Diary of a disabled nerd

He has a head like a box 'o rocks....

2009-01-26T19:43:57Z

This morning, as is my custom on school/work days in the winter, I got up at 5:30AM in order to take care of my morning routine, which includes going outside at 6:30AM to get snow and ice off of the cars and shovel snow out of the driveway so people can get to work and/or school. I took a look at the weather status before I went outside. It was 12°F, the wind was 10mph, this gave a windchill of -1°F. There was no major snowfall predicted for the day. I thought to myself "Hmm, weather isn't going to be too bad out there today." NOT TOO BAD? WHAT AM I THINKING? With a windchill of one degree below zero being "not too bad, my head must be a box o' rocks. So far, we have had over six feet of snow this winter. Normally, we have a total of eight feet of snow for the winter, but it looks like this will be one of the bonus years that we get twelve feet. The snow should stop by the beginning of April, so we have nine solid weeks more of this stuff.

Love to all. We miss you.

saintsloth @ 2008-11-24T15:43:00

2008-11-24T20:46:01Z

This is actually from last week, when LiveJournal told me that they were inoperative. A week later, I found out my draft was saved, so I added to it.

That cold white stuff fell in large amounts south of us two nights ago - 28" of snow at Ellicottville, NY, less than that closer to Buffalo (only 1-2'). We started getting ours before dawn this morning. When I went out to clean off the car, I swept the snow off of the walkways and from around the car. For those of you who don't have to deal with snow, if you walk on it, it instantly becomes compacted and is then hard ice, impossible to remove. Before I could finish getting the stuff off of the car, it began snowing in much greater amounts. It was so bad that I came back in to make sure that Geoffrey's school wasn't closing for the day. Geoffrey and Dawn were safely delivered to school and to work, and told that they can be picked up early (if school lets out, or if Dawn decides to take the rest of the day off).

Vajsha is happily re-uniting with all of the entomology nerds in Reno, Nevada. This leaves only three states in the union that she has not been to (Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine). Most of the people that she has told me about are well known to me, and I would like to see them again also. Some of them I have never met, but only know second-hand, so to speak. Her two students did well with their presentations, and are conducting themselves properly. Their mamas raised them to be gentlemen, obviously. It is good to be able to talk to her while she is enjoying herself, and is with her true peers. Those are the people who know her best, and consider her an equal, just as we value their friendship and knowledge.

One good friend of ours is just bursting with pride for her daughter, an extremely bright young woman who started attending Auburn University at age 14. Yes, she finished up high school that quickly. They could not give her a high school diploma at that time, because no one had done such a thing before - there were no procedures in place to grant a diploma so early. But, Auburn enrolled her. The young lady is now graduating from law school at an age when most people have not finished their bachelor's degree. She honestly takes after her mother who is a brilliant scientist, and I am proud to say, someone we call "friend" in addition to "colleague."

Don't have too much more to say right now. It is just cold and wet. This will keep up until the end of March. Four and a half months of snow. Then, it will be cold and wet for three months. Then, six weeks of spring, followed by six weeks of summer, followed by six weeks of fall. Otherwise known as Winter, More Winter, Still Winter, and Construction.

The prodigious amounts of work done in the past two months have really paid off. The house is clean and tidy and buttoned up for the winter. Dawn cleaned up and straightened up the basement this past weekend so we could bring in the outside table and chairs and the grill. Plus, things are much more organized in the basement (except for the tool room, but that is another weekend's work in itself). Geoffrey did a great deal of leaf-raking to prepare for winter, and there is not a deep layer of leaves underneath the snow this year. (Last year, we had barely moved in before snowfall, and the yard had to be left until this spring). Dawn chopped up our two Halloween pumpkins, and there are six bags in the freezer. I made pumpkin/lentil soup for us yesterday, and Geoffrey pigged out until he said he could only waddle around.

We are getting excited about going home for Thanksgiving, even though it will be a hard and quick trip. My love to everyone, and hope to see you soon.

A bit more, a week later -

The new migraine medicine made me dog-sick for two days - couldn't even keep down water, so the doctor halved the dosage. It seems that I still have to be pretty careful with it, and can't swallow any of it (it is sublingual). Don't understand this, but I haven't had a migraine in four days, even when being sick. Believe me, that is a huge plus.

It seems that the medicine causes very vivid dreams. I went to the public library with my horse, and brought the horse into the library with me. Library rules say that you have to bring your bicycles and any other mode of transportation (except cars) into the library with you.

The horse followed me up to the second floor, which was the scene for a zombie movie shoot. I laid down quietly between two "dead" women and whispered to them to find out what was going on. It seems that the zombie movie shoot is a weekly thing on Saturdays, so the event isn't really posted anymore. Everyone knows about it. They were very nice to me about accidentally barging onto their set. My horse had followed me up the stairs, and the front desk people were unhappy with me about the horse taking a poop. I told them that I was obeying the rules that they imposed by bringing my horse inside, and that it was their problem. The horse did not disturb the zombie movie shoot.

There was more to the dream after this, but I lost it.

And, todays' comic from Pearls Before Swine:

May you all have a happy thanksgiving -

Love,

Stephen

A long winter's tale

2008-11-10T19:15:00Z

We have been having freezing temperatures off and on for the past few weeks. Today was the first day of the season of scraping ice off of windshields. There was 1.2" of snow at the airport; places south of us (in what is called the "snow belt") received up to 7". It is upon us, and will be with us until the end of March. Then, it will just be cold and wet, without the snow and ice. We can expect 8' of snow this season, unless it is one of the jackpot years (for which we are long overdue) in which we get 12' of snow. This is what it looked like in early March of 2008

And, for your reading pleasure (hopefully) a story of an American who became a princess - and it isn't Grace Kelly! The story is rather long, but it was certainly one that I had never heard before.

And now - the story of an American princess ----

Dawn gave me a few bits of information relating to a story about a woman in the French Quarter who became a princess -or so Dawn seemed to remember. Given these clues, it turned out that she was right, and there was a whole new story about the French Quarter that I had never heard of, just waiting to be tracked down and spread around.

One side of the story began with Marie Alice Heine, who was the first American princess of Monaco, the first American to marry a reigning sovereign, and the first woman with a Jewish background to become the legitimate wife of a reigning sovereign. “Marie (or Mary) Alice Heine was born in the French Quarter of New Orleans on February 10, 1858,and was the second child of Michel (or Michael) and Amélie Heine. Michel was a German Jew who had immigrated to New Orleans in 1843. He and his brother, Armand, left Berlin in 1840, and settled for three years in Paris before making their way to the United States, where they started their own banking house, A&M Heine. Within ten years, the company was the most successful banking operation in New Orleans, and Michel’s position was such that he was able to marry Amélie Miltenberger, the daughter of a very wealthy first-generation German-American and his Creole wife, also of New Orleans. Shortly after their wedding, the young couple traveled to Paris to open a European branch of A&M Heine, and for years afterward they lived part of the year in Paris and part of the year in New Orleans, alternating responsibilities for the businesses on each continent with Armand.”

“The Heine brothers were as successful in France as they had been in America, and by 1863 A&M Heine was one of France’s most important banking houses. With the onset of the American Civil War, the family settled permanently in Paris, and Michel and Amélie became regulars at the court of Napoléon III. The emperor and empress became godparents to Alice and to her older brother George, and A&M Heine lent the emperor a substantial sum of money in his fight against Prussia. After the emperor was defeated by the Prussians, Amélie, who was a close friend of the Empress Eugénie, was with the empress when she was forced to escape her palace in Paris for exile in England.”

“Although Alice was born in the United States and was an American citizen, her unusual upbringing meant that she was in many ways as much European as American. According to J. Randy Taraborrelli in Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairy Tale of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier, Alice only returned to New Orleans twice in her life after her family settled permanently in Paris. Despite her strong German ancestry, Alice was “…more inclined in style to Spanish than to German influences,” according to Anne Edwards in her book, The Grimaldis of Monaco. Edwards also describes Alice as “A combination of her exotic mother and her pragmatic father, even in appearance; Alice spoke many languages ‘all fluently and all with a melodic American Southern accent.’”

“When she was just 16, Alice was presented to Paris society, and it didn’t take long for the attractive blonde heiress to receive offers of marriage from among France’s society elite. On February 25, 1875, Alice married Armand Chapelle, 7^th Duke of Richelieu and Marquis de Jumilhac, (a distant relative of the infamous 17^th century Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of King Louis XIII of France) in Paris, bringing with her a substantial dowry. Although she had been raised in the Jewish faith, Alice converted to Catholicism on her marriage to the duke. The couple settled at the duke’s country estate, the Château de Haut-Buisson, and had a son (who eventually became the 8^th and last duke of Richelieu) in 1875, and a daughter in 1879. When the duke died suddenly in 1880, he left Alice a reported 17 million francs, making her once again a very sought after young woman.”

