Our lack of posts before leaving was not because we didn't do things from April 15 to May 15, but rather that we did too much. So, to shorten it up, but still cover some ground, here's a list of things we learned and feel should be passed along.

1) You will receive a 59 out of 60 on your Sanskrit final and feel quite pleased with yourself. Deservedly so.

2) If you're graduating with two graduate degrees, each from a different school, you're guaranteed that both ceremonies will take place at the same time, forcing you to choose one, a decision you will instantly regret when you learn of the speaker for the other ceremony.

3) Five people will fit in a small studio apartment for two days, but only if they're closely related.

4) Two days is not enough time to see a gaggle of "new" relatives. It is, however, more than enough time to learn to detest the humidity of northern Florida.

5) Two hairless chihuahuas do fit in a bird cage. Walking past them in the RV park on your way to the bathroom will excite them into a frenzy, making you glad of the silly birdcage.

6) You will be amused to read a sign at the RV park proclaiming: Do not wash pets in bathroom sinks.

7) After seeing the chihuahuas, you will understand the necessity of the sign.

8) Mudbogging, an activity in which bored teenagers drive their parents' cars through fields of mud after rain, is popular in both rural north Florida and western Pennsylvania.

9) Korean BBQ and coffee with friends are the perfect way to end three years in Pittsburgh.

10) Three hours are not enough to spend with a first cousin once removed you haven't met before. Especially when old family photos are involved.

11) You will cause your sister to have several panic attacks when she sees how much you're leaving with her.

12) She will have several more attacks having five people stay in her one-bedroom apartment for five days.

13) Peace Corps creates such a strong bond, Sharon is willing to drag her unsuspecting boyfriend down from New Jersey by train just to spend the evening with you. And go to the zoo the next day, but that's just for fun.

14) Tours of the capital are most interesting when given by a long-time family friend who works as a legislative assistant for the president pro-tem of the Senate.

15) You will panic, dropping off you passport the day before you're supposed to leave, when the woman at the Madagascar consulate appears to have forgotten that she promised a 24 hour turn around time on your visas.

16) You will be vastly relieved, picking up your passports five minutes after the consulate opens, when the same woman hands them to you with no delay, admonishing you to have a good trip.

17) No matter how hard you try, even knitting at inappropriate times such as while standing in REI talking to Caroline, or starting to bind off using the light of passing cars to see as Irene drives you Dullas for your flight, you will need just half an hour more to finish a baby blanket you started in January, which is already four months late. Damn the thesis, anyway.

18) No matter how much you plan otherwise, packing will always happen at the last minute.

19) You will not have enough time to call everyone you want to before leaving. This will cause guilt and regret.

20) The time to prepare for a long-term trip is finite.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (4)

So far in Sanskrit class, the focus has been on translation from Sanskrit to English. Due to structural differences with the languages, exact translation is problematic; rather, it is more important to demonstrate an understanding of meaning. Typically, each week we discuss a chapter from the text, which covers vocabulary, grammar, and structure. Poetical structure is the most interesting. In case you're interested, here is an example of a verse from my homework:

My translation (and this is an appropriately rough translation for a first year student) is:

A wise man should think of desire, knowledge and wealth as if ageless and immortal. He should practice virtue as if grabbed by the hair by death.

Sanskrit's poetry really comes though with this last bit, so grave and dramatic, even melodramatic. On the light side: according to this verse, death's grip on me will become more difficult with each passing year.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (4)

Last Thursday morning was nerve wracking because I had to (successfully!) defend my thesis. It was fine, really, helped largely by the fact that I adore each of my committee members, which is, of course, why I chose them. It was not helped by the fact that I got absolutely no sleep the night before because I could not figure out a better way to write up half the 'results' of my research, something I'd been trying to do all week. I gave up and went to bed at 1:30, so of course that's when inspiration finally struck and 5 minutes later I was up and rewriting. In sympathy, David didn't sleep at all well and woke up at 6 having just had a nightmare in which I tripped going down stairs and badly injured myself. I think he's more relieved the thesis is over than I am.

The picture to the left is an example of how much the thesis has taken over our lives. Instead of the normal things we're supposed to use it for, like eating, it's overcome with paperwork. It's been like this for about three months now. I wish I could say it will be cleared very soon, but we're now in the process of packing up our stuff for the year we'll be gone (more on that later, I promise!), so that's not actually going to happen. It's currently littered with thesis detritus, as well as packing tape, books that haven't made it into a box, a set of electrical converters/adapters and other miscellaneous items awaiting a new home. Some day it will be a kitchen table, again, but probably not until Irene rescues it in a month, when we leave most of our stuff with her for the year that we'll be gone.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (3)

Saturday, Leah and I completed our first race: a 5K run/walk fund-raiser, sponsored by SLIM, to benefit kids in Malawi. And, "completed" really was the appropriate word. (We had no idea what our time should be finishing the race, but since our goal was to complete it, we feel pretty pleased with ourselves.)

You may recall that we were following a 13-week run/walk program last semester. Well, we managed to stretch the 13-weeks to nearly twice as many weeks with a series of missed days for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which was Pittsburgh's unpleasant winter weather. We also cleverly repeated some days due to Leah's tendency to get side stitches. So by Saturday, our program called for 8 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking, repeated 5 times. Rather than skip ahead for the race, we fulfilled the 5K's namesake and ran/walked alternately for 8/2 minutes for the length of the race.

