Steven Harper's Blog, page 22
September 24, 2022
Resurrection Men
A resurrection man digs up corpses for a living. In the 1800s, it was illegal to do anything with a dead body but bury it. This meant that medical students couldn't dissect and examine the human body, and it deeply hurt our understanding of medicine. For a long time, there was a thriving underground (cough cough) market of corpses. Resurrection men haunted cemeteries to watch for funerals, and the night after a fresh interment, they'd sneak into the graveyard with their shovels (made of wood because metal shovels are louder) and get to work. They sold the bodies they took to medical schools. Lots of men made a living this way.
Once the students were finished with a given body, it fell to them to rebury the remains. They rarely took them back to the original grave--too much risk of getting caught. Instead, they buried them in any remote place. In Ann Arbor, a favorite place was a track of woodland just past the then-boundary of the university. People sometimes noticed lights out there, and declared the area was haunted. It became known locally as Sleepy Hollow.
A couple hundred years later, the university bought the tract of land but let it lay fallow. A few years ago, however, the university decided to develop the spot. The workers were startled to uncover hundreds of human bones. Thinking it was perhaps the dumping ground for a serial killer, they called the police, who determined that the bones were far too old. It was then everyone realized the bones were the result of decades of reburials by early medical students.
Benjamin Franklin's house in Philadelphia was also the subject of some bemusement. Recently, researchers discovered a cache of human bones buried under his cellar. The most likely explanation was that he let college students or other researchers rebury dissected corpses there so they wouldn't have to risk hauling them through town.
Eventually, the law was changed. Bodies of prisoners, or people who died in poorhouses, or who went unclaimed at the town morgue became legal for medical examination. Then people were allowed to donate themselves to scientific study. There's no more need for resurrection men.
But the idea intrigued me. What would it be like to live that way? Did the job bother these men? What kind of relationship did you have with the local gravedigger?
I decided to find out. The result was Resurrection Men. It goes on sale October 1, and is available for pre-order. Have a look!
comments
Once the students were finished with a given body, it fell to them to rebury the remains. They rarely took them back to the original grave--too much risk of getting caught. Instead, they buried them in any remote place. In Ann Arbor, a favorite place was a track of woodland just past the then-boundary of the university. People sometimes noticed lights out there, and declared the area was haunted. It became known locally as Sleepy Hollow.
A couple hundred years later, the university bought the tract of land but let it lay fallow. A few years ago, however, the university decided to develop the spot. The workers were startled to uncover hundreds of human bones. Thinking it was perhaps the dumping ground for a serial killer, they called the police, who determined that the bones were far too old. It was then everyone realized the bones were the result of decades of reburials by early medical students.
Benjamin Franklin's house in Philadelphia was also the subject of some bemusement. Recently, researchers discovered a cache of human bones buried under his cellar. The most likely explanation was that he let college students or other researchers rebury dissected corpses there so they wouldn't have to risk hauling them through town.
Eventually, the law was changed. Bodies of prisoners, or people who died in poorhouses, or who went unclaimed at the town morgue became legal for medical examination. Then people were allowed to donate themselves to scientific study. There's no more need for resurrection men.
But the idea intrigued me. What would it be like to live that way? Did the job bother these men? What kind of relationship did you have with the local gravedigger?
I decided to find out. The result was Resurrection Men. It goes on sale October 1, and is available for pre-order. Have a look!
comments
September 18, 2022
Rico and Raul's Retirement
We bought a Roomba four or five years ago and liked it so much that when we had to get a second house in Albion for Darwin's job, we got one for that house, too. We named them Rico and Raul. Here at the new house, we set Raul on the main floor and Rico in the basement.
They've had some problems.
We have a couple of large area rugs with abstract patterns that include black squares. Raul's radar sees these squares as the edge of a staircase, or "cliff," as the Roomba company calls it. When the Roomba's IR sensor picks up a cliff, it backs away. Unfortunately, Raul reads the black squares as cliffs, but he doesn't just back away from them; he just gives up and stops. Then I get a text message from the app that says Rico is stranded. I have to go nudge him away from the fake cliff. And a few minutes later, it happens again.
Additionally, though, both of them are running down. Their motors are getting louder and making clicking noises. And they don't pick up debris like they used to.
Time to remand Rico and Raul to the Roomba retirement residence.
I've ordered a new pair. They should be here soon. And Rico and Raul can rest.
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They've had some problems.
