John Paul III, my beloved friend, protector, and family member, whom I would not trade for any dog or, for that matter, anything in the world
I'm spending tonight at the home of my pseudo-relatives because my parents are chasing wallabies and dingoes all over the land down under and trying not to crash into the great coral barrier while they (or my dad, anyway; my mom's probably too sensible to attempt it). Even though we have a fairly sophisticated alarm system, I don't stay at home overnight all by myself. It sounds immature, I'm sure, and it probably is, but it's not something I'm ready to do. Two years ago I couldn't even be at home in the daytime hours by myself, so I have at least made some progress.
Last night I was too tired to risk driving the forty or so miles home because of sleepiness so I spent an extra night with Uncle Steve and Aunt Heather. I'll spend tomorrow night here with the pseudo-relatives again. The Pope (my dog, Pope John Paul III, not Pope Francis) needs to travel with me wherever I spend the night. He's quite friendly with the pseudo-relatives' dog, Pippa, but he and the pseudos' cat, Claudia, are somewhat wary of each other. Once and a while she hisses at him, but mostly they just give each other death glares the entire time they're together. I don't know if they'll ever be friends or even anything less than mortal enemies.
Today I helped my pseudo-aunt with reading through some of her legal material. I shouldn't really say I helped her, as she read through every bit of it herself as well, but she had me read and summarize it to assess my skill in that area. She's enough of a control freak that I'll have to read and summarize for practice for a long time before she'll ever just hand anything over to me for the real thing. That's after today's completely error-free performance.
I'm going to start spending most Thursdays at the lab. It's a light day for interns, the pathologist with whom I've been working has told me. That both gives me more opportunities and allows me to do more actual lab work while avoiding some petty jealousies of other interns. I can see myself doing this sort of thing for lifetime. Then again, in the third year of med school when students go through clerkships, where they work for roughly three weeks at a time in basically every branch of medicine, available at the facility of one's residency, I may fall in love with some other branch of medicine. It's nice that I've found something I love doing. If it ends up that I love something else even more, that's even better. it's a good position in which to be. For that matter, if Jude Alex's FB page administrator keeps screwing up, I could always apply to replace him. The guy needs one of those brush-up courses in reading comprehension, or he needs to show up for work not hung over. I'm not quite sure which.
I haven't finalized my fall schedule, but I have a couple of general ed courses to finish up in addition to my recitals. I did most of my English requirements as honors/AP courses in high school, and I've taken several upper division lit courses, but it appears that I need to take at least one lower division literature course on this campus to earn my degree from here. I don't want to take what I've already taken in high school, nor does my counselor want me to do so. There's a particular lower-division lit course where you essentially memorize huge volumes of poetry. You buy the book, which is humongous, and any poem or work of prose, of which a few are included, in the book is fair game.
I've had to memorize so much poetry in my educational career, in addition to the idea that verbatim memorization has always come easily to me, that I almost feel as though it's cheating to take the course, but I'm taking it anyway. "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" (AKA " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas) is even in the book. Some of what I've memorized is oral, and the punctuation has to be exactly as written by the author even if something else makes more sense, so I'll need to review the poets' conventions, but other than the precision in punctuation, I have enough poetry committed to memory to ace the course tomorrow. It doesn't require much in the way of class attendance, either. Basically, the students show up for an introductory session and three exams, including the final, to write out by hand their lines of poetry they've memorized. It is possible to complete what is required for an A in the first two testing sessions and not even need to show up for he final, but I really need to finish this class with number one standing. It may make a difference in the financial reward I receive with my baccalaureate degree. Most people won't be taking the class terrible seriously and will be content with the lowest "A," but I can't take the chance of another overachiever being enrolled in the section of the course long with me. I like poetry, and literature in general, and reviewing a bit of it will be fun.
I'll conclude with a selection from Edna St. Vincent Millay, "On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven." Ms. Millay is not even close to my favorite poet, but I believe she wrote a near-perfect poem with this one. Would it be disrespectful to use that quote about even a blind squirrel finding an acorn once in a great while?
Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Reject me not into the world again.
With you alone is excellence and peace,
Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain.
Enchanted in your air benign and shrewd,
With limbs a-sprawl and empty faces pale,
The spiteful and the stingy and the rude
Sleep like the scullions in the fairy-tale.
This moment is the best the world can give:
The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem.
Reject me not, sweet sounds; oh, let me live,
Till Doom espy my towers and scatter them,
A city spell-bound under the aging sun.
Music my rampart, and my only one.
This stone is in the left ureter, but the overall idea is the same. Wuss patient.
I'm spending the night at Uncle Steve's house because he knows I was up late and he doesn't want repeat performance of a car rollover because of the driver falling sleep at the wheel. I'm not devoid of common sense, Even if he were not insisting, I would ask to stay over another night. I know when I'm too tired to risk driving further than a few minutes.
I practiced violin for an hour right after I finished working, because I suspected I'd fall asleep and sleep until late at night, when it would be too late to practice because the rest of the family, or at least the children would be asleep. My Aunt heather is awake, and she did ask me to play one song for her that she especially liked, but one song is different than practicing for an hour or longer.
The family had Hawaiian chicken for dinner. I sleep through dinner, but Aunt heather made a plate for me, which I just finished. It was tasty, and I was hungry enough to eat all of it. My parents and most of my adults now know that I will eat when the time is right, so they don't nag me so much. There are times when my stomach cannot hold much food for whatever reason, and there are times when I can find room for a full meal. Fighting nature accomplishes nothing.
I did a white blood cell count. The pathologist did the count on thedendritic cell. the pathologist said differentiating with ease will coe with exxperince. same patient with another slide, as my results at this stage of the game cannot be considered reliable. The procedure is done by placing a drop of blood on a slide, then taking another slide ad using it to push the blood and smear it across the slide. Then the blood must dry. Once it is dry, first a "Diffquick" solution (it's a brand name for a differentiating liquid) is applied and the slide is looked at under the microscope using a grid to count the number of total white blood cells. Next, different solutions are added so that the types of white blood cells present may be counted. I did well on the overall count, but not quite so well on the differentiating part. To me, a mycrophage looks a whole lot like a dendritic cell. The pathologist said differentiating with ease will come with experience. f/or practical purposes for this particular test the total count was what mattered. Appendicitis was being ruled out. the total WBC count was within the normal range. The pathologist repeated the procedure himself, as he always does to be certain, and came up with results even closer to mine the second time. The pathologist was able to determine that if appendicitis was present, it was in its extremely early stages. (The report sent from the ER also said that the patient was afebrile, further lending credence to the absence of appendicitis.) The pathologist asked me what test I thought should be run next. Relying on my own experience, I said that first I would obtain a urine sample if one had not been obtained and check for blood, which would be indicative of a urinary calculus. the pathologist agreed. In this procedure, urine is spun at a rapid rate to separate any blood that is in the urine from the urine itself. Sometimes it is present, maybe even just in trace amounts, but cannot be detected just by looking at the sample. /I suggested also a dipstick test for presence of nitrites and WBCs in the urine to determine the possible presence of a urinary tract infection. The pathologist agreed. We found nitrites, WBCs, and red blood cells, indicating probable urinary tract infection and possible urinary calculi. The absence of WBCs in the blood would indicate that the infection was at the lower level of the urinary tract and had not yet reached the kidneys.