For me, consciously switching from running to walking during a race required some mental deconditioning. How incongruous was it to not strive to win a race? But, the race was a fund-raiser, at peaceful park to which we had never been, and our first race; all of which calmed my outlook. In the end, we were pleased with our run and complimentary T-shirts and are looking forward to our next race on April 21st, for which our only goal is to beat our current time.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's snowing in Pittsburgh. For this time of year, that's not too shocking, I know, but in the last week the weather shifted from winter to summer and then back to winter, which has been surprising. For example, on Tuesday, it was 72 degrees and sunny. People were outside standing, talking, walking, running, biking or filling the outdoor seating of coffee shops and restaurants--wearing goofy summer shorts. (Most knees should really be private.) In contrast, yesterday morning, I walked to class, gloved hands in coat pockets, clenched against fine-grain hail driven by a 20 something degree gentle breeze. Since the weather is back to foul, I'm spending most of the weekend indoors, which is just fine, because I have the apartment to myself.

Last semester, Leah signed up for a weekend-long "doula" training course, which inadvertently fell on this weekend. She was excited about the course and will probably write a post about it when she returns. Wait a minute, you might ask, isn't Leah working on her thesis right now? Yes, she is swamped with her thesis. In fact, Monday, is the due date for the third draft of her thesis. For the last couple of weeks, she has only walked back and forth to school or spent long carpal-tunnel-syndrome-inducing bouts at the computer. But, she has still been double and triple booking her schedule with other activities. An exception was on Thursday night, when she was eerily not busy-looking. She moved slowly, calmly and told light, funny anecdotes--it started to give me vertigo. Turns out, it was the eye-of-storm, and she switched back to busy-looking before she left Friday morning for the course.

Within two hours of Leah leaving, I pushed furniture together so I could use both computers at the same time, flipped my bike upside down in the middle of the floor to make some much procrastinated repairs, took my coat off the hook and dropped it on the floor, liberally scattered bike tools and Sanskrit homework around, and punctuated the scene with a half eaten bowl of Korean fried rice. A freshly bachelorized apartment is quite nice.

Although, now that I take a good look around, maybe it's better off that Leah will be back tomorrow night.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have always been prone to getting horrible side stitches while running. The first time I realized this was when I ran track in the sixth grade, a date long enough ago that we need not pay any more attention to it. I was reminded of this particular affliction, though, when we were running regularly last semester. I had made it several weeks into the plan we were following, without a single side pain, but then when we started the 5 min. run/1 min. walk week, the stitches were back. After more than a week of this, I had been very proud of myself when I made it a whole session without getting one and to celebrate, I convinced David we should go to REI and rock climb on their 'wall.' We had a lot of fun and I wrote a post about it, which I didn't put up at the time because I wrote it the day David called me to say he was being admitted to the hospital. And at that point babbling about my first successful climb didn't seem terribly important. But I've posted it here, should you have time to kill at work, or be particularly fascinated with all our doings.

All of which, really, is to say that we've started running again. Finally. We've been going to the gym since we got back to school, but it's just too damn cold in Pittsburgh to run outside in the winter and I am opposed to running on an indoor track, when I've already discovered the wonders of running on trails. But this week, schedules and the weather matched up perfectly and we've been running twice. We were both terribly afraid that we'd have to start completely over with the running plan, but we ran for 45 minutes today (5 min run/1 min walk), so I think we're fine. And we're so excited about it we've signed up for our first 5 km run at the end of this month. Should you be in Pittsburgh and want to run with us, you can register here. Otherwise, we'll tell you all about it when we're done. With, hopefully, nary a stitch in sight.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the last couple of months, I have barely contributed to the blog because, counter-intuitively, I've had too much to write. Mostly, I've discovered previously unknown (to me) family. Now that I've had time to ruminate...

During my heart procedure three months ago, the doctors deduced that given the lack of obvious risk factors I must have only one: a family history of heart disease. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that last December I started wondering about genealogy, especially my family back through my biological father, from whom I became separated when I was a couple years old. Wondering morphed into searching, just not by me.

Leah's parents have a passion for genealogy and are also each retired librarians. It wasn't long into the search that Adrien, Leah's father, started amassing records--birth, immigration, census, marriage, death certificates and death notices. And, one day, Adrien found my grandmother's address and phone number and indications that she was in her late 80's, alive and living in Florida. It was an utter shock. A couple of days later I called her.

My grandma was exceedingly happy to hear from me and we talked...for the first time. As it turned out my paternal family line, not surprisingly at this point, is filled with people with heart problems. Specifically, one particular heart problem related to the lower anterior descending (LAD) artery, the exact site of my stent. My father died at age 45 from heart disease, my grandfather died at 39 from a sudden massive heart attack, my great-grandfather died in his 40s of a sudden massive heart attack, my great-great-grandfather died of heart disease, and so on, presumably, into the past. It seems that by encouraging me to go to the doctor, Leah has broken a long tradition in my family of the males dying young.

Grandma Marjorie, with an endearing Australian accent, told me all sorts of family stories, including important genealogy bits. For example, my grandma's father and mother were born in England and Scotland, respectively, and I have several extended family members living in Australia. This will add a new dimension to future travels.

I also learned of other relatives living in Florida: an aunt, an uncle, cousins, even a first-cousin twice removed! Late in January, I went to meet them, all of whom made me feel quite welcome. The weekend flashed by; we met, talked, ate and my grandma, aunt and I went to play bingo (I had never played before and won with some help from my aunt, who won much more).

Obviously, a couple of days isn't enough time, so Leah and I are planning another trip in early May. Hopefully this time it won't take me more than a month to post about it.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (3)

Friday was very much one of those days. Running around like the proverbial chicken, I was supposed to be gone from the apartment all day from the time I left for a doctor's appointment at 8:50 until about 6:30, when I returned from meeting/tutoring a new Somali family. So of course I came home twice; once to get my phone and once to get my tutoring 'kit.' David is referring to it as the most poorly named plan of the semester thus far. And believe me, there have been several poorly named plans with which Friday had to compete. But it was not without its highlights.

