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( Garter snakes and Flemish Beauties. Also, some health stuff, so: warning for mention of bodily fluids. )

Wow you guys thank you for the delightful blue spiders now decorating my user page! I am heartened and cheered up feel much better! So kind of you ( Read more... )

A friend of a friend wrote this in ninth grade and I've treasured it up in my head ever since:

Keats and Yeats
on roller skates
went rolling through a wood

Said Yeats to Keats:
"Amazing feats!
Your poetry is good."

...

So, speaking of amazing feats of genius, there is this astonishing (and only sort of credible) news. Those wacky jokers at ( Read more... )

I am supposed to be getting a replacement computer from Spork very soon. I have been in the state of supposed to be getting a replacement computer for some months now. There has already been the ritual grovel at the IT office, and a lengthy discussion of voice recognition software. There has been no communication from the IT office at all, ( Read more... )

So I have had a migraine on and off for about a week now. It has stubbornly resisted the usual drugs, but last night it went away after I had three bowls of tomato soup for dinner. I don't know if any warm salty liquid would have done the job, or if maybe the migraine just decided to go away temporarily anyhow, or if it was this soup, but just in ( Read more... )

The Canadian health care system is a bit like our car, which is beat-up and leaks onto the driver a bit when it rains, and also is noisier than it used to be, but gets us where we're going safely and conveniently. Whereas the US health care system is like a shiny new truck that's on fire. Shiny! but not going to get you anywhere, and not safe for ( Read more... )

Most of you know I am a US citizen living in Canada, right? Well, I am. I moved here eight years ago, when I was 38 years old. Before that I lived most of my life in the US, sometimes with health insurance, sometimes without. So I am in a good position to answer questions comparing the US and Canadian health-care systems. Actually, I was going ( Read more... )

I was driving from campus to the gym on the only highway that cuts through the middle of Our Fair City, just before rush hour. Traffic was heavy enough that I'd just come to a halt, in the perpetual traffic jam that marks the end of the highway as it empties out onto the street in midtown. Suddenly there was a big jolt and a loud noise: I'd been ( Read more... )

Fifteen months ago -- as some of you may recall -- I lost a beloved colleague and friend to ovarian cancer that was detected (as most cases are) too late to save her, but not too late to put her through four torturous years of chemo, fear, pain, weakness and wasting before she died. I miss her every day.

This NY Times article goes into some ( Read more... )

So I have to have my head examined sometime soon, and this is inspiring a little rant about healthcare in Canada. Here's my story ( Read more... )