Monday, August 08, 2005
Carnival of the Capitalists
Joshua Sharf has the latest Carnival of the Capitalists at View From a Height.
Next week’s host will be Weekend Pundit. Send your entries to cotcmail -at- gmail -dot- com, or use one of the handy submission forms, at Gongol.com or Conservative Cat.
For future hosts and more info, see the Carnival of the Capitalists page.
Belated Happy Birthdays
I forgot it was the 7th, or that I had birthdays on that day at least, so I missed mentioned two birthdays. Doh!
My nephew Billy turned 14, which hardly seems possible.
My old friend Jean is slightly older than Billy. I’ve known her since high school, and introduced her to my friend Adam. He is my brother’s first wife’s brother, so we share a niece, a nephew, a grandnephew, and three grandnieces. Since she’s married to Adam, that makes her extended family.
Hope they were happy ones!
Your Daily Sadie
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Mirror Mask
I was unaware of Mirror Mask, but it certainly looks like something from Gaiman (whose name I thought was pronounced guyman, but maybe not as they said gayman in the trailer). It looks like something so… different… that many people won’t like it, but then again, it could be a breakthrough fantasy hit. It’s well worth a look at this trailer for the stunning visuals.
For what it’s worth, I have most of the issues of Sandman, but haven’t read anything else by Gaiman. Shocking, I know, to you big Gaiman fans.
Trailer link via the Flea.
Rest In Peace Peter Jennings
We happened to catch a snippet of retrospective on TV a short time ago, then confirmed he had indeed died as expected. Not much to say here apart from linking the story. He was an institution, and it’s sad for anyone to die that way.
It’s Only Words
As much for the “permanent record” as anything, on Friday Sadie said “water” for the first time. Not to mention indicating she recognized what the word meant, the way she understands “bath,” “duck,” “ready to come out now?” and others..
Today I was asking her if she wanted “breakfast,” and “to eat,” which she ignored. Then I said “want some banana?” She said “nana!” and put her arms out to go with me.
She seems intent on the language skills, now, often maintaining a running monologue we wish we could understand.
There you have it; just a quick update.
And another. Sundays are a bit quizzical anyway, no?
Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.
Via fellow Snape-resulter Kate, who is distressed at the comparison.
Goofy Quiz for a Sunday
| How You Live Your Life |
 You are honest and direct. You tell it like it is. You’re laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think. You prefer a variety of friends and tend to change friends quickly. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren’t attainable. |
Via sleepy Jen
Your Daily Sadie
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Goto Statement
We may be boring, but if you’re looking for stuff to read, Jen is blogging up a storm today as part of the Blogathon. You never know what she’ll say next.
Better Living Through Drugs
I had a good appointment with the doctor yesterday, apart from my forgetting to get a new prescription for atenolol, which I will be out of after Thursday. Oops.
It is worth noting, following up my other post, that side effects do vary from person to person, though it is pretty usual to have certain ones from certain drugs. For certain blood pressure pills, lethargy is normal. If you don’t know that’s a possibility, you should, even if there’s nothing you can do to change it. At least then you know it’s not you, but rather the chemicals that might give you an extra few years of life if you never stop taking them, at the possible expense of all those years that gain you the extra few being kind of a hazy half-life, and the possible gain that you might be saved by the drugs from being the person on the short-straw end of the curve.
But enough cynicism for today.
The doctor read to me from his narrative about my first visit, which implied I ought have been aware it was a beta blocker, and gave no indication I ever mentioned my history with beta blockers. Which I remember telling him, as part of the discussion of my prior regimen having included 8 mg Cardura and some amount of Verapamil; explicitly no beta blockers.
My history includes them having made me lethargic and an energy sink, made me unable to remember things normally - including what I was about to do next or in the middle of saying, and in retrospect made me gain abnormal amounts of weight. While beta blockers can cause depression, and some of the other things they can cause can be related to depression, in me it’s impossible to say they “cause” it, trigger it when it might have passed me by, make it worse, or are completely neutral.
In any event, long-time readers may recall my experiment with Lexapro, mentioned to some degree, in chronological order, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. In short, it was a bitch getting acclimated to it and past the nasty initial side effects, but the stuff worked wonders. It’s probably no accident that much of the best of my blogging, getting CotC established, “met” Deb, got married, and started Sadie cooking while on the stuff. Until I was off of it long enough to decide I was okay without it, at least for the nonce, and that it was not worth a particular side effect. While it might be something that would evoke jokes about wishing you had that problem, it’s ultimately not fun.
