Scary Halloween Picture

Yes, there's actually a reason for this image.

Shakespeare's Sister posted a picture of a tarantumunk. One of the commentors imagined sending that pic to the Pet Tribute Creations site. I created my version of a Pet Tributes image, and here it is.

Is this image blasphemous? I don't think so. All God's creatures, and all that.

Of course, the tarantumunk can hardly be called one of God's creatures, can it? Hmmm.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Not every reason is a good one."\\

Don't Pick on Peru

The Peru Free Trade Agreement is a bad deal for working people in the U.S., but it's a disaster for working people in Peru.

So why is anybody for it?

Well, not everybody works for a living, you know.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Follow the money."\\

Mass Extinction -- Our Bad

Urge your Senator to support the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act.

Because polar bears need love, too, or anyway, they need a piece of ice to sit on.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Think."\\

What Now?!

For cryin' out loud, can't I catch a break? It's still three and a half weeks until the surgery for my brain tumor, and now I have to stagger out of Meeting with a painful sense of pressure in my chest with referral to my neck and jaw!

Well, the EKG and the blood chemistry they did at Immediate Care were all normal-looking. The X-ray says my heart is a bit on the big side, but then so is the rest of my chest, so I'm not taking that as a bad sign.

Good thing. It'd be a sorry comment if my heart couldn't take the strain of a Corvallis Quaker Meeting.

Probably it was just some sort of digestive mishap -- lots of coffee and stress lately. I'll try these sample Protonix tablets and see how my innards respond.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Lub-dup, lub-dup...".\\

Re-Constitution

I'm working at my night job as a caregiver, sitting at my client's computer (with, ahem, his permission, of course), looking out a row of picture windows. Since I'm writing on my blog, that means I'm also in the lookout tower atop my own house, a couple of miles away. Either way, I've got a great view of the predawn Willamette Valley.

The eastern light fades from blue to greenish-yellw to orange to a most exquisite and peculiar dark red. Fog lies on the Valley floor, looking so substantial that it's hard to believe how it will burn off once the sun hits it.

And here I sit pondering the current administration and its ineffectual opposition.

I don't know how other people feel about it, but I like our Constitution, and I think it would be a good idea if we went back to living by it.

There was a time when saying that would have made me a conservative.

Or maybe I am one. I could live with that.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You are what you are. Whatever that is."\\

Torture is Bad

It was a good morning for Kathe, and Ghu knows she needed one. It was

1) A clear, mild Autumn day -- Kathe's favorite time of year.

2) The OSU Homecoming Parade went right by the house, with all the things a parade should have to earn her favor: horses and marching bands (only two, but they were pretty good).

3) The OSU band made the unusual choice to play "Fat Bottomed Girls", a song that is almost as close to her heart as a certain fat-bottomed girl is to my own.

On another topic: Um, did I mention already that decent people don't commit torture, or condone it?

Just checking.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Check and double check."\\

Mostly About Me

I've been forced to think about myself lately, and I find that in some important ways I am not at all the man I thought I was.

I have always thought of myself as an analytical person with a scientific view of life, but recently I've found that some long-held opinions about people and things around me don't hold up under logical scrutiny. It would appear that quite often, I form a vague impression about something and then bumble along acting on that, ignoring evidence that the object (a person, a device, a way of folding towels) was quite different from what I presumed it to be.

How did I fail to miss something so basic about myself? It would appear that I presumed that because I was an atheist and read science fiction, that automatically made me clear-eyed and perceptive. It's a miracle that I didn't become an Objectivist.

I clearly need to develop some perspective on life, and quit relying on my own impressions of everything, including the impressions that I often accept uncritically from books and from the people around me.

I also need to pay some attention to the fact that it's been a long time since I was entirely sure I was an atheist.

Elsewhere in the news:

# I may or may not be attending my parents' Thanksgiving dinner in Monroe, and I may or may not be up to much, two days after surgery. In any event, there won't be any Thanksgiving at Blackberry House this year. Our son Waldy and his girlfriend* Mary have been invited to join in the gathering in Monroe, as have our daughter Biftu (aka Asnakech) who lives in Portland. Our son Tes, last sighted in Portland, could also come if he wants. So could our daughter Michu (aka Mestowet), if she were crazy enough to try to fly in from Texas, though if she had any such notion I'm sure she'd have told us by now.

* "No I'm not!" -- Mary

# I have now scraped the grass completely off the corner space where I intend to plant a rock garden. The ground slopes steeply down from the utility pole, not well-suited for an unanchored rock surface, so I believe I'll make at least one terrace, probably held back by a retaining wall of loose red bricks.

The soil, like most of the soil around the house, is mostly clay, but there's a small rim of good healthy dirt alongside the curb. I hope that in the spring we'll be able to restore the daffodils that used to grow there. There are still plenty of cut ends of roots in the clay, so I expect there will be plenty of sprouting for me to discourage before I finally put down the layer of crushed rock and then begin decorating it with pretty rocks and broken crockery.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It's not all about you, but some of it is."\\

Keeping it Simple

How's this for simple:
Tell college students, "If They Bomb Iran, You Get Drafted".

