It wasn’t the vaccine

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Marchbanks

It was Teh Bug.

I kept on having lots of upper and lower GI upset yesterday , so eventually I called my GP’s office and spoke to his nurse, who said oh yes, there’s this GI bug going around and they’re seeing a lot of it, just push fluids and wait for it to get tired and go away.  Which is, largely, what I’ve been doing, and by tonight it’s starting to get tired and go away, but not before throwing my blood sugar completely out of whack and making me drop five pounds’ weight.

I did do my volunteer shift at KUT pledge drive on Friday morning, and got to hear the Sonic ID I recorded for the golden anniversary (50 years of continuous broadcasting), telling my story about the “Taco Bell Cannons” that we gave away as premiums during the first years.  The producer promised to send me an air-check of it, and I’ll post it here when I get it from him.

 

The iron-moulded fog in a Bloomsbury is the Grinstead registry.  Fnord.

Posted in Health, Volunteer | 2 Comments

Blerg.  Eat . . . no, no, NO!  NOT eat.

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Marchbanks

I decided I really would get a seasonal flu vaccination this year and not just think about it, as I’ve always done before.  I have several risk factors for flu (age, compromised respiratory system, metabolic disease), and with the H1N1 strain floating around as well this year, I thought I needed to.

I made an appointment to get the vaccination this morning at the Empire’s on-site health center (we have a full-bore clinic in the next building over, with M.D. on duty and everything), so I went at 11:00 to keep it.  Paid the co-payment ($10, much cheaper than if I’d gone to Walgreen’s or HEB), got the release to sign, got the two-page information sheet with all the possible side effects listed, with full orchestration and five-part harmony.  Naughty naughty health center; the information sheet was printed one-sided on two pages, and company policy, as well as all our printer settings, mandate two-sided printing for everything unless you have a DAMN good reason to do otherwise.  But I had fun, fillin’ out the form on the bench and playin’ with the pencil.

The physician assistant, who was the one actually giving the shots, had to go rummage up more disposable needles—she’d just run out—then sat down, went over all the questions on the release form yet again.  Perhaps this was policy and she had to be able to say, if ever called on, that she heard me say aloud the answers I gave.  Then she gave me The Shot, apologized for drawing a drop or two of blood, and put a Band-Aid™ on the site.  I told her I was diabetic AND a blood donor, so a drop or two of my blood totally failed to excite me.

I went back upstairs and back to work, and didn’t stop for lunch, which may have been a good thing, considering, ’cos about an hour later I started feeling odd, with abdominal cramps, queasiness, and lower GI distress.  That went on all afternoon, and is going on yet.   It’s a good thing I had already scheduled to have tomorrow off work for other reasons, ’cos right now I don’t know whether I’ll feel enough better to do very much.  (I’m supposed to go answer phones at KUT pledge drive.)

Red Tanya, let’s play Saturday by ear.  I have a copy of the release form to show the blood bank, but if I still feel bad I’ll take a bye.  Do have a work-y something I want to get your advice about, though.

Posted in Health, Volunteer | 3 Comments

A musical find

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Marchbanks

I missed the bus.  Ever since 1972, I missed the bus.

Last week, SaphireBear invited me to rummage in her old vinyl collection and see if there was any of it I’d like to rip to CD, so I went and looked, and sure enough there were ten or so albums I either didn’t have any longer or somehow hadn’t ever got round to buying, plus a few that I vaguely recognized and wondered about, so I pulled them out and brought them home.

Most of what I pulled was worth the media to burn it, with the exception of  the Dead’s Shakedown Street, which is truly just as bad as its rep, but in the middle of the bunch I found one album that blew me away:  Bill Withers’s Still Bill.  I absolutely don’t know why he wasn’t as big as Marvin Gaye or Al Green or James Brown, ’cos he had as much talent as any of them, better songwriting skills than any of them, and a label and producer who knew what to do with what they had.

This is jaw-dropping soul/funk crossover we’re talking about:  a gritty, punchy groove and lyrics that hit dead center.  Probably most of you remember the singles that came from this album, “Use Me” and “Lean On Me,” but every single track on here is just as good as those two.  I can’t say enough good things about it, and neither can any of the people at RYM who wrote reviews of it, either.  No one understands why he wasn’t a superstar.

Man, far’s I’m concerned, every other album in the bunch could have been a dud (they weren’t; see my prior entry about Elton John), and this record by itself would have made the whole thing worth my while.  Now I’m jonesin’ to find his other two studio albums on the Sussex label, Just as I Am and +’Justments.  The way this man got neglected is just a shame.