Beta blockers or not, I am, and have slow-to-admittedly been for some time, in a state to need to try one of those things again. Thus I left the doctor’s office with twelve weeks of samples of Effexor and an appointment to go back in three months. We’ll see what happens.
I gained back eight pounds, which is odd because we don’t know where it went. The pants fit the same. Perhaps the Effexor will have the same matabolic side effect as Lexapro, making me lose a bunch of weight without changing a thing.
My blood pressure was reasonable. Thus the three month window that has more to do with seeing how the Effexor is doing than with a need to monitor blood pressure. It will be interesting to see if Effexor makes my blood pressure drop the way Lexapro did. It has a possible side effect that’s exactly the opposite; it can make pressure go up. That would suck. But I bet it de-stresses me and makes it lower, whatever the cautions say.
The doctor looked at something in e-mail while I was in his office and remarked about “learning to use e-mail for everything.” I took the opportunity to gush about how much I’d love being able to e-mail questions, and that some doctors provide that service for a small fee each. He grunted in a tone somewhere between neutral and negative to that. Heh.
Anyway, it should be interesting. I’ve poked around a bit while writing this and found that Effexor is a combined reuptake inhibitor, working on serotonin as Lexapro does, as well as norepinephrine, I can expect it to cost me about $100 a month, and that it is probably the hardest such drug to discontinue. Doh. The money I can deal with. If it makes me somwhat over an hour more effective per month, it balances. If the stuff works well, discontinuing isn’t likely to be an issue.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Your Daily Sadie
Beta Blockers Are Evil
Last night when I was typing the text I included as part of the Daily Sadie, I Googled Atenelol to find out that the correct spelling seemed to be Atenolol, as it was handier than digging out the bottle.
How did I not know before that I was taking a beta blocker? Or had I accepted the fact and merely forgotten it? I have a history with beta blockers, which are increasingly, unsurprisingly in my experience, accepted as causing depression.
Be that as it may, they go above and beyond other blood pressure meds in causing lethargy and mental changes/slowness. When I first took blood pressure drugs, it was a beta blocker prescribed by a doctor in Billerica I went to because he was near work. Eventually I figured out this was the cause of my flaking out, losing my ability to remember anything or concentrate, and becoming almost completely apathetic. None of which helped my employment any.
I went off of it for a while, though I wasn’t between jobs and insurance for long. Eventually an obnoxious doctor at a walk-in clinic prescribed the same thing, based on my say so of what I’d previously been taking, in response to a high reading. I ended up picking a doctor at that practice, and when I started with him, he was horrified I was on beta blockers, saying “those are for nervous women.” I ended up on a combination of two things that kept it to a dull roar. That doctor was okay with it if we could keep it below 150/95 and sometimes got readings more like 140/90 and below.
Eventually I ended up off the drugs again, until I needed a tooth removed. They wouldn’t do that until my BP was normal, which I am sure the excrutiating pain and need to take antibiotics for a couple months helped tremendously. It was amusing to watch my blood pressure go up 30 points between the car and the dental office. I would measure it in the car and get 120 or 130, and in the office they would get 150 or 160. Doh. They made me take valium for the extraction, on top of aggressive blood pressure treatment and nitrous.
Along the way I ended up with my current doctor. The previous doctor had me on two entirely different drugs, neither of which were beta blockers. I thought I explained my history with beta blockers to this doctor, and I thought he said the one that turns out to be a beta blocker was something different. Maybe he meant a different type of beta blocker, and I heard “alpha blocker” so went away happy. I’ve been telling people all this time that I take a diuretic, a calcium channel blocker, and an alpha blocker, joking that I have no idea what that does that’s different from a beta blocker. Doh.
How convenient that I discovered this just in time for my appointment today at 1:30, where it is the beta blocker that I need to get represcribed. Just after learning about the depression angle. Which comes shortly after having discussed with Deb whether to try Lexapro again, or an alternative with different side-effects.
The doctor likes to use the blood pressure check appointments as quickies to help offset the people who need more attention. I’m afraid this will not be one of those head-spinningly fast appointments.