“The rich young widow spent most of her time at her Paris home in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where she presided over her popular intellectual salon, which attracted the likes of Marcel Proust and the “Wise Prince” himself, Prince Albert. As the heir to the Monegasque throne, Albert didn’t have a prescribed role and spent an increasing amount of time with Alice, who encouraged him to pursue his intellectual endeavors. As both Alice and Albert were considered highly eligible marriage material after 1880 and they shared a number of interests, it is not surprising that they began an affair in 1885. According to Anne Edwards, “Alice was initially drawn to Albert because of his adventurous spirit. Always ready to learn about subjects previously unknown to her, she found his knowledge of oceanography and his voyages off the coast of Africa interesting. He also had a certain masculine mystique about him, unlike the intellectual, artistic and sometimes effete men who were part of her set.”

“The couple wanted to marry, but were unable to do so without the permission of Prince Charles III of Monaco (the father of Prince Albert), who neither liked that Alice held a salon in her home nor was overly enthused about her Jewish background. Nevertheless, the couple continued their affair and, on the death of Charles III on September 10, 1889, Albert succeeded to the Monegasque throne as Albert I. A little over a month later, on October 31, 1889, Alice and Albert married in a small, quiet ceremony in Paris. Her father provided Alice’s new husband with a reported dowry of $6 million (the equivalent of around $120 million today). The new sovereign prince of Monaco must have been full of hope in early 1890 when he arrived in newly chic Monaco with a substantial amount of cash in his hands and a beautiful and agreeable consort on his arm. For her part, Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Monaco must have felt equally excited at the prospect of reigning over her new realm as successfully as she had reigned over her Parisian salon. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take long for the couple to be haunted by the specter of the notorious Grimaldi Curse, which was purportedly placed on the family in the early days of the more than 700-year-old dynasty when a witch promised: Never will a Grimaldi find happiness in marriage. For Alice, the realization of this prophecy would come as a slap in the face.”

“Monaco, on the other hand, had only recently gotten beyond being an insignificant backwater and one of the poorest states in Europe. Between 1815 and 1860, the principality had been a protectorate of Sardinia, barely scraping by until July 1860, when it became a protectorate of France. On February 2, 1861, during the reign of Albert’s father, Prince Charles III of Monaco, France and Monaco signed a treaty that formally recognized the independence of Monaco. In return, however, Monaco was forced to cede the towns of Menton and Roquebrune (lands that comprised 80 percent of its territory) to France in exchange for a payment of four million francs. Undoubtedly, the money came in handy for the bankrupt sovereign, but even he knew that it wouldn’t go far. For several years, the idea of transforming Monaco into a Mecca of state-run gambling had been promoted by Charles’ mother, Princess Caroline, and by late 1857 the Villa Bellevue casino had opened, although it experienced little success.”

“Finally, in 1863, François Blanc (a Frenchman who had become wealthy running a successful casino in Bavaria) was given a 50-year concession to establish a casino and sea bathing in Monaco’s Sp’lugues District, which was renamed Monte Carlo (Mount Charles) in 1866 in honor of the reigning prince. Under the agreement, Blanc bought out the owners of the Villa Bellevue and took over operation of the Société des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Étrangers Monaco (the Sea Bathing Society and Foreigners’ Circle of Monaco), or SBM. In exchange for granting the concession, the prince was to receive 154,000 francs a year, plus 10 percent of the net profits, and 400 shares in the SBM. Construction began immediately on the new casino, known to us today as the Monte Carlo Casino, following designs by architect Charles Garnier, who also designed the Paris Opera House.”

“As the beautiful casino rose from the rocky Monte Carlo terrain, hotels, restaurants and shops all began to spring up around it, with each contributing to the increasing prosperity of Monaco and its royal family. When the railway line between Nice and Ventimiglia (which passed through Monaco) was completed in 1868, a prosperous future for the principality seemed to be ensured. By 1869, the casino was so successful that Prince Charles III abolished all forms of direct taxation on the citizens of Monaco. Not surprisingly, both Prince Charles and François Blanc are remembered for their efforts: Blanc earned the nickname “the Magician of Monte Carlo” and Charles is credited with creating the modern Monaco (albeit thanks to his mother’s influence).”

“Around the same time Princess Caroline was guiding her son Prince Charles into maneuvering the successful gambling venture, she was also busy arranging a marriage for her grandson, Charles III’s heir, Prince Albert. Born on November 13, 1848, Albert was the only child of Charles and his wife, Antoinette de Mérode-Westerloo. By 1864, Princess Antoinette (the mother of Prince Albert) had died of cancer and Prince Charles was blind, leaving Princess Caroline to manage the young prince’s life. As with all else, she was ambitious and wanted nothing more than to see Albert marry a member of the British royal family. In The Grimaldis of Monaco, Anne Edwards states that Caroline had tried to make a marital match between Albert and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, the cousin of Queen Victoria and future mother of Britain’s Queen Mary, but to no avail. The failure did not dissuade Caroline from her goal and it was to this end that she sought the help of the French Emperor Napoléon III (Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) and his wife, Empress Eugénie. Somehow, the emperor managed to convince Princess Caroline that Queen Victoria was unlikely to allow one of her own to marry a Grimaldi, but nobly suggested Lady Mary Victoria Douglas-Hamilton, his second cousin and sister of his good friend the 12^th Duke of Hamilton, as a suitable alternative. As the daughter of the 11^th Duke of Hamilton, Mary may not have been royalty, but her family was sufficiently rich, well connected, and best of all was connected to the French royal family through her mother, Princess Marie Amelie of Baden, who was descended from Stephanie de Beauharnais - a cousin by marriage of Josephine Bonaparte and adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte. Although Albert and Mary had never met, the marriage was duly arranged and the parties agreed to a dowry of 800,000 francs. The couple met for the first time in August 1869 at a ball hosted by the emperor and empress of France, and the wedding followed at the Château de Marchais (which is still in the possession of the Grimaldi family today) in Champagne on September 21, 1869. The 21-year-old groom and the 18-year-old bride were both young, attractive and fashionable, so it was no real surprise when, just under a year later, on July 12, 1870, Mary gave birth to the requisite heir, Louis. As outwardly successful as the birth appeared, however, the fact was that Mary gave birth to Louis while in Baden-Baden, separated from her husband. The realities of married life and the couple’s incompatibilities, combined with Mary’s complaints that, due to problems regarding her dowry, she had been treated as a virtual prisoner in Monaco, led to Mary essentially running away from Monaco. To further complicate matters, she had settled in with her maternal relatives in Germany on the cusp of the Franco-Prussian war a situation that placed the newlyweds on opposing sides of the conflict. For five years, Albert and Mary neither saw nor spoke to each other. Finally, in 1875, Mary asked Albert to have the marriage annulled; a process which was finally completed on July 28, 1880, although a special provision was made by the Vatican that allowed for their son Louis to remain legitimate.”

“During her separation from Albert, Mary had fallen in love with Hungarian Count Tassilo Festetics von Tolna, whom she married while pregnant with his child, on June 2, 1880 (almost two months prior to the dissolution of her marriage to Albert). As for Prince Albert, during his estrangement from Mary he spent as much time as he could either indulging in his passion for oceanographic study and exploration, for which he became known as the Navigator Prince or the Wise Prince, or at the Paris salon of the widowed duchess of Richelieu, Alice Heine.”

“In February 1890, some 66 years before Grace Kelly arrived in Monaco to marry Prince Rainier III, Marie Alice Heine made her debut in Monaco as the principality’s first American princess. Accomplished, articulate, beautiful, well-connected and spectacularly wealthy, Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Monaco had no reason to believe her life in Monaco would be anything but a success. Further bolstering her confidence would have been the fact that she was evidently compatible with her new husband, Prince Albert I, with whom she had carried on a love affair for four years prior to their marriage in October 1889. Unfortunately, as with the modern Grimaldis, fate rudely interfered with the fairy tale of Prince Albert and Princess Alice.”

“Since Prince Albert already had an heir, Prince Louis, by his first wife, it would seem that there was little pressure on Princess Alice (who was 32 when she first arrived in Monaco) to have any children. Free from that burden, Alice essentially went about moving her popular Parisian intellectual salon to Monaco. The intelligentsia readily flocked to the principality, but there was a problem: Monaco was severely lacking the cultural and artistic attractions so familiar in Paris. By herself, Princess Alice was certainly capable of attracting the great minds of the world to Monaco, but her presence alone would not keep them there. Early on, Alice knew she had to make Monaco a cultural center, but she was also aware that such an undertaking would be an uphill battle as long as gambling was Monaco’s chief attraction.”

“The casino had attracted more than a few undesirable elements to Monaco and the country was derided by many, including Queen Victoria, as being a den of vice. European royalty and aristocracy came to Monte Carlo to show off their wealth (and lose quite a bit of it in the process) while newly rich Americans hovered around them like moths at a light bulb, undoubtedly hoping to somehow ingratiate themselves with old money. The Kitty Kelly of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Marguerite Cunliffe-Owen, cloaked under the pen name, The Marquise de Fontenoy, undoubtedly spoke for many of her contemporaries when she called Monaco, The Great Gambling Hell. Not even the beautiful new opera house in Monte Carlo, known as the Salle Garnier, could detract from the perception that Monaco was a place for debauchery more than culture.”