Waiting for the bus to go downtown to do an interview (notice that is to 'do,' not to 'have.' I'm conducting 24 interviews for my thesis for public health, which is my excuse for not posting for so long. You'll have to ask David for his own excuse.), I watched two bags jettisoned from a bus by an older woman who had four bags altogether, plus a purse and a cane. She was clearly having one of those days, too, so after waffling between wanting to help and pretending to ignore her in the true American spirit of feeling that she might be embarrassed to have someone notice her awkward wrangling of bags, I went over and asked if she was going somewhere nearby I could help carry her bags to. She was, so we set off, chatting about what she was going to be doing for the weekend that necessitated so many bags. Basketball games in Cleveland, was the answer, although I'm still not sure if it's a professional team or college. Has anyone heard of the Cavaliers?

Completing her errand, we trudged back up towards the bus stop ritually complaining about the weather (it's been -20 degrees, so we had plenty to complain about), and then she tried to tip me for helping her. We argued, oh-so-politely about it, my point being that I had offered to help because I wanted to do so, not because I expected any compensation, and her point being that I was a student and so was always in need of extra money. I was truly torn over how to handle the situation because I couldn't figure out if it was ruder to accept the money, or to insist on not taking it. Since we were blocking pedestrian traffic for a good minute, I eventually took the offered bill and then found a way to sneak it into a zippered outside pocket of one the bags I was carrying.

We left each other downtown, with mutual assurances of good will and I went off to conduct my eighth interview before having to go home twice, interrupting David watching a docu-drama about LBJ and the Vietnam war. All things considered, it was actually a pretty pleasant one of those days.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, of course we have tons to write about, but in the meantime playing catch-up seems appropriate.

Boise, with a full-family holiday session, was lovely. Mama and Papa had all five of their "kids" together, which happens too rarely, and we had lots of fun bickering, laughing, talking and eye-rolling at each other. Pictures can be found here.

Snowshoeing! We managed to get out once, with Amy, who is a committed cross-country skier. She allowed as to how snowshoeing was fun, too, though, and even wants to go again.

For the second half of the holiday season, we flew to Las Vegas, to spend New Year's with David's family. (Really, it's the only draw to Vegas, since we're poor gamblers and disenchanted by the growth in the city.) Of course, I managed to be sick the entire time we were there, lying in bed moaning to myself and reading an interesting, though rather biased, book about the Byzantine Empire. David had tons of fun scanning in old family photos and documents and is now seriously considering buying a scanner so he can continue the fun.

And now we're back in Pittsburgh, starting the new, and last, semester. Excitement for all!

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)

The semester is over and I haven't written about my Sanskrit class since September. Obviously, I've missed a few days of class in the last month, but not as many as you might believe, especially since much of my recovery was over the Thanksgiving break. So, what do I think of Sanskrit? I love it and find it fascinating. Most fascinating is the seemingly disparate script.

In the beginning of the class, we learned some particular characters that represented vowels, then some more for consonants, even some diacritical marks to form consonant-vowel combinations. But then, there was a wrinkle: consonants clustered together and formed some strange characters that tended to crush together in the space usually reserved for one character. Sometimes they squeezed next to each other; sometimes they stacked; sometimes they had a half form, different form, sideways form, or a completely new character (called a ligature). For example, the "ka" used roughly the same space as "kka", "ddhya", or "svbhri". But, the complexity was just beginning.

Sanskrit nouns decline. Not "decline" in the usually sense, but rather, linguistically, the words have declination, that is they are spelled differently depending on their number (singular, dual and plural) and usage in a particular sentence, or parts of speech, of which there are eight. Not to mention all nouns are one of three genders. Further, under certain, and common, cases entire words combine, in what is called external sandhi. Sandhi makes the sounds of the words flow into each other to make them more pronounceable, or poetic, even. (English has a rule that is very simlar to sandhi: a demonstrative "a" becomes an "an" before a word with a vowel sound. i.e. a tree / an apple.) Even a whole sentence may be written as a breathtaking collision of clustered sounds--an alphabetic train wreck. Added to this, there is no fixed word order, verbs can be dropped and tense can change often and abruptly. Disentangling individual words in a sentence, removing sandhi, and decrypting their parts of speech and meaning, can be quite a puzzle.

Thankfully, I love puzzles, but since you may not, I won't go on about the stunning complexities of Sanskrit grammar. The take-home final exam was to translate a 19-line story--a sort of Aesop's fable about a mouse that transformed into a tiger.

And, as if I even need to say: I'm taking Sanskrit 2 next semester.

Posted by David | Permalink

It's been a tough couple of weeks. David's reaction to the Plavix was so severe he ended up in the ER not once, but twice. Last Tuesday was especially bad because his hands and wrists were so swollen I got to feed him breakfast. He slept and moaned a lot and even without the miserable, dejected look on his face it was obvious he was feeling hideous because he didn't tease me all day! It was especially painful because it's the end of the semester and I had four final papers due, which I couldn't bring myself to care about at all. Somehow school seems so much less important than it did at the beginning of the semester. But, David's better and the semester is over!

Of course, as soon as David was able to move his fingers without intense pain he started working on our new website design. This is something he's had in the works for a month, now, but those pesky health problems kept getting in the way. Despite his deeply perfectionist nature he's decided he's done with the first round of improvements, though he still has all sorts of neat things planned. I, of course, have nothing to do with it, except to wander by while he's working on it and announce very seriously that I don't like the color scheme. I'm so helpful. You can be helpful too and tell us if it works on all browsers. We adore Firefox, and David's quite taken with Opera, but Explorer drives him absolutely insane. It's not coded at all properly, so while you can write all sorts of neat code to look cool in other browsers, it looks like crap on Explorer. Not that I understand the coding bit at all, but the looking good (or not) I definitely do, and Explorer has serious drawbacks.