The pathologist asked what we should do next. I said that other than reporting our findings, basically nothing. Our job was finished. It was now up to the examining physician to order some form of radiological procedure- most likely a CT scan, though possibly a simple kidney-ureter-bladder X-ray or maybe an ultrasound if indication was that the stone, if there really was a stone, was obstructing the ureter and causing any backup urine into the kidney. KUB plus ultrasound is less expensive if that's an issue, and there's also less radiation to which the patient is exposed.
The pathologist said I got an A for the day. Of course it was figurative, as we don't receive daily grades.
He texted me after I was gone to tell me that the patient has a 9-millimeter by 5-millimeter partially obstructing stone in his right ureter. A stent will be placed in the ureter, and as soon as possible, it will be blasted with lithotripsy if it cannot be moved along simply by increasing IV fluids and possibly giving the patient tamsulosin, which increase the flow of urine. (Often known by the major brand name Flo-max, its primary use is to help men with prostate problems pass urine.) . I texted back that the patient is a wuss because I passed a much larger (13 by 8.5 mm calculus) all by myself with nothing but a little soda and lemonade. The pathologist texted back to ask if I wanted a medal or a trophy. I said either would be fine.
We're having a thunder storm. I shall turn off the lights to enjoy it, while hoping that everyone has been able to seek shelter.
The internship is going well. I do spend a fair amount of time playing barrister -- I can make a much better latte than I could before I took this position -- and shredding documents, but I'm not a full-scale custodian. I haven't cleaned a single restroom, nor have I emptied a single waste basket.
This is the person I refuse to be, either in class or at my lab internship job.
The lab for which I work considers this to be a position which should be mutually beneficial to the lab and to me. For that reason, I do a fair amount of filing, shredding, and gopher tasks. They also ascertain, on the other hand, that all of us are exposed to actual lab work, even if it only involves observing the process. Most pathologists and paraprofessionals take the time, even if it adds time to the tasks they're attempting to accomplish, to let us look through microscope lenses, or show us how to operate the machine that spins the liquid specimens, which breaks down the contents of the body substances being tested. We certainly don't make any actual diagnoses [unlike the other pseudolab where I spent two days, but a few pathologists have asked us to offer opinions about what we've observed and what it might possibly indicate. This is the learning experience it is supposed to be.
A form of mold was being evaluated. It was in a petri dish. We weren't allowed near it until we were wearing scrubs, masks covering our mouths and noses, eye protection, and rubber gloves. After observing the viewing and photography of the mold, a portion on the mold was put on a slide. The pathologist looked at it. He asked each of us to have a look. He asked each of us what we thought it was. The consensus among my fellow lab interns was that it was stachybotrys. I said it looked like cladosporium to me. The pathologist, a balding, not particularly thin but far from obese probably late-forty-ish man, pulled out a small, spiral-bound book, and flipped to the cladosporium page, then flipped to the stachybotrys page. He asked us all to look at both, and if we still stuck to our original diagnoses. We did. He asked me why I thought it was cladosporium. I said that based solely on appearance, it looked greener and less slimy, and a little more powdery or velvety, than stachybotrys, but that I would be interested in knowing from where the sample came before making a final diagnosis. I also said that the molds react differently to alcohol, and that dropping it into alcohol would help to confirm the findings.
The pathologist said we didn't need any more testing because I was right and that I have a good eye for mold. He said the sample was obtained from an interior PVC supply duct, which is a more likely setting for cladosporium. He said the main indicator, though, was the appearance, the color and the perceived texture. He dismissed the rest of the lab interns for the day, two of whom shot me visual daggers as they walked away, but asked me to stay for a moment. one guy, a tall, tanned blond who was probably twenty-two or so, whispered, "Teacher's pet!" in my ear loudly enough that the others heard. When gave him a puzzled look, he said, "Good work!" I don't really know what to think of him yet.
The pathologist asked how old I was. I told him eighteen. "Are you sure?" he asked
"Pretty sure," I told him. "I can remember every birthday since my second, and I don't think my parents were lying to me about that one."
"I don't mean 'Do you know how old you are?' " he explained. "I mean 'Are you telling me the truth? ' "
"Yes," I answered. "I have documentation of my age, and you can call my parents if you want."
"You're John Rousseau's kid, aren't you?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered, less than thrilled that he had made the connection. I'd rather be judged by my own work, good or bad, than by anyone's preconceived notions related to my father's eminence.
"I didn't mean to accuse you of lying," he clarified. "It's just that you don't look eighteen."
"It's genetic," I told him. "My parents always looked young for their ages and still do -- especially my mom."
"How old is your dad?" he asked."
"Almost forty-eight," I answered.
"You're right," he concluded. "He doesn't look anywhere near forty-eight. He could pass for his thirties, although he's been around for long enough that most of us should know he has to be older than that." He paused. "The age thing, " he continued, "may seem like a curse now, but you'll be grateful for it later."
"That's what everyone keeps telling me," I agreed. "But I get pulled over about twice a month just because the cop or CHP thinks I can't possibly be old enough to drive. And I'm eighteen, not sixteen. It's gotten to the point that I'm no longer nervous when I see the red lights flashing."
"The reason I asked about your age, " he continued, "is that if you're eighteen, you can handle toxic substances under certain conditions. You can prepare slides, for one thing."
"Do you want me to prepare a slide?" I asked eagerly -- probably too eagerly.
"Not today," he answered. "I'm out of here in a few minutes, and you should already be gone. But next time, definitely." He paused, looked in both directions, and continued. "I've got employees with M.S. degrees who would have insisted stachybotrys on that one. You have good instincts. Or you paid attention in microbiology class. Or both."
"Thank you," I told him.
"Don't thank me, " he said rather abruptly. "I'm merely stating the obvious."
"Point taken" I answered, not knowing what else to say.
"I won't say anything about your father," he advised me, "and you shouldn't either. There's going to be plenty of jealousy directed at you as it is."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you know more than you should know at this stage of your career," he answered. "Some people don't study very hard and don't take very good notes," he explained, "and they resent others who do. Don't take it personally if other interns do take it personally."
Thus ended my most interesting day so far at the lab. It's such a comforting feeling to know that my peers may be aiming figurative or literal daggers at my back. I'm not going to wave my arm around like Arnold Horshak, but I'm not going to play stupid, either. We're at a point in all our academic careers where what we do or do not do, or know or do not know, now matters. I'd say that it's a dog-eat-dog world except that I love dogs too much. It don't like opossums. It's an opossum-eat-opossum world.
My cousin on my mom's side, Elizabeth, who is twenty-three, fell asleep at the wheel of her car on a country road in Nebraska very early this morning and rolled her vehicle. Fortunately there was no other traffic, and the area was clear of trees, and she didn't hit any telephone or power poles. She basically walked away with only a bloody nose from the air bag and her nose wasn't even broken. A concussion hasn't been ruled out, but she's basically fine -- walking around as though nothing happened.