“On the other hand, it was almost entirely thanks to gambling that Monaco had risen in just 20 years from one of the poorest states in Europe to a country so prosperous that it could afford to exempt its citizens from all forms of direct taxation. Albert’s father, Charles III (whom Albert had succeeded on September 10, 1889) was credited with sparking this miracle, and Albert himself owed his personal prosperity largely to the casino. Perhaps because of this, the Marquise de Fontenoy’s opinion of Prince Albert as a contemptible personage was no more flattering than her opinion of Monaco itself. Ironically, Prince Albert professed a strong dislike for the institution of gambling in his principality. According to Anne Edwards, “Albert was never easy about the idea that his wealth was based on gambling losses.” And, considering the gambling industry was a major impediment in achieving her personal goals for Monaco, Alice was no fan either. That said, the early 1890s would have been an opportune time to dispense with the casino in Monaco, particularly since Alice had brought to the marriage a reported dowry of $6 million (the equivalent of around $120 million today). In fact, according to Albert and Alice’s long-tongued contemporary the Marquise de Fontenoy in her 1892 book, Revelation: High Life in European Palaces, Alice had ‘…announced her intention of transforming the Casino of Monte Carlo into a kind of hospital for the poor and ailing who require a warm climate for their delicate health, as soon as the present tenancy of M. Blanc, Prince Roland Bonaparte and Prince Radziwill (the three lessees of the public gaming tables) expires. She is determined, if possible, to wipe out, by means of charity and benevolence, the infamous souvenirs of the place and to devote a portion of her vast wealth to this purpose. It was the knowledge of these intentions on her part that led Queen Victoria to treat her with marked courtesy on the occasion of her last visit to England, and to accord for the first time any sort of recognition to her husband.’”

“Whether Alice actually wanted to put a hospital in the casino or the claim is merely gossipy hyperbole is unclear. What is certain is that, regardless of Albert and Alice’s outward show of contempt for the Casino, Alice’s father, the financier Michel Heine, was charged with renegotiating the casino’s contract with François Blanc’s widow to include terms even more favorable to the prince’s coffers. Interestingly, Anne Edwards points out that one of Michel Heine’s negotiating tools was to threaten that “Alice might use her influence to close the Casino if changes were not made.”

“In the end, it seems as though the prince and princess of Monaco’s shared dislike of the casinos was more of a public relations and bargaining tool than an actual solid principal. After all, it wasn’t really the Queen Victoria’s of the world that they were courting, particularly when another British royal, the Prince of Wales (who was clearly drawn to Monaco by the casino) was so much more fun. Although no intellectual, the Prince of Wales brought something to Monaco that must have been equally desirable to Princess Alice: excellent social connections. And, while social respectability for Monaco was certainly also a consideration of Prince Albert’s, the casino’s profits kept him doing what he loved best: embarking on expensive oceanographic explorations. Even the Marquise de Fontenoy gave Albert some backhanded credit when she said, “The only thing that the Prince of Monaco has done towards redeeming his evil reputation and atoning for his past, is his recent research into the nature of marine currents and into the conditions of animal life at a great depth beneath the surface.” But even she did not make the connection that what she abhorred most about Monaco and Prince Albert was the same element that made his positive achievements possible.”

“So, with the gambling industry firmly established in Monaco and generating plenty of income for Prince Albert and Princess Alice, the two set their sites on fulfilling their greatest ambitions. Albert began spending more and more time away on marine expeditions, while Alice set to work introducing Monaco to the theatre, ballet, and opera. Among these, her chief preoccupation was turning the Salle Garnier into the cultural center of Monaco. While both Albert and Alice were abundantly successful in their respective endeavors, their success had the unfortunate effect of distancing them from each other, both physically and emotionally. Left alone for long periods of time, Alice took a growing personal interest in an up-and-coming composer, Isidore de Lara, whose second opera Amy Robsart was being considered for the 1894-1895 Monaco opera season. Born in London on August 9, 1858 as Isidore Cohen, de Lara was certainly artistic and intellectual enough for Princess Alice’s taste, although his physical description makes him seem somewhat of an unusual choice. Anne Edwards describes de Lara as “Under five feet tall, he had a hunched back and arms and shoulders that were overdeveloped for his size;” But Edwards goes on to justify, “…he had a stunningly handsome face, huge burning dark eyes, a strong Roman nose, and robust, swarthy coloring. His success had given him an aura of great self-assurance, and he exuded a seductive charm.”

“Clearly attracted to de Lara, Princess Alice saw to it that he was given a generous six-year contract with the Monte Carlo opera. Since Albert spent more time out at sea on his boat named “The Princesse Alice” than he did with the actual Princess Alice, it is possible to comprehend just how easy it must have been for Alice and de Lara to carry out an affair, and that is just what they did for several years, with Albert seemingly oblivious of what was happening. During this time, Alice managed to bring culture and class to Monaco, while never actually turning the Monte Carlo Casino into a hospital. In 1899, she also met and became friendly with the Princess of Wales, a relationship that would grow in the future. Otherwise, in some eight years, little appears to have disrupted the status quo that developed between the three key players Alice, Albert and Isidore de Lara. One exception is an unverified incident mentioned in The Grimaldis of Monaco. The story goes that, in 1900, Albert returned to Monaco from one of his many voyages to find Ici dort de Lara (Here sleeps de Lara) written on a wall of the palace.”

“By 1902, however, Prince Albert must have suspected something since a relatively minor indiscretion managed to blow up into a public row and marital debacle. On February 18, Albert and Alice attended, as they often did, the premiere of the latest opera, Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame, at the Salle Garnier, but it was far from an average evening. According to Anne Edwards: “As Alice, on the arm of her husband, started toward the steps leading to the Royal Box, de Lara approached. Alice turned toward him and the two had a whispered exchange. To the shock of everyone watching, the Prince completely lost control of his emotions; and when Alice turned back to him, he slapped her across the face.”

“Displaying incredible self control, Alice calmly turned away from her husband and made her way to the box while Albert left the opera house. Within days, Alice left Monaco and by May 30, she and Albert were legally separated, with Alice paying Albert a reported five million francs as part of the separation settlement. “

“Evidently unfazed, Alice was settled at Claridge’s Hotel in London (as was de Lara) by the time of the separation. Likewise, without missing a beat, Alice (still Princess of Monaco) proceeded to host a salon in London as renowned as the one she had hosted in Paris years earlier. Among her regular guests were Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling. Alice’s friendship with the Princess of Wales, who became Queen Alexandra in 1901, also grew. Throughout, her reputation for elegance and style appears never to have diminished. During the reign of Britain’s King George V, Alice was befriended by another Claridge’s resident, Hui-lan Oei Koo, wife of the Chinese diplomat Wellington Koo. According to the book The Stone of Heaven, by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, Hui-lan recalled that Alice “…never emerged from her bedroom without wearing a choker of egg-sized pearls.” And, as gracious and generous as ever, during World War I, Alice (still living in London) converted her country home in France, the Château de Haut-Boussin, into an army hospital.”

“Meanwhile, her estranged husband did what he had always done, focusing his energies on oceanography. In 1902, he founded the Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology in Monaco, followed in 1910 by the Oceanographic Institute in Paris and the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco. Outside of his scientific endeavors, the prince also made changes to the principality. In 1911, Albert granted Monaco its first constitution and, in July 1918, he agreed to a treaty contained in the Treaty of Versailles that provided limited French protection of Monaco. The prince also did his part to promote tourism in Monaco by introducing the now world-famous Monte Carlo Rally (Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo) in 1911.”

“In the midst of his many scientific and political accomplishments, Albert was having less luck with his son, with whom he had never been close. In the late 1800s, Prince Louis had an affair with Juliet Louvet, who has been described as everything from a laundress to a cabaret singer. In 1898, Juliet bore Louis an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte Louise Juliette, in Algeria. When it became obvious that Louis was not going to marry and produce a legitimate heir, Albert saw to it that Charlotte was brought to Monaco, where she was gradually legitimized and, on May 16, 1919, created duchess of Valentinois and placed second in line to the throne after her father. Less than a year later, she was married off to the French Count Pierre de Polignac. In 1923, the couple’s heir, Prince Rainier, was born.^”

“Prince Albert I of Monaco did not live to see the birth of his great-grandson Prince Ranier. Prince Albert I died on June 26, 1922 and was succeeded by his son, who became Prince Louis II of Monaco. Albert and Alice had never divorced and she outlived him by more than four years, dying in Paris on December 22, 1926. To the end, Alice and Isidore de Lara continued their relationship and, after her death, de Lara never published another musical composition. He died in Paris in August 1935.”

