Drude’s blog

Demonstration in Copenhagen

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:28:14 +0100

The 900+ arrests are all over the news today, but we didn't see ANY of that during the demonstration.
I heard some loud bangs of fireworks or explosions and knew there was probably something going on in the back...
but there were 2 km worth of people and I was fairly close to the front.

I arrived just after the speeches were done in front of the parliament buildings.
- I was NOT going to stand around in freezing cold for an hour listening to politicians.. sorry!

Copenhagen demonstration against climate change

and the organizers were TRYING to get their 'ducks' in a row for the walk part.

They were overwhelmed.

Milling around before start

People were milling around in good mood and no particular direction.

There were lots of people dressed up... either as animals, as extraterrestrials, or... just weird

There were a fair number of flotation devices and such like (these two below are videos)

There were young and old, families and groups of friends

There were a NUMBER of different causes... more or less tangential to the climate debate
hare krishna, greenpeace, no to war and occupation, vegans, free Tibet,
Canadian first nations against tar sand extraction... they were all there.

free Tibet

There were also people from all over the world.
Representatives from all continents and quite a few ethnic minorities...
they are often the ones who suffer first from climate change

(and some videos, French, German, Sami)

The police were there... of course.
Where I was, they were all in a good mood and helping people with a smile.

We eventually started walking, and walked for about 3 hours out to the conference center where the climate summit is being held.

There was chanting...
and these are videos, so you'll have to click them to hear the chants...
There were many different - in many different languages.

There was also bands along the way playing music...
the music had absolutely nothing to do with climate...
we kinda don't have a climate march song... or fight song...
I would have liked to have ONE song for all 100'000 to sing...

Music

la bamba

It was dark long before we reached the finish line, and people were tired when we got there. Nothing was going on except some ploink-ploink music and the organizers trying to pull all emergency brakes on 2 km's worth of people all wanting to get to the finish line...
They kept repeating that people up front were getting crushed from the masses arriving behind them.

There were bazillions of cold and hungry people in need of bathrooms.... none of which could be helped.

so I decided to call it a day and take the train home.

the end of the road

tired demonstrators resting

Of course... tens of thousands had the same idea, and the trains and stations were completely stuffed full of people

I got home and warm and had dinner and thought it was a great Saturday.

Amazing lady

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The cat news

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:18:47 +0100

This morning I woke up from a dream where for some reason I had live mice in my mouth... I assume the dream-fairy meant that one for one of the cats, - either that or one of the cats was telepathetically messing with my subconscious... or something... anyways... woke up with a desperate urge to brush my teef.

Now I got that out of the way I can get to the more serious matters. My little Kitty is still ill, and will not recover.
We've gone from total misery and vomits and cat-hospital every 3'rd day where they put her on drip...

Kitty not feeling too good

Grumpy conehead

to bright moments where I thought she'd magically recover...

Sunny day

but now it just seems like it's insanely slowly but steadily going downhill..
or she's stable at a state where she doesn't really eat... which isn't a stable state..
but she's fairly OK.. for a dying cat.

not a happy camper

She's camping out in my bedroom with Purple Mousie in the cat-tent.

Kitty and Purple mousie camping out on my bed

She barely eats anything, but I force water in her 2-3 times a day with a syringe, and that keeps her reasonably stable (no rushing to hospital every few days at least).

no fuds plz.

She's shrinking. It's the weirdest thing... not just getting skinny - really shrinking... look:

Shrunk cat

Anyway, it may be a day, or a week, or a month...
I check every day that she's eating, purring and playing...
as long as she does all three we're not going back to the stinky place for that last injection.
And she does amazingly behave fairly happy... sometimes at least:

noms

plays

Urracá is locked out of the bedroom and not entirely happy with that, but he does what he can to help.

Today for instance, he bravely fought this lone, wounded toilet paper roll.