I am tired of being stuck in first gear, having my brain all but turned off, moving in slow motion, and just generally residing in the state of Apathy. This should be an interesting appointment…
Carnival of the Recipes Is Up
Sarah at Mountaineer Musings has created a Carnival of the Recipes with an eighties music theme. Very cool! And filled with tons of recipe links, too.
Your Daily Sadie
This is at the office, standing on the keyboard of the computer we have setup for her to use. It runs a simple keybanger program, which she likes fairly well. It keeps her occupied for a stretch off and on. Trouble is, now that I have it set to run the same program again if she hits Esc and exits, she keeps hitting Ctrl-C, or something, to cause the batch file to prompt Y or N to stop it. Cute. Usually it only gets that far, but she has also managed to get it all the way to the C prompt, passing through the Y/N option.
At least that’s accidental.
Today she figured out to go under Deb’s desk, step up on an old computer speaker subwoofer, then climb from there, out from under the desk, onto a paper shredder beside the desk. That gives her total access to one end of the desk and what’s on it, as well as to the small trash barrel that’s up there “where she can’t reach it.”
On another note, we got probably the best reception ever so far for a new toy tonight. Most of her toys are hand-me-downs, with a few gifts for good measure. Once in a while, we’ll buy something new for the collection, if we think she’s getting bored, or ready for the particular item, or if it seems like something we’ll she’ll really enjoy playing with.
Lately we’ve watched her discover pushing things around the floor. Usually this is something like glossy paper, so she propels herself with her feet while her hands enjoy a friction-free ski-like ride. She also gets interested off and on in the ball that was the last new toy.
I decided it was time for a truck. Or a car, as the case might be. In Wal-Mart tonight I found a Little Tikes Handle Haulers Donnie Dump Truck, which was even in her age range. Most such items were a year and up. As long as they said a year and not older, I considered it close enough, but I actually liked this better than the others.
She loves it! Especially the handle part. She’s into picking up, carrying, and throwing things, so that makes it easy. She likes seeing it roll across the room. It would almost have made a better office toy. She has a shape sorter toy that lives at the office, which makes it exciting to get her hands on it when she’s there. Mostly she loves the extra floor space there, which would be perfect for rolling the truck around. Oh well. Maybe we can take it with us tomorrow. It’s supposed to be 93, so I’ll bring Deb and Sadie with me to the office, then leave them there while I goto the doctor for my three month scolding and refill of the Atenolol.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Recipe: Chocolate Caramel Tart
This is another of my stepmother’s recipes, borrowed for posting…
Chocolate Caramel Tart
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sugar
¼ teasp. salt
¼ cup water
1 ½ cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp.
1 teasp. vanilla extract
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
cocoa for dusting
caramel dipped pecans
Choc. pate surcree:
1 ¼ cups flour plus work surface
2 tablesp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup sugar
½ teasp. salt
6 Tbls. unsalted butter chilled and cut into pieces
3 large egg yolks
½ teas. vanilla
Place the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt in the bowl of a processor with metal blade. pulse several times. Add butter pulse until coarse meal, about 10 seconds. Add egg yolks and vanilla processing until it forms dough no more than 30 seconds. Turn dough on to floured surface and flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic; refrig for 30 minutes or until ready to use.
Roll pate to 1/8 inch thick; fit into a 9” fluted tart pan with removable bottom. Prick all over with fork refrigerate for 30 minutes. Spread pecans in rimmed baking sheet . Toast in a 350 oven until slightly darkened and fragrant-10 minutes. Line tart shell with parchment paper, pressing into edges cover with dried beans or pie weights. Place on baking sheet and bake 20 min .Remove paper and beans. Bake addition 10 min. Cool completely. Make caramel: place sugar, salt and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, wash down sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water to prevent crystals from forming. Cook, gently swirling pan(do not stir) until caramel is a rich amber color. Remove from heat, add ½ cup cream, butter and vanilla. Stir till smooth. Pour into choc. tart shell. Sprinkle toasted pecans over caramel. Refrigerate. Place choc. in medium heat proof bowl, Bring remaining cup of cream to a boil and pour over chocolate. Let sit 5 minutes; stir until completely smooth. Pour over caramel and nuts. Chill at least an hour.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Your Daily Sadie
Bureaucracy, Conquered.
At least for the moment.
