Monday miscellany and weekend update
1. Silly/fun website of the day: LOLSecretz - what happens when you cross LOLCat Macros with PostSecrets....*sporfle*
2. Bits and pieces of my weekend: Friday I had a nice lunch with ladybluestar, who was in town visiting her parents. I wish we could have had more time to spend chatting but that's what happens when you have a lunch date and you work full-time.
On Saturday, I took Darling Daughter to ladybluestar's parents' house, which is in nearby subdivision. LBS and her husband and parents had tickets for a big wine and food fair, and DD babysat LBS's three adorable kidlets, whom she'd already met several times. DD was paid extravagantly well for her efforts, and when she came home she was so tired from running around after 3 little kids that she fell asleep for almost 2 hours! While she was babysitting, I went to JCPenneys and used 2 gift cards my dad had given me in the past year. They went toward a nice new Columbia 3-in-1 interchange parka. This doesn't seem to be exactly what I got (check the white view) but it's close enough. My mom would've been proud of me -- between the 35% off sale price and $75 in gift cards, I paid only $62 for this very serious coat. So I can toss my falling-apart 13-year-old Eddie Bauer parka in the trash now.
Sunday my church choir, which I joined last month, finally performed the piece we've been working on for weeks, HEAVEN IN A WILDFLOWER. We did very well, I think, in fact it was the best we'd sung it yet. Our choir director said later, "It's always better to peak in the performance rather than in the rehearsals..." Well, yeah.
3. The Road Ahead RPG opened last Friday and I'm very impressed with the posts and players so far. Of course I've RP'd with some of them before so I already knew those people were talented RPers, but the new people are really excellent too. There are waayyyy too many posts right now for me to put the game on my Flist (even though I'm a player!) so I've got it bookmarked and check it many several times per day. Kudos to inell, florahart and heather11483 for putting this game together and choosing such a brilliant cast. *glomps*
3. From the Oh Shit, This is Scary Department: Maternal Flu Linked To Schizophrenia, Autism In Child (copied from American Lung Association newsletter): Science Daily reported on October 17 that recent studies suggest that if pregnant women suffer even one respiratory infection during their second trimester, their offspring's risk of schizophrenia rises by three to seven times. Susceptibility to schizophrenia and autism is usually increased after influenza epidemics by “something that occurs to mother or fetus” when they are exposed to the flu. “There is no absolute certainty that infection will cause the disorders in a given case, but it is believed that as many as 21 percent of known cases of schizophrenia may have been triggered in this way.” If influenza is not the direct cause of these disorders, then what is? Researchers have concerned themselves with uncovering what causes or sets off these disorders when mothers are exposed to the flu. Results of their study will be published in the Oct. 3 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, in a paper called: "Maternal immune activation alters fetal brain development through interleukin-6." For the time being, experimentation on mice indicates that something in a mother’s immune system, responding to a flu attack, may be responsible. EEEEP!
2. Bits and pieces of my weekend: Friday I had a nice lunch with ladybluestar, who was in town visiting her parents. I wish we could have had more time to spend chatting but that's what happens when you have a lunch date and you work full-time.
On Saturday, I took Darling Daughter to ladybluestar's parents' house, which is in nearby subdivision. LBS and her husband and parents had tickets for a big wine and food fair, and DD babysat LBS's three adorable kidlets, whom she'd already met several times. DD was paid extravagantly well for her efforts, and when she came home she was so tired from running around after 3 little kids that she fell asleep for almost 2 hours! While she was babysitting, I went to JCPenneys and used 2 gift cards my dad had given me in the past year. They went toward a nice new Columbia 3-in-1 interchange parka. This doesn't seem to be exactly what I got (check the white view) but it's close enough. My mom would've been proud of me -- between the 35% off sale price and $75 in gift cards, I paid only $62 for this very serious coat. So I can toss my falling-apart 13-year-old Eddie Bauer parka in the trash now.
Sunday my church choir, which I joined last month, finally performed the piece we've been working on for weeks, HEAVEN IN A WILDFLOWER. We did very well, I think, in fact it was the best we'd sung it yet. Our choir director said later, "It's always better to peak in the performance rather than in the rehearsals..." Well, yeah.
3. The Road Ahead RPG opened last Friday and I'm very impressed with the posts and players so far. Of course I've RP'd with some of them before so I already knew those people were talented RPers, but the new people are really excellent too. There are waayyyy too many posts right now for me to put the game on my Flist (even though I'm a player!) so I've got it bookmarked and check it many several times per day. Kudos to inell, florahart and heather11483 for putting this game together and choosing such a brilliant cast. *glomps*
3. From the Oh Shit, This is Scary Department: Maternal Flu Linked To Schizophrenia, Autism In Child (copied from American Lung Association newsletter): Science Daily reported on October 17 that recent studies suggest that if pregnant women suffer even one respiratory infection during their second trimester, their offspring's risk of schizophrenia rises by three to seven times. Susceptibility to schizophrenia and autism is usually increased after influenza epidemics by “something that occurs to mother or fetus” when they are exposed to the flu. “There is no absolute certainty that infection will cause the disorders in a given case, but it is believed that as many as 21 percent of known cases of schizophrenia may have been triggered in this way.” If influenza is not the direct cause of these disorders, then what is? Researchers have concerned themselves with uncovering what causes or sets off these disorders when mothers are exposed to the flu. Results of their study will be published in the Oct. 3 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, in a paper called: "Maternal immune activation alters fetal brain development through interleukin-6." For the time being, experimentation on mice indicates that something in a mother’s immune system, responding to a flu attack, may be responsible. EEEEP!