Author: Heather Meadows

Friday and yesterday I had to work full days, 7 to almost 4 pm without any semblance of a break. Yes, that’s right friends, no 15 minute breaks, and no lunch break. It’s impossible to take breaks when the phone could ring at any moment and you’re the only one to answer it. My situation may be similar today, if my coworker hasn’t gotten over her fever yet.

The scary thing is that she has to work like this every day. Sometimes 10 to 4, but sometimes 10 to 10.

It makes me angry to think about this. It also makes me angry to think about other things that I want to fix and don’t have the authority to do anything about. It makes me angry because I feel that my ideas are ignored rather than implemented. It makes me angry because I literally see no way out of this situation.

Once again, I’m thinking about quitting.

But I just need to calm down. I’m emotional because my period started over the weekend. And I’m unhappy because I have to do work I hate right now. But things are (supposedly) going to change, and if I just hang in there…

How long have I been telling myself that?

My blood pressure was in the 140s/90s this morning. I guess that’s not all that high when you think about the fact that my coworker (previously mentioned) had a blood pressure of like 210/140 recently (due to stress over work). But I don’t want it to be that high. I want it to be back at 120/70 or so, or 110/60, the range it was when I was recovering from cancer. (I didn’t check it much after that, so I don’t know how long it stayed in that range.) Cutting down sodium isn’t going to help if I can’t calm down. This is caused by stress. And, from what I understand, my “second stomach”–the fat in my upper belly–is caused by stress. Stress does no good whatsoever.

There are people out there who can handle stress, though, aren’t there? Don’t I just need to stick with it until I figure out how to cope? Isn’t bailing out now the same as wussing out? What makes me think I have it worse than anyone else?

I need to calm down.

From Yahoo! News – Oddly Enough:

Scott Thurner, 57, was the only person aboard the Cessna when it crashed Wednesday. He survived the accident with only scrapes and bruises.

Thurner then dug a shelter in a snow bank and used a door from the twisted wreckage of his plane for a roof. He started a fire with papers from his briefcase and donned all the ski clothes in his suitcase.

[…]

The team located Thurner by following signals from the plane’s emergency beacon. Thurner pulled the device from the plane and fashioned a makeshift antenna. A military satellite picked up the signals before Thurner shut it down to conserve batteries.

This guy rules!

A baby has just had her parasitic twin removed.

As in the case of a girl who died after similar surgery in the Dominican Republic a year ago, the second twin had developed no body. The head that was removed from Manar had been capable of smiling and blinking but not independent life, doctors said.

The 13-strong surgical team separated Manar’s brain from the conjoined organ in small stages on Saturday, cutting off the blood supply to the extra head while preventing increased blood flow to Manar’s heart, which would have risked cardiac arrest.

This totally freaks me out. That second baby was alive. It had a brain. It could smile.

But it didn’t have a body. Because of that, it died.

We really have no way to sustain that baby’s life. Not in any meaningful way. We might have been able to hook it up to machines, keep it alive. But what purpose would that have served? In a case like this, I understand why the child had to die.

But it’s so unfair…so horrifying that things like this have to happen.

Like, OMG!

While the title of MSNBC’s article–Private tapes shed light on candidate Bush: Conversations on political foes, drugs recorded by old friend–makes us expect something juicy, all the article proves is that there is nothing juicy to report.

On one tape, Bush explains that he told one prominent evangelical that he would not “kick gays, because I’m a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?”

Wow, what a jerk. Following the rule of “judge not lest ye be judged”? What audacity!

And then, later:

“I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions,” he said, according to the Times. “You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.”

Well, shit! You mean our president made some mistakes, and now wants to help keep other people from making the same mistakes? What a horrible guy! I know I, personally, have never made a single mistake, in the history of my life.

;P

I’m not sure what inspired Bush’s “friend” to make these tapes–“He said he recorded them because he viewed Bush as a historic figure.”–nor what inspired him to release them now, but ultimately, it really doesn’t matter, does it?

(Maybe, you know, this is an elaborate right-wing conspiracy! Maybe Bush made these tapes last week, and had them released so people will think he’s a good guy, while in reality he’s trying to take over the world so he can pollute it out of existence! Of course!!!!! That must be it!!!!!)

Took my last progesterone pill for the month at around 11:30…my period started just a few hours later. It seems pretty sudden. I hope that’s a good sign, that something is happening. It could just be my body getting used to the dose, or something. I took the progesterone a day early last month, because I was about to run out of estrogen, and my period didn’t start until the 21st. Like my body was expecting that to be the end of the progesterone. (Typically the progesterone ends on the 20th, like today.) Who knows…I certainly don’t have the knowledge to decipher whether or not this means anything.