After a quick stop at the lab for yet another blood draw, we bravely made our way to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, wherein I would attempt to have my driver’s license corrected. When I transferred to Massachussetts from California like six months ago, they managed, courtesy of our friend the typo, to make both my birthday and my middle initial incorrect. Since it had been a rather long and unpleasant visit, I ran out of there without double checking everything and got home before I discovered the screwup. I’ve been procrastinating about fixing it ever since.
We were in and out in 20 minutes flat, and it only cost 20 bucks to get a replacement with the corrected information. No drama, no hassle. Whew!
It’s so funny. I put these things off for so long, I dread them so much, and then they turn out to be easier than I expected. That’s a Good Thing. Heh.
Put Your Money Where Her Mouth Is
Venemous Kate could use some help right now, if you are able.
Ouch.
Under Pressure
At least some of it’s reduced. Things at the big client are working adequately until I can finish major server work this weekend. There’s still plenty to do, but what looked like a major network problem Friday and then yesterday has turned out to be a specific problem, easily fixed, on specific workstations. I had suspected a dying hub, but when I traced which people were on which hubs, there was no pattern. Of six hubs, five were used by the people with the apparent network problems. Clearly no issue there.
Last night I drove home feeling sleep-drunk, and I haven’t fully recovered today. The first two days of this month we’ve done half the number of hours of a slow month, and at least a quarter the number of hours of a normal month. Now if I can remember what we did so I can enter the time…
Not to mention I haven’t done the billing of last month yet.
Anyway, assume continued modest blogging, with stuff more likely to appear late at night than during the day, for a while.
Goofy Quiz Time
My life is rated R.
What is your life rated?
Via Ith
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Your Daily Sadie
Incorrigible
We’ve eliminated anything Sadie can climb on to access her mother’s desk, where she likes to get up and hang out on the keyboard tray, playing with the mouse, and gaining easy access to Deb’s supper, since her own hefty supper was clearly not enough.
All we’ve succeeded in doing is expediting her learning she can move something to that spot herself, then climb on it. Doh!
On an unrelated note, it turns out she loves lima beans. Which is cool, because I have always liked them, though they are variable, depending on size and toughness. We had frozen mixed veggies that contained them and she ate most of what was in our servings. My father will be pleased, as they’re one of his favorites. It’ll help offset the fact that she loves onion rings.
Speaking of which, Deb suggested I try making homemade ones, which I’d never thought of doing before. I’ll have to look at what’s out there for recipes/methods of making them. I’m thinking a batter might be better, rather than a wet dip and dry coating. Thoughts?
Happy Birthday
To blogger Zombyboy, one we almost missed until we saw it reported by Jerry here and confirmed creatively here.
Eleven Weeks and Yesterday’s Appointment
How your baby’s growing: Your fig-sized baby is now fully formed — measuring 1 1/2 inches long and weighing in at a quarter of an ounce. His skin is still transparent, allowing many of his blood vessels to show through. Some of his bones are beginning to harden, and tiny toothbuds are starting to appear under his gums. His fingers and toes have separated, and he may soon be able to open and close his fists. He’s already busy kicking and stretching, and his tiny movements are so fluid they look like water ballet. These movements will increase as his body grows and becomes more developed and functional. As his diaphragm develops, your tiny tenant may also start to get the hiccups. Because he’s still so small, though, you won’t feel any of his workouts or intrauterine gulps until sometime between weeks 16 and 20.
I was amazed that I felt Sadie at 16 weeks. Very early for a first baby, but then she was a very violent occupant.
Anyway, all is well. Morning sickness seems finally to be fading (I hope I’m not cursing myself!). I still pee about four times a night, though, which is getting really old. *shrug*
Had an appointment yesterday. All is well except for my blood pressure, which has decided to quit hanging out at borderline and go high again. I’m really grumpy about it. Every time we have to fiddle with the meds it knocks me out, and the crappy sleep has left me borderline catatonic anyway. I’ve got so freaking much to do in the next few weeks and I’m sitting here dizzy and barely able to keep my eyes open. Grrr.
