Scientific Ink

Author: Dunrie

  • Catching up with extended family (gratitude, week 12)

    My aunt Mercedes is the organizing force behind the Heinrich family reunions. My mom is one of 5 siblings, and her family is spread out across the US, with my sister’s family forming the southern border in Atlanta, my cousin Donie as the northeastern representative in Weymouth, MA, and my cousins Seamus, Anita, and Willow as the western representatives in Seattle, WA.

    Many family members traveled from around the country to this weekend’s reunion in Logansport, Indiana.

    I got to see my cousin the lovely, fun, and talented actor, dancer, and comedian Jessie Green for the first time in (likely) over a decade, maybe even a score of years! I got to appreciate in person my aunt Mercedes’ beautiful new line of etched dichroic glass jewelry, and best of all I got to hang with the kiddos, my cousin Drake, and my niece and nephew.

    Thanks, Mercedes, for hosting a wonderful reunion!

  • Enjoying getting lost in a book (gratitude, week 11)

    Snow I’ve had an Amazon wish list going for a while, collecting books I hear about that I want to read. It was getting longer and longer. At the same time, I am trying to optimize my belongings to fit into my space and I’m trying to keep the possessions I have in the house from expanding to fill all available space. So, I printed and emptied my Amazon wish list and I’m borrowing books from the Ann Arbor District Library.

    I’m reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow right now. Beautiful, lyrical, sad, lonely, tragic, comic, dark, fun. Poetry and attraction and exile and family and childhood and revolution and secularism and political Islam all entwined in this story. Fun to enter a world so different from my own and see so much I recognize.

  • Considering removing the del.icio.us links autoposts to this blog

    I’m thinking I’m going to not delete any past posts, but also disable the autoposting from my del.icio.us to this blog. I’m also considering deleting past posts, but that seems so much more drastic.

  • The value of downtime: a restorative meditation retreat (gratitude, week 10)

    My meditation center had a 1-day meditation retreat on Saturday. This is probably the most private thing I do, and in the past I’ve hesitated sharing about it. For instance, several acquaintances and colleagues asked me what I was doing this weekend, and I replied “not much” to most of them. I’m not sure where the urge to secrecy comes from. I suppose by many definitions, going into a quiet room and sitting still with several other folks for with the same intention might sound like “not much”, but I knew “not much” was such an understatement as to be an outright lie.

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  • Breathing well (gratitude, week 9)

    neti pot demo 2, originally uploaded by mybloodyself.

    A few years ago, I had a subscription to a yoga magazine which included articles about yoga asanas, living your yoga off the mat, explanations of yoga scriptures like Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and recipes. I liked the magazine. Interspersed with stuff I liked were a few ads and stories about neti pots. They featured beautiful pictures of little ceramic pots, shaped like teapots, that they recommended we use to pour water through our nostrils to clean out the sinuses. I thought they were completely and totally nuts.

    I’m someone who “never” gets sick. I might get some sniffles now and then, or feel a bit achey, but I almost never miss work for illness. Not this year.  In the past 2 months, I’ve missed 4 days of work in 3 different weeks due to illness. This last bout was first a very sore throat, followed by several days of getting better, and then I got knocked over by a sinus infection that also wanted the skin on my face.

    I called the doctor on Monday, and got an appointment for Thursday morning. I imagined I’d be better by then, and anticipated cancelling it. While I was back at work on Wednesday, I wasn’t better enough. I was constantly and unproductively honking into mountains of tissues. The right side of my face seemed completely stuffed with something that didn’t budge. At the advice of my sister, I’d taken to snorting warm saltwater. It was kind of gross drawing it through my nose and spitting it out, but I was desperate. The warmth and the moisture gave me at least a temporary relief. I didn’t want to go anywhere without my bowl, container of salt, and towel.

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  • Loving this winter sunshine (gratitude, week 8)

    What a glorious sunshiney day. My semi-elderly cat is soaking up the rays, moving from chair to chair in the dining room as the sliver of sunshine arcs across the room. He’s loving the sunshine too, flipping over now and then to “brown the other side”.

    winter sunbathing - Floyd browns the other side