“Almost 80 years after her death, Alice’s role as the first American princess of Monaco seems to have been all but forgotten, especially in light of the tremendous impact made by Grace Kelly. It might be said that Alice would have been more important to history if she and Prince Albert had children together, particularly with the looming succession issue created by Prince Louis, but speculation on what might have been makes little difference now. Fortunately, it is possible to find bits and pieces of Alice’s legacy if you look hard enough. To start with, like many historical royal women, she has a rose named after her - a tea rose, to be precise, and at least one street named for her - the Rue Princesse Alice de Monaco in Cherré, France, near Le Mans. One part of the world that most certainly has not forgotten Alice is her birthplace, New Orleans, Louisiana. Today, one of the houses that was built and owned by Alice’s maternal relatives is an event venue known as The Princess of Monaco Courtyard and Carriage House (http://www.experienceneworleans.com/princess/). Befittingly, one full page of the web site is devoted to Alice.”

“In accordance with her importance among literary circles, Alice has also been immortalized in literature. Modern author Carole Nelson Douglas features Alice in her 1991 book, Good Morning, Irene, a detective novel starring a female Sherlock Holmes named Irene Adler. During her own lifetime, Alice’s close friend Oscar Wilde dedicated “The Fisherman and His Soul” (one of four fairy tales) in his 1891 book, A House of Pomegranates to her. In his autobiography, Son of Oscar Wilde, the writer’s youngest son Vyvyan Holland writes: “…one of the people who had remained loyal to my father was Princess Alice of Monaco. She had always protested against the inhumanity of his treatment. She was a devout Catholic and it was she who suggested that I should go to Jesuit school, promising my mother that she would keep an eye on me, see that I was reasonably happy, and let me come and play with her family on Sundays and holidays, whenever I wished to do so.” Alice also made a deep impression on Marcel Proust, who spent time at her intellectual and literary salon in Paris. Undoubtedly enamored with Alice, he based the Princesse de Luxembourg in In Search of Lost Time (la recherche du temps perdu) on her.”

“Most importantly, Princess Alice can be remembered for bringing art, culture and sophistication to Monaco. In essence, she laid the groundwork for the accomplishments of Princess Grace, who helped make Monaco the modern and glamorous destination it is today. And, like her successor, the ups and downs of Princess Alice’s life undoubtedly helped to perpetuate the notions of the fairy tale of Monaco and the curse of the Grimaldis ”

The Grimaldi family curse (since 1297, when the family took the principality) has been that “Never will a Grimaldi find true happiness in marriage.”

The information quoted above that makes up this story is taken directly from: http://www.etoile.co.uk/

Except for what is clearly my own writing, the rest is from: 2006 Copyright by Geraldine Voost; The 'Royal Scribe' column is 2005 Copyright by Tori Van Orden Martinez.

So, as Dawn told me later, she sometimes thinks about one Fall afternoon when a man tried to pick her up in the French Quarter with a crazy story about an American from the French Quarter who became a princess.

It is a long story, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Why the Ph.D. got ignored

2008-11-04T03:50:33Z

So, Dawn came home today laughing about her boss being ignored as he took his kid trick-or-treating in his own neighborhood. Yes, everything went normally - people tended to pack up in groups and mutually watch all of the kids, but Dr. B noticed that some of the fathers were kind of odd-looking for that neighborhood. The oddballs just looked too young to be affluent enough to live in that area, and some of them had shaved heads, some had tattoos. Plus, when these oddballs came up to the group of parents/kids, the women tended to squeal a bit in greeting. Dr. B felt like he was being ignored, while the oddballs were being effusively greeted.

It turned out that the odder-looking specimens of manly manhood in that neighborhood are players on the Buffalo Sabres hockey team.

I found a great picture in the New Orleans Times-Picayune: A New Orleans Saints zombie cheerleader.

Love to all.

What will doctors think of next?

2008-10-14T14:31:46Z

For those of you who don't know, I have multiple illness that manifest as weakness and arthritis (among other things). I recently found a clinical study that I qualify for (and the restrictions are pretty tough). The participants would be given Viagra three times daily to see if it improves their overall health. I started laughing, and reread the study to see if I was missing something (like a punch line). I went down the hall to tell Vajsha and Dawn, who were watching anime together. Dawn said she is moving her room farther away from ours. Then, I told them the last requirement - you have to be no older than 50 (so I am disqualified). Do the doctors think that the patients are going to blow their hearts out or have a stroke? Still, it sounds like a goofy idea. Put weak arthritic people on Viagra and see if their overall health improves. What if the individual is single and doesn't have a partner? I'm sure the people I know can come up with some good comments for this study. And, I swear to you, I didn't make it up. It is a real study.

Meanwhile, Ozzy and Newton have entered the preliminary tryouts for the Cadbury Bunny for this coming Easter. We will get the ears later.

Florida, Republicans and politics

2008-08-22T13:01:30Z

Do I despise Republicans? Yes. I don't think very highly of Democrats, for that matter, because there is very little difference between the two parties (in my humble opinion, of course). However, I do wonder how the Republicans are going to be feeling about their leaders and their government in the next few months (and years) as they try to fix up their homes after Hurricane Fay finally leaves their state. The President of the United States had the unmitigated gall to go to New Orleans this week and talk about what a great job has been done, and that ...hope is marching on." One paragraph from the New Orleans Times-Picayune pretty much summed it up for me:

"Just blocks from the historic Louisiana National Guard facility where Bush delivered his comments -- and stretching for miles in every direction -- large swaths of New Orleans and nearby St. Bernard Parish remain a hodgepodge of restored houses and stores, rotting buildings and empty concrete slabs."

How do you define "large swaths?" Another article in the same newspaper today says this:

"New Orleans has a far greater proportion of vacant homes than any other city in the country, due in large part to a lagging recovery in about a third of the neighborhoods that were badly damaged by Katrina, new analyses show.

"The nonprofit Greater New Orleans Community Data Center released two reports today, the first of which used data from the U.S. Postal Service compiled in March to compare New Orleans to seven other American cities with large inventories of blighted or vacant housing.

"When it comes to abandonment, New Orleans is in a class by itself, the report indicated, with more than one in three residential addresses now vacant or unoccupied. No other city surveyed had as many as one in five.

"Detroit, which has lost roughly 1 million people in the last half-century and become synonymous with urban decay, was the No. 2 city on the list. The survey found that 18 percent of Detroit's residential addresses were vacant or unoccupied."

That is to say, 33% compared to 18% vacant or unoccupied housing, comparing New Orleans with the second-worst city, Detroit.

People of Florida (in particular, but millions of others elsewhere), you got this person into office as President of the United States. Now, after nearly eight years, you will have to live with what you have done. And I'm just referring to the physical and mental hardship that is ahead of you because of one single hurricane. This doesn't even bring up the economy, a disastrous war, inflation, joblessness, and the many other hardships in life that millions of people are facing all over the country.

I don't necessarily believe that any Democrat would have done a great job. However, I do believe that a Democrat would not have systematically destroyed the economy as has been done over the past eight years (and earlier, with the Republicans in control of the House and the Senate). That is a pretty pathetic view of politics, I fully admit. The lesser of two evils is not a good choice.

To hell with this political stuff. It makes me ill to even think about it.

How about some nice gruesome stories about a guy with "cool" studly scars? These stories are not for the faint of heart, be forewarned.

I have never met this individual, but he is by all accounts incredibly hot looking. People in the French Quarter have been seen to walk into walls while staring at him on the street.

So, this person has some extensive scars. One arm has some twenty-one screws in it, holding various rods and plates in place from when the bones in his arm were shattered. As a teenager, he was jogging and tripped over his own feet. His story was doubted, but an adult witness actually saw it happen.

Another time, he was going to kick a soccer ball back into a game: I believe that he was simply a bystander. He delivered a mighty kick to the ball with his bare foot, but he missed, quite soundly kicking the cinder block that was next to the ball. At least three toes were broken.

His family sometimes wonders how he has survived, given that an ordinary action can result in such carnage. Klutziness is disastrous, in his case.

Love to all, and I miss you.

saintsloth @ 2008-08-16T18:41:00

2008-08-16T23:05:33Z

I recently read an article in which Dr. Anne Steinemann (a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of public affairs) of the University of Washington analyzed "...top-selling laundry products and air fresheners and found the products emitted dozens of different chemicals. All six products tested gave off at least one chemical regulated as toxic or hazardous under federal laws, but none of those chemicals was listed on the product labels."

"I first got interested in this topic because people were telling me that the air fresheners in public restrooms and the scent from laundry products vented outdoors were making them sick," said Dr. Steinemann, "and I wanted to know, 'What's in these products that is causing these effects?'"

Well, now it makes a lot more sense that I am badly affected by walking down the laundry detergent aisle in a typical grocery store. About 10-15 feet into the aisle, it feels like a spike has been pounded into my head. It doesn't go away when I leave the aisle. Now, there is some indication as to why this happens. Of course, there are many migraine triggers that I may never know, but at least one set is more reasonably explained now.

One of the more unusual aspects of migraines is the aura, which is a complex set of sensations that some (but not all) people experience. The sensations may cross over into other sensory mechanisms, creating bizarre images. One in particular that I experience is a narrowing down of my field of vision until I can no longer see out of my right eye, and I lose all sense of color i.e., "color desaturization." Recently, I experienced so much pain from migraines that I started having sensory mix-ups. When I take medicine for a migraine, the best combination for me is caffeine, aspirin, and codeine. The three taken together work better than anything else that I have tried. However, in looking at the Ecotrin aspirin in my hand, what my brain interpreted as being in my hand was this:

The writing on the tablets looked like an array of smiley faces. This is gruesome when trying to knock back pain.