The accident occurred in the middle of nowhere, but her car has (or had; the car is history) OnStar, so emergency vehicles were on the scene fairly soon, and the dispatcher called her boyfriend's house, so her boyfriend and his brother and father were there before the emergency vehicles were. They couldn't find her purse that night, but her boyfriend's dad found it about forty feet early the next morning. Her cell phone and all her crdit cards were in it, and there was no indication anyone had gotten to the purse before her boyfriend's dad did, so her credit and information is probably safe. She had about two hundred dollars in cash, which was still in her purse. Any thief who ws after her ID probably wouldn't have taken the time to write down her driver's license number and her credit card info but left the two hundred dollars.
She's probably fine. Her boyfriend's dad insisted she go to the hospital in the ambulance because she wasn't totally making sense afterward. Alcohol and drugs were ruled out. She ws just shaken up.
She was driving from her boyfriend's family's farm to back her apartment. The accident happened at about 1:30. The car had some feature that was supposed to try to wake her up if she swerved as though she were falling asleep, but it she over-corrected when the alarm or beep or whatever sounded, and it caused her to roll. She had her seatbelt on.
She's an RN. Because of the possible head injury which could interfere with her thought processes and because she's sore and and a nurse has to lift, she'll be off for a week. My uncle, who is a pilot, has a little comp time, so he drove the hundred miles or so from the family's home to her apartment. In a few days, once the insurance company has done its thing, he'll help her to find another car. She should probably get one similar to the one she had. It did everything it could possibly do for her except keep her awake.
Everyone should be mindful of the dangers of driving when overly tired. Elizabeth had worked eighteen hours straight because she worked her own twelve-hour shift and covered half of someone else's. Then she drove twenty miles to her boyfriend's family's house, watched a movie, and headed home. She should have had a clue that she might be too tired to drive. All's well that ends basically OK, but this accident could easily have had a very different outcome.
P.S. I put in two extra hours toward my intership today. I got to see what sickle cells look like for real through a microscope. They really are shaped like sickles.
This isn't the slide I saw (mine was stained more bluish -purple) but it's the same idea.
My Aunt Cristelle is an amateur photographer. This was her attempt at being folksy or artsy or something. My mom had just wanted her to take a picture of me playing in the living room. Aunt Cristelle has grander schemes for most things than does my mother. The weather was nice that day, so we drove east for about thirty minutes until Aunt Cristelle had a vision, which is what has to happen before she is able to take the simple action of clicking a button on a camera. What doesn't show in the picture is me running like hell as soon as she snapped the final shot because a bovine of some sort or other -- I'm pretty sure it wasn't a bull -- was headed in my direction at a more rapid pace than I was aware bovines could move.
P.S. Note the darkness of my hair. This was about as dark as it ever was. A couple of years ago I started highlighting it just a bit.
I ended up working Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the lab (the free lodging is great), which puts me ahead of schedule. By the time school starts again in late September, I'll probably have finished the internship. I'm not in that much of a hurry to finish it, as I find the actual lab work aspects fascinating (I'm still somewhat of a gopher, so my time staring into a microscope lens is limited) but I do want the extra time to practice for my to recitals. I have a light academic load this quarter. No matter what courses I take, though, lengthy assignments seem to creep up out of nowhere. When that happens this quarter, I'll simply down part of a Guinness and write the damned papers. I find that my best writing is done under the influence of Guinness. Words seem to flow more easily after a bit of the stuff. I do proofread and edit once I'm stone cold sober. I'm not under the influence now, if you couldn't tell.
My violin pieces are starting to sound a little less forced and a little less as though I'm concentrating on technique as I'm playing them. As the techique comes without my even thinking about it, my richer tones will have an opportunity to come through. My technique as a violinist is far from the very best. (I'm taking a gamble and hoping that it is good enough to earn an "A" in my recital.) There are probably twenty violinists in the department who could kick my butt in terms of technique. What they can't do as well as I is pick up a violin and improvise an obligato off the top of their heads that sounds as if it came from a publisher and was practiced for months. My technique in regard to the selections I'm playing for my recital will get to where it needs to be soon enough. Technique overall may always be my weakness as a violinist. My mom, who has excellent technique, said she would seriously consider trading places with me in terms of our respective abilities, because I have a natural tone even using a mediocre instrument that she can't duplicate. Sometimes I think she's just trying to build my ego when she says things like that. At least she doesn't try to say there's something about my piano playing that is superior to hers, because I know that would be pure bullshit.
I was going to use my mom's violin for my recital. Mine is nice, but hers is better. I practice enough with both that it doesn't matter. But then my godfather got me a "cheap violin" so I would feel better about traveling with it. It ends up that the "cheap violin" is worth more than my mom's and mine put together. My mom asked if she could borrow it for a faculty performance in October; that's how good it is. (Of course I said yes. I'm not selfish nor am I totally stupid.)
I'm going to have to look up some more Pat Boone books. Perhaps Knotty and I should co-author an unauthorized biography of the man: Pat Boone: The Real Story. I wonder who we could get to dish up some dirt on him, although he's already spilled plenty himself that we wouldn't even have to bother digging up.
Someone stole my credit card number and used it for some bizarre very minor purchases all over the world. Do they make minor purchases and see if they can get away with it, then go for the big stuff? I don't understand the point of multiple one- and two-dollar purchases, a $15 or so transaction at an athletic apparrel store in the UK, and something for roughly twenty bucks in Australia. Why not just go for the one big purchase? Anyway, my account is temporarily on hold until my new card arrives in the mail in a week or so. That will effectively prevent me from picking up any vintage Pat Boone books off Amazon or elsewhere at least for a week.
Happy weekend, everyone, especially those of you who are already in school. I know that many students and teachers are. Whatever happened to summer vacation spanning the better part of summer, as in from mid-June until after Labor Day? My mom tells me it was that way in most of the nation when she was a kid. Now most states have a slightly longer school year, and they take extra breaks. In the grand scheme of things, if students are going to attend school for 180 days, perhaps it doesn't matter when those 180 days happen, but I didn't like the short summer and extended Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter breaks very much when I was in regular school. (My mom says that the consensus of the research she's read indicates that a kid forgets almost as much in two weeks as he does over the entire summer, so the more extended break that occur during an academic year, according to her readings, anyway, the more re-learning must take place.) My university finishes spring quarter in fairly late June and doesn't start again until mid-to-late September. That's a summer vacation.
Really? There's a connection between letting your children stuff their faces with candy and Takis or whatever those disgusting chips are called and allowing them to drink an unlimited quantity of sugar-laden beverages all day and eventually getting fat? And growing overweight as a kid increases your chances of ending up with Type II Diabetes? For real? This isn't something Michelle Obama made up just to push her vegetable garden agenda on the unwashed masses?
Everytime I see one of those TV commercials with the mothers talking about how hard it is to say no when their kids want candy bars and other garbage, along with shots of mothers filling their grocery carts with squash the size of a gestationally diabetic mother's newborn baby (hint: they usually have LARGE babies) I want to scream, because my assumption is that my tax dollar are paying for those commercials. Do the people who operate the organizations that make and distribute these commercials honestly believe that Honey boo Boo and her ilk are going get up off the potato chip crumb-encrusted sofa and pour their Orange Crushes down the sink and toss their Doritos in the trash because some poorly-compensated (you get what you pay for, and the quality of acting is so poor that even I could do better) actress is sayong that her mother didn't know that allowing your child to turn into a human form of Baby Beluga would be harmful to her children's health, but that she knows better?