Lone and wounded TP-roll

There's (apparently) nothing as dangerous as a TP-roll when it's wounded and away from it's herd and territory, but Urracá fearlessly wrestled it to the ground and gave it what it deserved.

Killer of TP rolls

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I wish I could be unaware!

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:30:42 +0100

It’s been breast cancer awareness month all October. Everywhere I go there are pink ribbons and bracelets and all sorts of pink plastic junk with the slogan “support the breasts” on it (very witty!)... sweet clueless teenagers sell it at the check out in the shops. It’s all good of course... awareness saves lives, and they need the money for research and helping patients....

but I soooo WISH I could be unaware.

Bald in hammock

I wish I was unaware that one in 10 women get breast cancer.
I wish I was unaware that a bit over a third of those diagnosed die from it.
If you know more than 30 women, then statistically, one of us will die from breast cancer. There are regional differences in risk, and every year they find more new bc cases than they did the year before. Where I live there are now twice as many cases a year as there were in 1940 (after correcting for population growth). You can get it at any age - and men can get it too, although that is extremely rare. There are very few cases in women less than 35 years old, and most cases are diagnosed between ages 50 and 70. I was 35.

I wish I was unaware of how it feels when the Dr. tells you that he’ll have to remove part or all of your breast... It goes along the lines of “NOOO they be stealin’ my womanhood!!!”, “Will I ever have sex again? – how would a new guy react?” & “Thank goodness it’s just ‘spare parts’ that you can live without”... yea, that last one takes a while to surface, but it’s true... lovely as they are, breasts really aren’t all that important in your everyday life.

I wish I was unaware of how dodgy and manipulative the statistics are that the Dr. uses to explain how various treatments could increase your survival chances. You don’t need to be a scientist to know percentages should add up to 100, right? When they don’t, it means their reference frame (I mean out of WHAT is this a percentage) can be different for each value. That means you can’t really compare the values unless you can make them have the same reference frame somehow. The dr.’s never told me what the reference frames were. They used the values that made treatments look best.... So ok, maybe you need that little manipulation to get over your natural resentment for seriously unpleasant treatments, maybe it would be even more dodgy if they had to extrapolate different studies to make them comparable.... but I wish they’d give more full clear and honest information.

I wish I was unaware of all the different kinds of reconstructive surgery. The ugliness and the pain you have to go through to get to something barely acceptable that will last max 10 years.. I wish I was unaware of how it feels to have a “waterballoon” under my pectoral muscle that gets sqeezed when I lift things or pull heavy doors towards me. I wish I was unaware that people STARE... although they did stop staring as soon as they could see just something lopsided breast-like. I guess they just needed to know which one it was and get used to it. You couldn't tell at first because the swelling from the wound fills out the empty hole.

I wish I was unaware of the metallic taste of chemotherapy and how nausea can be brought on by even the faintest smell of food. I wish I was unaware of the tiredness... a tiredness so overpowering that I could be thirsty next to a glass of water and just go back to sleep because it seemed too much effort to reach out and pick it up and lift it to my mouth. I wish I was unaware that your whole scull aches when your hair falls out. I wish I didn't know how scary it is to know you will have no immune system for the next 10 days.

I wish I was unaware that a negligible percentage of patients have horribly bad reactions to chemotherapy. I seem to be in all those little negligible percentages. I spent a month in hospital with so high fever I was shaking the entire bed around. I got oxygen because I had water on the lungs. The dr’s were unable to find out what was the matter. The nurse who took my temperature and pulse at night held my hand for a bit and looked really sad. My mom slept on a spare bed in my hospital room. My best friend came and made funny faces at me and played the clown to cheer me up, and fed me with a spoon doing all sorts of silly baby-feeding stuff to make me eat more. I was SOOOO tired.

