A Tidings of Magpies

and could you please move your big head from in front of the monitor screen, Mr. Likes-To-Get-In-My-Way-While-I-Am-Trying-To-Work...?? The Cure by Ginger Andrews Lying around all day with some strange new deep blue weekend funk, I'm not really asleep when my sister calls to say she's just hung up from talking with Aunt Bertha who is 89 and ill but managing to take care of Uncle Frank who is completely bed ridden. Aunt Bert says it's snowing there in Arkansas, on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't been able to walk out to their mailbox. She's been suffering from a bad case of the mulleygrubs. The cure for the mulleygrubs, she tells my sister, is to get up and bake a cake. If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.

I've read about this woman before, Jill Bolte Taylor,a Harvard trained neuroanatomist, and her memories of the experience of having a stroke. The following article from The New York Times reminded me of her again today and from there was led to a video of her lecture. For anyone who works with brains or works inside a brain this is a fascinating travelogue of her experience. It's 18-20 minutes, so grab your favorite cuppa of caffeine. What follows is an entirely different perspective on what we tend to think of as our "mind," and as she calls it, "a stroke of insight." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/fashion/25brain.html?ex=1369540800&en=07681691446404c8&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Excellent thumbs up there, big guy.

Now that is just plain wrong. My ONLY defense is that I have vacation coming up in 10 days and I really need one. Seriously. Also, is this the proper way to pack for carry ons?? also reallocated from: http://scienceblogs.com/twominds/

(*stolen from http://www.citizenofthemonth.com/ and Neilochka. Thanks. It's an honor just to be nominated.) I'm going to NeuroLand for two days of funfilled bliss. MRI's!! CT scans!! Cerebral angiographies galore!! Please keep arms and legs inside the carraiges at all times and no standing while the rides are in motion. Show me two fingers, stick out your tongue, follow my finger with your eyes. Pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time. Please no inappropriate oozing of bodily fluids. Any visitor who voices more than five sentences about their own health concerns will be forcibly removed from the park. Thank you for your patronage.

Note Please--This title is particularly HIL-AR-IOUS because in Neuro we tend to keep patients' serum sodium levels quite high in order to pull excess fluid off the brain--cerebral edema from their injury . My husband did not think that you would get it. Just wanted you to know so that I'm not sitting here chuckling to myself. Feel free to chuckle along. I've been off for a week now and having a fabulous time, dollinks... Pilates, dance classes, reading, writing, movies, music, running up and down the streets and byways of River City... But, now the time has come for me to go back and work for The Man. However, there will be dancing and merriment tonight with Dance Master Len before I return to caring for sick and bad brains. please note--art by tartx

...if only we were all as safety conscious.