There are things we know about nutrition that weren't necessarily known a generation ago. For that matter, some of those things we "know" today will be debunked in a few years, and we'll "know" a few more things in their place. Fad ideas about dieting and eating in general will come and go (remember TheFemaleFat Cell)The basics of nutrition, however, have remained contant for generations, ad haven't been kep
When I post about religion at all, it's usually to criticize something that came about as a result as a church-related incident or to poke fun at some religion-related fiasco that particularly hit my funny bone. I don't write or speak of my real faith often. Perhaps it's because I don't have all that much of it.
I'm Catholic from birth, but what are the odds that there's one right religion on the face of the Earth and I just happened to be born into it? I know the odds are not great. Still I go through the motions. Sometimes that's all I'm doing is going through the motions. I think the only time I believe there really might be an answer in religion is when I hear a song that strikes me.
The Romney crew isn't quite fit enough, even for the purposes of putting me to sleep, to jump over fences. They crawl over them, army-style. Actually, that wild-eyed youngest one, Glove, or whatever his name was or is, could probably clear the fence by a mile, but the rest of them would have to claw their way cross just like their Mexican cousins from Juarez who want to attend BYU.
I absolutely must get some sleep or I will be absolutely useless tomorrow at work. I'm putting in an extra day this week and one next week to cut the length of my sentence by one week. As s stands, I WILL be useless, but the trick is having everyone else avoid knowing how useless I really am. The secret is not to fall asleep mid-sentence while one of my job superiors is instructing me. Will I be able to pull it off? Time will tell.
Of course the person who runs this lab has to be someone who lives across the street from my Uncle Steve. I couldn't be ridiculously dysfunctional due to lack of sleep without the guy wandering across the street to tell My Uncle Steve. Uncle Steve is a whole lot newer to the concept of parenting as are my own parents (his older child is only nine), and, as such, has not yet developed the more laid-back and "don't sweat the small stuff" approach that my parents started to develop after I was left in the smoky house and thoroughly developed after the school restroom assault. Hence, if the owner of the lab came over and mentioned that I was terribly sleepy at work, Uncle Steve would keep both me and The Pope here all week so we could go to bed early. That would be a great way to part with a week of my summer vacation lickety-split.
So I need to go to sleep. My dad once told me to imagine I was in a Mormon church and Mitt Romney was either giving a talk (their equivalent to a sermon) or a lesson and it was having natural soporific effect on me. My eyelids were getting heavier and heavier. It works better when my dad tell the story and imitates Mitt Romney speaking about how important it is to do a good job when scrubbing the church toilets, or how abortion is wrong, especially if one is running for Governor of Massachusetts, but really not THAT wrong, unless one is now running for president. or how it's against or religion,
The Lunesta speech isn't complete unless my dad interjects Ann Romney's comments about having personally known poverty in her lifetime. Hell, maybe she really did know a poor person or two; she herself wasn't poor, but that doesn't mean the almost literally starving students around her weren't poor and she didn't know poverty; knowing poverty and being poor are two different thing, but they're not THAT much different, and just because one doesn't work to finance a university education but instead sells stock to pay for everything doesn't move the person or couple THAT far from the poverty level. Furthermore, paying for the care and feeding of dressage horses, which have typically grown accustomed to only the very best of everything, alone would make college students poor souls. YOU PEOPLE got it all wrong; the Romneys were indeed poor, or at least poor in spirit. What does St. Matthew say about "Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the Kingdom of God" ? One can own the whole damned Kingdom of God and still be poor for taxable intents and purposes. How in hell does one go about tabulating the property value of Kingdom of God ? I'd venture a guess the IRS hasn't a clue, nor do the local jurisdictions, except maybe the Commonwealth of Virginia, which would tax the hell out of the Kingdom of God on principle alone just as it does out of poor Navy men for owning used cars even two years after they leave the Commonwealth of Virginia and return home and register their cars there. Once a Virginian, always a Virginian.
This isn't working without my dad here to deliver the speech. I'll just have to imagine Mitt and Ann jumping over fences in their garmies. goodnight all, and pray that I don't get fired tomorrow.
Bela Karolyi : If Blogspot would let me tattoo "666" on his forehead, I would.
Marta Karolyi : I would add horns except that I lack the means to do so with this program
Last night I read Off Balance: a Memoir by Dominque Moceanu. Moceanu was a member of the 1996 US Olympic gold medal women's gymnastics team. the book was both informative and depressing. Much of what she wrote was subject matter with which I was already familiar, as I wasn't far from the elite level of gymnastics when I performed my legendary back walkover followed by a cartwheel on the upper beam of the roof of our two-story house. Thus abruptly ended my gymnastics career. Now that I'm eighteen and can no longer be protected from my own idiocy, of which there is less from which I need to be protected, I might add, I dabble in gymnastics. i took courses in gymnastics and tumbling to fulfill fitness course requirements, and the department head gave me carte blanch to use the gym facilities anytime someone from the staff was legally on duty.
Some of what I read from Ms. Moceanu's book was mind-boggling, though. I've never liked what I've heard about Bela and Marta Karolyi, the Romanian couple who escaped the Ceausescu regime to essentially take over gymnastics in the U.S. One thing I find ironic is why the Karolyis ever left Romania when their style of coaching was so perfectly suited to a totalitarian regime in which they had total control over their protegees and could beat them or do whatever they wanted to the young female gymnasts.
As it stood, because Ms. Moceanu was herself the child of Romanian immigrants, Karolyi could simply ask Ms. Moceanu's father to beat her and he would do so. He, too, was old-school Romanian, and he thought his daughter's chances for success were totally controlled by the Karolyis. He probably would have had all her teeth pulled if Bela or Marta had said that it was necessary for her gymnastics success.
Marta Karolyi in particular at the present, if I'm correct, still wields more control over the sport of women's gymnastics in the U. S. than does any other single individual. Why do we let these people immigrate from a totalitarian regime (I believe they came when the Soviet Bloc was still intact, but I don't think Romania is exactly the land of the free and the home of the brave even today) and turn women's gymnastics into a dictatorship? This is America. We don't have to tolerate such nonsense. Relegate the Karolyis to an old folks' home and give them dolls to mistreat instead of allowing them to starve and psychologically abuse real girls, all the while holding the girls' gymnastics careers over their heads.
Dominique Moceanu had a limited-at-best chance at a normal childhood even without the Karolyis' "intervention." Dominique's father was so accustomed to having is own way and to making the lives of his wife and children miserable if they offered the slightest resistance that Dominique's chances for anything close to idyllic by way of family life were incredibly slim.
As a brief side note, it isn't easy to find picture of the Karolyis with stern expressions. Those who have trained under them will say that they behave one way when cameras are around and another way when there's no one there to record their facial expressions or actions.
