Friday morning random

* Man, TGIF. I'm tired again this week but AT LEAST I will have no grading hanging over my head as I pushed to grade the big (heavily essay based) exam yesterday. There are things I COULD be doing but I am not sure if I will do them all (prepping more Policy and Law, writing an exam for next week - I need to do that second, I guess, but I could put off the first in favor of some relaxation time).

I do need to take my car in for an oil change and also probably woman up and arrange for a new set of tires before the bad weather comes.

(And yeah, my 'reward' for the award was in my pay package this month. It might cover one of the four new tires....)

* Magic whispering in Belarus. I love stories like this but they also make me sad: what kind of spiritual things are we losing, what kind of things that were part of our tradition are we losing? Could it be that there was real magic in the world, and it's dying out in favor of the "magic" of an iPad or iPhone? Because that's not a fair trade in my mind.

I also kind of love the idea that these otherwise ordinary and everyday women have this secret power...that they could, perhaps, whisper a spell that helps a sick baby cling to life and get healthy, or protect their village. And yes, I know a lot of people scream "witchcraft and paganism!" but also a lot of the women seem to figure that (a) God gave them this, so it's OK and (b) they follow the saints and everything - so if it's syncretic, there's a big strong lump of Christianity mixed in there too.

I guess I also kind of want to believe that sort of thing, that if you're kind to the little old lady in your town maybe she'll magically help you find a good partner, or protect you from danger, or whatever. Part of it is, yeah, kind of the "fairy tale" aspect of it. (I was raised to be kind, especially to those who seem vulnerable, and that old fairy tale about the girl who is blessed by a magic fairy because she gave a little old woman water always resonated with me). But part of it is also that sometimes the "powerful" or the wealthy don't have ALL the power, and this little grandma-type can do things to help (And I presume, harm, though I don't like to think about that) other people.

I also just like there being something beyond what we can measure with science. I know of two cases of people who recovered from what looked like it was going to be a fatal disease (a brain tumor, in one case) where the doctors essentially threw up their hands and said, "We don't know how it happened."


And maybe, in a more cosmic sense, people like these "grandmas" are a reminder to the rest of us: even though you may seem small and powerless, you can still do something to make things better. Maybe you can't whisper into the wind and cure someone's snakebite, but you can do something.

* Some talk about flu shots. I need to get one soon. There was a clinic on campus this week but it was at the height of my hive outbreak, and I was worried about challenging my immune system even farther.

The last time I got the flu - like 25 years now - it turned into asthmatic bronchitis and I was sick for about six weeks. I do not want to do that again and even though I know the flu shot doesn't perfectly match the "wild" strains every year, still, you get SOME protection from it even if you are exposed to a strain not in the shot - so if you get sick, it's less-bad.

However: some commentary from people in cultures where single-payer is mostly a thing, and saying that they don't get flu shots because they are "healthy" and they want to "save" that resource for the children or the sick. And.....I would hope it would not come to that. It's preferable for a person NOT to get sick, even an otherwise-healthy one, if they could avoid it. (And I wonder how much of these people's perceptions is off....I know some insurance plans here would push payment for a shot for someone who wasn't in a high risk group, but I'd still pay for it).

I do know one year when they were predicting a shortage of vaccine I didn't get one until later on. But I would hate to feel guilted into "you are 'too healthy' to get this protection" sort of thing.

I asked my doctor about the shingles vaccine - I guess insurance won't pay for it for under-60s but she also told me it was medically unadvised (?) for people under 50 - I know people under 50 who have got shingles, and I wouldn't mind saving up the $220 or whatever the un-covered vaccine is, but if there's some reason it's not a good idea...I guess I wait. (Shingles is really miserable, from talking to those who have had it, and given the misery hives have given me, I don't want anything WORSE)

At any rate: my health insurer covers flu shots 100%, and they cover them if you get them at a chain pharmacy, so I suppose at some point I run to either the Walgreens or the CVS and get mine. I'm thinking some Friday (not THIS Friday, too soon after hives) and get it, so if I feel crummy I can rest up over the weekend. (Some years I have had a bigger immune response than others and have felt low-grade bad)

* I'm up to the first band of lighter color (round 12 or so) on the Great Horn-Rimmed. At some point I should take an in-progress photo but it seems the lighting is never right. I am fearful the colors I chose don't have as much contrast as they could, and maybe the design disappears a little.