The next day, I was sitting in the kitchen when Dawn came down to get her morning coffee, prior to her leaving for work. She was dressed as normal in her lab coat, with her hair hanging down her back. My brain saw "long hair and lab coat" and picked up on the image of "Dr. Barbie." I nearly fell out of my chair. This was even more gruesome than the day before. It was weeks before I could tell her about this, it was so awful.

So, Dawn came home the other day and told us about the start of her day. She had had one cigarette and perhaps four sips of coffee by the time she got on to the elevator to go up to her floor. Some guy in a shirt and tie looks at her and says "So, why are you wearing a lab coat?" Warning: Dawn is about as awake as I am first thing in the morning, except that she is probably a lot nicer than I am. Do not disturb the animals. Give them coffee and leave them alone. Quick as can be, she replies "My tutu was dirty. Why are you wearing a tie?" He got off of the elevator at the second floor (where the compu-geeks live), and she continued on to her lab.

This weekend, Dawn is finishing up some minor tasks that we wanted to get done before our tenant moved in. Just because something worked perfectly six months ago doesn't mean that it will still work now, does it? Also, we finally got the roof re-re-repaired. It is very odd to actually not only have someone living in our duplex now, but us owning a house and having a tenant. It is absolutely great that everything has finally fallen into place at the right time for everyone.

Helen has recently discovered the joys of gin and tonic. She is a good drink mixer, even if she can be a little heavy-handed on the liquor as far as my tastes go. However, we have found that we like the strong juniper flavor, at a time when many people seem to want a more mildly-flavored gin (or will drink vodka instead). I also discovered the joys of bourbon whiskey. Old Charter is a moderately-priced brand of this rather unusual liquor. Very few distilleries make it nowadays, and it can get very pricey. Most distilleries quit making it after Prohibition.

So much for now, dear friends. Dinner is about to be served, and it smells wonderful. Roasted veggies and veggie burgers on the grill. See you after drinks!

The winter's tale

2008-06-21T11:14:23Z

Every time that I wanted to update my journal last winter, I just couldn't manage to get it done. It was a very hard winter for all of us. It was cold, it was stressful, and it seemed like no one could accomplish what they were trying to do. Still, we managed to get through it.

The weather was horrendous and depressing, even though it was no colder than normal, and the snow was not deeper than normal (eight and a half feet for the season). I quickly got into a routine of get up, feed the cats, get a cup of coffee, and go out to scrape and chip the snow off of the cars so everyone could leave for work on time. Even now, when I walk through the gate to our driveway, I marvel that I don't have to scrape ice off of the cars and start shoveling snow and ice off of the driveway. On Palm Sunday, I asked Mr. Joe (a neighbor who is a former NY state senator) when would it stop snowing. He reflected a moment, and told me that it wouldn't snow after Easter. What I didn't think about was that it would still be very cold after Easter. This week, we had a temperature of 49°F one night, and the week has been cold and damp.

We finally got the repairs finished on the other side of the house (after a windstorm damaged the roof two days before Yule, and water came in through the attic down through the second story and the first story). Our work of three months was suddenly undone. We were fortunate that we found good people to repair the roof and repair the plaster walls and ceilings inside. Still, that took months to get done.

One cold winter morning, I was feeding the cats and getting them fresh water. I wasn't too steady on my feet (duh!), and water sloshed out of the water bowl straight on to Newton. It was about six weeks before he would stay in the kitchen when I was getting the cats fresh water. I felt like such a bad guy, even though it was an accident.

On the health care front, I spent about a year going to the Dent Neurologic Institute to try to find a medicine that would help prevent and/or treat my migraines. After trying variations on the same types of migraine preventatives, I finally blew up at my doctor and demanded that he do more than prescribe the same type of medicine over and over when the medicines did me no good. He told me that I was "one in a thousand" people who aren't helped by those medicines, but that his "ethics" would not allow him to prescribe anything else (meaning opiates, which I had been taking for fourteen years). At least I now know what will not work. So, I was referred to another clinic, and after several months there, I am back on opiates for migraine relief. However, we haven't found anything to prevent them in the first place. We are going to see how the opiates do for a while, then think about what to do next.

Geoffrey did exceptionally well for a novice rower, even being part of a crew that won one race. He has worked very hard at improving his technique and strength this year, and has also grown in height to the point that he is slightly taller than I am. I told him last summer that he would be taller than I am by the end of the summer of 2008, but he didn't believe me. Once we measured back-to-back and Dawn confirmed that Geoffrey is taller, his whole face lit up. He and Dawn are now "your tallnessess."

So, I will endeavor to continue updating my journal on what has happened in the past six months of dreadful winter, now that we have finally reached the time of the summer solstice.

My love to all of our friends in New Orleans, and I miss you more than I can say.

The Hiney Winery

2008-02-13T01:19:44Z

So, we were sitting around goofing off after supper this evening, and Vajsha remembered more of the Hiney Winery commercials. She Googled it and came up with http://www.hiney.com

Now, you too can see what you can do with some Hiney.

Humor from way back

2008-02-12T17:16:41Z

One of my favorite valentine stories concerns a young woman who called up the (newspaper ) Austin American-Statesman sometime around the late '70s. She wanted to take out a one-day-only full page valentine advertisement to surprise her boyfriend. This included multiple font sizes and color, of course. Once the layout was set with the person taking the order, the cost was toted up. The person working at the newspaper said "All right. That will be $1,062.27" Dead silence ensued. Then, this faint voice said "Shit! I don't love him that much!"

An odd memory of a radio-talk show at around the same time period in Austin also surfaced in my memory. In the '70's, the Texas Hill Country was developing several wineries, due to the limestone soils, hot, dry summers, and microclimates similar to certain wine-growing regions in France. A morning radio show spoofed winery advertisements by advertising for "Heinie Winery." The one "commercial" that sticks in my memory is "Here it is, Friday night. Grab your girlfriend and get some Heinie."

We are under a winter storm warning for this afternoon through tomorrow morning. Supposedly nothing too terrible, just continual "light" snowfall for hour after hour. The kind of stuff that you have to wait until after it is all over to shovel out. This on top of the layer of ice that occurred after we got freezing rain last week. That ice is a real problem, and it is topped with snow. Every time you walk on the snow, it compresses to the ice and becomes one more layer of ice. Buggerit.

The good news, once again, is that we are in a nice warm dry snug home. I love our home, and can't wait to do more to help fix it up and help return it to its original condition. We spent $3,000 replacing the attic windows with double-paned Reliabilt windows to help insulate the attic and to replace windows that were completely inadequate and deteriorated. They are also true to the historical appearance of the original windows, just made of modern materials. Slowly but surely, we are putting things back aright. The last owners did nothing but use the house as a cash cow and let it deteriorate. If they had had it another ten years, it would have been beyond redemption to the point of being a tear-down slum. I feel very fortunate to have this home, because we have dreamed of this for many, many years - taking an unappreciated home and restoring it to its former glory.

Everything is coming together

2008-02-11T21:35:32Z

So, everything is finally coming together. Dawn finally got her first interview with a research scientist, who has now hired her; she begins working for him next Monday. What he really doesn't realize is just how terrific an asset she is going to be to his research, and how smoothly she is going to make everything work together.

We got the repairs finished to the roof, and just received the bid proposal for the inside repairs today. It is extremely expensive to repair plaster and lathe. We look forward to getting that completed in time for people to begin looking at the apartment (which doesn't happen up here until the weather gets warmer - no one wants to move in the winter).

It is very cold right now and the wind chill is -2°F, but that isn't unusual for this time of year. By 9PM last night, the wind chill was an astounding -23°F. It gradually lessened overnight, but was still severe enough that the Buffalo public schools (and Canisius High School, where Geoffrey goes) were closed. That kind of wind chill leaves very little leeway before you are risking frostbite. Last night, frostbite would have occurred on any unprotected skin (nose, ears, and forehead, not just fingers and toes) in no more than 30 minutes.

Saturday, Geoffrey and I were out getting the ice buildup off of our walkways. Our next door neighbor had a problem with a sewer backing up into his basement, but he needed to try to clear it from the outside vent pipe. We searched all over his front yard for that vent pipe and never found it. Any ideas that anyone had in looking for it were tried. So, we may not have finished clearing our walkways as much as we would have liked to, but we sure earned a lot of good will in spending all of that time trying to help a neighbor. One thing that I like about this neighbor is that he and his wife absolutely did not like the previous owners of our home.

In the memorable words of Rebecca, a graduate student from Maine, "In winter you just want to eat and hibernate."

Haven't written anything in way, way too long

2007-10-06T20:17:51Z

My apologies to everyone for not writing anything to let you know what has been going on.