I think about myself and gymnastics sometimes. My parents would never have allowed me to live anywhere other than in our family home while I trained, nor would they have uprooted our family for the benefit of my gymnastics career. Whatever gym was within driving range of our home would have been where I trained as long as it had a reputation for being safe. If I had told my parents anyone psychologically abused me, that would have been the end of my attendance at that gym, and if I had said I was tired of it, I probably would have been required to finish out the minimum number of hours for the interval that my parents had already paid the tuition, but I then would have been encouraged to quit. (As it stood, when I performed my rooftop gymnastics maneuvers, my parents left several thousand dollars worth of tuition sitting at the gym, unused.)
My childhood would have been different from that of Ms, Moceanu because my parents' style of raising children was so very different. My parents were not from eastern bloc counties. My mother was not afraid in the least of my father, and they got along well as far as I could tell. My parents didn't need to live their lives through me or my brother. They had us because they wanted children, not because we were their tickets to success in life. They'd already had plenty of success in life on their own without needing to draw upon us to provide it for them.
Our home was not a democracy, and even isn't to this day, although I have freedom to speak my mind since I've reached the magical age of eighteen. Prior to my turning eighteen, most things were open for discussion to a point, but once a decision had been made, that was it, and to continue to debate after being told the answer was no would have resulted in negative consequences.
I have a savings account with money I've earned that's fairly substantial for a person my age who is not a movie star or teen singing sensation because my piano and organ skills commandeered decent wages. There were times when I thought that once a reached a certain age, I was going to do a given thing with my money because it was and is my money. One thing kept me from ever making that statement to my parents, or still making it. It is my money, but I like the idea of a safety net should something go wrong with my money. My parents have a lot more money than I do.
I used to watch "The Cosby Show" reruns. This particular episode, or clip from it, resonated with me. I know that if I had complained about not being able to use "my money" in the way I so chose, my parents' reaction would have been similar to that of the fictional Huxtable parents. (So parents out there, TV can be a valuable tool.) Someday my money will be totally up to me to spend; not yet, though.
After one day in a lab -- I don't count my time in the death trap as time in a real lab -- I do think I want to go into pathology, but there are different branches.
At one point I was seriously considering forensic pathology, wherein the pathologist determines a person's cause of death. I think I could get beyond the gross-out factor. I'll have to in the first year of medical school, anyway, once I'm assigned my first cadaver. I do find the detective aspect fascinating, and, especially if i got a law degree as well, my job could be almost like one of those on TV , say 'quincy, MD" or "Jordan's Crossing." (I love Jill Hennessy. She, or Claire Kincaid, was my favorite mother ship Law & Order ADA. Alexandra Cabot was my all-time favorite of all the versions.) On the other had, as exciting as combining law and medicine might be (the doctor who is going to take out my tonsils over Easter break is also an attorney and member of the California bar, although I'm not sure how he uses his legal background), I think I'd rather try to keep people alive than determine precisely why they died.
Anatomical and clinical pathology are becoming increasingly closely linked. Many pathologists practice both.
I'm a bit drawn toward hematopathology, which is, of course, the study of pathology of the blood. It's fairly closely related to clinical pathology. A lot of what my dad does is related to both clinical and hematopathology, although he's technically more of and oncologist and hematologist. He is board certified in pathology as well.
The one nice thing about a person's third year of medical school -- that's when they first start to work a person to death, so it's really the only nice thing about it -- is that all students do rotations, usually in three-week blocks -- called clerkships. The third-year physician is exposed to virtually every branch of medicine during this time. pediatrics is usually the worst for everyone because they're exposed to all sorts of crud to which they have not been exposed for many years, so during a med student's pediatric clerkship, he or she usually spends the entire three weeks plus the next week sick, but you pretty much have to work through it or you'll get behind, because you have to put in your three weeks.
So I may think I'm drawn to pathology because of what I've seen my dad do all of my life, but I may find that I like something else better. Maybe rheumatology will be right up my alley. Who really knows?
Except for the lack of sleep, medical school is set up well in that one is exposed to every branch of medicine the year before he or she must try to find a match for a residency. Finding the match is a whole different ball game, but you cross that bridge when or if you come to it. I haven't even been admitted to medical school yet. For all I know, i may have to go to the Cayman Islands to find a medical school to accept me, and i don't even know if they have a medical school in the cayman Islands.
Good night. I need to be at work in less than five-and-one-half hours.
Do you remember my old internship that lasted almost two days, the one in which hazardous materials were being cleaned by untrained interns without proper protective gear or procedures, or even rubber gloves? I don't think I ever followed up on the internship I was doing -- the one my dad didn't want me going back to but that I needed to complete as an unofficial medical school application requirement. I never made it back because before I was to report again, I developed that condition where scar tissue from an old abdominal surgery wrapped itself around one of my Fallopian tubes. My dad considered leaving it alone, but he decided that if any of the other eight interns developed health problems related to the the substandard procedures used in disposal of waste, he'd have a hard time dealing with the guilt.
In everything that's happened since, the whole issue was shoved on the back burner for me. It wasn't for my dad, though.
My dad called someone from the health department that he knew wouldn't tip anyone from the lab off that a surprise inspection was in the works. (A surprise inspection is always a possibility, which is one of the reasons the lab was crazy to manage its operations in the way that it did.) This was to be a little more than a routine surprise inspection, though. My dad contacted compliance officers from two institutions that accept results from this lab to invite them along on the surprise inspection. I told him that someone was very likely following the identical schedule on Mondays and Thursdays that I was following on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and when the most incriminating time to walk in would be. My dad had the legal department from the local hospital from which he does much work now and which does some business with this lab obtain a search warrant, and spoke with the city chief of police under conditions of what he was assured would be complete anonymity to let him in on what was happening and to inquire as to whether anyone on his staff was qualified to assist in the inspection or whether either the sheriff's department or the FBI would be needed. The chief of police pulled up resumes on his current employees and noted that his lead detective had an M. S. in biochemistry. It was determined that the man was highly unlikely to have any ties with the lab. It was further determined that the lead detective wouldn't be told what or where the inspection was to take place -- only to be available at the specified time.
The inspecting team would consist of my dad, who has about as many different certifications concerning lab operations as I have white blood cells, the police detective with the advanced degree in bio-chem, a lab official and an attorney from the local hospital, and the same from the diagnostic clinic across the street, and a representative from the district attorney's office. There was consideration given to inviting the professor who assigned students to the clinic to the inspection, but it was determined that there was no guarantee he wasn't part of anything illegal that might be going on. Instead, his counterpart at another University of California was issued a subpoena and was picked up and transported to the site just before the inspection was to be undertaken, but was not told what the case involved. His role would be to act as an expert in terms of assisting to determine what should be searched once he was apprised as to the situation. (After the fact, he was well-compensated for his time, and he was picked up in a most inconspicuous matter, and his wife was given a number to call so that his whereabouts could be explained.) Warrants to search the original professor's home and school offices were obtained. That would merely involve detectives removing computers and files from his offices with the names either of labs or of students who had been assigned by him to internships in the past three years - roughly one hundred students.