I wish I was unaware that the end of chemo and getting out of hospital is not the end of it. It took about a year of tiredness before I got back to where I could work a full day again...This happens to about half the chemotherapy patients. I wish I was unaware that there are losses of memory and concentration that can’t be recovered. I wish I was unaware that this long period of getting back to normal is where I lost contact with many friends. I got out of touch. I turned down their invitations too many times. I never had the energy. I didn’t visit. I didn’t call. I had nothing to tell other than that nothing had happened and I had been doing nothing all day. I know they love me, and it was hard on them, especially my best friends, but I just didn’t have the energy to deal.

I wish I was unaware that after going through all the above there are still five years of chemically induced menopause. My cancer was hormone sensitive... that means it would grow if it got estrogen. So my hormone receptors get blocked with drugs. It gives me hot flashes and cramps in the feet and calves at night. But otherwise it’s just a pill I have to take every day for five years.

I wish I was unaware of the use of lymph nodes. They removed just a few from my armpit to check if the cancer had spread (it hadn't). Those should have been draining liquid from my arm. Now, I can’t carry my shopping in a backpack or hike with a day-pack for more than an hour before my arm starts swelling into a painful michelin man arm. It can take more than a day to drain again if it swells up. It could become permanent if I don’t watch out and render my right arm useless.

I wish I was unaware that I am one of the lucky (knock on wood). I wish I was unaware of the girls I met on the breast cancer web sites, looking for answers like me. Strong women, witty smart caring women, sensitive vulnerable women. Pouring out their hearts about their fears, their pains and frustrations, wishes for their kids and the future and their joys of sunny days and good company. And then one day a friend writes in the comments how they found peace only days after posting last.

I SO WISH I could be totally unaware.

(this is re-posted from two years ago here)

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I lit a candle

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:34:58 +0200

I lit a candle for Kitty

Kitty

Today i checked Kitty into hospital with kidney failure.
They said sometimes cats pull through if you just give them lots of liquids.
I go in there tomorrow morning to see how she's doing.
They are going to give her fluids and monitor the urine until monday.

Furball

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

One of the (rarer) dangers of field biology....

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:28:30 +0200

One of the (rarer) dangers of field biology....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8281382.st...

When Stephen Fry goes in search of the rare kakapo - "the old night parrot of New Zealand" - he finds himself privy to an unusual mating ritual which is "one of the funniest things he has ever seen".

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:45:20 +0200

Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification

This groundbreaking NRDC documentary explores the startling phenomenon of ocean acidification, which may soon challenge marine life on a scale not seen for tens of millions of years. The film, featuring Sigourney Weaver, originally aired on Discovery Planet Green.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

uh-oh, Danish promiscuity made it to the BBC... this is a PR stunt

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:42:38 +0200

uh-oh, Danish promiscuity made it to the BBC... this is a PR stunt

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology...

Ms Kiilerich said she regretted any offence the video may have caused, but the intent had been to tell "a nice and sweet story about a grown-up woman who lives in a free society and accepts the consequences of her actions".

video

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America' - Telegraph

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:32:41 +0200

Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...

no freedom of speech for evolutionary biology...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Cow Advertising -?

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:15:51 +0200

Cow Advertising

Running out of places to advertise?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Sleepy sunday

nobody@vox.com(Drude) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:26:16 +0200

YAWN

Sunday

Right, where were we...
I was cooking!

I get this fantastic box of organic vegetables
a random assortment of organic veg,
- that is if I remember to order it from their website.
it just magically appears on my doorstep on a fridays..

So it happened...
as it often does...
I cook all the things I think make a good meal together,
and then there are three or four things left...
that I have NO effing clue what to make out of.

So here's today's challenge for you:
make/find me a yummy recipe (or menu) with all or some of these ingredients (see picture)...
and NO SOUP, I know it looks like soup, but we're NOT in the middle of winter and I refuse to make soup.

If you can't see what's what, there's corn on the cob, pumpkin, colorful carrots, summer cabbage and little fresh beetroots... you may use OTHER things too.

veggie challenge

I already have a loaf to go with it...
in my basket

Furloaf

OK, go!
I'll try to think of a prize...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend