No news

The only thing new on the breast cancer t-shirt I bought, see here:






That suits me a lot better than ones that say: hope strength faith or whatever the flavor of the month is.

I got the infected laptop back, with a $150 ransom. I know it is worth that, but damn I wish I had thought of starting it up in safemode to delete the bogus file. I reassure myself that it wouldn't have worked anyway. Right?

I went to see the Phys. Asst. on Monday and got the scoop on the local oncology docs. Basically there are two main ways to go: either through the WVU Cancer Center or to the two oncologists in private practice. I'm sure I would do OK in the Cancer Center at the university medical center, but my experience in working at the center is that people sometimes get lost in the shuffle. All new residents in July,
Faculty who take vacation (or just lots or trips), etc. etc. And the WVU hospital is different, because they tend to get clients from a very broad area in the state, and there is a colorful name for the more rural of them, which I won't write here.

As an aside, why is it socially unacceptable to use derogatory terms for African Americans, but still OK to call people in the Appalachian mountains "hillbilly" or "redneck" or "gritley"? When my daughter was in early elementary school -- Catholic school, she was teased about where we live, which is well outside of town -- horses, you know -- called gritley etc. I told her to ask the mouthy girl where she was born, and when she tells you somewhere in the region, or even in far-away Pittsburgh, then tell her you were born in San Francisco, and then see who is gritley and who is not. I thought she could also mention that her parents are both college graduates (a very high percentage of WV kids do not finish high school, much less college) but didn't want her to rub it in. But I got to thinking, why is it OK to do this? Any teacher overhearing this would never blink an eye, but to me it's part of making a child into a thing, and it is OK to browbeat and bully, at least until things reach an incendiary level. Just my two cents worth.

Anyway, using the university also means you will have student docs, nurses,therapists, etc, every time there are rounds, and other times too. I also feel like I'm in a fishbowl. So I'll pass, at least for now.

N finally sold his purple VW bug, his "retirement project". It has been sitting under the old barn roof and covered, so it didn't look too scratchy. It hasn't moved in 5? years, but buyer pumped up the tires put it on tow bars and hauled away to Clarksburg, a 50 mile trip on the interstate. Hope they made it. And man, I'm glad it is gone, it sat there reproaching us for the money we spent to have an undrivable car. So lets don't think of that anymore.


I've held on to this post waiting for the photo at the top, but meanwhile this computer suffered a complete meltdown and I had to restore Windows, wiping all the files on the hard drive. It is now up and running, but has nearly nothing on it. The wiped files included 4 years of income tax records, including 2010 which had not yet been filed. Major headache.

bumper sticker: "I'm marching to a different accordion"