I was visited by the local police department and warned that I could be charged with obstruction of justice if I told anyone about this in advance, even though I had no specifics concerning time of the inspection. I was more than happy to comply, as being threatened with being charged with anything was more than enough to scare me out of what few wits I have left. This was after I had already blogged about my dad planning to show up at the place. Although I was afraid to do so, I showed the officers my semi-anonymous blog concerning the matter. They had me temporarily remove it to draft, though they said it was probably no big deal because that I had no idea it was a police matter when I posted the blog, so I was in no way at fault. When he learned of what I had been told, even though the officers had grown nicer toward the end of our interaction, my dad still had harsh words for the police chief concerning the officers' demeanor in speaking with of me. He said that I was a victim in this alleged mismanagement of the lab, and that, furthermore, I had previously been the victim of violent crime, and that their treatment of me was highly inappropriate. The officers showed up at my house again, (when I saw them at the door, I ran into my bathroom and hid), but they were only there to apologize for frightening me when I had done nothing wrong and they had no cause to believe I would do anything wrong with regard to the inspection.
The inspection, AKA "raid," began at 1:20 p.m on a Wednesday. It was determined that someone else would likely have assumed the identical duties to which I had been assigned, so it made the most sense to conduct the raid on one of the same days of the week that I had worked. The inspection was videotaped, and I got to watch the videotape after the fact. The building was cleared of everyone, including clerical workers, except for the eleven interns who were working at the time, who were told to remain exactly where they were told to be at the time and to stay there until someone from the investigating team had spoken to them about what it was they were assigned to do and were asked very specific questions. Some of the guys were pretty laid-back about it, although one got upset enough that he had to be allowed to visit the bathroom. The four females didn't handle it nearly so well. Most just cried or were visibly shaken, but one hyperventilated and fainted. My dad took care of her until paramedics arrived on the scene. He immediately carried her away from the biohazardous waste she was cleaning with no gloves or mask, as just breathing any fumes from the stuff would be dangerous, but inhaling it in the manner one would when hyperventilating would be much worse.
This operation was basically being treated like a heroin bust when all it was really about was untrained interns handling biohazardous waste in a manner that might jeopardize their well-being. To me, it was a classic case of overkill. Still, there were things I didn't know at the time about the lab operation. Had I hung around for three weeks, I would have found that I, as an undergraduate student, was making determinations as to whether or not patients had leukemia, e coli, or appendicitis without anyone properly qualified confirming my diagnoses double-checking my findings. All sorts of patients are needing to be retested, and it's possible, even likely, that a cause of death in a particular case was due to a ruptured appendix and the resulting peritonitis from a misdiagnosis by a third-week intern.. By the time a death was discovered to have been attributable to the mismanagement, the whole affair ended up being far more serious than anyone thought. Someone -- not an intern -- will be brought up on negligent homicide charges.
The interns were reassured the investigation had nothing to do with them except to the extent that they were being asked to assume duties for which they were not qualified to assume even with on-site training, and to perform some of those duties without proper safety equipment. They were still scared. Someone called for a crisis counselor, and good old Dr. Jeff and one of his cohorts showed up on the scene to attempt to help the interns understand that they were victims in the scheme, not people on whom anyone would attempt to place blame. Except for the sick girl, they were all taken to a local pizza parlor with a private room and fed whatever they wanted from the pizza parlor's menu while being reassured that nothing regarding the inspection was their fault and that nothing that happened as a result of a misdiagnosis on their part was their fault. The interns who had reached week three were told that they were merely looking at slides under microscopes for their own benefit and training.
If one of them were told to look into a microscope and make a diagnosis, it wouldn't make any difference if he or she had erred, as they had been asked to do something for which they had not been properly trained, and had been assured that their findings were not being considered diagnoses. They were merely, as non-employees and volunteers who needed positive evaluations for their resumes, following directions by people they believed in good faith were following standard procedure.
The girl who hyperventilted spent the next two nights in the hospital. The pathogen of which she was disposing needed to be idetnified, and herlugs treated for possible inhalation. my dad saw each day until she was reeased and said she was fine both physically and emotionally on the day she was released. She had been, quite understandiblt, terrified by the whole experience, but once everything calmed down, she received her precautionary treatment and was even able to assist in her tretment. my dad talked to her arnts over the phone. He said that he would send them the names and sumbers of several good lawyers, and to to worry about her hospital bill, as it would be sent directly to the lab's accounting department.
The way this and similar labs work is that both the hospital and the clinic run their own labs, but they cannot require patients to utilize their labs, If another lab offers the same procedure for less, the hospital has to allow the patient to choose. Furthermore, there are certain operations that hospital and clinic labs do not undertake on their own. The only obvious thing I can think of off the top of my head is kidney stone analysis, but I know there are many other lab-related services that hospitals, doctors' offices, the main diagnostic clinic here, and other smaller clinics don't handle. They rely on this la and other labs to take care of such diagnostics. In the future, it won't be THIS lab on which they'll be relying.
Any one intern who served any period of time at all with this particular clinic will be given credit for a full internship. In theory, that includes me. My dad told me I should do another internship anyway, because an internship in a lab is a valuable experience, and two days of unsafely clearing pathogens and cleaning restrooms did not give me the worthwhile experience that one should gain from an internship. He said that I should not list it on my medical school resume, but should list the time with no institution or experience attached but, rather, with an asterisk, and then explain when asked in an interview. He said listing it might appear to be taking credit for two days worth of work and trying to pass it off as an extra internship, but not to list it at all might be considered equally disingenuous in terms of trying to disassociate myself from a highly unethical and dishonest organization, even though I'm way too far down on the food chain to be considered responsible for anything that went wrong.
My dad said he's going to advise those who did not complete the internship but who were given credit to complete at least another short internship. An internship is "recommended' but not required, but a serious candidate needs a lab internship on his or her resume. Which brings me to where I am right now.
I'm doing a weekend internship in a hospital lab up the road about thirty-five miles up the road from where I live,near my Uncle Steve's home and practice. I'll drive up either Friday night or Saturday morning, Spend seven hours a day in the lab on Saturdays and Sundays, when they're understaffed and needy. At first I'll be a gopher, but I'll gradually be trained in their lab's technique , which is, I hope, not far different from the lab technique of most of my classes. As I progress, I'll actually prepare slides under supervision, and will look through the lenses of microscopes, at first after being told what for which to look, but later, to actually see if I can make an educated guess as to what it is I am seeing.
I'm now completing the first of my eight weekends. (I will be off on labor day weekend.). I went to work at six, and am off now until tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. I will stay Saturday nights, as well as some Friday nights at Uncle Steve's house with his family. I still have a room there -- Uncle Steve's office that he hardly ever uses -- with a flat screen TV with cable and a Westin bed. It's not a bad place to be. I genuinely like my Uncle Steve, Aunt Heather, and their son and daughter. I haven't spent as much time with them since we all moved from northern California to the central coast of California,and I miss them. Before, they were only about two blocks away from our house, and now they're thirty miles or so up the road. I see Uncle Steve when I'm sick, and we see them for family gatherings, but before, if it wasn't every day, it was several times a week, and Aunt Heather usually took care of me if i was sick and my parents were working. They're two very important people in my history (I was only three when the two of them started dating) and it makes me sad to see them not so often. I'm glad for the opportunity to spend time with them on the weekend for the next eight weekends or so. I hope they feel the same way.