As you know (maybe), I’ve been trying to finish uploading my Japan pictures from the 2001 trip to smugmug. Captioning the Takayama pictures made me really want to go back to that isolated mountain city, so tonight I started looking on japaneseguesthouses.com to see if there was a nice ryokan there to stay in. (Sean and I used that site to book all our hotels for our honeymoon; it was very easy and convenient, and I recommend it to anyone thinking of vacationing in Japan.)

Much to my surprise, I found a ryokan that I had taken a picture of back in 2001! I recognized it by the distinctive canopy I had just written a caption about the other day. Here’s my picture, and here’s the link on japaneseguesthouses.com (scroll to the bottom for the picture of the outside).

So, now I know that that building is Tanabe Ryokan. Cool!

I mean, these are the jeans I bought because my other jeans were too big. Those other ones are the ones that are supposed to feel like they’re falling off. These jeans are supposed to fit properly.

But they don’t. Not anymore.

I’m going to force myself to wait until I’m down another size before I go buy yet more pants.

(This is good news, by the way. Don’t think I’m knocking it or anything. I’m just really, really surprised.)

Just so you know.

Science Blog: Brain study points to ‘sixth sense’ (via Slashdot)

“Our brains are better at picking up subtle warning signs than we previously thought,” said Joshua Brown, Ph.D., a research associate in psychology in Arts & Sciences and co-author of a study on these findings in the Feb. 18 issue of the journal Science.

The findings offer rigorous scientific evidence for a new way of conceptualizing the complex executive control processes taking place in and around the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a brain area located near the top of the frontal lobes and along the walls that divide the left and right hemispheres.

“In the past, we found activity in the ACC when people had to make a difficult decision among mutually exclusive options, or after they made a mistake,” Brown said. “But now we find that this brain region can actually learn to recognize when you might make a mistake, even before a difficult decision has to be made. So the ACC appears to act as an early warning system — it learns to warn us in advance when our behavior might lead to a negative outcome, so that we can be more careful and avoid making a mistake.”

A little later, the article references “the “Oh S***” response”, which cracked me up.

I decided on a complete whim to poke around the Alchemy website today. Alchemy is Mari’s bellydance troupe. Glancing at their Events section, I noticed that they’re going to a masked ball tonight at a nightclub in the Augusta Towers hotel.

Doesn’t that sound cool? I wish I had a costume, or a beautiful dress to wear. (The only fine gown I have is my wedding dress, which probably wouldn’t work ;> I do still have the dress I wore as a bridesmaid in AJ and Faye’s wedding, but I don’t think it’s fancy enough. And I’m not sure if either that dress or my wedding dress would even fit anymore…)

Ah well. I’d need $20 to get in, anyway…

But this just proves that I need to start using a calendar! Something like what Josh does (RSS Calendar), maybe, or something else. Any calendar software suggestions? Something that would work in a WordPress theme would be ideal.

hahahaha :D

Here‘s an interesting (and rather vague) story about an old building that may be used for community events.

In the early part of the 20th century the Palmetto Lodge was [sic] once had a connection to the famous Hampton Terrace Hotel but it was also the home of the infamous Buffalo Room.

So infamous, I have no idea what they’re talking about! And does “Chip Creamer” (sounds like a vanity device for preparing ingredients for cookies or something) bother to go on and explain? Of course not.

Fortunately, Aiken has some reporters who actually know what they’re doing.

In the late 1980s, the FBI investigated allegations that the restaurant, then known as the Buffalo Room, barred service to blacks. U.S. Treasury officials seized the property in a plea agreement in 1999 when former owner Randy Salter was convicted in a Texas federal court of conspiring to distribute marijuana.

There, was that so hard?

So, what might the city of North Augusta actually do with the Palmetto Lodge?

North Augusta officials are considering several possibilities for the use of the lodge that occupies the nearly two-acre site.

The city could lease the building to the Cultural Arts and Heritage councils. While these agencies support the city’s acquisition of the property, Mr. [Charles] Martin[, city administrator,] said, members of both organizations have indicated that it would be difficult to retrofit the space to meet their needs.

The city also could lease the property as a restaurant to a private individual.

Ah.

Rather than spoil it, I’ll just give the link to the article.

When I got to the part about the son–you’ll know which part I mean when you read it–I said, “Awwww…!”

Poor guy.