I think I also need to try to finish the first sleeve on Grasse Matinee before the exam I give next week, because then I can have the second sleeve going and work on it. (And I maybe need a little break from the exacting colorwork, which is slow). And I want to get back to the Augusta cardigan some time.

At least this weekend I mostly don't need to go anywhere, and short of writing that exam, I probably don't need to do anything work related....

* I am in a much better mood today than I was earlier this week. Why? I don't know. I don't always understand the progression of my moods. Sometimes I can attribute it to things going on around me - if a friend is hurting, or if I've been at a meeting where people argue, or if someone is extremely rude to me, I will feel lousy about it for hours to days depending on how bad it is. (I get over someone being rude faster than I do knowing a friend is injured/sick/suffering a breakup/lost a job).

I DO wonder if there is some tie between my really bleak moods (and the start of this week, it was BAD, I didn't fully let on here how bad it was) and hives - often shortly after having a really bad day where I feel like everything I do is futile or that my much-vaunted skills are an illusion, I then come out in hives. Early warning system for histamine? I don't know. Or maybe I just feel low-level bad and don't know why and so it comes out in mood.

I do see there's a newer treatment for hives that is apparently related to one used for some other autoimmune conditions, and if I get more bad bouts of them, I may go to my doctor and do the "I read about this thing, is this a thing we could try on me?" I know a lot of doctors hate that but it wasn't just me seeing an ad on TV (this isn't something I've ever seen advertised), but rather stuff on some of the at-least-semi-scholarly websites where allergists actually STUDY this stuff.

Or, who knows, maybe I ate something at church on Sunday I shouldn't have.

At any rate: I have my "spoons" back and so coping with things is a lot easier right now. My plan is to (shortly) run out to get the car stuff done, then, maybe just relax the rest of this afternoon, and then go over tomorrow and write the exam for next week. I have clean sheets on the bed (did that Wednesday, I think it was? In a desperate attempt to de-hive) and I can do the rest of the laundry tonight.

And I want some kind of baked treat; I think I might make a pumpkin-chocolate chip bread I found a recipe for. (It makes 2 loaves but I can cut it in have, am pretty sure it was an even number of eggs....)


* Someone posted this .gif on Twitter (not a Who fan but I do love David Tennant):

and a bit more of the quote:

And it occurs to me: if this is true, then my house is a fortress. Or better than a fortress, a fortress with an arsenal in it. (And yeah, literally, they're only weapons if you can throw a big heavy one with deadly accuracy, but I get the argument).

I'm closing in on finishing Moby-Dick and I confess I will be glad to be done. Not sure what I will read next as the "big" book (I try to slowly work my way through the "classics," aka "The books you should have read in school but probably didn't" - even in my good educational background there are a lot of books I never had to read in school: not Silas Marner, not Great Expectations, not Moby-Dick and not even much Shakespeare.) I do have a couple of biographies of Winston Churchill and I still have "Quiet" and.....well, lots and lots of other books.

Getting to think about "what book to read next" is kind of like "What sweater to knit next" - probably one of the most fun parts of the process....

* One tiny gripe, though, to end with: I hate it when people poop on something that doesn't affect them but others enjoy. I am bracing myself for another wave of My Little Pony-hate from know-nothings when the movie comes out (I've already heard hints of it). And I know there are people who roll their eyes over NCIS, another show I like (and have watched since its inception, when it was called "Navy NCIS" or somesuch).

I don't understand that. I'd mostly rather ignore stuff I don't care for and leave others to enjoy it, and criticize behaviors of real people who behave in ways that hurt others.