Over Labor Day weekend, I'm going to stay with their children while Uncle Steve and Aunt Heather go to Santa Cruz, and I hope to provide free babysitting on several occasions while I'm staying with them so that they can go out for dinner or a movie or whatever.
I suppose all is well that ends well, but things didn't end well for the person whose white count was ridiculously miscalculated and who subsequently died of appendicitis, nor will it end well for the person or people deemed to have been responsible for his death.
#
P.S. It doesn't appear that the professor who sent the students to the lab for their internships acted in any way in bad faith. He possibly should have inspected the place more carefully, but the lab personnel likely wouldn't have allowed him to see what was really going on inside there, anyway.
Late Tuesday night / early Wednesday morning, I wrote of my experiment I conducted purely in the interest of science, when I played Chopin's Fastasie Impromptu at 12:45 a.m. to see how long it would take my parents to figure out it was not my brother Matthew -- from whom they tolerate such rudeness -- but I who was actually the one playing. I'll give them credit, as I think it only took them about eight bars to tell the difference. I thought I had most of the way to the andante cantabile. I'm guesssing, because I have to factor in the amount of time it took my dad to find a nerf football, which he threw from the very top of the stairs directly at the side of my head. It was a direct hit.
I'm not good at estimating distances, but that particular staircase is long, and he was throwing halfway across the living room as well, and our living room isn't small. I think he hit me right where he intended to, because even a nerf ball can hurt someone if it's thrown hard and hits the person somewhere like right in the eye. He nailed it. Had he been just a bit bulkier (he's 6'1" and weighs in at abut 160, built somewhat like a distance runner) he might had had a career as an NFL quarterback, and our lifestyle might have been a bit more luxurious. He was actually a four-sport athlete, but spent most of his time time playing tennis. As it is, I can't complain too much, because I live in a nice community and in a nice home, the nicest part of which is my bedroom and bathroom. Still, we could've been stinking rich if he'd just eaten a little better and spent more time lifting weights. He also got his mother's thin gene, which didn't help. On the other hand, he could have gotten his father's bulk, but along with it, his father's brains, or lack thereof, and could have turned out to be something like the character of Matilda's dad in the Roald Dahl book that was later a movie. (It's one of the few movies I liked roughly as much as I like the book. It was well-cast, and the Danny Devito narrations were perfect.)
This is thoroughly off-topic, but when I was younger and loved imagining I had someone other than my own parents as parents, the celebrity couple I had picked out as my ideal parents was Rhea Perlmann and Danny DeVito. Sadly, they split not long ago, and they'd been together for quite some time. I hope things worked out OK for both of them, because they seem like genuinely nice people.
Anyway, back to my impromptu midnight piano concert, My dad yelled down, predictably enough, "What the fuck are you doing?" immediately after he had gotten my attention with his football-to-the-head maneuver.
"Matthew does it all the time," I said in reply.
"Matthew also thinks he's been successful if he pisses within a foot of the toilet," my dad countered. (This is true. One of the great moments of my life was when we moved to our last house in northern California and I no longer had to share a bathroom with him. To my mother's credit, every day since he was seven years old that she wasn't [or isn't] too sick to to deal with it, my mother has walked into his bathroom, and if it fails the sniff test, he has to throughouly scrub the toilet area -- walls, floor, toilet itself -- the works. My parents put a urinal in his current bathroom because he seems to do better with those. Regardless, he's become adept at cleaning bathrooms. If he flunks out of med school, he will make a fine janitor.)
The implication was the same as always. More is expected of me than of Matthew, either because I'm female, or because my mental development isn't that of the Australopithecus afarensis species. My dad and I sometimes call or refer to my brother as "Lucy." He doesn't remotely get the reference. I think he believes we're talking about Lucille Ball, and he can't understand why we would see any resemblance, physical or otherwise. We don't, obviously, but explaining it to him would be like explaining calculus to a three-month-old. My mom thinks we're mean and that we'll hurt Matthew's self esteem. She's wrong. One of the few things in this world that's safe is Matthew's self esteem.
As I stopped playing piano and headed upstairs to my room, I grabbed the Nerf football and took it with me. I knew I would need it soon, if not the very next night. It turned out that it was the next night I needed it.
At almost precisely 3:00 a.m. I was awakened by what sounded like a two-by-four hitting the keys of the Steinway downstairs, yet miraculously getting the most of the right notes to Pink's most recent hit, ''Just Give Me a Reason," which Matthew seems to love to play now. He finds a different song about once every four weeks and beats it into the ground until the song of the month has the effect of the proverbial scratching on a chalkboard to everyone who lives here. It's funny, but when he plays in the daytime, he still has a bit of the "lead wrist" effect, but it doesn't sound like he's hittting the piano keys with a sledgehammer. I wonder if alcohol could be involved. He wasn't driving last night, so it is a possibility. (I know people can change or lie or break pledges, but Matthew and I are both fairly firmly committed to not driving while under the influence of anything stronger than Kool-Aid, and we both signed notarized agreements before we were given titles to our cars that if we were caught by either our parents or law enforcement officials driving or having driven in a state of intoxication, we would forfeit ownership of our cars.)
Anyway, I gave my dad about halfway through the song to react. He didn't react, because, in his justification, it was "Lucy" with whom he was dealing. I got out of bed, picked up the Nerf football, which I had stored on a shelf in my room even though it was neither pink, black, nor white (it stuck out like a sore thumb for those twenty-six hours, but the aesthetic irritation was well worth the brief eisode of OCD triggered by it), walked to my parents door, which was open a crack, and went in. (My parents close and lock their door when they need privacy, but ever since the brick and rock went through my window, they've left their door slightly open at night when they're not especially in need to be behind a closed door.) I thrust the Nerf football in my dad's face, waking him up since the sound of the iron meat tenderizer on the piano keys didn't see to do the job. "Someone is playing the piano in the middle of the night. It's time for you to throw the football at his head. That's what you do to people who play the piano after you're asleep. Remember?"
He threw the football back at me and pulled the covers over his head. From under the cover, I heard him mutter, "Throw the damned football at him yourself if you want. I'm not getting out of bed."
My mother is a lighter sleeper than my dad. She had already heard the piano being axe-murdered to the tune of the lovely Pink song. She just hadn't bothered to do anything about it, as she hadn't when I played the night before, either. "John," my mother said, "you need to be fair. Just because Alexis doesn't hose down half the bathroom with urine is no reason Matthew should be allowed to play the piano at this hour. And your throw needs to be equally accurate. If you miss, we'll tell everyone you're losing your touch."
My dad said a few choice curse word as he somehow got himself into an upright position. I handed him the football and followed him to the top of the staircase. "Go back to bed, " he muttered at me.
"I wanna make sure you actually hit him, " I answered. I can now mildly disobey and talk back a bit as long as it's not blatant since I'm eighteen.
I followed my dad to the stairs. He paused momentarily, then fired the Nerf ball, nailing Matthew maybe a bit harder and only slightly higher on his head than he had hit me the previous night. Considering that he was only half awake, it was impressive.