At any rate, David's feeling all better, we've been running a couple times and we're very excited about being at home in Boise for the holidays and Vegas for New Year's. Well, actually being in Las Vegas isn't so exciting, but getting to see David's family is. We've been talking about camping New Year's eve, but I think it might be too cold, even with all our fancy gear. Maybe we'll just watch movies, instead.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

This morning was a beautiful time for a walk: the air crisp and clear, lit with an orange sunrise; birds and squirrels out and about; all of which I noticed while walking to the Emergency Room with impressively swollen left eye lids, a pair of Fat Albert lips and a full body rash. My eye was really more bugged-out than swollen, as though I'd been in a fight, but without black and blue marks, nor the interesting story. Last night, I had a couple of itchy bumps on my elbow, which I discounted as bug bites. Early this morning, it was fairly obvious those "bites", which had multiplied over most of my body, were symptoms of an allergic reaction. Leah checked online (the great source of truthiness) and read that swollen lips can be associated with a swollen throat and requires emergency attention. At the hospital, I received a few drugs, including a steroid and the swelling dissipated. I was released after three hours.

Apparently, I'm allergic to a post-operative anti-platelet drug, Plavix, which I've been taking for about two week. The reason I haven't had a reaction before today is unclear. I plan to ask the cardiologist tomorrow, at my routine follow-up appointment. After that I will have several other doctor visits later this week. In the meantime, I have a new drug regiment, and aside from fatigue, possibly due to the loss of 6 more vials of my blood, I feel fine.

Today's complications should not diminish a small victory in my recovery: with the doctor's consent, I ran yesterday afternoon. Leah and I loped along our regular route for 40 minutes, granted, in 5 minute stretches spaced with 2 minute walks. I felt fine (no chest pains!), and plan to go again tomorrow...maybe.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thanksgiving was lovely and we did almost nothing to make it so. Our friends, Helena and Sean (and their two kids), hosted us, and did all the cooking, so we made the utmost sacrifice and went back to eating sugar. We had to, since we brought three dessert pies. Irene adored the well thymed stuffing, and the turkey looked really impressive--falling off the bone. I had neither, but ate way too much mashed sweet potato and corn casserole. We didn't leave till almost one, and David didn't even notice how much past his normal bedtime it was.

Irene, who drove up for the weekend, and I saw Stranger Than Fiction, a really charming movie. We wanted to go to two, but I dragged Irene to the yarn store with me first, which took up way too much time. (I've become addicted to knitting, but more on that later.) David stayed home to recover from our late night and to prep himself for a dinner party the next night, but I gushed about it so much that he's decided to go see the movie by himself later this week.

Saturday was the dinner party (I swear we're not really very social), hosted by our friend Heain. She made fabulous Korean food in honor of two upcoming birthday celebrations, I made the second shoofly pie of the week, and everyone had a really good time. And unlike Sean and Helena's kids, who aren't properly appreciative of the Pennsylvania Dutch recipe, everyone at the dinner party enjoyed the shoofly. Or at least said they did. The three of us stayed up past our bedtimes, again, but since the day was otherwise fairly lazy, it all worked out.

And now the countdown to finals begins. Fun!

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before moving on to less exciting, but more positive, news than David's heart problem, I wanted to say thank you to you all. David and I have really appreciated all the calls, emails, comments and general good wishes from everyone. We can be rather hideously independent in our inability to ask for, or accept, help, but it's really nice knowing so many people care. I'm not terribly sentimental, despite my astonishing ability to cry at the most maudlin commercials, but aww, I'm just so touched!

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was working on this post Thursday morning before David saw the cardiologist and our weekend plans changed. I've decided to post it anyway, though, since I can.

Our running is proceeding somewhat smoothly, although we won't be continuing for another 2 weeks, or so, when David is all recovered. We're up to 7 minute stretches, with 2 minute walks, but next we jump to 10 minutes and then the plan indicates within 4 weeks we'll be running for an hour. Of course I'm not sure we'll agree with the plan, but so far things have gone quite well, except...

I have always been prone to side 'stitches.' I don't know if my diaphram is in the wrong place or what, but I get cramps fairly easily, which is part of the reason I haven't liked running till now. But with the running program I didn't even think about getting stitches until last week, when at the end of the fifth running set I got a debilitating pain in my side. Ouch! Naturally we did all sorts of research on the web and the next time we went out I tried various things (side stretches, breathing out when landing on my left foot, drinking water 30 minutes before, you know, precautionary things), but I still a got a cramp. So the following outing I tried some more things (like not wearing my cool water bottle-belt) and it worked. I was really excited because much to my surprise I enjoy running and I was worried I'd have to stop if the stitches didn't go away. But, everything worked and I ran the whole set. So of course we had to celebrate, which meant I decided we should go climb the wall at REI.

