Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 18

Finally! Mountain Colors "Indian Paintbrush" socks

The Mountain Colors socks are finally done, after the worst struggle I've had with sock toes since I quit grafting them.  Maybe even worse than that.   Fortunately, the socks fit, are comfortable, and I'll be wearing these with closed-toe shoes, so even the nosiest fellow knitter will never know just how kludged up one of the toes is.   Now to get the Herdwick socks farther along before I start the next pair.  One is halfway down the ribbing, the other a little less than halfway.   I'm undecided whether to go on and knit the other red-based (but different shades, warmer, with coppery stretches)  pair of Mountain Colors yarn, or switch to the turquoise yarn, as originally planned. 
Another view--the color as photographed changes with the angle of light-source to sock--this time of mismatched socks, the blue & green pair I was wearing before changing to the new red/purple ones.



Something about the dye in the rose/magenta/purple sections of yarn in the Mountain Colors socks acts almost metallic in the way it reflects the sun at some angles, concealing its true colors.

So far I've completed nine pairs of socks this year--eight for me and one for a friend.    I still need to keep knitting socks for myself, to stay ahead of wear...of the 29 pairs I've knit so far, only 25 are in circulation,  and of those, the "first seven" are down to four (and those four are showing wear.)

Rain!

We are very happy to be receiving some slow, but steady, rain today, along with a cool front.   This will help with everything green on the place, and it's coming before all the leaves are off--a good time to boost the winter annuals.  Have had a little over an inch so far.



Rubber boots necessary for the first time in a long while.   Coming back from digging manure into the garden.   Taken from the cover of the porch.



Taken from the end of the porch past the barn lot, the south horse lot with its manure pile, across a neighbor's pasture, down to the treeline by the seasonal creek.  Which won't flow until we get lots more inches of rain into the soil upstream...about a thousand acre-feet of water in the right place should do it.   Taken from the cover of the porch (just turning 90 degrees.

The Weekend

The weekend started in midweek, but I'll spare you the effect to back-to-back (Wed. and Thurs. night)  Mozart Requiem rehearsals.  Friday night (Halloween) I was signing books at Dragon's Lair in Austin and talking to the people who showed up to celebrate the start of National Novel Writing Month.  This was a huge lot of fun--both the signing and the conversations with the people starting (or continuing) a novel.  I didn't get any pictures myself, because I was busy, but some pictures of me showed up on Twitter. 

On Saturday morning, another Mozart rehearsal, before which I took a few pictures at the church, St. David's Episcopal in downtown Austin.  Sunday was the All Saints/All Souls Requiem Mass, with music from Mozart's Requiem. For someone who normally drives into the city twice--maybe three times--the five days in a row thing made me feel even more sympathy for regular commuters.  

The Consuming Passion

I have a new lightweight (climate zone appropriate for most conditions) coat.  It was supposed to come last week, and technically it DID come last week, but the post office didn't leave the expected notice of arrival in our box, so we didn't know it was there.   Then, before my book-signing and talk to the NaNoWriMo group at Dragon's Lair in Austin,  I stopped into Precision Camera, which is in the same shopping center.  The purchase didn't happen until Saturday (I was back in the city Saturday for the last big rehearsal before the Mozart Requiem; we stopped back by Precision Camera after the rehearsal) but it's now happened.  As usual, I hang onto good tech until the new tech has something I really want (video capacity, in this case, plus better low-light shooting without flash.)   I had taken Old Camera into the church to take pictures of stained glass windows (not rehearsal, because I was busy singing...)  and then Old Camera went in for a much-needed cleaning and checking over, while I walked out with New Camera (using Old Camera's main walking-around lens, a Tamron 28-300mm zoom; this will be the third camera I've used it on.  Brought New Camera home and in spite of being wiped out from the week thus far, went out and shot a few different things.


Virginia Creeper's fall color...on old cedar-post "snake" fence

Corona (Queen's Crown) vine growing on yard fence.  Bees love it.

Mountain Sage blooms in fall--overlapping Turks' Cap but lasting longer.
Today--Fox Squirrel burying a nut about 4 feet outside window, on cloudy morning under trees.
Happy with the new camera, yes.  All the images cropped and resized from original.

Seasons and Headaches

Every spring and fall, I get a series of weather-related sinus migraines.  They vary with the year, least when strong fronts come in and blow through, and most when weaker fronts stall to one side or the other of us, or creep over us slowly and then move backwards over us again.  I get intense one-sided throbbing pain, sometimes with visual auras and always with light and sound sensitivity.  Often chills, as if coming down with something, and exnaustion.   Not fun, but not dangerous really, just annoying and interfering with useful work.  Especially the visual auras, since my vision isn't perfect anymore anyway.   I've had a nasty headache off and on the past couple of days, and looking at the regional (not local) weather map I can see why.  There's a line of stuff to the south, and another one to the north, and the day was warm, humid, and still) so today's headache (that made it impossible for some hours to do anything online--I finally just went to bed for a couple of hours, multiple layers of covers on top trying to warm up.

One of the oddities of migraines (Oliver Sacks discusses this in his book on headaches) is that they affect thinking more than ordinary tension headaches--one's perceptions are skewed.  I always think "Oh, this isn't really a migraine, it's just tension."   I'm always reluctant to take medicine, or lie down in the dark until the thing is really bad.  Every once in awhile I can make myself take the medicine early, and it does help (not always but usually) but there's so much to do and I hate to quit digging at the pile of stuff to be done.  Today, I thought the rest would cure it.  Nope.  The medicine has now taken hold and I'm once more laughing at myself for being reluctant to take it...just like all those other times.  When in the throes of it, even though I know how it's been before, I can't make use of the knowledge.   Luckily (I think) I err on the side of undermedicating late, not overmedicating early.  The glittery golden jaggedy things are no longer jittering in my vision, the sound of ice cubes in a glass of water no longer feels like someone banging on my head with a geologist's hammer, and maybe--MAYBE--I can now open the book file and get the pages done that earlier today I couldn't do.  Certainly I should be able to listen to the rehearsal CD for the Mozart and clean up the measures I'm still sticky on.  (When Mozart sounds like crashing and banging, your auditory processing is seriously messed up.)

Ebola: Facts v. Opinions

From a Washington Post article about states imposing restrictions, including involuntary quarantine in primative conditions on persons returning from working with Ebola patients in Africa:

“It seems a quarantine would be unnecessary,” said John Ard, an anesthesiologist affiliated with Bellevue and NYU Langone Medical Center. “We should stick with the science and avoid hysterical overreaction.”

But Tom Sullivan, who was working on a construction project a block from Bellevue, said quarantines make sense for returning health workers. “You’re working with diseased people. That’s common sense. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist.”

One person appeals to facts, which do not support the need to isolate a healthy person in a tent within a tent without any facilities for bathing or any normal contact with people or even a TV set.

The other person appeals to "common sense"--to an opinion, not facts.

The facts about Ebola--as repeated multiple times by people who've actually worked with, and studied, the disease, as shown in the way Ebola has not infected hundreds of people in this country who had close contact with someone who developed it--should trump opinion.

Buyt the Washington Post gives Tom Sullivan Construction Worker equal space and does not correctly identify his opinion as an opinion.   In his opinion, "it's common sense" tht if you work with "diseased people" you should be quarantined.  Doctors and nurses and home health aids work with "diseased people" all the time, including those who are more infective than someone with Ebola.   Should all of them be quarantined?   And his statement "It doesn't take a rocket scientist" does not equal "It doesn't take someone who knows about this disease" to show that "common sense" in this case is commonly believed nonsense.

Facts tell you about a topic, such as Ebola, or rockets, or anesthesiology or construction workers.

Opinions tell you about the person holding them.  What Mr. Sullivan's opinion tells me is that he's ignorant of the facts about Ebola (or thinks common sense trumps the knowledge of those who study the disease.)   It doesn't tell me anything about Ebola.

Shattered Shields

This military fantasy anthology can be pre-ordered now, and ships on November 4; the e-ARC has been out awhile.
Good reading for those who like epic and/or military fantasy (and for crossover fans of military SF, too.)   And yes, I have a story in it, so yes, this is a moment of bragging.  For those who read the Paksenarrion-universe books, my story is set in the same time period as Crown of Renewal, the book that came out in May of this year.

No spoilers here, but I think you'll like a lot of the stories in this volume.  More info at http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2502-shattered-shields-earc.aspx

Sock Progress

The "lead" pair, Mountain Colors' "Indian Paintbrush" socks are both past the gussets and onto the foot, while the Herdwick socks are on the cuff ribbing, gaining 1-2 rows a day.



This is the lighting angle that shows the colors of the Mountain Colors yarn the truest: at least two shades of red, rose, magenta, burgundy, and  purple.
Going to the end of the picnic table and shooting it from the side, the color looks different--warmer than it really is, especially in the cuffs:


Stitch definition is lovely with the Mountain Colors yarn, really showing off the Eye of Partridge heel reinforcement (which extends for another inch under the heel.)   The Herdwick yarn is a very different yarn, undyed and mixed of both light and dark wools.  It's not a soft yarn, although it feels wonderful once it's on.   You can see the ribbing developing, but it will never be as "sharp" as in the other yarns.  It's very warm.   I plan to wear the Herdwick socks when it's below freezing.  The Mountain Colors socks will go into the regular rotation for ordinary socks.  The sporty-shorty socks are summer socks and will drop from the rotation until hot weather next year.   Next up after the Mountain Colors socks are done will be a turquoise pair; next up after the Herdwick socks will probaboy be another pair of Herdwick socks.   There won't be another picture of either of these until they're done, unless something "interesting" happens.

Ebola: For Those Who Want to DO Something

Thanks to a Twitter post by @kejames, a scientist I follow,  who posted this link to information for those who wanted to help with the Ebola situation in West Africa:

http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/9/11/6131535/Ebola-outbreak-donate-charities-stop

It includes a link to this list of known, reliable, already-working-in-the-area organizations who have Ebola-related relief efforts ongoing in West Africa.  Links for online or mailed-in donations are given for each.   The website links explain each organization's range of activity.

http://www.cidi.org/ebola-ngos/#.VESGtxY8R86

This is not an attempt to guilt anyone into donating, merely information offered if you've been wondering how to help.   Everyone has their own priorities for giving and their own economic situation to consider.

Ebola: When the Lightbulb Doesn't Want to Change

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital--the hospital that misdiagnosed Mr. Duncan in the Emergency Room and sent him home, and then--once he came back with Ebola diagnosed by a family member--not only did not save his life, but managed to allow two nurses to become infected with Ebola while treating him--is a member of a group of hospitals run by Texas Health Resources.

"I don't think we have a systematic institutional problem," Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer of Texas Health Resources, told reporters, facing questions about the hospital's actions.

Medical staff "may have done some things differently with the benefit of what we know today," he said, adding, "no one wants to get this right more than our hospital."

Dr. Varga is wrong.  He is wrong factually (just the ER visit alone shows that THPH has an institutional problem in its Emergency Department--which other previous complaints and ratings also showed, previous to Mr. Duncan's visit.)   He is wrong in implying that medical staff acted properly with the knowledge they had at the time: they did not.  He is wrong administratively and politically, in not facing the reality and accepting responsibility.    Yes, there is an institutional problem.  His name is Dr. Varga.   He is the reason--or one of them--that Texas Health Resources has an institutional problem, and every other hospital in that group probably has the SAME institutional problems as THPH.

Dr. Varga just screwed the pooch.

So when the lightbulb doesn't want to change, and the lightbulb should be giving the light needed to see and fix a problem...you reach up and yank that sucker out of there and put in a new one.  A different one.  Both the CEO (to whom Dr. Varga presumably reports, and whom, presumably, he's shielding here) need to be replaced, and the replacements need to be informed upfront that they will be held accountable for lapses in quality care.

And in the meantime, the relevant hospital accreditation board should take a long hard look at not just THPH, but every other hospital within the Texas Health Resources group.  At the least, these hospitals should be audited for quality in every kind of case they accept, and put on probation to ensure they meet all standards in all areas.  I wouldn't close them all...but patients deserve better--all their patients deserve better.