At the end of May, I flew down to New Orleans to help Dawn and Geoffrey load everything up so they could move up here to live with us. This is a permanent arrangement. Geoffrey is now in Canisius High School, likes the school, likes (most of) his classmates, likes the teachers, and is in the Rowing Club. He got an award today for "most improved rower," is how I believe he put it. All of this makes every penny of his tuition worth it. Looking at the other students going into the school, they have smiles on their faces. When I saw that, I was really amazed. These students like being there. They work hard, and are expected to work harder. The Jesuits make sure that the students will not only learn, but learn how to think. What education could be more superb?

Dawn has been job searching, but no one in the research field will give her the time of day. She had a job with the Amherst School District for a short time, but it was such a nightmare that she gave her two weeks notice and quit with our blessing. The horrid thing is that Amherst is supposed to be the best school district in the area. They are so mismanaged, underfunded, and poorly staffed that she simply would not be part of their idiocy.

So, on September 17th we finally bought a house. A duplex, and we are working to renovate the rental side so we can hopefully have a tenant by the beginning of November. We found out our greatest setback is that half of the roof needs to be replaced. The previous owners let everything in the house deteriorate, and we are faced with having to do the replacement. I despise those people. However, you can't move a tenant into a house with a leaking roof. In the meantime, we are working on removing old wallpaper and painting surfaces in something besides horrid 80s paint. We also have sense enough to put primer on a surface before we paint, so the paint adheres properly.

I know that I am tired, sleeping poorly, working too hard, and stressed. Today, Helen lost her engagement ring. She had put it in her pocket while she was painting. Evidently, when she went shopping, she put her keys in that pocket, then accidentally pulled the ring out with the keys. She took me back to where she had parked, and I started scanning the surface of the rainy parking lot. I found the ring, crushed, underneath a car. I swept my hand through the puddle of water and found the sapphire. The ring is repairable, but is missing one of the fourteen little antique mine-cut diamonds that surround the sapphire. The sapphire, being extremely hard, was not harmed. Helen, in the meantime, was parking the car. When she finally got to where I was, I was kneeling in the dirty parking lot and couldn't stop crying. I am very, very grateful that I found the ring and the stone. They mean a great deal to me. It took years before I could get that ring for Helen, and it is a truly beautiful ring and stone. It was made in England in 1917, and was very, very expensive. It is also worth every penny of what I paid, because few pieces of jewelry are truly beautiful to me. It always gives me pleasure to see this ring, and the emotional significance of the ring is what Helen and I have been through in our life together. As Geoffrey said, "The love is still there (in the ring). It is just compressed."

And now, I need to take a bath and get some rest. When the others get back to this apartment (which we have until the end of this month), they will want to get cleaned up also, and I don't want to be in their way. They will be just as tired and dirty as I am right now.

Phaelenopsis orchid in bloom

2007-04-28T01:58:44Z

So I went to the doctor, and the doctor said...

2007-04-28T01:09:46Z

You put de lime in de coconut, and shake it all up....

Well, all right, he didn't say exactly that....

I went to a specialist about my migraines, and he seems quite knowledgeable about many other illnesses that I have - and he really listened to what I had to say. Both traits are highly unusual for physicians, I have found (much to my regret).

It seems that migraines begin in the brain stem. And, there is a nerve that goes straight from there to the sinuses. So, when you have a migraine beginning, you get what appear to be sinus problems, tearing, etc. With the right scanning equipment, you can actually see it as it happens. So, what this amounts to is that the sinus surgery that I went through a year ago was absolutely useless. No wonder there was no improvement in my health (despite "80% of people who have this surgery doing better"). I don't know if the surgeon was ignorant or just didn't care, but surgery is not my idea of something to be done unnecessarily.

The neurologist that I saw yesterday also put me on Prednisone for my poor wrecked hip sockets. There isn't much else to do for them, but he wants to at least get a little improvement out of them. I'm far too young (at 55) for hip joint replacement, or the newer "layering," given that I will probably live into my 90s. I come from a line of long-lived people on both sides of my family. Anyway, you can only take Prednisone for a short time, lest it backfire on you and cause more severe problems than you had in the first place. So, just a short-term "boost" to help me a little, if possible.

Next, the new doctor put me on a migraine preventative. It will take about a month to get the full effect of it, and maybe three months to see if it really works, but it is a good thing to try, at least.

Next, the doctor gave me a new medicine to take when I do get a migraine. I needed it this morning. I took it and 90 minutes later was actually able to sit and chat with Vajsha about various things. This is absolutely unreal. I couldn't believe what had happened. The drawback is that this medicine can only be taken three times in a week. However, if the preventative medicine works, I might not need it that often....

It seems that the medicine that I was previously taking for migraines (a narcotic) is now causing rebound migraines. So, when I had a migraine, I would take my medicine, get over the migraine, and have a recurrence - within the same day. It was getting very old. I am glad to try something different. I might need to keep the narcotic on hand in case of several migraines in a week, but to get away from the rebound migraines would be fantastic.

Then, the doctor also added a drug used to treat narcolepsy. It is amazing what his breadth of knowledge is. My insurance company only wants to allow half the dosage that he wants to give me, so that is being argued in cyberspace at the present.

This physician also had several cool stories. He told me about what killed Elvis. The poor man had migraines, and was taking his prescribed medicine. However, the best medicine available at that time was an ergotamine derivative - which in the body breaks down into LSD. That is one reason why he was described as dying from a mixture of drugs. What killed the poor man was an overdose of migraine medicine. The medicine was a vaso-constrictor, and basically stopped his heart. This guy was performing before audiences in a noisy environment with bright lights and trying to do all of this while suffering from migraines. I can't imagine it.

Anyway, here is to improved health and life. I can use it!

Still winter....

2007-04-13T15:29:57Z

"There's a place for us -
A time and space for us -"

Yeah, but I'm not talking about "West Side Story." I'm talking about Spring. Someday, somewhere, it will happen. The picture above (let's hope it came out all right) is of the snow shower this morning. We will be in the 30s and 40s for the foreseeable future, with frequent snow showers like this.

Dawn told me that stupid people are like slinkys. It's fun to push them and watch them fall down the stairs. I'm still laughing over that one. It is cruel, but funny.

Winter/Spring weather in the nawth

2007-03-29T09:51:44Z

OK, so weather is boring to most people, but I find the little variations/anomalies fascinating. It takes me about a year before I even get a clue as to the patterns that occur in wherever we live. It is a bit slower here, because the seasons are so radically different than in the south. Here, it is Winter/Winter/Still Winter/Construction and Mud. That is what you get when you live in a place that has six months of snow. People have said that there is one last winter blast at Easter every year. However, the snow is all melted now. We even had one day less than a week ago when it hit 71°F! Vajsha didn't believe me. This morning it is just below freezing, and will be colder tomorrow night. But, yesterday I saw a little bird as I was backing out the driveway, and was watching out that I didn't back over him. Once I got to the street, I could see him more clearly and LO AND BEHOLD! It was a robin! Spring is here! Go get some, little guy! Let's hear you marking your territory and letting the females know that you are available! [Hey baby! One guy here hot to trot after a long cold winter! Let's ruffle some feathers! Let's get it on! I'm da baby daddy!] (Or whatever it is that the ornithologists interpret bird song as.)

I keep checking to see what new houses are coming on to the market, but nothing interesting so far. This area has seen a 3.2% drop in housing prices in the fourth quarter of 2006 (compared to the fourth quarter of 2005), and the national drop in 2.7% - the largest drop in housing prices that has ever been seen. Economists are extremely worried that many sub-prime mortgages are going to go into default, adding to the number of houses on the market, and that the supply of money for new mortgages is going to shrink and reach a higher rate of interest. Well, that is good news for us, but most sellers are probably going to think that they should still get "good times" prices for their homes. We saw one gorgeous home that was evaluated for $199,000 that had an asking price of $159,000. A bid was put in the day after the open house, and I think someone will be very happy living in such a gorgeous place. I saw another place very close to downtown, but there was no garage (and no way to get to one, if you wanted to build one), but the area is notable for the number of car break-ins. Thanks, but no thanks. I've had the car broken into by scumbags before. Over $1,000 in damage (and believe me, the damage was actually minimal!) so some crack addict could steal a car stereo that might get them $20 on a really good day. And, this was in broad daylight in a well-traveled area in New Orleans.

Oh, well. Live is good here. We are settling in to this city, and still have lots to do to find out what is going on during the year. Buffalo doesn't seem to have the aimlessness that Milwaukee did, despite a similar bust in the economy (with manufacturing closing down for the past thirty years). However, the drivers are incredibly bad. I'm not talking about something like New York City, where I'm told you need nerves of steel and very fast reflexes. The drivers here just don't know how to drive at all, and do insane things. You do NOT come to a stop at a red light, then make a left hand turn on to a road! And, you do NOT just drift around from one lane to the other while going down a six-lane road. Those painted lines are there for a reason. None of this is regarded as unusual here.

