Just Like Doctor Seuss, Thing 1 And Thing 2

Thing 1:
I'm still wearing my event monitor. Before I got it, my heart was jumping around like a twelve year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. Now, it's just humming along.  I'm not fooled; I know it's just biding its time. "The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead." So there's that to look forward to.

Thing 2: Sarah Palin is embarrassing, but she's no Don Young.

Diagnostic And Therapeutic

I'm wearing a Cardiac Event Monitor for twenty nine more days to see if when my heart flutters, it's just girlish enthusiasm, or something even more sinister. Since I've had it on, my heart hasn't skipped once; it's acting as if butter wouldn't melt in its mouth. I suppose if butter had never melted in my mouth I wouldn't be wearing a monitor at all.
Speaking of butter, naturally makes you think of pancakes, mostly because, what doesn't? The other day, I wanted to show Corinne my jug of IHOP syrup. I didn't see it in the cupboard, and I shrieked involuntarily,  "I've been robbed!" Luckily, I was wrong;  it was still there, but for a moment, I totally understood Gollum. It's not good for me, but it's Precious.

Hooray For Our Side

I spent an hour and a half carrying a  sign and waving at traffic today. Our group was protesting the elimination of Saturday delivery by the post office. We were across the street from a Wahlgreen's that had a sign with the temperature updated every two minutes. It briefly got up to 18º F, and then, like a ground hog with a shadow, quickly ducked back down. Where does the blood go when it's not in your fingers or your toes? Your brain, I suppose, because I certainly had a lot of random, disconnected thoughts while I froze in place.
I was reminded of the last time I waved a sign, and how well we did ending the Viet Nam war, just six years later. In retrospect (and prospect, and contemporaneously) I wonder if that war even made sense. We were fighting to stop Communism, but if truth, justice and the American way were so superior, wouldn't the Communists have realized that eventually anyway and converted? Or have been buried by us? And didn't that happen? But only after so very many bombs (and pilots) fell out of the sky.
Maybe, as free market believers, we should just mind our own business, and let the rest of the world mind theirs. It's hard to see why a Defense Department would have been bombing Baghdad, for example.
While I was at the rally, I met one of my blog readers IRL.  I've always assumed that when my count of page views went up, it was me revisiting a post I'm particularly proud of. But if he is reading it, maybe someone else besides me is reading it also. It made me rethink the whole Heffalump thing. I've always assumed like every one else, that when Pooh and Piglet kept seeing more and more tracks going around the tree, they were their own tracks. But did anyone really ever count? Was CSI: Hundred Acre Wood ever consulted? Or was it easier to just believe Christopher Robin, and did anyone ever think to ask, what were his motives in all of this?

The Chill(ing) Factor Or Zero =Nothing At All

It's approximately 0º F here, but factoring the wind, that gives us nothing to live for.

We'll Fix It In Post-

According to a recent study, empathy from doctors improves outcomes for patients. This makes the Atlantic story about doctors being replaced by robots such good news. Calling Dr. Cooper!

Now, something completely unrelated, today I heard a podcast about the first forensic scientist,  Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne. The takeaway for me was that so far, every bad thing that has happened to me has been pre-mortem.
And, a final unrelated fact: This Sunday, people are rallying to support postal six day delivery. Our local union president pointed out that ending Saturday delivery means ending the Carrier Food Drive which is the largest food drive in the nation. If you want to feed the hungry, support carriers.

The Results Are In

I had a large cup of coffee with dinner a few hours ago. I wondered if it would make it hard to sleep and now I know.

Mystic crystal revelation And the mind's true liberation

Right now, Mercury is in retrograde. To believers in astrology, this has great significance, but in real life it is a consequence of planetary motion around the sun. I was explaining that at some great length to Sarah, when her phone died. Of boredom, she was too polite to say.

I Also Didn't Mention The Drug Abuse

As we approach the equinox, every morning this week has been colder than the one before. At this rate, by the solstice, the air will have frozen, fallen like snow, and we'll be gasping like fish. Frozen fish.

Because, in some ways, I'm still the 14 year old boy that thrilled to the ride of the Rhorrim, and the death of the witch king of Angmar, I've been listening to some lectures from The Tolkien Professor. Tolkien, he says, thought that no one ever wrote a completely original story, but that all stories were the unrolling of a leaf on the tree of stories. That makes me feel better about completely ripping off Deepness in the Sky's concept of a freezing atmosphere. There was a lot more to that book, though. I completely didn't rip off the intelligent spiders part.

Saving The Postal Service

Forward

We sprang forward this morning and looking out the window, we saw a typical spring scene, snow falling. For those of you that want to enjoy adventure vicariously (the only way it can be enjoyed as far as I'm concerned) I've added a link to the sidebar. Sarah's high school Physics teacher is sailing to Tahiti. A classmate's father is going along as crew.

I Was (Not) Robbed

I don't mean to name drop here (although if I drop a name this week, that's all I'll have dropped) but just like the Fat Cyclist, I dieted, worked hard, and gained two pounds this week.

Just The Facts, Or, Not Even That Much

I passed through a room where the Today Show (motto: Nothing's happening, people. Look, here's something shiny) was on. I don't understand what the point is of a white noise machine that has "all the bells and whistles."

You Say Sequester, I Say Man Overboard

The sequester has gotten off to a slow start like a piano just starting to fall on us as the rope slips out of our hand. We can disagree about the cause, only because some people are wrong. The fact is that back in 2011, Republicans were trying to make a point about how concerned they were about national insolvency that they refused to pay the bills they had incurred. Reluctantly they agreed to pay them if they could threaten us with disaster later. They assumed that they would win the presidency and the Senate and could then steer our ship of state in the direction of low taxes for millionaires and wage stagnation for the middle class. Amazingly, they lost, and now here we are.
So, the blame is clear, but that's not the point any more. The point is it doesn't matter if you were the captain of the Titanic or of the iceberg, now it's time to man the lifeboats.

We went to the Earth Girls Love____ First Friday event at Sara's Gift Cache. It was fun-filled, and jam packed with people eager to sample the best lip balm ever. As ever, though, when people saw me they couldn't think of anything to say, probably because of my intimidating Dr. Johnson/Dorothy Parker-esque reputation for witty repartee. Or perhaps because I think I have that reputation. Anyway, they reverted to the, "What do you think of the Post Office ending Saturday delivery?" line of questioning. I ranted briefly, and then referred people to my blog post. They all said they would check it out, but I noticed that as they were edging away, not one person asked for the URL. I hadn't realized that so many people were already following it.

It Burns

I'm probably showing my age, but I love the smell of Ben-Gay in the morning.