Somehow I frittered the whole Memorial Day weekend away, and so I am sneaking this letter in while I wait for frozen sections at work. Actually, I also need to head over to the VA hospital pretty soon, so I may end up writing this in parts. Anyway, I didn’t really totally waste the weekend, but the weather was nice, and I wish we had done more outdoors.
Saturday morning, Cindy and I went shopping. First we went to DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse). I had a pair of Florsheim shoes that were about 18 years old, and even though they were not worn much, the leather got old, and the back of the shoe cracked. Since Cindy’s sister Lynda is getting married this summer, I needed a new pair of shoes. The selection for men’s dress shoes is not huge at DSW, but the prices are low. I didn’t find exactly what I had in mind, but we found a shoe that will be adequate - - guess what, it’s another Florsheim. Afterwards we went to Hobby Lobby. We have new tissue processors at work that in addition to using formaldehyde to fix the tissue, also use microwave radiation. This means that we can shrink the processing time for some specimens from 8 hours to 2 - - we can go from receiving a biopsy in the morning to having the slides out that afternoon, instead of the next day. However, one of the techniques that we use won’t work anymore. For instance, if we process a small skin shave biopsy without this special technique the skin has a tendency to roll up into a little ball, which makes cutting the tissue for slides very difficult. The special technique? We have little plastic sponges that we cut a slit into, and stick the tissue into the slit. The problem is that these sponges are made of some kind of polymer that will melt in the microwave processor. So I went to Hobby Lobby to see if I could find a suitable replacement. I came up with Styrofoam, a felt pad, polyethylene fabric batting, cork, and thin foam padding. We will test these in various chemicals (formaldehyde, xylene, alcohol) to see if they dissolve, and then test them in the processor.
Saturday afternoon we were joined by the Tuchlers for a trip to Brookfield zoo. We saw big cats, seals, dolphins, bears, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, camels, echidnas, fruit bats, kangaroos, cassowaries, ostriches, bison, and hippos. Highlights of the trip were the Tuchler boys. Peter started going under the fence at one of the bear exhibits, and Andrew climbed on top of a big rock in the hippo exhibit. I could see us featured in the paper and the local television stations: “Local boy trampled by enraged hippo”. The boys were also very interested in hippo defecation into its wading pool. Afterward they joined us at our house where we had pizza, hotdogs, and ice cream. Lucas was juggling his ‘devil sticks’, and all of the Tuchlers, including Jim, had a go.
Sunday afternoon Cindy and I went to a song recital featuring about 30 Hinsdale Central High students, including Nicola. Nikki was not the best singer there, but she was far from the worst. At least she knew all the words to her song. A few of the singers (90% female) were very good. For some reason, the ones who sang something in a foreign language sounded better, perhaps because all you could concentrate on was the sound of their voices instead of the words. After this, Cindy took Jasper to a pet store to purchase a fire-bellied toad and some live crickets.
Japer was got the toad as a reward for good behavior . It resides in a terrarium next to Swimmy, our fairgrounds goldfish that is almost three years old now. The boys have named it Melvin, and it has already eaten up several crickets. Then we took the whole family to a conveniently located Applebees and onto the Indiana Jones movie. Jasper had already seen it, but he was willing to go twice. This is pretty much one long chase movie, with only a short interlude in the first third of the film. I did like the Yale scenes. Gail, who saw it elsewhere thought the print had too much of a sepia tone, and that everything was washed out and old - - the actors (Cindy said, ‘poor Karen Allen!’), the plot, the adventure. The boys liked it, though.
Monday afternoon we went to an IMAX theater with Andy, Gail and the girls to see Speed Racer. This movie, in contrast, was in excessive bubblegum tones. Sometimes it was pretty hard to figure out what was going on. Were you watching a flashback, something that happened simultaneous to the action, or what? It had a better plot, which isn’t saying much. At least the IMAX didn’t make me feel sick, which has happened in the past.
I did do a lot of reading this weekend, finishing up a James Ellroy trilogy, L.A. Noir. Ellroy says he was trying to write something as spellbinding as Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. The Ellroy books are good, but they don’t reach the tension of Harris’ work. Ellroy’s later work is much better.
What’s new at Loyola? Are move date is (finally) set for the weekend of June 7. We decided not to hire either of the candidates for AP director because the hospital is in process of changing the pay scale to something that ‘incenitiv-izes’ the physicians (maybe more attention paid to our needs by the administration?). I am afraid that this means there will be an expectation for me to throw my hat in the ring for this, especially as I am up for promotion to full professor next summer. My chair bugged me this evening to go to yet another hospital wide administrative meeting tomoorow AM. I really don’t want this job!
Love, H.
No comments:
Post a Comment