Vajsha's work-study student is a real treasure. Well, one of the work-study students is. I don't even think about the other one, who will probably leave the lab. The one who is a treasure is bright, ambitious, and has become enraptured with research. Vajsha is taking her to the Botanical Society of America meeting in July, and the student will be able to see what it is like for like-minded nerds, I mean scientists, to get together and show each other what they have been working on. I'm sure that it is going to knock her socks off. Vajsha believes that the student will probably decide not to pursue a career in medicine, but will go for a PhD in Ecology. Score one for research!

Well, I'd better let you go. I still have to get some more coffee inside me, and our kitchen counter-top is going to be replaced this morning. I have to empty out the cabinet above it beforehand, and have a ton of housework to do.

Love to all, and more later.

A month's worth of news....

2007-03-17T08:41:40Z

Mardi Gras is now mostly a blur. We enjoyed ourselves, loved being with our friends, had a few nice surprises, and came home sick. I had forgotten how sick I get every Mardi Gras, coughing my lungs out for a couple of weeks, while living on Nyquil. Now that the original formula isn't made, I am hoarding a stash of the stuff acquired from the local Walgreens/dealer. I am mostly well, but Vajsha is still coughing.

Leaving Buffalo for Mardi Gras was an "experience." I didn't know that planes could take off under whiteout conditions, but we were deiced, and off we went.

Some of the nice Mardi Gras surprises: the Judge's family came out to be with us. They sort of run hot and cold, no matter what they say, but they were very happy to come out of their cave to be with us this year. The Matriarch kept coming out to see Vajsha! Helen's sister Laura was her usual self with all of the kids, who absolutely love her to bits. It was wonderful, once again, to be with Daddy Ken and with Don and with Dawn and with Jeffrey - all of us in costume for Mardi Gras. One humorous memory was of a package landing in my lap as a parade went by - one good look, and I knew that it was for Nick, the 3-year-old son of a faculty member. His parents will always remember me as the person who gave their son his first whoopee cushion. Vajsha handed me a little package that she said someone had caught, then threw on the ground. That person didn't know that those little beads weren't plastic "tuba beads" - they were Czechoslovakian glass beads, which is what used to be handed out before the days of plastic beads. It is the little things that make Mardi Gras so memorable. The main thing, though, was just being with people. We missed them so much, and our time was so short.

One very unique thing we did this year was to attend the MOMs Ball. This is the Krewe of Mystic Orphans and Misfits. Marceau, our hat is off to you, bless your heart. You fulfilled one of Vajsha's great desires in being able to get us an invitation. I hear that we are invited to attend next year, also - perhaps because our hostess fell asleep on my shoulder, and I kept her from falling out of her chair? She evidently just goes to sleep when she runs out of steam, and, well, it was 3AM. I looked over and saw her start to slide sideways and caught her. She never stirred, just slept. The costumes of the attendees were excellent, even down to the usual devil - he just looked so well done that he was perfect and as suave as could be. I was in awe of the people who came as the New Orleans Saints. They were each dressed in body paint and a thong. That was it. It was freezing outside, and they had to wait in line to show their invitations before they could get into the nice, warm place. As time went on, there were a lot of people who kind of crashed into me, but they weren't malicious or uncaring, just (happily) drunk. That isn't rude, it's just an "oops." Hell, I tripped over one lady's cane when someone bumped into me, and I walk with a cane myself. Vajsha and I always try to do something new each Mardi Gras, and this was it. Who cares about being invited to the Rex Ball? Give us the really exclusive ones, and we are there. We attended the Lords Of Leather Ball as guests of an officer, and between these two balls, we feel like we have been among the best of society (and the most fun people!) that New Orleans has to offer.

Next year, Mardi Gras will be as early as it has ever occurred in New Orleans - February 5. Just 31 days between Twelfth Night (the beginning of the Mardi Gras season) and Mardi Gras. All of the balls will be night after night of revelry for those fortunate enough - despite exhaustion - to attend.

If you look at Vajsha's LiveJournal, you will see that we didn't get the house that we made a bid for. The house has great potential, but it has never been updated since it was built in 1910, and will take many thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of labor to properly fix up to modern standards - like a driveway and a workable kitchen and stripping the godawful mauve paint off of everything, including all of the woodwork. The floors also need to be completely redone. The house is excellent structurally, but it needs to be restored/have its potential brought out. We just know that all of the light fixtures are going to be removed after the estate sale; once the house is emptied of furniture and crap, we feel that people are going to take one look at the bare walls and walk out, unable to see the potential. That is in our favor, though; we plan on submitting another bid in about a month, when the owner has seen that no one else is willing to put in the time and the expense that it will take to make the place beautiful and usable. If we are supposed to get this place, we will; otherwise, we won't. We are trying to take a neutral stance on this, but it is a very emotional thing to gear yourself up to committing yourself to an object for the next thirty years.

And, speaking of commitment, it is the fifteenth anniversary today for Vajsha and myself. We have been together for eighteen years now. And, this is the fourth year in a row that we have had snow for our anniversary. Vajsha, like many people her age, is the child of divorced parents. I can't imagine what that is like, but most people I know have been the child of divorced parents and have gone through divorce themselves. So, there was always a fear on Vajsha's part that I might not stick around. Well, what allayed her fears was when I went down to New Orleans to clean up her parents place after hurricane Katrina. All I can remember was how scared we were for all of our loved ones, and how frustrated we were that we couldn't do something to help. It was my opportunity to do something to help (she had to be at work), and I was grateful for the opportunity. In fact, that is what began my LiveJournal blog eighteen months ago. So, Vajsha then truly believed that I really did marry her "for keeps." And now, gentle readers, it is time for me to go wake up my wife and for us to celebrate our anniversary.

If your lives can turn out even half as well as mine, you will be among the very blessed fortunate few who have achieved happiness. Love to all of you.

[Don't] Let it snow, let it snow....

2007-02-13T00:32:02Z

At 6AM this morning, I read that we were under a winter storm watch; the 23°F temperature is going to be the high for the rest of the week (before we leave on Friday for New Orleans). The low will be 9°F, and we are now under a heavy snow warning - somewhere between 6"-20" between tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday night. The only good thing is that every storm warning we have gotten has turned out to be a bust for us. Other places got hammered, but not us. The one time we got hammered, there wasn't even a prediction of getting snow at all, and 60% of the trees in the city were either damaged or destroyed by the mid-October "Surprise."

Temperatures down in New Orleans will be between 35°-60°F when we get down there. I had hoped for warmer. I hope that Monday night does not douse us with the usual cold rain. It means that we gets lots and lots of cool stuff for staying out in the rain, but it also gets old, year after year. My winter coat will keep me dry, though - it has been tried and proven in eight hours straight of rainy parade.

We are both beside ourselves at this point - it has been fifteen months since we were in New Orleans, and we can't wait to be with all of our loved ones.

Went to an auction today....

2007-02-07T04:35:07Z

The auction was about 40 miles from home, so it wasn't a terribly long drive into Canada. The people were all nice enough, but there wasn't anything I couldn't live without. But, the two paint-by-the-numbers paintings were a scream. They were expensively framed, and one was of Gainesborough's "Blue Boy." The other one I can't quite place, but is similar in style, and of a lady in a white dress. They were such tacky kitsch that it was tempting to stay and bid on them.

So, that is it for the day.

The usual whining about weather, plus a joke

2007-02-05T13:31:52Z

Taken from a New Orleans Times-Picayune forum:

During a revival in Cheneyville, a little town between Bunkie and Alexandria, an evangelist was bringing the service to an end. As people were standing in line waiting to tell him their personal problems, he asked each individual what they really needed.

When Boudreaux was asked, he replied, "Rev, Ah want you to pray dat my hearing gonna be real good. Dat's all Ah axe - dat my hearing gone turn out all right."

The evangelist took his finger, put it in Boudreaux's ear, raised his other hand in the air and looked up to start his prayer of healing. Noticing that the expression changed on Boudreaux's face, the evangelist - thinking a miracle had already happened - asked, "Boudreaux, how's your hearing?"

Boudreaux looked around at the curious onlookers and said, "Ah don't know, it ain't till next Tuesday in Opelousas!"

So, here in Frostbite Falls, NY, it is very, very cold.

Canisius didn't close today, despite a Wind Chill Advisory from the NWS. All night last night, the temperature hovered at 1°F, with a 20-25 mph wind. This puts the wind chill down to -20°F, into the area where 30 minutes of exposure means frostbite. But no, the school didn't close, despite every secular and parochial school in the city closing. Vajsha said Canisius wouldn't close unless the University of Buffalo closed, and that is probably right. Too bad for all those students who take mass transit, because there are no parking places around the campus. We are under the Advisory until 10AM tomorrow. And this is a college that flaunts itself as building leaders? How about taking some initiative, hmmm?

Got me some new gloves yesterday. They are lined with Gore-Tex. Twelve minutes outside this morning (cleaning snow and ice off of the car) proved that they won't keep my fingers warm in this weather, but hey, it's like -20°F, and nothing short of Antarctic survival gear will do the job. I'm going to have to get me some silk glove liners. The silk socks that I wear under my wool socks are great, and are the only way I can keep my feet warm.

