Sunday, April 30, 2006
Speak, Memory
In a wonderful essay in the Gettysburg Review, Autumn 2005, Rebecca McClanahan writes of the events following her “Routine Procedure” “that unpleasant, potentially demeaning event every conscientious internist urges you toward as you approach your fiftieth birthday.” Well, I just went in for a Routine Procedure last week, and it was certainly all of that.
The only part of the whole thing that’s remotely fun is the anesthesia – they got some mighty good drugs to fool with. So good that the same thing happened this time as at my previous Routine Procedure: my wife picked me up afterwards, and I can remember nothing of the drive home.
I remember getting in the car, waiting for someone to pull out behind us so we could leave, and I remember getting out of the car at home, but absolutely nothing in between. My wife says we talked the whole way. But even now, a week later, the neurons have had all kinds of chances to knit themselves back together, and – nada, zippo, zilch. That half hour of my life is just gone.
The only part of the whole thing that’s remotely fun is the anesthesia – they got some mighty good drugs to fool with. So good that the same thing happened this time as at my previous Routine Procedure: my wife picked me up afterwards, and I can remember nothing of the drive home.
I remember getting in the car, waiting for someone to pull out behind us so we could leave, and I remember getting out of the car at home, but absolutely nothing in between. My wife says we talked the whole way. But even now, a week later, the neurons have had all kinds of chances to knit themselves back together, and – nada, zippo, zilch. That half hour of my life is just gone.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Sic transit gloria cherry
As promised, the cherry blossoms came and went quickly, but spectacularly. The picture with the blossoms was last Saturday - I think we got a few more on the top branches on Sunday, but that was pretty much the peak. The "after picture" was taken this morning at sunrise, with just a few blossoms hanging on amid the new leaves.
Fortunately, the leaves are a beautiful bronze and green when they open out, complementing the red brown trunk. A.E. Housman was right about cherry trees, as about so many things*, but it's not just the blossoms.
* e.g., "... malt does more than Milton can/To justify God's ways to man"
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Depth sounding
I came across this great map recently at the University of Hawai'i site. I’ve been reading about the first successful Atlantic submarine cable, and one of the things that struck me was how little they knew about the sea floor on which they were l
aying this hugely expensive piece of wire. They had nothing like this, which may have been a good thing; had they seen this I’m not sure it would have seemed so possible.
As it was, the US Navy had done a depth survey across much of the proposed route prior to the Civil War (our great-great-great grandparents’ tax dollars at work) and had proposed the existence of a “telegraphic plateau” – a stretch of relatively shallow water between Newfoundland and Ireland with what appeared to be a fairly smooth surface composed of microscopic shells, showing no evidence of currents or abrasive gravel.
The survey was done with soundings taken at regular intervals with an ingenious device invented by a Lieutenant Brooke that dropped a large iron ball with a specimen-collecting tube to the bottom. When it hit bottom, the tube detached, leaving the ball down there, and was brought back to the surface with a sample of the material from the bottom.
What will future geologists and archeologists make of a neat line of identical iron balls stretching across what was once the bottom of a vast ocean?
aying this hugely expensive piece of wire. They had nothing like this, which may have been a good thing; had they seen this I’m not sure it would have seemed so possible.As it was, the US Navy had done a depth survey across much of the proposed route prior to the Civil War (our great-great-great grandparents’ tax dollars at work) and had proposed the existence of a “telegraphic plateau” – a stretch of relatively shallow water between Newfoundland and Ireland with what appeared to be a fairly smooth surface composed of microscopic shells, showing no evidence of currents or abrasive gravel.
The survey was done with soundings taken at regular intervals with an ingenious device invented by a Lieutenant Brooke that dropped a large iron ball with a specimen-collecting tube to the bottom. When it hit bottom, the tube detached, leaving the ball down there, and was brought back to the surface with a sample of the material from the bottom.
What will future geologists and archeologists make of a neat line of identical iron balls stretching across what was once the bottom of a vast ocean?
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Cherry tree at sunset
Rain ended yesterday just a bit before sunset, and the western sky cleared enough for a brilliant sunset light, shown here hitting the cherry tree we planted a few years ago. Its bark is a fabulous color, even without late afternoon highlighting, and the leaves are pretty good in the fall, too. The blossoms are great, but they last maybe a day and a half.
