

It’s nice to be happily married.  I love sharing these little adventures with my “otter half.”

It was five to six years ago that the joint in my right thumb – the one at the base of the thumb at the wrist – began to hurt all the time.  I didn’t know why at the time.  I just knew that anything that put stress on that joint caused a sharp pain.  I finally went to my primary care doctor, who referred me to physical therapy.  The physical therapist was the one who suggested I see a hand specialist.  I did and was told that I had no cartilage left at the carpal-metacarpal joint.  The bone surfaces were rubbing together, causing pain and inflammation.  He gave me a shot of cortisone into the joint at that initial visit which completely alleviated the pain for four or five months, but it returned and the doctor wouldn’t repeat that procedure.  He said he couldn’t keep doing that.

My job, requiring a lot of repetitive hand and wrist motions, causes a lot of stress on that joint.  My favorite hobby of beading has further stressed that joint.  I now try to manage the discomfort by limiting the activities I do that aggravate it, splinting it at night, and taking analgesics. 

I had a bad flare-up of the pain about a week ago.  All I did was make a beaded necklace and two pairs of earrings as a birthday gift for a friend.  I really must be right at the edge most of the time of what activities I can endure and anything beyond that puts me into a flare-up of joint pain.

Five years ago, the hand specialist said that I wasn’t bad enough yet to consider surgery.  I wonder when I will be bad enough.  Will it be when nothing controls the pain, when I have no mobility left in my thumb?  I sometimes wish that that point of being “bad enough” would happen soon so that something definitive could be done to control the pain and give me some reasonable function in that joint.  It’s too bad I have to get much worse before I can get better!

Feeling a bit discouraged today.  I’m tired of hurting.

Fawn on June 5, 2009

Originally uploaded by Lady Birchwood

When I came home from work yesterday afternoon around 5:45, I went into the house by the way of the front porch to head off a roofing contractor who was wandering around the neighborhood, soliciting business for his ailing company. As I glanced to the side of our large, wrap-around front porch towards the wooded area to the north, I spotted a newborn fawn nestled at the base of a tree. This fawn was only days old, left in a safe spot while its mother was out foraging for food.

I have never seen a fawn so young and vulnerable! We see them every year, of course, when they’re old enough to start following their moms around in the fields in our neighborhood. Usually, we start seeing them about the end of June when they’ve gained a little weight and strength.

When I left for the airport at 11:15 PM to pick up my husband from his latest business trip , that fawn was still at the base of the same tree. Our household was beginning to get a little worried that this was an abandoned fawn. Perhaps Mom wasn’t coming back to care for it. Unfortunately, this happens often in the wild, particularly when the doe is a first-time mother or has been in a marginal state of nutrition during the pregnancy.  I wasn’t sure how long does usually leave their fawns to go out browsing, but I thought that six hours was getting to be the outer range of what was normal for that behavior.

 From the book Whitetail Spring that we have in our collection at home:

Typically, fawns born in areas of high-quality habitat where deer numbers are maintained below carrying capacity of the range through adequate hunter harvest have the best chance of surviving early life. For example, more than 90 percent of the fawns born on rich farmlands in portions of the Midwest survive to weaning age. Conversely, infant mortality rates ranging from 50 to 90 percent often prevail in poor-quality habitat where food and cover are inadequate, in northern areas following particularly severe winters, or wherever deer are overly abundant.

Sad to say, we live in a suburban area of St. Paul where the habitat is shrinking more all the time due to residental and business development using up the available land.  It is publically acknowledged that we have a deer overpopulation in the area, and there are routine spring “harvests” of the herd using DNR sharp-shooters at controlled times.  My observations are that they don’t seem to be particularly stressed or malnourished right here in our area, but I was still skeptical about our fawn survival rate given the paragraph I had just read.

Our resident 12-year-old, new to the world of whitetail deer,  was very concerned about this fawn upon going to bed and wanted to know when we were going to intervene if Mama didn’t come back soon.  My plan was if by morning, the fawn had not moved from the base of that tree, we would give a call to the DNR, get some advice, and if they felt it was warranted, they could come and remove the fawn from the property.  Better that than to have a newborn fawn die next to our house.