Continue reading "running, like a rock" »

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. After consulting with a cardiologist, I had a cardiac catheterization, an invasive procedure where a catheter was inserted in the large artery on the right side of my groin and “floated” to a position above my heart. During the procedure one artery (mid-left anterior descending--the "main" one) was measured to be 90-95% constricted, and a stainless steel stent was placed to re-open the artery.
2. After the catheterization, my femoral artery bled, and two nurses took turns leaning on my groin for 30 minutes. I have never before felt such excruciating pain for such a prolonged time. With genuine concern, the nurses repeatedly apologized, while pushing with all their weight. My organs felt crushed and I imagined my pelvis breaking. (I may take issue the next time a women tells me that I don’t know what the pain of childbirth feels like.)
3. After the bleeding stopped, I lay flat and still for five hours, after which a doctor examined the wound and praised the nurses. The next day, an ultrasound showed the femoral artery was fine and I just had a big honking hematoma, which I was told was a fortunate outcome.
4. Repeated blood tests showed that I did not have a heart attack, not even a small one. In fact, I learned that my heart muscle was strong, my arteries (except the one obvious exception) were large and “pristine,” and after a couple weeks of recovery, my heart will be at 100%. In a year, artery tissue will grow around the stent, completely encasing it.
5. Anti-climactically, the post-surgery EKG was the same as the pre-surgery EKG. I questioned the doctor who signed my hospital discharge: he said this was the reason cardiology is so tricky and I shouldn't really be worried about the EKG results.
6. I was discharged from the hospital yesterday: I feel fine, aside from a tender leg and groin in several pretty shades of violet, which makes me slow and purposeful.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (5)

David is recovering from the procedure this morning with a brand new part. They put a stent in the left descending artery, which traditionally they call the "widow-maker" because of it's history in widowing women until about 20 years ago, when precautionary measures and new techniques came around. I'm so relieved!

When they got in with the catheter and the nifty x-ray pictures, they discovered that that artery was constricted by 90-95%. Oops. So he has to spend the night in the hospital, again, but everything is going pretty well. He's fully alert and hideously uncomfortable from having to lie flat for 5 hours, so the puncture site doesn't bleed. They probably just let him sit up, though. I'm bringing the laptop back so we can watch some movies tonight. We can't use cell phones, but we can watch The Music Man!

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well wouldn't you know it, it turns out the joke is on David. He saw the cardiologist at noon today, who ran another EKG, really didn't like what he saw, or the fact that today's results aren't the same as the results from Tuesday, and told David he wanted to admit him to the hospital immediately. Sigh.

So, sometime tomorrow morning David will be the proud experiencer of a cardiac catheterization. He might get a stent put in, they might say he just needs medicine, or they may tell him his heart's fine and it's something else entirely. What fun!

Naturally we intend to milk this experience for all the posts we can get, so stay tuned.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since the beginning of my new running routine, I've occasionally experienced mild chest pains within the first few minutes of running. Naturally, when my chest hurt, I slowed down considerably or stopped, the pain faded quickly, and minutes later, I could run normally, even swiftly, pain free. I began to associate the pain with scrimped warm-ups. I should add that most of these episodes were before I bought a heart monitor, which Leah still refers to as a "toy." One of the first insights I had with my new toy was how my pulse quickened alarmingly when I started to run too fast near the start. So, I found and activated an alarm on the watch to beep if my pulse exceeds 80% of my maximum heart rate. With care, the pains have become much less frequent, but for the sake of precaution, I still made an appointment last week to get a checkup Student Health Services.

This morning, in a lugubriously designed grey building labeled, "Medical Arts," I saw a nurse and then a doctor, who asked questions and listened to my chest. Everything went well at first: exercise-induced asthma was unlikely; heart disease was unlikely, but an EKG had to be done, just in case. The nurse wheeled the EKG machine into the room and stuck 12 small patches on me (including, what struck me as odd at first, one on each ankle), and then smiled and threatened to shave my chest if the patches didn’t adhere. After a pause, she recanted and said she would only have to shave two small square patches (as though this was a better option! If you’ve seen hilarious film, Forty Year Old Virgin, you should appreciate that I wanted to use the term “Man-o-lantern” here.) Fortunately, the patches stuck despite my chest hair, and the EKG machine ran successfully, but labeled my results "abnormal." Puzzlingly, the nurse said, for this machine, an abnormal result was normal. The doctor thought the results were slightly abnormal, but okay, said the machine was very sensitive (Had I offended the machine?) and would double check the results with a specialist over the phone.

The cardiologist was less upbeat with a recommendation that I immediately be submitted to the emergency room, where, I was told, I would undergo similar tests and then eventually be asked to perform a stress test, probably, the following day. I did not speak to the cardiologist; I was told about the emergency room by the consulting doctor, who concluded in low voice: this is the process. His tone was meek, disbelieving and without a hint of confidence. He even left the room twice to check the recommendation with a supervisor. While logically, I didn’t believe for a moment that I should be taken in an ambulance to the hospital, which by the way, was across the street, primitive parts of my brain heard, “emergency room!” My heart raced, and I briefly worried the phoned doctor's fears would be fulfilled. After the panic passed, I questioned, "what was the emergency?" I had not had pain today, or for more than a week. Wouldn't it be dishonest to go the emergency room without the namesake requirement, and how much would it cost? My questions were met with polite understanding and the ingenious explanation that the cardiologist said so.

After some thought, I decided I would not go to the emergency room. I just wanted a referral to a cardiology office, where I could get a second opinion and the stress test. My refusal was the first time during the office visit that I felt I had any control over the direction of my own health care. Was I being foolish or stubborn? Was the relayed voice of the cardiologist, with whom I had had no consultation, just being cautious with my health? I judged: no. I imagined the doctor’s mortal concern was about losing his or her summer home to a frivolous lawsuit. In fairness, I don’t really blame the cardiologist: unnecessarily cautious doctors aren’t sued, even if unnecessary recommendations aren’t in the patience’s best interest. Because I refused to be taken to the emergency room, I had to sign a form, which removed Student Health’s liability, and left the office, amid grave looks from the staff.

I’ve made an appointment to see a cardiologist on Thursday. If I die in the next two days, I’ll feel pretty silly, and of course there’ll no chance to sue Student Health for lost wages.