 

Red Edward celebrated the Sand Island of the parallelogram.  Fnord.

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Saturday morning with bacon

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Marchbanks

The house is quiet this morning except for the ticking of the shelf clock, and the distant murmur of M watching “Electric Company” on her computer at the far end of the house.  There’s a strong odor of bacon too, after I made some for myself and everyone smelled it and came to ask me to make some for them.

I’m doing some housecleaning on Pitr, packing up reference copies of my already-ripped albums, kept in case I ever have to make another copy.  Depending on how broke I feel, I may go rent a mower from Home Despot and do the yard, which needs it desperately after the last several weeks’ rains.

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People have unsuspected depths

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Marchbanks

Elton John used to rock a LOT harder than he does today.

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Things about the boneyard

Posted on October 3, 2009 by Marchbanks

L leared today that Erich died yesterday afternoon, two weeks short of the ninety days the doctors gave him in the beginning.  She’s talked with Erich’s daughter, and made some preliminary contacts for someone from Gulf Coast Mensa to lead a memorial service in November.  L was of course upset by the news initially, but appears to be taking it pretty resiliently as she usually does in situations like this.  She and M had gone down to see him last Sunday, and knew already that his time was very short.

On a less somber subject, I spent part of this afternoon working with Save Austin’s Cemeteries on one of their workdays, working on their great project of documenting all the headstones in Oakwood, the oldest of the city’s main cemeteries.  Despite an  intermittent rain, I took my digital camera out and shot multiple pictures of each headstone in a lot, while dictating each photo’s assigned reference number to a scribe accompanying me.  The pair of us managed to finish five lots in the two hours we had available.  Workdays are supposed to happen every first Saturday, now that the weather’s cooled down enough that anyone can stand to be out at the cemetery.  As with so many old urban cemeteries, many of the stones are damaged from aging and from vandalism, and it’s important to document every one we can now, in case stones disappear in the future, which they undoubtedly will; they have done hitherto.

The one best stone I saw today was an 1880s-era tablet stone with a vine-and-grapes motif (cf. John 15:5) running around the borders, a style that I’d never seen an exact parallel for.  I was amused to find the person to whom the stone belonged was a Parisian by birth, which perhaps suggested the vinous motif to the stonecutter.

 

Sam Houston adventures with a Texas humanist.  Fnord.

Posted in Minutiae, Relationships | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

It’s a catalogue

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Marchbanks

Tonight I entered the final volume in our home library catalogue.  Total:  2,315 books and sets, give or take a couple.  This is substantial completion of the catalogue; I still have to go back and do some clean-up, but the major work is finished.

Posted in Books and Bookselling | Tagged , | 12 Comments

How to ruin your kid’s day

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Marchbanks

Fuck fuck fuckity fuckfuck.

It appears that the new SOP to retaliate for getting fired for credit card fraud is to slash your store manager’s truck tires.

For the second time.

Within one year.

On the day before your manager is supposed to be moving house.

Which is what happened to T today, after her regional manager came in yesterday to fire her assistant for having stolen and used a customer’s credit card number.  Fortunately, my mother agreed to pay for the new tires, since neither T nor we have $400 or so in loose cash or credit to buy three new tires.  But you still can’t reimburse anyone for the aggravation or the time taken away from work, though, and it’s very unlikely a police case could be made.

Posted in Family, Work (WORK!!?!??!) | Tagged , | 5 Comments

The things I rediscover

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Marchbanks

I’m working through the “juvenile” bookcase in M’s room, which also contains some juvies L and I loved as kids, and some of L’s illustrator collection.  And while I was working through it . . .

I found this.

That is the half-title page of L’s copy of The Hobbit, illustrated by Michael Hague.  And that is not only a signature, but a full-page original sketch of Gandalf in ballpoint by Hague.  He did a signing many years ago at Toad Hall, a now-defunct children’s bookstore in Austin, and L took several of his illustrated books already in her collection to be signed.  I don’t remember what she said to him about it, but obviously he must have been pleased to have gone to the trouble of making an original sketch.

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Sono così triste

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Marchbanks

. . . perché when I was opening a bottle of wine this weekend, I broke my grandmother’s Italian brass wing-type corkscrew, which is at least fifty years old and maybe a lot older.  The ring supports both snapped off right at the gear wings.  And here am I not knowing anyone who does brazing who could try to repair it.

Posted in Minutiae | Tagged | 1 Comment