We have a couple of large area rugs with abstract patterns that include black squares. Raul's radar sees these squares as the edge of a staircase, or "cliff," as the Roomba company calls it. When the Roomba's IR sensor picks up a cliff, it backs away. Unfortunately, Raul reads the black squares as cliffs, but he doesn't just back away from them; he just gives up and stops. Then I get a text message from the app that says Rico is stranded. I have to go nudge him away from the fake cliff. And a few minutes later, it happens again.
Additionally, though, both of them are running down. Their motors are getting louder and making clicking noises. And they don't pick up debris like they used to.
Time to remand Rico and Raul to the Roomba retirement residence.
I've ordered a new pair. They should be here soon. And Rico and Raul can rest.
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The New Car
With my commute more than doubled, Darwin and I decided it was time to replace my car. The Escape is a nice car, and I like it. It's the perfect size, gets decent mileage, and is comfortable to drive. But "decent' mileage isn't good enough for a commute this long.
An electric car would have been ideal, but they're currently out of our price range, and the infrastructure for recharging up where I work is sketchy at best. A hybrid was the best choice.
Of course, this meant we were car shopping during the worst new car shortage in history, and at a time when EVERYONE wants a hybrid because gas prices have gone so high. (Side note: it continually amazes me that a drop in gas prices always leads to an increase in sales of full size trucks and SUVs. Do people really think that the low prices will last forever? Enjoy that $200 tank of gas!)
Really, I still wanted an Escape, and we learned there's a hybrid version. I contacted a number of Ford dealerships in the area and got the same answer: nothing in stock, but I could get put on the waiting list for the 2023 model, and might get one in January or February. Yeesh.
Then I got hold of one dealer who said that just an hour ago, he'd gotten an email from a woman who had ordered a 2022 Escape Titanium hybrid (the exact model I wanted) in January and now in July, she had gotten tired of waiting for it. Was I interested?
Yes. Yes, I was.
We didn't mess around. Darwin and I rushed down to the dealership and put down a deposit that same day. (Another side note: the dealership had NO cars on the lot. Zero. Nada. Zilch.) The dealer said the car would likely arrive in mid-August. Then it was late August. Then it was early September. Then it was, "The car is on a train and heading our way." Then it was, "The car is at a dealer one town over, and we're trying to get it here."
At last I got the call: the Escape has landed.
We got insanely lucky. If I hadn't called the dealer just when I had, someone else would have. A few minutes probably made the difference!
Darwin and I drove my nice little Escape to the dealer for the last time and I said good-bye. We found the new hybrid waiting for us.
The written description we had called it "metallic blue," so I thought it would be similar to my old Escape's bright blue. But, no. The new car is a kind of blue-black. In some lights, it takes on a green hue. I liked it.
We took the car for a test drive. Many upgrades to the onboard gadgetry. Good handling. SUN ROOF!
Darwin said he didn't like the old Escape because you could feel it shift gears. Darwin already has a hybrid, you see, and hybrids don't shift the same way as gas-only engines. You can't feel it. I thought my old Escape's shifting was perfectly smooth, but Darwin was used to no shift at all, and it's why he almost never drove the Escape. The new Escape also has seamless shifting, so Darwin is happy.
We returned to the dealership and said we wanted the car. Many signatures later, we had the keys. Or key fobs, anyway.
We took the long way home, stopped for supper at a restaurant, and drove a little more. I like this car very much, and I'm sure I'll like the gas savings even more!
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An electric car would have been ideal, but they're currently out of our price range, and the infrastructure for recharging up where I work is sketchy at best. A hybrid was the best choice.
Of course, this meant we were car shopping during the worst new car shortage in history, and at a time when EVERYONE wants a hybrid because gas prices have gone so high. (Side note: it continually amazes me that a drop in gas prices always leads to an increase in sales of full size trucks and SUVs. Do people really think that the low prices will last forever? Enjoy that $200 tank of gas!)
Really, I still wanted an Escape, and we learned there's a hybrid version. I contacted a number of Ford dealerships in the area and got the same answer: nothing in stock, but I could get put on the waiting list for the 2023 model, and might get one in January or February. Yeesh.
Then I got hold of one dealer who said that just an hour ago, he'd gotten an email from a woman who had ordered a 2022 Escape Titanium hybrid (the exact model I wanted) in January and now in July, she had gotten tired of waiting for it. Was I interested?
