Lynette RF Cowper's Journal

8:51PM - "Tagless" Tag Allergy?

I've got a lovely, small square rash in the center of my shoulders where the "tagless" tag of my Hanes all-cotton sports bras touch. I have a known adhesive allergy-- I can't wear most adhesive bandages without breaking out. I can't really remove these tags. Any thoughts on what to do to make these wearable without breaking out?

11:33AM - SF Question of the Week

So, I've decided to post a question for discussion here, since a lot of my friends are SF fans. I'm thinking of posting a new one once a week, just for the heck of it. The idea is to invoke discussion, so feel free to comment on other commenters or jump right even even if I don't know you or vice versa.

This question brought to you by the joke that my son Ren must be able to photosynthesize because he certainly doesn't eat enough food to maintain his weight and level of activity, which then combined with contemplation of Old Man's War by John Scalzi (read it to find out why).

Imagine that at some point in the near future, a biotech company comes up with a treatment to render people able to photosynthesize. The original thought was as a way to allay the problem of hunger in especially vulnerable populations. After all, treatments that will keep 1000 people alive for quite some time are the merest fraction of the amount of food you'd have to ship in. As you might imagine, the military took an interest and backed the research, as did NASA. (Hey, soldiers who can go longer without food and astronauts who can recycle some of their CO2 back into oxygen? You bet!) The treatment reduces the need for food but doesn't eliminate it entirely. You still need to drink water. The big side-effect? It turns your skin slightly green.

With something so new and scary, they've jumped through a lot of hoops for a lot of different drug-testing agencies worldwide and it's been passed by all of them. There's thought of including it in the treatment regimen for diabetes, hypoglycemia, obesity, anorexia, bulimia, and several other conditions.

At first, its uses and availability are quite limited, but after a few years, it becomes more and more common until it's kind of a chic thing to do. The green movement has embraced it as the answer to overfarming. (And what could be more green than being, literally, green?)

So, multi-part discussion question: If you suffered from a metabolic problem that could be treated by going green, would you? If you had no medical reason to get the treatment, but could get it anyway, would you? Would you give money to a hunger-relief organisation that gave the treatment to people in vulnerable populations? Why or why not? What difference would it make if the treatment were a) temporary, b) permanent but easily reversible, c) permanent?

Feel free to pass the link to this post on to your friends if you'd like them to join the discussion, though I'd ask that those posting anonymously (like those without LJ or OpenID accounts) sign their post with some unique identifier-- intials, first name, nickname, whatever.

9:30AM - Epic Parents

So, a couple of Megan's friends are so wowed by Mike's and my coolness that they have declared us "Epic Parents". This is, apparently, a good thing, though it occurs to me that while epics generally turn out more or less happily, there is a lot of unhappiness as it's going along...

10:11PM - Ren Needs His Own Computer

He got home early from school and pretty much immediately took over my laptop to play Wizard 101. Next thing I know, it's 6:00 and time for us to be heading out to Megan's high school spring play.

8:49AM - Zombie Roses

So, way back on Feb 13 (the 14th being a Saturday), Megan brought home two long-stem roses and popped them in a vase with some water.

The vase was moved onto the windowsill where the roses got largely ignored and the flowers eventually dried up. Fast-forward to a week or more ago when I was cleaning up the area around the kitchen sink, including the windowsill and plucked the things out of the vase to toss in the compost...

Where I realised both stems were sprouting new leaf-buds. So, I added fresh water and put them back. They've continued on their merry zombie-like life and now sport actual leaves (albeit tiny at the moment). It also looks like the cut ends are bumpy, like roots are beginning to form, but I'm not sure.

I know roses, like other brambles, can tip-root. Anyone have any thoughts on whether these things would be viable if planted? It's still way cold here, so I'm going to have to plant them inside, I suspect, and then transplant once the weather is warmer. Is this crazy or workable? Anyone?

10:45PM - Wildlife

Watched a groundhog cross 2 lanes of highway traffic today on the way to shopping. I had to slow down for him, just in case, when I saw him on the side of the road. He made a dash after I passed, caused one car to swerve onto the shoulder, then squeaked between two cars in the other lane, which I watched in my rearview mirror, 'cause I was rooting for him.

On the way home, enjoyed the sight of a killdeer and later a red-tailed hawk (lots of those around here).

And this was in town, rather than out in the boonies where we are.

10:22PM - Sickies on a Beautiful Day

It was mid- to upper-70s today, but I was feeling sick. *sigh* The dog had a great day, though.

3:07PM - 70s Tomorrow

Remarkable weather. Ded from Daylight Savings Time switch...

3:46PM - Grrr... Satellite

So, some time this past fall, our dog Sammy dug up the satellite cable hubby had buried and chewed it. Hubby replaced the cable, but we only got 1 channel of HD rather than 2. So, with it being nice and warm today, hubby decided to run new cable through conduit. Several hours of labour later and!