After the U.S. Civil War, the great nation to our north decided that they needed a name for their country, rather than just being a Confederation. So, they put all the letters of the alphabet into a pot, and started drawing out the letters.

"'C,' eh?"

"'N,' eh?"

"'D,' eh?"

OK, it's an awful joke, but what Canada jokes aren't awful? This was actually told to me by a faculty member. We love our Canadians but we also love to pick on them, because their buttons are so easily pushed.

So long from Frostbite Falls.

Stupidtoiletbowl XLI

2007-02-05T00:25:51Z

I hope that the Colts win. Not because I care about them in particular, but because of the nasty way that the Chicago Bears supporters acted towards the Saints fans. Holding up signs that say you are there to finish what Katrina began in downright bad manners - something that a southerner would never, ever want to be accused of.

We once saw the Chicago Cubs playing the Milwaukee Brewers. Sammy Sosa showed himself to be the poorest, most argumentative, most disruptive player I have ever seen. Dude, when the official makes a call on you, that is it. Making a scene doesn't get you points. You lose, loser!

Vajsha has already sworn off going shopping in Chicago when she next goes there for a scientific meeting. I told her that there are plenty of places to go shopping in Pennsylvania, if she wants to go.

The be-all and end-all is that if you offend southerners, they close up their wallet and go elsewhere. Even if they have to pay a higher price somewhere else.

Grouchy

2007-02-04T02:30:27Z

So, I didn't get to go to the auction tonight that was only ten miles away. As I prepared to leave, lake effect snow hit us, and I couldn't see behind me to back out of the driveway. Vajsha said that (from inside the house) she couldn't see the house across the street. True whiteout conditions.

This is the second time that I have been prepared to attend an auction with the intention of buying a specific item for Vajsha, but wasn't able to do so. I missed most of another auction because she had a very necessary chiropractor's appointment.

So, perhaps I will travel halfway across New York state tomorrow in time to attend an auction south of Ithaca that opens up at 8AM. This would mean leaving Buffalo by 4AM. Who knows? I'm going to see if I wake up at a crazy time (like I often do) and play it by ear. I'll probably know for sure by 4AM!

Otherwise, this is (according to the National Weather Service) the coldest it has gotten here in two years. The temperature is 12°F and the wind chill is -5°F. Temperatures for the next five days will range between 3-14°F. We have had two bands of lake effect snow today. Jeffrey had so very much wanted to see snow for Yule, but we only got a little. Yesterday, the downslope of the driveway was clear of ice and snow; today, you can't tell where the driveway is, or where the curb is. What am I doing is this climate? I spent the last forty years in the Central Time Zone below the Mason-Dixon line, and I don't think I will ever get accustomed to this weather and the fact that prime time on the tube begins at 8PM. We are going to record the few shows we watch on our dual-tape deck, which cuts out the commercials.

So, wish me luck, and (perhaps) safe traveling.

Goodies

2007-01-30T20:32:03Z

Vajsha asked me this morning if I was planning on going anywhere, and I said "no." She said that was good, because I needed to be here for FedEx. ???? It seems that Charmae (Vajsha's mother) is sending us a king cake, which has now been sitting here for several hours while I wait for Vajsha to get home. So, I wrote a haiku in my head while doing up the dishes.

Mother-in-law laughs

She sends a king cake to us

We chow down with joy.

Apologies if it breaks some haiku form, or if you consider it atrociously bad.

Hey, where y'at?

2006-12-31T14:01:14Z

For those who don't know the expression, "Hey, where y'at?" is not a New Orleanian way of asking "Where are you?" No, it is a friendly greeting that conveys "How are you doing?" a "Yat" is a New Orleanian with a particular type of accent.

One of our friends at the party told a story about himself ordering something to drink in a restaurant here in Buffalo, NY. Bobby was born and raised in New Orleans, and has a pure Irish Channel accent. He told the waitress taking the drink order that he wanted a "Bawks." She was very puzzled, and asked him "You want a 'box'?" "No," he replied. "I want a Bawks." Everyone here from New Orleans was falling out of their chairs laughing. I looked at him and said "Bobby, say 'root beer.'" He had been asking for a Barqs root beer, something perfectly clear to those New Orleanians here (and, of course, our lovely friend from Da Parish, i.e., Saint Bernard Parish, downriver from New Orleans).

Goes to show you the varieties of accent even from one small region, a single Parish (which in Louisiana is equal to a "county" in any other state).

Twelve years ago, I worked with a man from Maine who had come down to New Orleans to help with the recovery from the May, 1995 flood. Once I knew him (and knew that I wouldn't offend him), I told him that there was an expression in Stephen King books that I didn't know how to pronounce. It was "Ayup." He laughed long and hard at that one, and schooled me on the correct pronounciation. I have lived from Maine to Puerto Rico to California, but mostly in the deep South, and believe me, everywhere you go, there are words you have to "re"learn. But, you quickly acclimate, and are able to communicate more easily. That was the great privilege of being uprooted so often: I got to live all over the county, and to find out that people are more alike than they are different from each other.

Our landlord yesterday was telling me that I was pronouncing "lend" like "lint." He then spoke it for me, using a vowel that sounded like "land" to me. Our landlord is Buffalo born and raised, with a father of Italian descent and a mother of English descent.

That is what I love about this country. We really were (once) a great melting pot of peoples. Those peoples came here for religious freedom, to try to escape poverty, or because they were not the firstborn son in an age of primogeniture (a system in which the firstborn son inherits all of the lands and titles). Many of the immigrants had nothing to lose except their lives. They knew that they would starve to death in their old country, but they might at least be able to make some kind of living in the New World. Many scholarly studies have been done about immigrants all over the world. The primary immigrant generation leaves their roots behind, risking death from disease on a long sea voyage (or in crossing a merciless desert), starvation in a world where they have nothing but their willingness to work, and strives to not only make a living, but to educate their children, in the belief that their children will have a better life because they are better educated than their parents. Oddly enough, the secondary generation seems to universally disdain the sacrifices that have been made for them, and frequently is unsuccessful in everything that they put their hand to. It is the "why" that this happens in which scholars disagree. Perhaps the children had everything handed to them, and just don't know how to set a goal to work for.

OK, thank you for listening to my diatribe. I hope that it hasn't been too terribly boring. I can really start yakking from a soapbox at the drop of a hat, but my yakking tends to raise more questions, not to answer all questions.

Love to all, and may the New Year bring you great joy and the new beginnings that you long for in your heart of hearts.

Love,

saintsloth

And how was your Yule?

2006-12-30T23:32:14Z

Vajsha pulled off a wonderful party - our first here in Buffalo - with a terrific mix of people including our landlord, his partner, his parents (who adore Vajsha), people from work and their spouses, and, of course, Dawn and Geoffrey from New Orleans.

Dawn bought another (80 gigabyte!) iPod and expedited it to Geoffrey to replace the one that was stolen.

I went to bed early last night, and Dawn evidently went to bed about 11PM. Vajsha and Geoffrey stayed up playing "Champions of Norrath" on Geoffrey's PS2 until 2AM this morning. They make a great team. Vajsha was playing with it by herself once she got up, then Geoffrey woke up at noon, and they have been playing ever since (it is now 6PM). Hey, Vajsha and Geoffrey have played together since Geoffrey was five years old. Dawn is reading Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather," the quintessential Yuletide story.

Geoffrey has had terrible sinus/allergy type problems that are trying to evolve into bronchitis. Vajsha and I woke up with sore throats today, but benadryl is taking care of it for me, along with Hall's lozenges. We are grateful that we aren't really getting sick, just mildly under the weather.

Geoffrey and Vajsha snoozed out yesterday afternoon, and Dawn and I went to the main Buffalo cemetery, where such notables as Red Jacket and General Ely S. Parker are buried. Red Jacket was such an orator that his Indian name translates as "He who keeps them awake." He could reputedly do this for six or eight hours and keep going from there. General Parker was an Indian who was the aide-de-camp to General Grant, and is the individual who actually wrote up the terms of surrender at Appomatox. I was pleased to be able to answer some of Dawn's questions about the societal notations on headstones (like Masonic and Knights of Malta insignias, along with the insignia for the Order of the Eastern Star) and explain some of the symbology of a draped urn, or a partially completed Greek-style building. That is what you get when you hang out with a history major. I'm a nerd, and I know it. Vajsha takes care of the hard-core sciences and statistics, but I'm the social sciences geek. It makes for a good balance. By the time the cemetery was due to close, it was near sundown, and really too cold to stay out any longer (chill factor in the mid-20's, F).

Peachybaby521, thank you for your kind comment that I should update more often. I enjoy writing, but let opportunities slip through my fingers too often.

Tw1stedwh1spers, I am so very glad for you. May you find peace and happiness in Mobile, and the opportunity to market your wonderful writing. You are a master at writing, and I look forward to all of your storytelling. You have worked very hard to develop a gift which few people have.

So, dear friends, I'm closing for the night. Goodnight and bless you and your loved ones and four-legged companions, wherever you are.