"What the fuck?" Matthew hollered. The foam rubber blow to his head shook him out of a deep Pink reverie.
"Go to bed, Matthew," my dad said. "You do not come home and start banging on the piano after every sane person in the house is asleep."
"You never compained before, " Matthew complained. "I thought you liked my piano playing."
"I like it just fine before midnight," my dad answered, "but you don't need to be waking people up like this. There are seventeen hours in a day that you can play when no one will complain. I don't want you playing between midnight and 7:00 a.m anymore. Go to bed."
I slipped into my room before Matthew made it up the stairs so he wouldn't suspect I had anything to do with Dad's sudden change of heart regarding Matthew's middle-of-the-night concerts. It was probably a needless action, though. In his state of inebriation, I doubt that Matthew would literally have been able to put two and two together and come up with four, much less infer that I was in any way responsible for the Nerf football in his head.
This is obviously not my father (the scrubs he sleeps in are a paler shade of blue, and he does not sleep with a stethoscope around his neck) but this is roughly what I expect to see in a few minutes.
I'm not trying to turn myself into Matthew in any sort of literal sense. I'm not having a sex change operation, for starters. For that matter, I'm not even cross dressing. To do so would require some serious shopping, and I don't wish to spend money on clothing that wouldn't even be comfortable, although, come to think of it, if I thought I got shock value out of Slut Week -- the brief interval when I dressed like a total skank -- what would my classmates and professors think if I started dressing like a boy? The thought is intriguing, but I'm not going to do it.
The way in which I'm turning into my brother is that I'm becoming rude. If Matthew comes home at 2;00 a.m. , isn't tired, and can't find anything worth watching on TV, he plays the living room piano. Loudly. And not all that well. I taught him the best I could. My mother couldn't teach him at all; she threw her hands in the air in disgust and said, "Some people are not meant to play the piano!" When I taught Matthew, we never got past the moderate classics -- stuff like Moonlight Sonata, Clementi's Sonatina in G, and Mozart's Sonata Facile in C --though it was much further thn my mom ever thought he'd get.. He can sightread a bit, and he can learn a piece of sheet music if he plays through it a few times. He even plays by ear a little. What most of us don't want, though, is to hear Pink's "Just Give Me a Reason" at 2:00 a.m. played on a Steinway by someone who seems to have lead weights around his wrists.
I can't sleep. it's 12:58, not 2;00 a.m. I have a piano in my room, which I could play if I really wanted to, but I'm sure I'd soon be told to stop. There's also a piano in the loft, but that's still pretty close to the bedrooms. If I go down to the living room to the Steinway, my parents will first think it's Matthew, because Alexis doesn't do rude things like play the piano after midnight. Eventually, however, they'll notice that what is being played is not something by Pink or maybe Beethoven's Fur Elise, but a Bach Partita or a Chopin Etude. They will put 1 + 1 together and come up with 2. My parents,,while clueless regarding some social issues, are not entirely stupid. They'll be able to tell the difference between my playing and Matthew's.
The question is will they leave well enough alone when they would tolerate the same behavior from Matthew, or will one of them come downstairs and tell me to shut the hell up? My prediction: I'll start the piece, which is going to be Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu, and before I even reach the andante cantabile section, my father will be standing at the bottom of the stairs in his polished cotton surgical scrubs in which he sleeps in cool weather locations (I won't share what he sleeps in, or doesn't sleep in, in warm weather locations) asking me what the fuck I think I'm doing.
I'm mainly doing this in the interest of science. Human behavior, and the prediction of such, is a fascinating area of study. I'll let you know tomorrow (or, more precisely, later today) how it went.
What I will be playing momentarily, though I admit, not quite as beautifully, although, I will note that Yundi Li IS using using music, and I don't.
This blog will be relatively short by my standards because I have to go check out some Tom Trails videos which were popular in LDS seminary when y dad was a kid. I've never seen a filmstrip, so it will be an educational experience.
The latest on my cousin Celeste's wedding is that she and her mom tried making a practice wedding cake and it was the single biggest disaster in the history of baking. I suggested to my mom that she suggest to them that they get one of those tiered trays that displays cupcakes beautifully and master the art of making cupcakes or mini-cupcakes. they'll need to invest in (or have Uncle Mahonri steal) a device that frosts them nicely, because they just can't take a knife and spread frosting out of a can all over cupcakes when it's supposed to look really nice. I just don't want them dumping this project in my grandmother's lap. she's getting old, and it's too much work for her. She can maybe advise them, but they cannot dump the whole project on her. There's no one currently in Utah we can trust to make sure that my grandma doesn't get stuck with the whole project. If that happens, she'll be exhausted and maybe even too sick to go to the wedding and reception, and she should be the guest of honor. My dad told her NOT to do it, nd he's calling her doctor about it as well.
There's a curtain between the chapel and the cultural hall in Mormon buildings. They're going to open the curtain, and they want my mom to play the piano the whole time. That's really gracious, isn't it? Invite someone to a wedding, don't actually let her come to the wedding because she's not worthy, then expect her to play the piano through the whole reception (for free when that's essentially what she does for a living). My mom said she doesn't care, though. She'd rather play the piano than hang around the relatives, and she says she'll play whatever she wants regardless of what the bride and groom want, because she's fairly certain based on everything else she's heard about the bridal couple that they have no taste in music just like they have no taste in anything else. Actually, she has to take part in a faculty recital a couple of weeks later, and she'll play mostly what she's playing for that, plus whatever pops into her head. She has a good memory just like my dad and I do. She doesn't need to bring music with her.
This LDS chapel supposedly has a nice Kawai piano, and my dad will tune it right before. My mom said it would be hysterical to have the curtain partly closed, to have me be the one playing the music, to have them all commenting on how beautiful the music is, and then to open the curtain all the way and show them that it's the Anti-Christ Child actually playing and not my mom, but that's not going to happen because I'm not going. My mom knows this; she was just speaking hypothetically.
I feel sorry for the people who attend this soiree, because if the people in charge don't take my advice and bake cupcakes, chances are the wedding cake WILL fall on the floor. The slobs making it will scrape it off the floor, re-frost it the best they can, and serve it to the guests using the five-minute rule. The five-second rule would be bad enough, but allowing people to eat cake that's been sitting on the floor of a building that is NEVER professionally cleaned (LDS Inc. makes the proletariat clean the buildings on a "volunteer" basis) sounds like a case of salmonella, ecoli, or worse just waiting to happen.
Gotta check out Tommy Trails and practice a little more piano and violin. Ciao.
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Somehow, even though certain specifics of the song aren't particularly pertinent, it fits. By the time the bride's father is dressing in black and stealing neighbors' flowers in the dead of night in a completely futil attempt to dishuise basketball hoops, and the weding cake has been scraped off the floor AT LEAST once, the event is pretty white-trashy. This is the Dixie Chicks performing "White Trash Wedding." Someone really clever shoud come up with a "White Trash Temple Wedding" version of the song. Maybe the Osmonds, The King Family descendants, or even the Three Dees if they're stilll alive, could record it.