Still only 1 channel of HD.

Grr.

12:19PM - Must Get Off Duff and Do Stuff

It's gorgeous out. I don't wanna clean house...

4:45PM - Almost Tropical...

So, the weather's really warm today. So warm, in fact, that I have chicken breasts marinading in Caribbean jerk sauce to go on the grill.

11:28PM - Anyone Else Gardening This Year?

Whatcha growing that's interesting?

I've picked up seeds for romanesco as well as a bunch of purple veggies. I'm planning to do a purple garden square (I do square foot gardening with raised-to-table-height 4'x4' squares so I don't have to kneel for most of the plants except climbers and corn). Oh, and a package of 100+ varieties of heirloom tomatoes, so it's kinda a toss-up what you'll get when you plant them, so it'll be fun. Hmmm... black radishes, green radishes, and rat-tailed radishes where you don't actually eat the roots, but rather the seed pods that grow on the plant. Some Asian veggies. Different kinds of peppers.

Wildflower seeds, sunflowers, and a purely decorative Japanese corn variety where the stalks and leaves have hot pink and purple streaks on them.

7:21PM - Doctors

Well, Ren's pediatric neurologist passed away this past February, so we ended up going to our GP. As long as we're happy with the meds, we're just sticking with her for now, which is a relief because I wasn't looking forward to finding another one.

4:46PM - Quote of the week

From Megan: "Of course she has an email address-- she's Japanese!"

4:02PM - So, Well, the Food was Free

So, we went out with friends Clyde and Marilyn and their grandson Kaleb to a new restaurant that's opened in the apparently-cursed location where we've had a Perkins and then an IHOP and I think something else in there somewhere. Prices were good, huge selection. Took an hour to get our food, the waitress couldn't manage to get our bill split properly, my appetiser came out after my dinner, and then the waitress wanted us to go pay before we got our dessert so she could leave. Clyde and I decided to be polite about it and went to pay. The manager was appalled when we told her about the waitress's request, couldn't figure out *what* the waitress had done to screw up the bill so badly, and then had problems with the cash register trying to split it properly. After about 5 minutes, she told us not to worry about it, that she'd take care of it.

The food was decent, but, as Clyde said, "I've been to this place twice-- my first time and my last time."

3:52PM - The barber of Southern Indiana

So, I cut both Mike's and Ren's hair today. Ren's hasn't been cut in 6 months. He's proudly wearing it in spikes-- "John Sheppard hair". I suppose it beats the Rodney McKay widow's peak... ;)

Homemade cheesy cream of potato soup and store-bought cookies have been fixed for CoJ non-meeting meeting.

Newsletter is almost ready other than club-member birthdays being dropped in the calendar.

11:08AM - Movie Night

Megan's doing a movie night tonight. Hopefully I can get the house done in a couple hours.

3:20PM - I Am Offended

On CNN.com, you can find some video commentary on Barack Obama's inauguration speech entitled "'Double Message' to Muslims". In it, Wolf Blitzer quotes two sections of Obama's speech:

...and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

and

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

and describes them as being a double message especially to the Muslim world.

Gee. In what part of the first section did Obama address "the Muslim world"? This sort of religious, cultural and racial stereotyping is so grossly offensive. As if all Muslims were terrorists (or all terrorists Muslims). This is nothing short of hate-speech and is just plain not appropriate on any network anywhere.

I've already made my feelings known to CNN.

8:53AM - In Other News

Our kitty's missing. We have a stray that adopted us that we still have around, but Kismet disappeared the same day as Terra (the stray) ended up stuck up in a tree, where she spent 3 days before we managed to get her down. We have some suspicions that Terra's treeing and Kismet's disappearance may be related, like maybe a coyote. It's been nearly two weeks at this point, so we're pretty sure she's not coming back.

Ren's first day of school started out rather badly-- the bus stopped and turned around less than 50' from our house while Ren stood there at the end of the drive, all set to go, watching it. Apparently, even though we got a postcard from the school specifying what bus he was on and what time it would get there and so on, the bus driver didn't have him on his list. Not an auspicious start.

He got a haircut! He decided for his first day at a new school, he really didn't want to put up with "So, who's the new girl?" questions. He wasn't too sure about it till Megan dragged him into the bathroom and spiked it for him and now he loves it, especially when he realised it took, like, 30 seconds to comb out instead of 5 minutes on a good day. I'll have to take some "after" pictures and dig up some "before" shots.

8:47AM - Whuh?

Time Daily's Quote of the Day:

"We are not in 1968 and the message has been very clear to Russia that it cannot operate that way." -- CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. Secretary of State, referring to the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia

I think someone over at Time needs a lesson in history. Namely that there is no such country as Czechoslovakia anymore. And, you know, last I checked, the Russians weren't even menacing the Czech Republic...