Stay Tuned...

Yes, I've been a bit obsessed with the braces thing lately. I keep feeling my teeth and wondering if I'm incredibly self-absorbed and vain, or if this is a good, self-rewarding and beneficial thing to do that I've been thinking about for a long time. The big testimony is that every single adult I've spoken with who has had braces says DO IT! It's amazing! You'll be so glad you did!

No one more than the woman who started ArchWired. Yes, I've read her entire journey blog. And I hope hope hope I don't have to get 4 teeth pulled and wear braces for three years!

But I did decide to go with DDS1, who(m?) I liked better than DDS2. My next appointment, where they'll make casts of my teeth, is January 8. So, stay tuned.

Couldn't help myself

Isn't this the GREATEST?!?!?!?!

Rest In Peace, Bozo

My Most Expensive Fish Ever, Bozo the clown plecostomus ($11), has apparently gone to the fishtank in the sky. He was so cool! I wonder if living with all the ammonia waste-spewing goldfish finally did him in. Or maybe it was that I never did get him any Spirulina tablets. Those of you in town may remember my 6-month-long Saint Patrick's Day fishtank, the result of an incessant algae bloom that I could not get to go away. I ended up performing a complete tank change - even washed the inside of the tank with Simple Green (and then rinsed it about one hundred times). And the fish seemed to love it! They were psyched! This was maybe a month ago? Right before in-laws came to visit? So I know it can't be that to inspire Bozo to bite it. The other fish (Fishie, Nice Fishy, and Bruiser) are hanging out on the opposite side of the tank. They're not even eating him. Tells me they must have liked Bozo - they ate the Otto fish that I used to get.
This all reminds me of the first time I fish-sat for Brother and his girlfriend at the time. They had a "fancy" goldfish (=looked like a golf ball with fins) that was black. I think his name was Max. They really liked this fish. Anyhow, I had absolutely no idea how much to feed Max, so I think I covered the surface of the 10-gallon tank with flake food. Every day. Max died either right when they got home or right before. I hope Brother knew that about my fish-killing tendencies. I'd hate for this to be a nasty surprise.

Hard Core Metal

I'm embarking on a new adventure - braces! For the tooths, not the legs. I had a consultation this morning with an orthodontist that I really liked (actually, I had two consultations, one with a DDS that I liked, one with a DDS that I did not like). The cost is do-able, insurance will cover $2K of it (wow), and I'm looking at an 18 month committment. Sounds reasonable to me! The only glitch I see right now is that DDS1 said there was no need to pull teeth; DDS2 said we'd need to pull up to 4 teeth. Hello, how many teeth do I have in my mouth total???? 32???? Pull out 12.5% of my teeth?!?!?! But aside from the obvious discomfort of having bones pulled out of ones head, my main concern is just the discrepancy in diagnoses. Was DDS1 telling me what he thought I wanted to hear, and in fact my teeth will go crooked again later because we didn't pull teeth? Is DDS2 eager for blood and gore? Would DDS2's job be easier if we pulled teeth? I just want good care - ok, I want great care. I want a beautiful office with friendly staff and a doctor I like who has good bedside manner. I want to understand what is going on and I don't want false hopes.
So I emailed the technician at DDS1 and reported the findings of DDS2. I asked that DDS1 revisit my file with this in mind and let me know if he sees anything he didn't catch the first time. And I tried to frame it in the context that I need to calculate how much money to put in my flex spending account for 2008 - obviously, pulling teeth isn't going to be free.
I have to submit my final allocations Monday, so hopefully I'll get a reply soon. Figure I'll call in 2 days if I don't get a message back. Here's hoping that DDS1 is just so much more progressive with orthodontia than DDS2 and can achieve long-lasting results without pulling teeth!

Home Sick

Ugh, what a way to spend a four day weekend: sick. On Wednesday morning I woke up with a slightly sore throat, but it went away quickly. Thursday morning, however, I woke up feeling as though the back of my throat were raw and bloody. The part of the throat that you feel when you swallow, that's what hurt. Friday the coughing started in. Here it is Sunday, I'm feeling marginally better, although I have to wonder how much of that is due to the diet of cold and mucus pills I've been eating every 4 hours. And the real kicker is that I have (had?) work to do this weekend, work that's due tomorrow, that I won't be ready to turn in. Grrr....

Things I Love

- Sitting by a fire (that I made myself, thank you very much) with my Bulldog curled up on my feet

- Looking through old pictures and laughing

- New Yawk (the Loon loves it, too - see?)

And finally...the Loon!