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David was in the middle of redesigning our website last Thursday when the internet connection disappeared and we've been without the internet since. I have no idea what to do with myself without the internet! It's amazing how much time it takes up. Thursday, though, I wasn't too concerned about not being able to access internet because I was doing something a lot more fun. I spent 8 hours at the Braddock hospital being trained to be an "Ambassador" for the BirthCircle.

The BirthCircle is a tiny non-profit in Pittsburgh that started about 5 or 6 years ago to do something about the racial disparity of deaths of pregnant women and their infants in east Pittsburgh (which has some significant economic disparity, too). To do this, the group used Ambassadors, in an informal peer education program to talk to women in their communities about pregnancy and infant health issues, and provided free doula services, to support the birth process itself for low-income women. They've been so successful in East Liberty, the neighborhood they initially targeted, that they've been asked to expand the program to Braddock and Wilkinsburg, two small boroughs that geographically are part of Pittsburgh, even though they have entirely seperate governments. (The East Coast is so weird!)

I heard about the BirthCircle from a friend who volunteers as a doula for them. Since it fits so perfectly with what I'd like to do after I graduate (well, except we hope to be somewhere in Africa), I signed up for the next training session, which was last Thursday. I learned lots of neat stuff, especially about breast feeding! I'm hoping I'll be able to use the information with the Somali women I see through the tutoring I've done, but we'll see how it goes. My astonishing lack of Maay (the language most of the Somalis speak) may limit the information exchange. But then the Somali women probably know a whole lot more about the process of pregnancy and birth than I do.

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Last weekend we went down to Alexandria to help Irene move to her new apartment. It's not at all far from her old one, a whopping 8 minutes, according to google maps, and she doesn't have a lot of furniture, so the move itself went relatively well. However, it may be the last time I help a book lover move apartments without an elevator. David, in an effort to streamline the process, had us each in a "zone" so we handed stuff off to the person in the next "zone" rather like a bucket-line to put out fires, and I ended up on the stairs for a majority of the time. And book boxes are never small! Ooof.

Sunday, though, we had some free time in the morning before I had to start working on a literature review due Thursday, so we went into Georgetown. (I say this as though it wasn't demanded by me, but actually I really wanted to go to Patagonia. I love their pants!) Irene had mentioned offhandedly that we would have to take the metro from a different stop, since the nearest one, Crystal City, was close because of the Marine Corps Marathon, but we were all unprepared for the fact that the race crossed into D.C., meaning the bus into Georgetown from our last metro station wasn't running. We ended up walking, since it's not all that far, and we got to walk alongside the race, which was lots of fun. We came across one of the Marine bands playing YMCA, which we all found hilarious, given the original group to make the song famous; saw one of the runners talking on her cell phone (in fairness, she was towards the end of the pack); and I was enlightened as to how much littering goes on during a race. It's shocking! Not just the paper cups at the water stations, which get swept up, but the clothes! There were shirts and gloves and hats scattered all along the route. Such a pity. At any rate, we had fun watching, David took lots of pictures, and I got to go to Patagonia, so it was a fine morning.

In Irene's never ending determination to make us watch as many Hindi films as possible, she and David were supposed to go see Don while I worked on my paper. Given the activity of the day before, though, they were too bushed to sit through the three hours, so we all ended up at a Barnes and Noble, instead. But fear not, we've been committed to watching a "curry western" from beginning to end in one sitting over Thanksgiving, so we'll get our Bollywood fix in yet.

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Has either of us mentioned that we're taking a yoga class at school? We go twice a week for about an hour and I love it! We started last year with a yoga/pilates class, but we preferred the yoga, so we signed up for Yoga 1, this semester. Susan, our teacher, has all sorts of links on the class site and one of them is to Amazing Yoga, a studio about five long blocks away from our apartment. I discovered this a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to go ever since, but hadn't managed it till this morning.

They practice a kind of power yoga at the studio, which I was looking forward to, but there's an article about the studio that mentions the heat is kept above 80. You'd think this wouldn't faze me, since we've traveled in some hot places, but the only time I've fainted was due to the heat in a hammam in Morocco, so I was little nervous. Well, it turns out the heat wasn't just kept 'above 80' it was actually set at 95. Or at least that's what the gauge on the wall read. I didn't actually pass out, but it was a near thing at one point. I was, however, 'glowing' throughout the entire practice. I have very healthy sweat glands.

I muddled through, though, and actually had a great time. I plan to go back, partly because I really do love yoga, partly because they have a discount for students (30%), and partly because I need to justify the expense of the grip-y towel I bought. I may save $4 a class, but I have to go to 12 classes to make up for the $50 towel so David doesn't laugh at me. Hee.

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Pittsburgh has some great "things to do" that we've been trying to take advantage of this year. As opposed to last year, of course, when I ran around in circles trying to organize conferences during school and David sat watching and shaking his head in faint disgust. One of our new favorite "finds" is the Drew Heinz lecture series. David went to hear Susan Orlean a few weeks ago. He enjoyed reading The Orchid Thief, but she is not, apparently, the world's best lecturer (too much reading, not enough talking).

Tonight, though, we went to see Bill Bryson, who's mostly known for his travel books like A Walk in the Woods, and I'm a Stranger Here Myself. Wow, did we have a fabulous time. Last summer while in The Gambia we each read A Short History of Nearly Everything and enjoyed it thoroughly, though we have yet to read any of his other books (don't worry, they're on hold at the library). He's out promoting his new book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a memoir about growing up in Des Moines during the fifties.

