Mom and I headed into Pittsburgh to the Phipps Conservancy to see their holiday display before it gets dismantled over the weekend. My SiL was meant to come but she was having a bad health day. My young cousin met us there. It was a minor miracle that I drove straight into the heart of Pittsburgh without slowing down once. If you're from around ( Read more... )

It was supposed to go this way: 1. see the vascular surgeon 2. have them move me to one visit a year instead of two. 3. know I'm kidding myself because of the claudication symptoms. (pain and numbness in my leg with exercise, gets better with rest ( Read more... )

Not a lie, I really did. There is a Pilot truck stop either east IL or west IN (I lost track over where I was on I-70E) You see all the rest stops (much like on I-64W) were closed on 70 so I made stops at Pilot truck stops (best gas prices, big stories, rest rooms, can fuel up on coffee so I have to pee bad by the time I hit the next one ( Read more... )

The last day of the conference was good, great even. There were two really fantastic work shops I can't wait to incorporate into my classes. I already sent Dad to Lowes for the dowel rods I'll need. Those who saw me hobbling around yesterday checked in with me today. Sometimes I forget what it's like to have supportive colleagues ( Read more... )

It's bad enough I had to get up early but around 520 AM I woke up swearing someone was in the hall pretending to be a neighing horse. I couldn't imagine WHY. Later at breakfast several others had also been awakened Apparently it was a bunch of police/ambulance sirens that my brain decided were horses. But since I woke up so early I forgot my cane ( Read more... )

Ah open bars. It was a LONG day. So long. Good but long. The seminar speakers were very interesting, especially the bioarchaeology one and the migraine ones. The seminar part of this is now over. I didn't win a door prize, oh well ( Read more... )

Today was Evil Little dog's last day with me. The weather channel proved to be entirely wrong and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We did go to Cahokia (yes my GPS tried to kill us). The thing with earthen works is they're not really lookers and unfortunately the immersive history center is closed and will be for at least a year. So we did a ( Read more... )

Well I KNOW why. It was supposed to be a very violent storm today in the afternoon so we went to the zoo in Forest Park. We had wanted to try both the arch and grant farm (Clydesdales) but shockingly both were sold out. (maybe because it's memorial day) so we went to Forest Park which has a zoo and several museums, all free. They get you in the ( Read more... )

Evil Little Dog and I met with our friend (from the Elfquest days) and her teenaged kid at the Botanical gardens. I did not anticipate this taking ALL day but it certainly took most of it and we didn't see all of it by a long shot. It's an amazing space. With gardens and houses and museums and it's very obviously an all day thing if not a multi day ( Read more... )

The midwest is unrelenting flatness in this area and farmland. It is excellent (and important) for the latter reason but my god it's boring to drive. I spent yesterday in IN with Evil Little Dog before we came to St Louis today. Somehow we got here so late (in spite of getting up at 530 in the morning.) that there was nothing really we could do as ( Read more... )