And you know that this time, the people who killed the Equal Rights Amendment won't so much as blush when they start drafting women anyway.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The pricks of conscience do no affect the conscience of pricks."\\

Surgery Scheduled: 20 NOV 2007

I just this minute got off the phone with Dr. McGirr's assistant, and my surgery is now scheduled for 9:00 AM on 20 November 2007*, at Sacred Heart in Eugene.

Kathe will stay at my aunt Pat's place in Junction City. We're looking forward to that -- we haven't seen it yet.

There. I said I'd let you know more as soon as I knew more, and now you know everything I know.

And when I know more, I'll let you know that, too.

*I may or may not be able to make Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Monroe.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Blessed be."\\

Subependymoma

Gonna Have Surgery...Someday

I've been waiting rather anxiously for word from my neurosurgeon's office about scheduling surgery. Waiting and waiting for the Motorola Q phone in my pocket to ring. Last night at close to 1 AM, my phone informed me that I'd just received a new voicemail thanks to Sprint, my wireless provider. The voicemail was from a call that the neurosurgeon's assistant had placed to my phone at 9:30 the previous morning (at which time the phone was in my pocket, charged and turned on.

I called back the next morning, and just now got an answer (on our house phone): they're still waiting for approval from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, who apparently need to be persuaded that this so-called surgery isn't just recreational trephination.

Why, yes, sometimes it does indeed suck to be me, thank you for noticing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "We all have our frailties."\\

Gonna Have Surgery

I told everybody I'd tell more when I knew more. I guess I know a little bit more now.

I saw Dr. McGirr this afternoon, and it looks as though I definitely need to have surgery.

Well, then, let's do it.

I still don't have a date scheduled, but it looks as though I'll be in Sacred Heart in Eugene for three days or so, and then have a recovery period more or less long.

So, keep me in your thoughts, and I'll let you know more when I know more.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "So far, so good."\\

The Fortunate Mr. Gore

Al Gore has a global audience and high approval, and he does all his campaigning and fundraising on his own schedule. I'm sure he's better off doing what he's been doing the past six years, than he would be if he'd been President.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Been kinda hard on the rest of us, tho...."\\

Something Nice

I'll let you know more when I know more. In the meantime, somebody did something rather nice or me.

I work three half-days a week at the Grace Center for Adult Day Services, most recently this Thursday. To my surprise, the staff presented me with a copy of Tom de Haven's novel It's Superman!

I think I'm supposed to read it while I'm laid up recuperating but
1) it's too good. I opened it and was drawn in immediately
2) life is too uncertain. Eat dessert first.

After all, after the surgery, I may not be able to read all those big words any more.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Stop that, John. Not everyone who reads this knows about your sense of humor."\\

We Can Haz 21st Senchry?

Ever since Barack Obama announced he was running for President, I've had this odd hopeful feeling that the past six demented years have only been a temporary aberration, and that soon the real 21st Century would begin.

After all, practically every science fiction film that doesn't have a woman as President to show it's the near future has an African American President. So with either Barack or Hillary, we'll be showing strong signs of having finally arrived in the future.

And now: Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Tell me this isn't shaping up to be a century we can be glad we lived in it.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "At least by comparison with the 20th."\\

Big News, as Promised

As promised, an important piece of personal news.

It turns out Arnold was wrong: it is a tumor.

The other day, Kathe sent a small group of friends a link to a study that said sex is actually good for a headache. I hit "reply all", as I usually do, and said that while that had generally been my experience also, the other day I'd had an orgasm* and i had caused the whole left side of my face to light up with pain, a spasm that had faded to leave behind a headache that lasted more than 30 hours.

I didn't think much of it myself, just an anomaly, but one of the other recipients urged me to go get a brain scan. They didn't find anything that would explain that sudden pain, but quite by chance they did find something growing in my brain's right ventricle.

It's most likely (touch wood) a subependymoma, a growth of the membrane cells lining the ventricle. It might be various other things, but all of them are benign things(touch wood). Apaprently it's not displaying any of the marks of one of those nasty malignant brain tumors you hear about (go buy a carved wooden finger ring).

Right now, we're looking for a neurosurgeon who does this kind of operation, preferably endoscopically. When my doctor first told me what i had and where it was, I pictured bloody gloved hands prying my brain hemispheres apart like buttcheeks. I knew it wasn't really done that way, but after seeing some of the actual surgical options, I'd have been willing to settle for that. But really, I want the endoscopic job if I can get it.

That's about all I know right now. I'll let you know more when I know more myself. In the meantime, please hold me in the Light.

* I didn't think such a reference was indecent, so long as I didn't go into details.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Even in here, there is a light, and I will hold you in it, John."\\

Pending Notification of Family

If you are a personal friend of mine, please call me. All others, watch this space.

Why They Love Us So Much

http://www.sydesjokes.com/link/funnyclip000003.html

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "*sigh*"\\

Yes, On The Damned Table

The impeachment of Dick Cheney.

Damn right.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Damn right."\\