Living up and close and personal with Mother Nature is not always an easy thing.  We had a yearling deer get hit by a car in front of our house in February, and it made it as far as the side yard where it died.  The DNR removed its body from our property.  We had a much older deer, the matriarch of our deer herd at the time, pass away from what appeared to be a malignant lesion of her hip which ulcerated and spread.  We watched that process since she took to spending a lot of time resting under our back porch.  One day she just disappeared and never came back.  We see birds and squirrels and bunnies die.  Ducks lose their lifetime mates.  Their eggs get eaten by raccoons.  The raccoons get hit by cars.  The cycle of life and death is often hard to observe.

We were spared from making any calls to the DNR this morning.  The fawn was gone from the base of the tree.  Hopefully, it is safe and sound with its mother and all is well.

It’s a boring day at work.  My work is caught up for now and I’m down to doing those chores I always say I’ll do when I have the time, like organizing my samples in the -80 degree C freezers, cleaning my drawers, etc.  My mind wanders a lot on days like this.  (Okay, okay, not that I need any excuses for my mind wandering.  It goes off on little junkets whenever it wants to, regardless of what else I have going on.)

Anyway, on one of my little mind meanderings, I realized that I could still recall all the names of the Funny Face drinks from my youth: Choo-Choo Cherry, Rootin’-Tootin’ Raspberry, Jolly Olly Orange, Freckle Face Strawberry, Goofy Grape,  Loud Mouth Lime.  What I didn’t immediately recall was that Jolly Olly Orange originally was named Injun Orange, and that Choo-Choo Cherry was first Chinese Cherry.  Apparently, there was some diversity sensitivity issues involved with those ethnic names and they were quickly replaced.  I do, however, remember viewing this commercial on television when I was eight or nine years old:

Oh, yes, it was a simpler time, back in the day before it was discovered that feeding pounds of cyclamate, the artificial sweetener in many soft drinks, to lab rats gave them cancer. Suddenly, all our Funny Face drinks were gone from the shelves in a mass exodus. No more Goofy Grape. No more Rootin’-Tootin’ Raspberry. Saved from the dreaded cyclamates in our fruit drinks, we were allowed to grow up to face the perils of our adult lives.

My bestfriend and chosen sister, Lottie, who has lived with my husband and me since February, has recently had an unpleasant exchange with a blogger that she followed and actually thought was a friend.  I’ve known about this conflict since it began.  Lottie and I discussed it back when it was still in the formative phases, and I know the posts that initiated the decisions that Lottie ultimately made.  She talked about it with me before the decision was made.  I read the email that she sent to the individual.  I read the personal emails that this blogger sent Lottie in return.  I followed along as it all unfolded on WordPress, talking about it with my friend the entire time.  I DO know the sequence of events as this drama unfolded, I know how my friend has felt about it every step of the way, and contrary to an expressed opinion, I think I DO know the majority, if not all, of the story in this case.

I was just so blown away by some of the things that have transpired that after much restraint over these last days,  I finally made two comments on this other person’s blog after she had printed what seemed to be irrelevant emails my friend had written her months in the past, things that for all intent and purpose had nothing to do with the recent dispute.  She disallowed my comments  but then publically responded to them on her blog in very, very lengthy fashion .   

I have never had anyone do that before.  Yes, I’ve had a comment or two not approved, but then the blogger has not continued to have a one-sided public monologue about it with no one else knowing the statements that  she’s even addressing.   That’s just bizarre!   And it’s clearly not a fair exchange between two people to publically post a long discourse on a blog to a comment that no one else is allowed to see!  Highly strange and disconcerting, the kind of behavior that makes me worried about a person’s grip on the situation. 

And on that note, it’s now the end of a busy week, both professionally and personally.  Let the long Memorial Day weekend begin without further adieu!

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Well, two can play at this game, dear sister!  I like this particular LOL Cat, too!