SantaFe Railroad

Some pictures from my trip to San Diego in February (I know, so late!):

Hallows Eve 2006

Recently, I found some long-lost pictures that I thought I'd share. Here is "Devil in a Blue Dress" from last year: And here is Kern, Anne, and Baby Drake:

Gift of Life

The Bloodmobile came to work today! I've never donated in it before, and it was waaay more fun than at the main branch. The techs were singing and joking around, and all the donors were having a little competition to see who could fill their bags fastest. I'm not sure if we had any choice in how fast we filled the bags. The record was 3 minutes 13 seconds! Wow. I filled my bag in 4:45 which they said was still plenty fast. They said I had great veins. And my hematocrit, which has been low in the past (causing me to be turned away from donating) was at 39%!

It must be the ski at lunch with Ingrid. That was really spectacular. We hopped on the trail across the street from work and skate skiied to Westchester Lagoon. It was sunny and empty of people and the snow is just right, except there isn't enough snow to fill the tunnels yet so we had to take our skis off quite a bit. A lovely mid-day jaunt!

Swimming

I'm on week one of The Fitness Routine. I figured that I could stick to a regular fitness routine for the last months of 2007 and then evaluate what is needed for the new year. So Monday and Wednesday I'm at the erg room, and Tuesday and Thursday mornings I'm at the pool. My intention is to do pilates on Tuesday and Thursday evenings as well, but with family in town that has proven too much a glitch in the evening schedule.

Swimming Tuesday morning was a huge chore. I don't think I'd been in a pool since May. I don't think there's anything quite like swimming to make one feel like a heavy barge. But today was much better; I swam a 500-yard piece without stopping. It is important for me to remember that when I first began swimming, that was fairly impossible. I remember not being able to swim 50 yards without stopping at the end of the lane. So, progress is relative.

I'm also on a bit of a buckle-down period at work (as evidenced by the fact that I am blogging at work). I've been tasked with a writing assingment for a fast-tracked EIS, and this is really my chance to respond well to the pressure. So, that said, I'm signing off.

Oh, one more thing: it's been snowing and it's absolutely beautiful outside. I will take some pictures soon, I promise.

Dr. Aloha

Not sure I want to write about Dr. Aloha just yet. Not sure if ever. But we're looking at December 1 for a memorial service. Only cried once today. Lost count of how many times yesterday. I'm having a bit of a hard time merging the idea of what happened from the fact that it was a person that I knew. Both are sad. I feel like I start to feel "okay" about the idea of what happened and then I remember who specifically it was, and I lose that "okay" feeling. Friends and family have been wonderful and I'm trying to take this as an opportunity to tell everyone that I love them and care about them.

Drat, that makes two times today.

Old Picture, New Floor

Not sure if I shared this picture of our new floor downstairs (and new paint on the walls). Many thanks to pals who helped us install it.

Oh What A Feeling!

Thanks, Grandma Bess! We're proud owners of an amazing new bed. I can't believe how well I've slept on it. And it's beautiful - by far the nicest piece of anything we have. The movers came over yesterday and assembled it (with the sales rep there, too) and last night I felt like the princess and the pea, minus the pea. We've ordered low-profile box springs for it, but until they arrive we have regular sized springs from the store, on loan. Which means the top of the bed is about 4 feet off the ground. It's wonderful!

Most Colorful Costume Award

Today I won the prize for "most colorful costume" at work. The prize was a candy bar, which I did not accept. I congratulated myself all the way back to my desk for my appetite resolve; unfortunately, it's all I've been thinking about since!

The Big Wiener:

Reality is difficult at 5:45 am

I took the plunge this morning - literally - by participating in a voluntary hydrostatic test for body fat percentage. I've long thought that although my weight is typically at the high end of the "healthy" range, that I'm fit and have a fairly dense body (read: must have lower body fat than some couch potato who weighs the same). I still think that BMI is completely inaccurate for many people, myself included, and does nothing to take fitness into account. So to test this theory, and also to give myself a starting point to gauge fitness, I did the hydrostatic test.

First, I had to fast for something like 8 to 10 hours. I wrote down these instructions and lost them. I had a beer at 11 pm last night. The test was at 5:45 this morning. Probably can't blame too much on the lack of strict adherence to the instructions.

Second, I took off all my jewelry and put on a swimsuit. The technician weighed me (air weight: 165 lbs) and measured my height very carefully (5 feet 7.25 inches, Mom). Then we went into a small room with a raised platform with a tub in it - the tub was maybe 5 feet cubed. It had a white wire cage in it, submerged, that was suspended by a cable from the ceiling. The top and sides of the cage were open, so really it was a wire floor with corner supports. I climbed into the tub and got into the cage, sitting on the floor with my toes against the far corners. I held on to the corners with my hands. I inhaled, exhaled all the air I could, and stuck my head underwater. Apparently the whole thing has to stop moving for 1 second for them to get a reading. It probably took 10 seconds. We did this three times.

