Monday, April 18, 2016

Monday morning thoughts

* I wonder if any language has a word for that brief, pleasant moment upon awakening, before the things you were and are concerned about flood back into your head. (There are many of lists of "untranslatable" words on the Internet. One is here, another is here

* Because, yeah, no further news, and I'm in that unpleasant position of "Do you pray for a (nearly) miraculous recovery for the person, or do you pray for a peaceful passing?"

* We're back in a pattern of heavy, persistent rain. This is our rainy season but still. I'm having to plan a totally different lab (made from scratch) to teach some of the calculations about communities (diversity indices, for example). I bought a ton of beads (my own money; we have no  budget and no easy way to buy things on short notice) at the JoAnn's on Friday and will be making some artificial communities based on different colors and shapes of beads that the students will be sampling and analyzing. (The upside to the expense is that I will have that in reserve from now on and can use it any time that the logistics of going out into the field to collect the data for the lab becomes impossible). At least those "pony beads" are fairly cheap.

* I'm guessing the Saturday stomach thing was either a virus or some kind of weird food intolerance/food poisoning based on how much better I feel today. But, ugh. I hate this not-knowing what food is going to "betray" me now (if it's an intolerance). I wonder what people with many, many food intolerances do - just get something like those "Ensure" shakes and live on those? Take lots of vitamins and get calories from whatever they can possibly digest? Go on parenteral nutrition?

2 comments:

Charlotte said...

Re praying for your friend, I think the best prayer in this situation is "Lord, your will be done. I would prefer You to heal in the here and now so I can continue know and love her/him. But I will accept that your healing may be achieved by taking your child home to be with you. There he/she will know no more pain. I submit my desires and wishes to you."

Lydia said...

A friend has multiple, serious allergies. He has cards printed up in all sorts of languages for when he eats out, if he comes over we open new jars of everything in case a little cheese got into the guacamole, and we really try to cook and bake things that don't hit his triggers. It's hard for him, though,