Yes. Yes, I was.
We didn't mess around. Darwin and I rushed down to the dealership and put down a deposit that same day. (Another side note: the dealership had NO cars on the lot. Zero. Nada. Zilch.) The dealer said the car would likely arrive in mid-August. Then it was late August. Then it was early September. Then it was, "The car is on a train and heading our way." Then it was, "The car is at a dealer one town over, and we're trying to get it here."
At last I got the call: the Escape has landed.
We got insanely lucky. If I hadn't called the dealer just when I had, someone else would have. A few minutes probably made the difference!
Darwin and I drove my nice little Escape to the dealer for the last time and I said good-bye. We found the new hybrid waiting for us.
The written description we had called it "metallic blue," so I thought it would be similar to my old Escape's bright blue. But, no. The new car is a kind of blue-black. In some lights, it takes on a green hue. I liked it.
We took the car for a test drive. Many upgrades to the onboard gadgetry. Good handling. SUN ROOF!
Darwin said he didn't like the old Escape because you could feel it shift gears. Darwin already has a hybrid, you see, and hybrids don't shift the same way as gas-only engines. You can't feel it. I thought my old Escape's shifting was perfectly smooth, but Darwin was used to no shift at all, and it's why he almost never drove the Escape. The new Escape also has seamless shifting, so Darwin is happy.
We returned to the dealership and said we wanted the car. Many signatures later, we had the keys. Or key fobs, anyway.
We took the long way home, stopped for supper at a restaurant, and drove a little more. I like this car very much, and I'm sure I'll like the gas savings even more!
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The New Commute
Now that I'm living in Ypsilanti again, I have The Commute.
I've had it before.
When I was hired in Wherever in 1993, I lived in Ann Arbor, then in Ypsilanti. I got used to a 45-minute commute. Then I moved up to Wherever and then to nearby Waterford, and I got used to a much shorter commute. It was heaven, really. Not only was my commute extremely short, it meant I could run over to the school building if I needed something I'd forgotten or to take part in an extra-curricular event.
But now I'm back down in Ypsilanti, and I have the new/old commute.
It's not as bad as I'd feared, but there's some adjustment going on. I persuaded the school to give me sixth hour prep, which means I can flee the building a few minutes before the daily student traffic jam, which gets me home half an hour earlier, though it means I have to take more work home with me, since I'm not staying after school to do it. I'm also not a morning person, and getting up in time to drive 50 minutes and be at work by seven is difficult. Back when I first lived in Ypsilanti, I hit on the trick of making a breakfast sandwich the night before and eating it in the car or at my desk during first hour. That saves me a lot of morning time! I also shower and pack everything for work before bed, so when I get up, all I have to do is get dressed and leave.
When I lived in Waterford, I got up at 5:50 AM. I ate a regular breakfast, not a car sandwich. Now, I get up 5:45, only five minutes earlier. Yay!
Additionally, I don't have kids at home. When I lived in Ypsilanti and the boys were young, I had to drive to Wherever and back, then go pick them up from school (no bus), which was another 40 minutes of driving. Then it was overseeing homework and supper and spending family time, as well as trying to keep a writing career afloat. It was exhausting, and The Commute made it worse. Now? It's just Darwin and me, and he's low maintenance. I get home at 3:00 and don't have responsibilities to anyone but myself. That makes the drive a LOT easier.
The nasty part of the commute is the construction. I have to use highway 275, and it's being completely redone. Miles and miles of the entire southbound side are being torn up down to the foundations and being completely replaced. All traffic is shunted over to the northbound side, which is now two lanes through Jersey barriers in both directions for a good ten miles of my driving.
I'm actually lucky, as these things go. I leave the house at 6:00, well before rush hour. Also, most people who live in the northern suburbs like Novi and Wherever work in Detroit, and they're all going south in the morning when I'm going north. In the afternoon, this reverses itself. So I never get caught in rush hour. Still, it's unnerving and a little stressful to drive miles and miles on narrow lanes set off by concrete walls, competing for space with huge trucks.
The construction is projected to last TWO MORE YEARS. This year, they're supposed to finish the southbound side. In the spring, they'll work on the northbound side, which will again leave two lanes of barrier-divided traffic in both directions. At least the pavement will be new.
I love living in Ypsilanti and I love our house, though, and it makes The Commute way worth it!
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I've had it before.
