Thursday, August 15, 2024

Thursday evening things

 * Just tired. It's still VERY hot today (I think we had a heat index of 106 F). It was the last day (well, until departmental meeting Monday) of meetings. This one had lunch with it and this time I took it. It was cookout food and I got a hot dog, which was probably one of the big Kosher beef dogs (it was very garlicky) but something in it didn't agree with me (sometimes cured meat does not) and I had indigestion all afternoon. At least tomorrow I can eat  my own food at home and I do have a yogurt that maybe will help.

* It IS terribly hot and humid. Even though my home A/C has run all evening it's still close to 80 in my living room. It'll be cooler in my bedroom (the living room is on the west side of the house and catches the most intense sun) but it's still not pleasant and I am sleeping badly in the heat. It's not going to cool down, not even a little, until next week. I don't know that putting the ice packs in my bed would help, though. 

* I finished the book by Barbara Martin on the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy. I admit I skimmed the last bits; it's a hard read (emotionally) and not as compellingly written as some of these kind of layperson histories. I started another book that relates to my policy and law class today - it's called Yellow Dirt, and is by Judy Pasternak. It's about how during (and slightly before) WWII the US government and contractors were hunting for "minerals" (mainly uranium, though) on the Diné Nation land, and apparently a lot of the Native people were hired to work, and as was typical of the times, there were effectively no safety precautions* and a lot of them died, and there was some kind of neuropathy that developed in their children from exposure (I'm not very far into the book yet). It's more interesting because it does go into some of the culture and traditions, and has descriptions of the landscape.

(*Yes, there was probably some racism involved, but also, years ago, fewer precautions just WERE taken. My dad did some research in uranium mines in the 60s, and while there were SOME more precautions then, and he had less overall exposure, he was always concerned he might develop lung cancer from exposure to the dust, and on several occasions he refused chest x-rays when it was suspected he had something like pneumonia (just asked for antibiotics instead) because between that and two chain-smoking parents, he figured he'd had a lifetime of bad lung exposures. I do wonder if the cancer (not lung cancer) he developed later and was successfully treated for could have been contributed to by the mine exposures)

But yeah, that's going to be a "not read before bed" book because I don't want to be mad and sad right before I go to bed and these kinds of books tend to do that

* I did get the "10 equally spaced increases" (tough to do on a number of stitches not exactly divisible by 10) and the larger needle started for the current sweater. Now it's just lots and lots of rows until I start the colorwork parts. 

* Tomorrow is mammogram day and I probably need to grocery shop, but as hot as it is I don't want to GO anywhere,, so either I'll manage with what I can get at either Green Spray or Pruett's, or else I'll go out to Wal Mart and hope I don't have to park a mile from the store (or wait and go early Saturday morning, maybe? I think it's a payday weekend so it may be busier - I only get paid once a month but a lot of people get paid twice a month). But also I don't really want to EAT when it's this hot.

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