The beginnings of fall....

The change begins:
Here's a photo from my drive home. The green in the leaves is fading slowly, allowing the reds, yellows and browns to come out. I'll see if I can repeat this picture with some regularity over the next few weeks.

Hospital pic for the day:
Today they added some spiky things to the top left side of the steel frame. On a castle, I'd call them crenellations. They'd serve as protection when firing weapons and give you a great vantage point for pouring boiling oil and other nastiness on your enemies. They'd make good rope attachment points for rapelling or climbing too.

Upcoming entertainment:
Tom the Hispasian's favorite movie, Borat, is coming out in early November. In honor of the President of Hispasia, I feel the need to go see this film. Tom and I decided that Borat is possibly Hispasian, despite his claim to be from Kazahkstan.

On a related geographical note....
Tom and I used to discuss/malign Uzbekistan fairly frequently when discussing how far away something or some place was from where we were. (eg, "Had to drive halfway to Uzbekistan to find the CD I wanted to buy.") According to the book Unforgettable Journeys to Take Before You Die, one of the trips they recommend is to follow the Silk Road to Samarkand, which is in Uzbekistan. Now that I'm slowly accumulating vacation time, I may have to start planning a vacation. Samarkand sounds like as good a place as any, don't you think?

Today's Rant:
This evening on NPR was a story about cancers in adults who had cancers as kids. One woman who had Hodgkin's lymphoma as a teenager was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in her 30s. She grumbled about how nobody told her she might be at higher risk of cancer either as a side effect of her lymphoma treatments or because she'd already had cancer. One of the doctors interviewed said that very few physicians know to screen their patients for early cancer. I don't buy it. Any patient who provides a GOOD history to their physician ought to include past history of lymphoma. I'm thinking you don't "forget" an illness which may require radiation and/or chemotherapy treatments. It's been common knowledge since the 1980s as far as I know that kids who have cancer early often get it again later. (Hey, it was on PBS, so it's not like it's being kept secret.)

It really sounded like the patient they interviewed was looking for someone to blame for her recent cancer. Wouldn't you be that much more aggressive in preventive care and *asking* for screenings? I know if I had a history of breast cancer in my family I wouldn't be waiting for a mammogram until my 40s. I'd have started getting them already. But that's just me. What do I know. Whatever happened to the practice of medicine being a two-way team effort? Personal responsibility and taking some control over what happens to you. Wouldn't you really be primed to do that especially if you'd already had one serious medical problem?

Tonight's Dinner:
Baked acorn squash stuffed with mashed turnips and carrots with a bit of grated apple and some brown sugar. The recipe is from Crescent Dragonwagon's Passionate Vegetarian. I should have made a nice green salad to go with it, but I didn't think of that until just now.

I did notice as I chopped up the carrots that they're from Bolthouse Farms, the same company who recently recalled all of its carrot juice from the market after several cases of botulism were traced back to their product. It appears that the problem was that the consumers failed to refrigerate the carrot juice after it was opened. Being that carrot juice is a low-acid product, Clostridium botulinum spores survive the processing and were able to germinate, producing toxin. No, I wasn't worried about getting botulism from the fresh carrots. The toxin is only produced under anaerobic (oxygen-free) conditions and my bag of fresh baby carrots was hardly oxygen-free. Botulism spores exist throughout the environment and we probably consume some every day only to have them destroyed by stomach acid.

Tonight's Entertainment:
Just watched two back-to-back episodes of CSI, neither of which I'd seen before. Right now I'm watching Aretha sing "Think!" in the Blues Brothers on AMC. Jake and Elroy are on a mission from God. Now I think I'll go clean up the kitchen and start getting things squared away for work tomorrow.

The temperature is supposed to get into the mid 30s tonight. I think I'll be turning the heat on tonight and definitely finding myself a sweater for tomorrow. The office was freezing today and I understand that's how things will be all winter long. I'm going to have to knit myself a nice warm shawl or stole SOON! I'm happy to know my sweaters won't be going to waste even though I've moved South.