I absolutely love the nurse I see in that office, though. She gets it. She totally gets it. And of course, I absolutely love the midwife I see. She even negotiated the meds increase with my PCP yesterday and left me a message about it herself. Saved me an extra trip in, a copay, and from having to undergo the grilling about what I must be doing wrong (nevermind that we increased meds several times last pregnancy and this is, so far as I can tell, absolutely normal for a hypertensive type). I guess the healthy eating thing must be paying off, though, even if my blood pressure is unimpressed, since I have yet to gain any weight at all. I’m actually down a half pound or so. With Sadie I think I gained about ten pounds in the first trimester. Amazing what some decent food and chasing a toddler around all day will do for ya.
BTW, the good food thing is all Jay. He totally took over the cooking as soon as the nausea hit, enabling me to go on eating things I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. He’s such an awesome cook.
They’re scheduling my appointment for the “big” ultrasound for middle of September, right about 17 weeks. I should find out exactly when that will be pretty soon. This is where the blood pressure thing isn’t all downside, since this is a Level II with a peri who has a very good machine (and manner...he’s fantastic) indeed. “The Cadillac of ultrasounds” is what one of the midwives called it last time, and it’s totally true. All the extra attention is because the blood pressure can cause growth problems by way of trashing the poor placenta. It’d be nicer to be normal but since I’m not I’ll take a good long look at baby as a consolation prize.
We had a chat about due date, since I couldn’t for the life of me remember what we’d settled on. All along I’ve been using 2/21, since that’s based off date of ovulation, which I happened to know since I was charting at the time (this is the date I’m using to get 11 weeks today). That’s what you get when you plug my O date into an online calculator. Add two days and you get what I figured we’d have as a due date, 2/23. You have those extra two days floating around because that’s the date from LMP (last menstrual period). What I didn’t realize since our dates matched last time is that they use Naegele’s rule, which actually makes my official due date 2/26. I’m not displeased with their date being almost a week later than my date, though. Since the child will be summarily evicted at 39 weeks, setting that 40 week mark a bit further out helps ensure that the poor thing will be fully cooked, so to speak. (As far as I can tell, 40 calendar weeks falls on the 23rd. LMP started on Thursday, the 23rd is a Thursday, see? The 26th is actually a Sunday, or 40 weeks 3 days. It seems that when you get there, though, instead of counting up they count back, so 39 weeks will translate into a week before the due date, or 39 weeks 3 days...or really, 39 weeks 5 days by my count from O. I’m assuming that they won’t do an “elective” C on a Sunday, or before 39 weeks without a specific medical indication [liability insurance, don’t you know], so we’d be looking at the 20th...which is a holiday, so we may end up even later! I wonder if we’ll have to go before that and wind up with an Aquarius, or if we’ll wind up on the due date I originally had and find ourselves proud parents of a Pisces. Anyway, confusing, isn’t it? Especially since all this speculation comes to naught if you go into labor or if something doesn’t go quite right, like happened with Sadie. She made it to 39w3d before her fluid got dangerously low. I have my fingers crossed that whenever that scheduled C happens to be is when this baby comes, but I’m not sure how much hope I have for that. My babies seem to like to keep me jumping from day 1. Heh.)
Anyway, next appointment after Labor Day. We’ll finally be far enough along to hear a heartbeat, so Jay will be coming with me. Yay!
Whose Idea Was It…
To make monitors that aren’t “off” when they are off?
I was reminded again how annoying I find this last night. We had a severe thunderstorm at and for a while after bedtime, and a resulting blink off of the power for a moment. When I got up to use the bathroom, the computer room was all lit up in varying colors, almost as if one of the computers had been left on and the screensaver had kicked in. Since we had shut them both down, I knew that couldn’t be.
Oh right! My 19” AOC CRT monitor is on when it’s off. The power indicator is green when you have it on, amber when you have it off, and it draws power at all times. When the power goes out, it returns to on instead of its version of “off” when the power is restored. Seeing no signal, it sits there flashing through a series of different colored screens, kind of self-test screensaver style, bright enough to light up a room.
Hello the manufacturers! Off means off. Yes, I understand that almost everything of any sophistication these days draws a trickle of current to stay in ready state. However, that shouldn’t mean blindly going into full on if the power fails completely and is subsequently restored.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Your Daily Sadie
Carnival of the Capitalists
This weeks tasty Carnival of the Capitalists is up, hosted by Michael Cage of Local Small Business Marketing & Advertising.
Next week’s host will be View From a Height, where I’m sure the plane will land smoothly.
For future hosts and other information, check out the Carnival of the Capitalists page.
Your Daily Sadie
