Blog

At this point I feel like I could easily write a computer program to write a passable Austen novel. Sure, she’s droll and she invented an entire genre; she made social commentary where social commentary was otherwise essentially impossible for someone of her gender and station.

All good. All well-written. All in all an easy and quick read. The good guy generally wins. The good girl always does. The good girl then serves to deliver slightly heavy-handed moral allegory. Not that the morals are in any way not those that we should strive for–it’s just a bit of a pretty picture.

A courier came yesterday with my first package of Humira®, which will, if everything goes right, take the place of the rather cumbersome Remicade infusions, which required me to spend half a day in the rather grim cancer center at St. Vincent Hospital. Remicade also required me to take a strong dose of antihistamine, lest there be reactions, which knocked me plumb out. Not to mention that Remicade has some fiercely fatiguing side effects.

Humira on the other hand can be injected at home, once we’re trained. I say “we” because my saintly David has offered to do the actual stabbing. I like the idea and hope it does not cause him too much trauma. If anything, maybe he can release some aggression! We are due at the GI clinic in an hour to be introduced to proper stabbing form.

With the early arrival of “magnolia season” here in town, I’m looking ahead to the year’s bounty in terms of things I can heat up a lot and force oil out of. Yep, it’s almost time to take the big ol’ Portuguese alembic copper pot still off of the shelf.

The great hurdle with distilling your own essential oils is obtaining knowledge.

This is unfortunate, because mistakes are not always benign in this craft and I could sure use a strong guiding hand. Distilling the wrong kind of cedar can make your lungs bleed. Being a doofus about your condenser setup can get you exploded.

Help me choose which of these photos from last weekend I should make a nice print of for the parents of this lovely young lady (my goddaughter). I’ll print and frame the winning photograph.

Choose from attentive and realistic, gleeful, LOG POND WITH FISH!!! or weird/blurry but cute.

Everyone knows that there is weird scummy stuff on the beach. Sometimes it gets opalescent and piles up in a way that looks like it might make a good desktop background for one’s computer.