One of the things Bryson said he missed about the fifties was the humor. He thinks we're too serious now, and no one really jokes with each other the way they used to about small, everyday things. When he was living in New Hampshire in the mid-nineties, there was a storm and his neighbor had a small, bushy tree blow down. The next morning, as his neighbor was cutting the tree up into smaller pieces and putting them on top of his car to haul the whole thing away, Bryson came out and joked: "Oh, I see you're camouflaging your car." David nudged me and said "That's something Papa would say." In fact, much of the evening was a reminder of Papa's humor, bad puns and all, which made it even more enjoyable.

In addition to telling funny stories and reading passages from some of his books, Bryson took questions at the end. The last question was: Why, when you can live anywhere in the world, do you choose to live in England? It turns out his wife is English, and they've lived in England previously, but have also lived in New Hampshire for quite sometime until moving back to England a few years ago. He said it wasn't any one thing about New Hampshire that made them move, though avoiding another New England weather was a reason; it wasn't that we keep electing George Bush, and he'd finally gotten used to driving around with "Live Free or Die" on his license plate, although he'd always thought it was a bit extreme. He could see "Live Free or Bitch Mightily," but thought being willing to die is a little much. I laughed so hard I got tear stains all over the inside of my glasses.

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David and I have been following a rather stringent "diet" lately, much to the chagrin of my family, by giving up sugar. It's not really a diet, more a life-style change, which makes it worse, I think, for most people when they hear about it. We've already more or less successfully given up hydrogenated fat (that's tough; we have to read labels on everything now), I'm a vegetarian when we're not traveling, we've cut out eggs and many dairy products and generally, everything has gone really well. But once we got back to Pittsburgh after this summer, we decided we needed to give up sugar, too. Sugar really messes up your system and we've (weirdly) turned all sorts of healthy in the last few years. So, other than the debauched weekend of Uncle Alan and Ellen's wedding (how could we not eat a piece of the cake?), we haven't had sugar this semester. Until tonight.

Craving pizza (clearly we haven't given up cheese), we went to Joe Mama's to eat. They have pretty good Italian-American food, and it's a nice place to eat that manages to balance it's mostly undergrad crowd with a grown-up feel. We had a stuffed portobello mushroom for an appetizer and then split a roma, mozzarella and basil pizza. But then, I heard the waitress talking about their tiramisu with a customer and I decided I had to have some. Fortunately, David has this great argument about moderation-in-all-things, so I got to use that to convince him that after 6 or 7 weeks of going without sugar, once wouldn't hurt us.

Of course we promptly felt like we'd consumed an entire 5 pound bag of sugar and were left feeling vaguely ill. We had to stop on the walk home because we each had a stitch in our sides and I'm now having to employ the backspace key with annoying regularity because my fingers are too jittery to hit the right keys.

It'll be a long time before we have another tiramisu. Unless we go back to Italy, of course.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (2)

Carnegie Library, Oakland

Inside, the library, there are some really neat features including: access to an enormous consortium (thereby enriching my life with even more books); extremely helpful librarians, so that ordering new books is relatively simple (though the Circulation staff tends to be a tad surly); and one of my favorite features, a 'World Fiction' section. It's on the ground floor, with the other new book sections, and since I know you're dying to hear what those sections are, I'll tell you: fiction, non-fiction, mysteries, horror, science fiction, gay and lesbian, short stories, biographies and African American, plus, of course, paperbacks, new or otherwise.

World fiction is supposed to include new translated fiction, though in that idiosyncratic way that computer databases are updated, I've found the newest book by an author back in the 'regular' fiction stacks, while their second newest is still out in the 'world fiction' section, but whatever. As long as I find new authors, I don't really care. I really appreciate this section, because otherwise, I would never find these books. So little gets translated into English, that if they weren't rounded up into a separate section, I'd glance right past them while browsing the shelves. And nobody wants that!

However, being a library lover, means I'm a little compulsive about visiting the library. I've already maxed out my hold list (set at 50), and I'm continuously in danger of maxing out my checkout limit (also 50). Which is why my reading list is never truly current: I'm too busy reading to update. But how can you pass up all those books? Plus, there are all the movies and CDs. There just isn't enough time in the day.

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Inflicting my tendency to rant on unsuspecting readers regarding how much I dislike the current state of the world and what's not being done to help people in developing countries doesn't seem very nice, some how, especially since I can go on about development and inequality. However, international development is what I study, which is why I gave a presentation, this weekend, on maternal mortality in Africa at a conference at which one of the main themes was the Millennium Development Goals. Carol Welch, the U.S. coordinator of the Millennium Campaign gave a brief overview of the 8 goals, and it occurred to me that probably not many Americans know about them, which is too bad (and which is why this post is full of links!), since the goals are an example of one of the only times every country in the UN reached an agreement on the need to take action against poverty. So go check them out: they're pretty cool.

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****We interrupt your regularly entertaining blog to bring you a special guest entry written by Irene, Leah's sister.****

Due to the project I have been working on at PBS, I was unable to take any vacation time until this month. As someone who has been ensconced in academia for several years, this took a little getting used to. Pittsburgh is actually the second leg of my vacation. I was visiting friends in Atlanta from the 8th through the 17th. That was a very, very nice and relaxing vacation. Essentially I was not allowed to do anything except read (I read or re-read 8 books), watch films (7 Hindi and 2 American films), eat tons of food (mainly Indian) and sleep (at least 8 hours a night). Now, that's what I think a vacation should be--getting pushed around by elderly Chinese women as David was is not my idea of a good time--though I think he would agree with me on that point. My Pittsburgh mini-vacation has been equally nice, though not really as restful. This is not because I've been required to do anything--indeed, the complete opposite. However, I feel as though I should be more active simply because Leah and David are. They've gotten up at 6 AM all but one of the mornings I've been here. And to add insult to injury (in my ever so humble opinion), they were then extremely active after waking--either going to the gym or doing their running/walking routine (which they'll tell you all about if you show the least bit of interest, or even if you don't). 6!! AM!!!! Feel free to take a moment to shake your head over the very thought--I'll wait.