When I was hired in Wherever in 1993, I lived in Ann Arbor, then in Ypsilanti. I got used to a 45-minute commute. Then I moved up to Wherever and then to nearby Waterford, and I got used to a much shorter commute. It was heaven, really. Not only was my commute extremely short, it meant I could run over to the school building if I needed something I'd forgotten or to take part in an extra-curricular event.
But now I'm back down in Ypsilanti, and I have the new/old commute.
It's not as bad as I'd feared, but there's some adjustment going on. I persuaded the school to give me sixth hour prep, which means I can flee the building a few minutes before the daily student traffic jam, which gets me home half an hour earlier, though it means I have to take more work home with me, since I'm not staying after school to do it. I'm also not a morning person, and getting up in time to drive 50 minutes and be at work by seven is difficult. Back when I first lived in Ypsilanti, I hit on the trick of making a breakfast sandwich the night before and eating it in the car or at my desk during first hour. That saves me a lot of morning time! I also shower and pack everything for work before bed, so when I get up, all I have to do is get dressed and leave.
When I lived in Waterford, I got up at 5:50 AM. I ate a regular breakfast, not a car sandwich. Now, I get up 5:45, only five minutes earlier. Yay!
Additionally, I don't have kids at home. When I lived in Ypsilanti and the boys were young, I had to drive to Wherever and back, then go pick them up from school (no bus), which was another 40 minutes of driving. Then it was overseeing homework and supper and spending family time, as well as trying to keep a writing career afloat. It was exhausting, and The Commute made it worse. Now? It's just Darwin and me, and he's low maintenance. I get home at 3:00 and don't have responsibilities to anyone but myself. That makes the drive a LOT easier.
The nasty part of the commute is the construction. I have to use highway 275, and it's being completely redone. Miles and miles of the entire southbound side are being torn up down to the foundations and being completely replaced. All traffic is shunted over to the northbound side, which is now two lanes through Jersey barriers in both directions for a good ten miles of my driving.
I'm actually lucky, as these things go. I leave the house at 6:00, well before rush hour. Also, most people who live in the northern suburbs like Novi and Wherever work in Detroit, and they're all going south in the morning when I'm going north. In the afternoon, this reverses itself. So I never get caught in rush hour. Still, it's unnerving and a little stressful to drive miles and miles on narrow lanes set off by concrete walls, competing for space with huge trucks.
The construction is projected to last TWO MORE YEARS. This year, they're supposed to finish the southbound side. In the spring, they'll work on the northbound side, which will again leave two lanes of barrier-divided traffic in both directions. At least the pavement will be new.
I love living in Ypsilanti and I love our house, though, and it makes The Commute way worth it!
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The Garanteed, Never-Fail, Totally True, No-Fun Way To Lose Weight
I take a lot of meds. They manage kidney stones, diabetes (though I'm barely diabetic), and anxiety/depression.
These meds are replete with side-effects, though, and I'm starting to wonder if the side-effects are worse than what they're treating. Three meds I'm on can cause dry mouth, and at least one of them does. Two others can cause dizziness, and they do. When I'm going a good clip on my treadmill and stop suddenly, I sometimes get dizzy and my vision dims. It never lasts more than few moments, but it's unnerving and definitely no fun.
And one medication causes nausea and loss of appetite. That's supposed to wear off in a week or two as the body adjusts. It hasn't for me. I have this continual, low-grade nausea, and I only rarely actually feel hungry. Often just the thought of food makes me grimace.
I don't feel up to eating breakfast most days. I bring a bagel sandwich to work, in case I suddenly feel like eating, and I always still have it by the end of the school day. For lunch, my habit is to bring a frozen microwavable meal, and I brought one on the first day of school, but I had no interest in it by the time lunch came around. A couple days later, I finally put it in the work room freezer, where it can stay until I feel like eating it. Most days, I make myself eat some sandwich crackers.
After work, I sometimes feel a bit hungry, and I'll nibble the bagel sandwich. Sometimes I can eat the whole thing, but often I can only stand half of it. Evenings I do get more hungry, but never so much that I feel like cooking. I make small, easy meals, and I eat maybe half of what I normally do.
The foods I can stomach most easily are simple carbs (which is the polar opposite of what diabetics are supposed to eat). Sugary kid cereals sound good, so I eat them for a snack, and make myself drink all the milk.
I still run, and I still have physical therapy. The latter has become more strength-based instead of movement-based, and my smart watch tells me that I get about a half hour of aerobic exercise, so on PT days, I cut my run down from three miles to two.
All this means that I'm losing weight. Since going on this drug, I've lost seven pounds. This morning, I weighed myself and saw I'd lost another half pound. I now weigh 180. I was at 187 when I started the medication. (At my heaviest, I was at 215.)
This is good and bad. The weight loss is good. While I'm outwardly happy in the mid-180s and have sworn never to get above 190 again, my inner "it would be nice, but don't kill yourself for it" goal is the mid-170s. That looks within easy reach now.
The food part is bad. I worry that I'll lose too much weight! I also don't LIKE this new relationship with food. I love to cook, but not when I'm nauseated. I've basically lost interest in what's been a major hobby for a big part of my life.
Today, for example, I managed a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a banana for lunch. I ate half the banana, put it down, and forgot about it. When I realized what I'd done, I made myself eat the rest. I checked my blood sugar. It was 87. And I'm not at all hungry.
I have an appointment with my endocrinologist next week, and I think we need to talk alternatives to this drug. I'm also going to make appointments with my other doctors about the other side-effects.
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These meds are replete with side-effects, though, and I'm starting to wonder if the side-effects are worse than what they're treating. Three meds I'm on can cause dry mouth, and at least one of them does. Two others can cause dizziness, and they do. When I'm going a good clip on my treadmill and stop suddenly, I sometimes get dizzy and my vision dims. It never lasts more than few moments, but it's unnerving and definitely no fun.
And one medication causes nausea and loss of appetite. That's supposed to wear off in a week or two as the body adjusts. It hasn't for me. I have this continual, low-grade nausea, and I only rarely actually feel hungry. Often just the thought of food makes me grimace.
I don't feel up to eating breakfast most days. I bring a bagel sandwich to work, in case I suddenly feel like eating, and I always still have it by the end of the school day. For lunch, my habit is to bring a frozen microwavable meal, and I brought one on the first day of school, but I had no interest in it by the time lunch came around. A couple days later, I finally put it in the work room freezer, where it can stay until I feel like eating it. Most days, I make myself eat some sandwich crackers.
After work, I sometimes feel a bit hungry, and I'll nibble the bagel sandwich. Sometimes I can eat the whole thing, but often I can only stand half of it. Evenings I do get more hungry, but never so much that I feel like cooking. I make small, easy meals, and I eat maybe half of what I normally do.
The foods I can stomach most easily are simple carbs (which is the polar opposite of what diabetics are supposed to eat). Sugary kid cereals sound good, so I eat them for a snack, and make myself drink all the milk.
I still run, and I still have physical therapy. The latter has become more strength-based instead of movement-based, and my smart watch tells me that I get about a half hour of aerobic exercise, so on PT days, I cut my run down from three miles to two.
All this means that I'm losing weight. Since going on this drug, I've lost seven pounds. This morning, I weighed myself and saw I'd lost another half pound. I now weigh 180. I was at 187 when I started the medication. (At my heaviest, I was at 215.)
This is good and bad. The weight loss is good. While I'm outwardly happy in the mid-180s and have sworn never to get above 190 again, my inner "it would be nice, but don't kill yourself for it" goal is the mid-170s. That looks within easy reach now.
The food part is bad. I worry that I'll lose too much weight! I also don't LIKE this new relationship with food. I love to cook, but not when I'm nauseated. I've basically lost interest in what's been a major hobby for a big part of my life.
Today, for example, I managed a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a banana for lunch. I ate half the banana, put it down, and forgot about it. When I realized what I'd done, I made myself eat the rest. I checked my blood sugar. It was 87. And I'm not at all hungry.
I have an appointment with my endocrinologist next week, and I think we need to talk alternatives to this drug. I'm also going to make appointments with my other doctors about the other side-effects.
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The End of Canned Food
Dinah and Dora love their canned food. The routine is that I feed them when I get home from work, and they greet at the door: "Time for food! Time for food!" When I crack open the cat food can, Dora gets so excited, she runs laps around the kitchen island. On the weekends, they think they can get fed early--as in ten in the morning--and they bug me until I wave the spray bottle at them.
And then there was Friday.
(What follows is a little icky. You have been warned.)
When I went downstairs to work out, I found five lumpy puddles of cat diarrhea scattered about the carpet. Apparently, the cats had both gotten sick and had decided the litter box was the wrong place to handle it. Ohhhh, I was upset. We have an entire main floor with wood flooring, and they can't do it there. No, they have to choose the one area of the house that's completely carpeted. It took Darwin and me considerable time to clean it up.
Clearly, something in the wet food got to them. I don't know if it was one can, an entire batch, or something in their physiology changed, but it ultimately doesn't matter. No more canned food for the cats, ever again. And they have been banished from the basement entirely. Once cats have decided that another spot in the house is a good alternative to the litter box, it's almost impossible to break them of the idea. They'll have to be content with the main floor.
Of course, we have no way of explaining any of this to the cats, and I knew what was coming. Yesterday, they started the food demands. They don't actually yowl and prance around. Instead, they both get all lovey-dovey, like they're trying to flatter me into feeding them. ("You're so great. We can't help adoring you. Yes, you! So how about some food?") I responded with an immediate squirt from the water bottle. They retreated. A bit later, they were back at it. Another squirt, another retreat.
I expected this to last all day, but by four o'clock, they'd clearly given up. I handed out catnip as a recompense, and they were happy with that. Today, they haven't bugged me for canned food at all, though Dinah firmly pointed out that the hard food dish was empty. I refilled it.
I wonder if they themselves figured out that the canned food made them sick, and they don't want it anymore as a result.
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And then there was Friday.
(What follows is a little icky. You have been warned.)
When I went downstairs to work out, I found five lumpy puddles of cat diarrhea scattered about the carpet. Apparently, the cats had both gotten sick and had decided the litter box was the wrong place to handle it. Ohhhh, I was upset. We have an entire main floor with wood flooring, and they can't do it there. No, they have to choose the one area of the house that's completely carpeted. It took Darwin and me considerable time to clean it up.
Clearly, something in the wet food got to them. I don't know if it was one can, an entire batch, or something in their physiology changed, but it ultimately doesn't matter. No more canned food for the cats, ever again. And they have been banished from the basement entirely. Once cats have decided that another spot in the house is a good alternative to the litter box, it's almost impossible to break them of the idea. They'll have to be content with the main floor.
Of course, we have no way of explaining any of this to the cats, and I knew what was coming. Yesterday, they started the food demands. They don't actually yowl and prance around. Instead, they both get all lovey-dovey, like they're trying to flatter me into feeding them. ("You're so great. We can't help adoring you. Yes, you! So how about some food?") I responded with an immediate squirt from the water bottle. They retreated. A bit later, they were back at it. Another squirt, another retreat.
I expected this to last all day, but by four o'clock, they'd clearly given up. I handed out catnip as a recompense, and they were happy with that. Today, they haven't bugged me for canned food at all, though Dinah firmly pointed out that the hard food dish was empty. I refilled it.
I wonder if they themselves figured out that the canned food made them sick, and they don't want it anymore as a result.
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September 12, 2022
Dear Abby and Dreams
In today's Dear Abby column, a woman wrote out of concern for her dreams. She said she often dreamed about this thing or that thing, but she never dreamed about her husband. Should she be worried? Abby said no--the pattern was that the things the woman dreamed about were all in her past, and her husband is in the present.
This got me thinking. I very rarely dream about people I know in real life. My dreams are often populated with people, and in the dream I know them, but they don't exist for real. I dream about Darwin McClary or the boys or other family or my friends only very rarely. I've always wondered why this is. Just a quirk of my brain, I suppose.
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This got me thinking. I very rarely dream about people I know in real life. My dreams are often populated with people, and in the dream I know them, but they don't exist for real. I dream about Darwin McClary or the boys or other family or my friends only very rarely. I've always wondered why this is. Just a quirk of my brain, I suppose.
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September 4, 2022
Booster 3
Yesterday I got the latest booster shot for COVID, the one designed to shield you from the new variants. Today, I have only a vague, barely-noticeable arm soreness. That's it. So, cool!
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September 2, 2022
When Did We Go Back To the Colonial Era?
Back in the Colonial Era and up through the early 1900s, part of a teacher's salary was room and board. This was provided by the families whose children attended the school. If your kids went to school, you were expected to have the teacher live with you for several weeks, after which, the teacher would go live with someone else.
This sounds to me like absolute hell.
If you were a teacher, you had no place to call your own. You lived out of a suitcase. You couldn't acquire any possessions. You were dependent on the parents of your students. You were on stage every moment. You had no real privacy. You couldn't be yourself. And you never knew what kind of housing you'd have. In one place, you might have your own room. In another, you might be crashing on a narrow sofa in your hosts' bedroom (as Laura Ingalls did in LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE). Of course, you had no family life. You couldn't get married. Where would your spouse live? And forget having kids.
This happened because teachers weren't (aren't) respected. They weren't doing worthy work, and didn't deserve a salary that afforded them a decent place to live. Teaching was something a young woman did for extra extra money until she got married, whereupon she was expected to quit.
Apparently, we're living in Colonial America again. Schools in California are losing teachers fast for the simple reason that the teachers can't afford to live in or near the town where they teach: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/02/teacher-housing-california-bay-area/
The school's solution? Beg school families to take the teachers in. Anyone have a spare room to rent so a teacher can live there?
I know the district is desperate for a solution, but I find this hugely insulting. I can't imagine, as a veteran professional, being asked to live like a college student scraping through school. Downsize to a single room in someone else's house? Really? And what do they do about teachers with spouses? Children? Or even pets? What if the teacher has an actual social life and wants to have visitors?
A running refrain from the Republican party is, "You can't solve our education problems by throwing money at them." This is a complete lie handed out as an excuse for why they vote down school funding increases. You can solve almost every single education problem by throwing money at it. More money to pay teachers a competitive salary--and hire more of them. More money for physical infrastructure. More money for ... well, everything will improve it beyond measure.
Tell me how you can solve the California problem of teacher housing problems WITHOUT throwing money at it. I'm waiting with bated breath.
Meanwhile, I nod at the teachers fleeing this situation. They--and I--refuse to live in Colonial America.
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This sounds to me like absolute hell.
If you were a teacher, you had no place to call your own. You lived out of a suitcase. You couldn't acquire any possessions. You were dependent on the parents of your students. You were on stage every moment. You had no real privacy. You couldn't be yourself. And you never knew what kind of housing you'd have. In one place, you might have your own room. In another, you might be crashing on a narrow sofa in your hosts' bedroom (as Laura Ingalls did in LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE). Of course, you had no family life. You couldn't get married. Where would your spouse live? And forget having kids.
This happened because teachers weren't (aren't) respected. They weren't doing worthy work, and didn't deserve a salary that afforded them a decent place to live. Teaching was something a young woman did for extra extra money until she got married, whereupon she was expected to quit.
Apparently, we're living in Colonial America again. Schools in California are losing teachers fast for the simple reason that the teachers can't afford to live in or near the town where they teach: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/02/teacher-housing-california-bay-area/
The school's solution? Beg school families to take the teachers in. Anyone have a spare room to rent so a teacher can live there?
I know the district is desperate for a solution, but I find this hugely insulting. I can't imagine, as a veteran professional, being asked to live like a college student scraping through school. Downsize to a single room in someone else's house? Really? And what do they do about teachers with spouses? Children? Or even pets? What if the teacher has an actual social life and wants to have visitors?
A running refrain from the Republican party is, "You can't solve our education problems by throwing money at them." This is a complete lie handed out as an excuse for why they vote down school funding increases. You can solve almost every single education problem by throwing money at it. More money to pay teachers a competitive salary--and hire more of them. More money for physical infrastructure. More money for ... well, everything will improve it beyond measure.
Tell me how you can solve the California problem of teacher housing problems WITHOUT throwing money at it. I'm waiting with bated breath.
Meanwhile, I nod at the teachers fleeing this situation. They--and I--refuse to live in Colonial America.
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August 31, 2022
Mixed Blessings
This is another medical post, but unrelated to my shoulder, for a change. :)
I'm Type II diabetic, but just barely. I take meds for it and try to be careful about carb intake. A few months ago, I told my endocrinologist that I was tired of taking big handfuls of pills every day. I take pills for diabetes, to protect my kidneys from diabetes, for anxiety and depression, for kidney stones, and for other urological reasons. It's a LOT, and I've been trying to figure out how to cut down.
The doctor said we could combine two of the diabetes drugs I was taking into a single daily pill. I was up for that! So we did.
A strange thing happened. The next time I went to the urologist, he said the levels of sugar in my urine were off the charts. I told him about the new drug, and he nodded understanding. The drug makes your kidneys pull sugar out of your blood and excrete it. This worried the doctor a little. He said this kind of thing can cause strain on the urinary system, including bladder spasms.