After exiting the cage, we sat down at the computer and the technician entered all the info into a forumula: age, air weight, height, gender, water weight. The three readings from the cage all were the same: -.2. I'm not sure what the units are. Anyway, it spat out my percent body fat at just over 36%. Thirty-six percent! I was/am shocked. I realize I'm not at my lightest (but also not at my heaviest), and I'm not at my fittest (but not at my most sluggly), but that percent body fat put me in the bottom 10 percent for their distribution. "Very Poor" is my category. The formula also gave me the lean muscle weight and the fat weight: my fat weight is almost 60 pounds.

The technician ran the numbers to see how I'd need to tweak the formula to get "average" body fat percentage (24%). I'd need to weigh 136 pounds. This seems completely unreasonable. But, that's what I've said about BMI. I suppose at some point I'll need to recognize that all of these measurement tools can't be wrong. I don't think I want to be 136 pounds. But I do see that I need to get back on we*ght watch*rs and step up my aerobic program, which is fairly nonexistent at this point. Drinking tropical cocktails and eating chocolate-covered macadamia nuts certainly hasn't helped the last two weeks.

So, it's back on plan, starting today. I'll have to do this dunk tank thing again at the end of the winter and hopefully see some progress.

Spelling, spelling everywhere

I always enjoy finding spelling errors and typos in published media. Although it annoys me (a part of me thinks "who let THIS get past the copyeditor?"), it feels good to find it myself. I try and use these situations as reminders to myself to always have a fresh set of eyes review documents before they are deemed "final."

Case in point: I read yesterday's blog and was troubled by the spelling of the author of In the Heart of the Sea (which I also misrepresented the title). It looked strange. I googled "Nathaniel Philbrook" on Amazon and found this: http://www.amazon.com/Mayflower-Nathaniel-Philbrook/dp/1419390031 but when I clicked on the author's name, no additional books popped up. I then googled "whaleship essex" and found the correct spelling of the author's name: Nathaniel Philbrick. Sorry, Nate. My mistake.

Lifestyle Inversion

So we're back from the tropics (Hawaii) and into the arctic. We were delayed leaving Seattle and ended up landing in Anchorage at 3:00 am instead of midnight, and in the middle of a snowstorm. It was actually great to see snow - after 10 days of heat, the cool air felt wonderful. There's something about getting on the plane in sandals and a skirt and getting off in an environment so completely inappropriate for your clothing. It's been snowing every night since we've been back, and without snow tires on my car or even an ice scraper, it's made for interesting (and late) mornings.

I'll post some Hawaii pictures when I can; I didn't take any pictures myself so will have to borrow some from my resident photog. We did have lots of fun snorkeling and playing with the new underwater housing for the new camera - great turtles!

I read Nathaniel Philbrook's The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex on the plane on the way home - fantastic. I can't believe the survivors went out to sea again! It made me want to read Moby Dick - I can't recall if I've ever read it.

The new bed is being delivered on Tuesday, the college fair is Monday and Tuesday, the Halloween party is this Saturday, and I have a hydrostatic body fat test tomorrow morning (where you are submerged in water).

But the big news is that I'm an auntie!

Hawaii Bound

We're off tonight for ten days in paradise - Hawaii!
Can't wait to feel that warm, moist air. It's 25 degrees here, and there's not a speck of moisture in the air at all. I can feel the moisture leave my skin when I step outside!

Anyhow, we're off. I'll post some photos of the adventure upon our return.

Bon Voyage!

Elllllllllliottttttttt Highway

That's right, Elliott with two L's and two T's. One $700 car rental (go, Ford Taurus sedan!), one flat tire, $300 in gasoline, and about 6 pounds of dust got me from Fairbanks to Manley Hot Springs in July. That's bug season, apparently.

Zee Road (that's Minto Flats in the distance):














Manley Hot Springs Slough:


Manley Hot Springs!


Aaahhhh, a soak in the concrete retaining structure, anyone?

'Cause You've Gotta Have Faith

What would we ever do without a little Faith?

...and a little ERVA?

Attempted bear print

Well, use your imagination. It was a small bear, the print only about 7 inches in diameter. But fresh-freshy-fresh! Right near those fascinating splash cups...

Beware - nerdy plants ahoy!

some wonderful plants from my July trip to the Elliott Highway:



Splash cups! These plants are amazing. They are shaped like a tiny cup (maybe 1/2 cm in diameter) with their seeds (the red beans) resting unattached in the bottom of the cup. They wait for a raindrop or a water splash to enter the cup, which then scatters the seeds! Talk about evolution.



Lovely ferns...these are only about 8 inches high. Mini-Boston. Boston-lite?











The money shot - lying on my belly in a field of Eriophorum - aka cottongrass - while the bugs feasted!

First Post

A few of my favorites...

Cutest Puppy picture is used with permission by Jim Kohl Photography, all rights reserved. Please be cool and abide by copyrights; don't steal or misuse.