The only morning they didn't rise and shine at 6 was on Friday morning and that was because we were all rudely awakened at 2 AM by the fire alarm. This, I learned, happens far more often that it should. They were chattering away about old wiring and foolish, foolish undergrads leaving stove/microwaves unattended all the while I was trying to stop from curling up on the steps of the church across the street from their apartment building and going back to sleep. David's story about the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas burning years ago and the enormous fireball that burst out the entrance which melted the cars parked across the street managed to rouse me a little. Now, I don't mean to worry you unnecessarily--the fire people came, spent what seemed about 5 seconds in the building and gave the all clear. Leah learned the next day that while the wiring is old, the detection system is relatively new and they believe a spider rested its legs for a little too long on the microchip sensor.

With the exception of that abrupt and quite rude interruption, this has been a most congenial and pleasant way to end my vacation time. I've been to the library twice, read 3 books, had the opportunity to have Caribou hot chocolate twice (the chocolate shavings on top of the whipped cream is what makes it better than others), enjoyed my first glass of Guinness and been bossed around by Junior She Who Must Be Obeyed. Now, while this last point may not seem terribly pleasant, it does bring about a certain sense of nostalgia for our childhood which is nice to experience-- occasionally. Lest you think I was completely useless, I did chauffer them both to Whole Foods where they stocked up on the heavier items (for example, they bought a carton of rice milk). I also brought a summer's worth of Entertainment Weekly magazines for them to peruse and 5 Hindi DVDs. While I have attempted to broaden their movie experiences, they nixed the idea of watching more than a few. And as I leave tomorrow, the "few" is turning into more like 1 plus some Hindi songs from one or two others. For example, we watched the first half of one last night (Dil Chata Hai), but they decreed that it should be stopped at intermission and finished this evening. Now, I agree with them that in comparison to most American films, Indian films run a little long. Dil Chata Hai, for example, has a running time of 185 minutes (just over 3 hours) Still, for all their being active at 6 AM!!!!, they really are big wimps.

****This concludes the special guest portion of Leah and David's website. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.****

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Three days a week, for the last couple of weeks, Leah and I have been running together. Just before dawn, we take a short walk out to Schenley--a large, elaborate park with many broad, tree lined trails, picnicking and playground equipment, hills, valleys, huge bridges, stairs and a pond with sleepy looking ducks--where we join a handful of other early risers. Among the early risers is Army. (Note: it's not "the" Army, just Army; especially, after netflixing Arrested Development and belly-laughing when Buster explains that he is home early because, "Army had a half day." Everyone should watch it.)

Panther Lake, Schenley Park

Actually, the runners wearing blue shorts and grey shirts with Army logos must be ROTC, but we like to say we run with Army, though in reality, they run past us. They run ahead because in the beginning stages of our "program", there is more prescribed walking than running (e.g. yesterday, we ran for 1min, walked for 4min, and repeated this 8 times.) Inevitably, we discuss other runners' techniques and form questions. Do they have good posture? Do they "break" by placing a foot too far forward when it contacts the ground? Do they bounce, and thereby uselessly exert power upwards? Heel kick? Arm position? And most importantly, are we really qualified to impute aspects of their form? No, but we have been reading about running technique, and now possess an intellectual's arm-chair view of the sport, even though our own forms are far from correct. Despite this, observation is a reasonable strategy, and Army conveniently includes a statistically motley bunch. There are text-book runners, smooth runners, bouncers, high kickers, flailers, stompers, and even a puzzling gait that swings the torso wildly from side to side. Hopefully, our own trots will improve with time. By the end of our 13-week program, we should be running for 60min, continuously--we'll see.

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Sedentary life (of a sort) returned this week with the start of school. This semester, I'm studying Sanskrit, taught in a closet-sized room that fits exactly one large desk and 14 student desks in two rows. Fortunately for me, the teacher worked as an Electrical Engineer at Westinghouse for 20 years and, in addition to the ancient script, speaks Engineerese. You know, when a person sprinkles "gradient" and "parse" into conversational speech--my sort of people. Though, I do feel badly for the others in the class who major in Classics and Religion.

If you want to know why I'm taking Sanskrit, I can only provide the following picture of a Sanskrit quotation from my textbook:

If you don't love alphabets and scripts, I can't really explain any further.

Outside of Sanskrit class, I should report that I'm mostly sore muscles after falling into a new exercise routine. Other than the yoga class Leah and I are taking, exercise this week involves "anatomical adaptation" or basically going through the motions of exercise, with a fraction of the weight or effort. As weeks pass, the weights and exercise become heavier and more difficult, respectively. This is based on a synthesized recommendation from several of the library's finest books--clearly, authored by obsequious high school gym coaches. (Seriously, do all of these books have to include lame motivational speeches?) So far, my "workout" includes: picking up a couple of heavy weights to determine, for each exercises, my "one-rep max", which is used to calculate the weights for my new "sets and reps"; practicing saying, "sets and reps" without giggling; biking easily for 15 minutes, just long enough to make my butt hurt; slowly surveying the running route I plan to use; and splashing in the pool for 20 minutes. In other words, I've been relatively lazy this week and the meager effort I did put forth made me hurt.

Routine will pause this long weekend, while we drive east, visit friends, Zach and Corey, and continue to Danvers, Mass. to celebrate my Uncle Alan and his fiancee Ellen's nuptials.

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