A while later, I found myself having to run to the bathroom more and more often. It became unusual for me to last an hour. Darwin noticed because whenever we went someplace, the first thing I did on arrival was hunt down a bathroom, and I usually had to go again before we left.
I couldn't keep that up. Certainly not with school coming up. I talked to my endocrinologist again and asked what we could do. She suggested switching back to one of the pills and a weekly injection of Trulicity, which I could administer at home. She had suggested this several months ago, in fact, but at the time I was going through absolute hell and the thought of adding a weekly shot to my platter was just too much. Now I figured I could handle it.
She told me that common side-effects include nausea and loss of appetite, but they fade after a couple weeks. Another side-effect is weight loss. (See the above "loss of appetite" effect.)
I got the drug and injected myself on a Saturday morning. That night, I had really bad nausea and sweating. It was awful. I was up most of the night with it.
The next day, things had improved, but the appetite loss was kicking in. Very few foods sounded any good. Weirdly, kid cereals like Cap'n Crunch and Corn Pops sounded tempting, so I bought them. Most days, lunch didn't interest me at all, and I might have a piece of fruit, nothing more.
The nausea has stuck around. It's a low-grade nausea that continually hovers at the edges. All the literature says the nausea should only last about two weeks. I've been taking Trulicity for just under a month, and it's still causing me the problem.
And I've lost weight. A big chunk of it. I was at 187 when I started Trulicity. Now, less than five weeks later, I'm at 181. Last year, after my big weight loss, my clothes were hanging off me, and my jeans wouldn't stay up. I had to buy new clothes. Now it's happening again. My shorts and jeans have a lot of room at the waist.
Hence the mixed blessing. The nausea is bad, but it's bringing my weight down farther. I'd be thrilled if I got into the mid-170s. I'm going to give it another three weeks. If the nausea hasn't ended by then, I'll need to make changes again.
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I'm Type II diabetic, but just barely. I take meds for it and try to be careful about carb intake. A few months ago, I told my endocrinologist that I was tired of taking big handfuls of pills every day. I take pills for diabetes, to protect my kidneys from diabetes, for anxiety and depression, for kidney stones, and for other urological reasons. It's a LOT, and I've been trying to figure out how to cut down.
The doctor said we could combine two of the diabetes drugs I was taking into a single daily pill. I was up for that! So we did.
A strange thing happened. The next time I went to the urologist, he said the levels of sugar in my urine were off the charts. I told him about the new drug, and he nodded understanding. The drug makes your kidneys pull sugar out of your blood and excrete it. This worried the doctor a little. He said this kind of thing can cause strain on the urinary system, including bladder spasms.
A while later, I found myself having to run to the bathroom more and more often. It became unusual for me to last an hour. Darwin noticed because whenever we went someplace, the first thing I did on arrival was hunt down a bathroom, and I usually had to go again before we left.
I couldn't keep that up. Certainly not with school coming up. I talked to my endocrinologist again and asked what we could do. She suggested switching back to one of the pills and a weekly injection of Trulicity, which I could administer at home. She had suggested this several months ago, in fact, but at the time I was going through absolute hell and the thought of adding a weekly shot to my platter was just too much. Now I figured I could handle it.
She told me that common side-effects include nausea and loss of appetite, but they fade after a couple weeks. Another side-effect is weight loss. (See the above "loss of appetite" effect.)
I got the drug and injected myself on a Saturday morning. That night, I had really bad nausea and sweating. It was awful. I was up most of the night with it.
The next day, things had improved, but the appetite loss was kicking in. Very few foods sounded any good. Weirdly, kid cereals like Cap'n Crunch and Corn Pops sounded tempting, so I bought them. Most days, lunch didn't interest me at all, and I might have a piece of fruit, nothing more.
The nausea has stuck around. It's a low-grade nausea that continually hovers at the edges. All the literature says the nausea should only last about two weeks. I've been taking Trulicity for just under a month, and it's still causing me the problem.
And I've lost weight. A big chunk of it. I was at 187 when I started Trulicity. Now, less than five weeks later, I'm at 181. Last year, after my big weight loss, my clothes were hanging off me, and my jeans wouldn't stay up. I had to buy new clothes. Now it's happening again. My shorts and jeans have a lot of room at the waist.
Hence the mixed blessing. The nausea is bad, but it's bringing my weight down farther. I'd be thrilled if I got into the mid-170s. I'm going to give it another three weeks. If the nausea hasn't ended by then, I'll need to make changes again.
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