She and I stayed up way late last night for it being a work night.  However, there is something very satisfying about that quiet time together after my husband, a habitual early bedtimer,  and Lottie’s school-age son have turned in for the night and we’re left alone in the TV room, the CD player randomly selecting some of our mutually favorite songs.  The conversations range from humorous and silly to very, very serious.   No topic seems to be off-limits.  It’s a wonderful time for sharing and learning about each other.  I’m glad to miss a few winks of sleep for that ultimate benefit.

Lottie and I are not morning people.  In fact, we’ve both owned articles of clothing or coffee mugs that proclaim, “I Don’t Do Mornings!”  Short nights make for even tougher mornings,  but sometimes it’s well worth the sacrifice.

Always glad to lose a few winks with you, sis!

Last night, after a couple of glasses of wine, my husband was explaining to our friend, Lottie, that our old owner’s manual for the Mazda GLC we owned instructed us to “tootle the horn.”  It advised that “tootling more vigorously” may be required if the obstruction to driving continues.  This brought about gales of laughter from all three of us.  Just thinking about it this morning sent Lottie and me into more tootles of laughter.

Since it feels good to “tootle,” here are a few more humorous interpretations of the English language from our worldly friends:

Creative Translations…

 

1. Hong Kong dentist – Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.
2. Budapest zoo – Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, please give it to the guard on duty.
3. Acapulco – The manager has personally passed all water served here.
4. Instructions on a multipurpose knife in Japan – Caution: Blade Extremely Sharp! Keep out of children.
5. Germany’s Black Forest – It is strictly forbidden on our camping site that people of different sex, for instance men and women, live together in the tent unless they are married to each other for that purpose.
6. From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo – When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.
7. In a Bucharest hotel lobby – The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
8. Swedish furrier – Fur coats made for ladies from their skins.
9. Bangkok dry cleaners – Drop your trousers here for best results.
10. Copenhagen airline office – We take your bags and send them in all directions.

One evening this week, I was perusing the goods in my local grocery store aisle and stopped in front of a canned item that proclaimed on the label,  Spotted Dick.  My eyes widened and I had to pick up the can and scrutinize it.  Just what the Sam Hill was spotted dick?  The image that popped into my mind was an absurd and fairly gross one.    Could there possibly be any demand for a can of spotted dick?

I had to go get my husband, my friend Lottie, and her son to come and see what I had found in one of the aisles of my Rainbow Fresh grocery store.  We all had a raucous laugh over the canned offering of spotted dick!

As it turns out, spotted dick is an English pudding, having even earned mention in one of the Harry Potter books.  I found that piece of trivia here.   There are many, many recipes available on the interweb for spotted dick.  Here is one of them: 

---

2 oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
pinch of salt
2 oz shredded suet
1 oz white or brown sugar
4 oz currants
2 oz fresh breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
4-5 tbsp milk

 

Butter a 1.5 pint pudding basin. Sift the flour, baking powder, spice and salt into a mixing bowl and mix in the suet, sugar, fruit and bread- crumbs. Stir in the egg and sufficient milk to produce a soft consistency that drops off the spoon in 5 seconds.Turn the mixture into the pudding basin, which should be two-thirds full. Cover with greased foil or a snap-on lid (the plastic container from a 2 lb Christmas pudding is worth saving for this purpose.) Steam for 2 to 2.5 hours. When cooked, remove the cover and allow the pudding to shrink slightly, then cover the basin with a hot serving plate, hold it firmly and invert. Lift off the basin to leave the pudding on the plate.

 

Our public health laboratory at the Minnesota Department of Health was filmed yesterday afternoon by Channel 9 Eyewitness news here in the Twin Cities.  They were giving their viewers an inside shot of our laboratory where intensive testing has been underway to evaluate hundreds of samples for Swine flu. 

I actually was minding my own business late yesterday afternoon, setting up a PCR assay unrelated to the Swine flu testing, but the cameraman caught snippets of me as I sat at the bench, competently setting up my assay.  Brief footage of me was integrated into last night’s news broadcast.

Once again, I’m proud to be a member of a excellent State health lab.  Minnesota can be confident that we’re doing everything we can to protect and maintain the health of the citizens of Minnesota.

(Here’s the link to the video. I’m having trouble getting the code to embed.)