Neither shallow nor deep

Image via WikipediaWhile I did reserve The Shallows, the much-touted book about what the internet is doing to our brains, I did not read it.

I have, however, experienced it.

Sunday, just for the old-fashioned heck of it, I shelled out $6 for a New York Times.  What a pleasure to spread out in bed with it.  Lounge on the couch with it. Read it on the treadmill.  Section after section, reading all day and into Monday, when my beloved New Yorker arrived.   It's the last magazine to which I subscribe, and I've been reading it less and less.

But so quickly had I returned to the reading-on-paper habit, that I sat down and read The New Yorker.

This morning I dialed up (!) the New York Times and ordered Sunday home delivery, then proceeded to sit down and begin reading Julie Salomon's Wendy Wasserstein biography, "Wendy and The Lost Boys."

Aren't I literary!

Not really.  This is Standard Operating Procedure for the pre-internet me, 

And I like it.

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• Author brings Wendy Wasserstein's complexities, gifts to light (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Pick your poison

Image via Wikipedia
Fairview/UofM vs Tria/Park Nicollet.
Back in July, I had an idiotic fall that smashed my wrist.
Treament and surgery were done at Tria, an orthopedic clinic affiliated with Park Nicollet.  The surgeon was good, the day surgery team a marvel of efficiency, and the hand therapists hard-working and resourceful.  They tried every therapeutic trick and torture device to fix the wrist, but four months later, it is painful and almost immobile.   Each department was good at its single mission-but too narrowly focused.  "When do you see the doctor?" my hand therapist would ask, shaking her head at my lack of progress.
I sought a second opinion at Fairview/UofM, a teaching facility, where a Professor of Orthopedics quickly diagnosed the problem:  two tears in the soft tissue.  Loved the way the diagnostic team worked there.  But systemically, what a mess.  Bad followup.  Calls are not returned.  Appoinsments scheduled in the wrong department.  Just plain sloppy, systemically.
So, what to do?  I need a working right hand.  

Pyramid of Egregiousness | Name It. Change It.

Pyramid of Egregiousness | Name It. Change It.

Apropos of nothing

Image via WikipediaWhich must be something like east of the sun.
My son came home from camp with a duffel full of mysteries.
Like where were his fins?
How did his soap return unscathed for the second year running?
And what happened to the other 19 socks?
This kid went to camp with ten pairs and came home with a single sock
"I have issues with socks," he explained.
There was some childhood trauma I was unaware of?
The sock industry gave money to Tom Emmer's campaign?
Who knows?  Who cares?
He came home tall, happy, handsome, 16 pounds lighter, he learned to water ski, and I've got a bar of soap he can use for the third year in a row. 

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Back in the MacSaddle again

Ze cast? She is off.
Seventeen days ago, I tripped and fell, hard; skinning lip, nose, knees, and breaking nose and wrist.
Fourteen days ago, I had surgery on the wrist, which I gather was really broken.

I didn't track the details; not day of fall, day or surgery, or at today's post-op appointment, as I've gotten "vagelly", as one nurse described it.  (Which makes me feel weak, stupid, and worried about an old-lady-falling-down future.)  (I think about how much one injury affected me and marvel at people who recover from multiple insults.)
The good news is the big cast is off and I am typing with two hands.  For someone as attached as I am to keyboarding, my inability to type was harder than my inability to tie, zip, slice, or drive.
So onward, to tai chi and other balance/coordination enhancements.

Noticed - The New Power of Petite Women - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Noticed - The New Power of Petite Women - NYTimes.com

Petite -

Pronunciation: \pə-ˈtēt\

Function: adjective

Etymology: French, feminine of petit

Date: 1784: having a small trim figure —usually used of a woman

Por quoi? We never hear of a petite man. Mai, non.

Only petite women. Because for a woman, the most important attribute is appearance.

Her definition, her value, the content of her character; all secondary.

reBlog from Susan Berkson: Teen Clean Your Room

Image by Adam UXB Smith via Flickr

I found this fascinating quote today:

In a house with a teenager. In other words, at wit's ends. The stepping-on-legos years were tolerable But this is ridiculous. You're not going in there anymore so the kid is going to have to take care of it. June 11.  That's the day we rise up and force those kids to clean their rooms.Susan Berkson, Teen Clean Your Room, Jun 2010

You should read the whole article.