No Problem!

What the hell. I'm going to do it. 43 stories, 1034 steps. Yep, I'm climbing to the top of the First Wisconsin building. (OK, technically, it's the US Bank Building now, but to me, it will always be the First Wisconsin.) Why would I do such a stupid thing? Let me, as Shakespeare says, count the ways:

1) to raise money for the American Lung Association. More about them here. We lost my father-in law to lung cancer a few years ago, so this one is near and dear.

2) to challenge myself. 1034 steps. Doesn't sound like much 'til you run 100 stairs. 1000 is a whole f-ing lot of stairs.

3) to motivate myself to get in a little better shape. Strike that - a LOT better shape. I've got a month. That means running stairs, riding the bike, and portion control. If I don't knock this body into some sort of reasonable cardiac fitness in the next month, I'll never make it to the top.

4) Kevin started a team. That's where the NO PROBLEM comes from. It's his team name. So far, he's the only one listed. I'd hate to make him climb alone. So, I'm going to climb too. Not that I think our times will be anything alike. But again... what the hell.

Points 2 and 3 are allo my own. But for point 1, I need some help. Help me out, friends, family and loyal reader. I've got a fundraising page up here. I'm targetting $200 as my first goal. If you could contribute a few bucks, I'd really appreciate the hell out of it!

(Thanks to the National Archives of the Netherlands for the use of the photo above.)

Hypochondria

I'm not sure if I qualify under the official rules, but if I'm not a hypochondriac, then let's say I'm "suggestible" on health-related matters. This is why I never took the second semester of psych. It's why I stay away from medical newsletters, and why I only watch medical shows with exceedinly rare diseases (e.g. House). The problem with this suggestibility is manifesting right now. I'm in a lab alone. I smell a strange odor, reminiscent of fresh cut grass. I feel a little, very slightly lightheaded. Am I about to pass out from some mystery gas concocted on the upper levels of the building? Or, am I psyching myself into symptoms that I don't actually have. Heck, for all I know, there isn't even an odd smell. Maybe I smelled some hand lotion I put on earlier, or the acrid perfume of a hall-walking secretary (sorry, Administrative Assistane). It's all very much like the scene in that King Arthur movie, where Arthur is talking to Merlin about a cake that Guinevere has just given him. He suspects it may be spelled, and asks Merlin if he should eat it. Merlin tells him that the cake is like life - you can't be sure until you eat it. And then of course, it's too late. By sitting here, am following the same course Arthur did by eating the cake - a course that caused Merlin to mutter "Too late..."? Time will tell, I guess.

Feeling Wasted

Why, oh why, are we still doing daylight savings time? I mean, it runs from March to November now. That’s nine months out of the year. Why not just make it year round, and save us the trouble of adjusting to this twice each year? The whole thing is basically a trick, after all, designed to get us to spend more money. Apparently people spend more money if it is light out when they’re shopping. But if it’s good for 9 months of the year, why not go whole hog? Besides, I’ll bet a lot of people don’t even know if we just came OFF of DST,or just sent ON DST.

By shifting to 100% DST, we could avoid the annual loss of sleep. More importantly, it would allow the daylight to ebb and flow naturally. These sudden shifts are not good for our natural body rythms, and the nation (heck, the World) suffers for it. Check out this study regarding the increase in traffic accidents in the days following the time shift. Seventeen Percent! Think of the damaged vehicles! Think of the injured drivers! Think of the injured passengers, some of them likely children!


- Say, that gives me an idea. Maybe I can get MADD or AAA to start campaigning for this. They always claim to be about safety (though I’d say MADD is actually about a return to prohibition), they’d be perfect for the job! I envision a world where daylight ebbs and flows naturally, a world where I'm not exhausted each spring and depressive each autumn due to sudden shifts in my schedule. Is there really any reason we can't just go there?

Man, this eating meat thing is confusing.

I’m the household menu planner. Since meat eating has returned to my life, it has also returned to the menus. I figured eating meat could easily become its own health issue for me. A diet alternating between beef and pork would probably not help me meet my goals for blood cholesterol. On the other hand, I want more variety in my meals than daily chicken can provide. So, I looked around for the best current guidance on what we should be eating on the meat front.

The answer, basically, is fish. Twice a week. And don’t eat too much meat. OK, we can do that. But which fish should we be eating.? Fish is a bit mysterious to me. Growing up, the only fish I recall eating at home was 1) poor man’s lobster (boiled whitefish with melted butter) and 2) whatever we’d recently caught on a fishing trip – scaled, floured and fried. Getting healthier by adding more butter and fried food to my diet seemed an unlikely prospect.

So other fish recipes needed to be found… and I found them! Malabar swordfish curry, halibut tacos, a not-quite cioppino with scallops and tilapia, serbian-style cod, gingered salmon. All of them – yum! I wanted more, so I checked out some cookbooks from the library. They were mostly more of the same, but also a warning… don’t eat swordfish more than once a month. Too much mercury.

Oh crap. What else is gonna be trouble? Well, let’s see… shark, swordfish, tilefish, and king mackerel are high in mercury; non-canned tuna, red snapper and orange roughy aren’t quite as bad. But, also make sure that at least one of the fish per week is a fatty fish (salmon, herring, halibut). And shrimp is high in cholestrol, but you don’t have to worry about it because it’s also high in omega 3 fatty acids. And that leaves out the issue of wild caught vs. farmed. Farmed fish tends to have lower Omega 3 fatty acids than the wild-caught version of the same fish. On the other hand, farmed fish tend to get sick more, and that disease can infect local wild fish. And if you’re raising fish in an area where they aren’t native, there’s also the issue of escapes, which can overrun already endangered native species, pushing them to the brink. Then again, many of the wild-caught fish are caught in irresposible manner, endangering stocks, or carrying larger loads of toxins. Cripes! I’m going to need a cheat sheet. By the time I research all of this stuff, I’m going to need a book of notes just to plan the menu!

Call me Fishmael*

Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would get a toothache... The carpenter out pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth.

OK, it wasn't exactly like that but, some years ago, I did have one of those face-rotting toothaches that inevitably leads to a root canal. Last week, my dentist told me that, based on x-rays, the infection seems to have returned to said tooth. Today, I visited the endodontist. After subjecting the teeth in the area to probing, tapping and freezing (was that dry ice?!?), he agreed with my dentist, and laid out three choices for me:

1) ignore the problem, and wait for it to flare up painfully, and inevitably at an inconvenient moment.

2) try a second root canal on the same tooth. However, if the problem is occurring becase the tooth canals are exceptionally narrow and hard to clean out, or if any of a half-dozen other problems occur, the problem will not be resolved, and I'll have to proceed to the next option,

3) submit to oral surgery, wherein my gum will be cut and peeled back, allowing a portion of the jawbone will be cut out or drilled away to reveal the infected root, which will then be excised.

None of these options seems remotely acceptable to me. Murphy's Law precludes 1), especially with summer vacation approaching. Do I really want a southern dentist working on my teeth?
* apologies to Herman Melville, and his heirs. My prescience announces option 2) as a waste of time, and who wants to suffer an unneccessary root canal? And finally, option 3) sounds absolutely terrifying. I can barely cope with biting the inside of my cheek, or getting a canker sore. What would oral stitches be like?!

And so, like any good blogger, I turn to my audience. What would you do, gentle readers? Please fill my comments with your enduring advice.


UPDATE:
OK, I chickened out. I know y'all are right. I should just get the surgery done. But I've decided to go with the advice of my endodontist, and try the root canal procedure. Wish me luck!