Mustard Seed

 

A variety of bullets today:

• I am feeling significantly better on several fronts overall.
• A.  The incredible stress of last two weeks with so MANY extra U events and extra U deadlines and all the U final lectures of the semester that had to be completely finished and most of the emotional turmoil from the U students who are failing one or more of my courses is OVER.
• B.  A major new "Community Service & Outreach" component of my research work happened Saturday, and the preparation for this ALSO occupied much of the last two weeks. "Community Service & Outreach" is a new buzz phrase in the politics of campus at the moment, and it is spearheaded by folks in the typically community service oriented disciplines (i.e. social work, communications, business, etc.) to "coax" (perhaps read as "goad") other disciplines to "Gee whiz, Get out there, and show them yer stuff !"
• Scientists do not typically have a lot of "Community Service & Outreach" activities in their day-to-day.  However, I was able to expand my "Community Service & Outreach" in a couple of carefully crafted ways that I personally have found legitimate and valuable.  This past Saturday, I spent the day at a regional "Earth Day" extravaganza and set up a booth to talk about endocrine disrupting pollutants.  This has direct relatability to some facets of my lab's research since many of my research strands are involving the developmental implications of exposure to medications and other endocrine disrupting chemicals.  But, as a part of my being at this event, I have a second goal as well... to collect signatures & e-mails from folks because I have tasked my undergraduate researchers with a goal to complete this Summer of creating a social media presence (I think they are going with Instagram) where they will be creating curated (and monitored by me) posts where they take newly published endocrine disruption research journal articles and condense the findings into a posting that is more widely readable and meaningful for a general audience.... to be a part of our "Community Service & Outreach" that can be ongoing.  The e-mails I collected at the "Earth Day" extravaganza will  hopefully seed interest in the account and this will add to the easier to obtain "fish in a barrel" population of future followers who will be a lot of U students.  We will see how it goes as they develop it.
• C.  My beloved pooch seems to be fully "up-to-snuff".  No screechy pain responses, she is back to her full hyperactive self and it is as if nothing had transpired.  I cannot explain it in the least.  But, I am thankful as all get out, for how it now seems.  And, after a huge amount of debate and discussion with my wife Thursday, we decided to have her (our dog) get her normal "spa" treatment  (the groomer).  I can tell you I was completely on edge during the full four hours she was there, worrying and anticipating some sort of emergency call.  Because of an all-day U "extravaganza" on Friday that I needed to attend (several of my researchers presented at this "gala") my wife ultimately had to pick up our pooch.  She very kindly sent me photos of her after returning home showing that she (our dog) was feeling good, was excited, and seemed to even feel extra "beautiful" (it is odd, she always acts a bit like she knows she is extra pretty after the groomer).  
• D.  A MAJOR improvement in my TMJ occurred Friday evening as I was flossing (as I do usually at least three times a day), and while I was gingerly flossing around the two teeth that have been acting up relative to "olive pit-gate", I flossed out what was apparently an errant sesame seed.  And, I had not eaten any sesame seeds for the better part of a week.  When that seed came out, I felt an immediate decrease in pain.  What I think is the likely explanation is as follows.... back when I chomped down on the damn olive pit... it hurt like hell (of course) and bruised by temporomandibular bursa on that side, causing it to inflame greatly.  I think the inflammation affected my gingiva (gums) at that inflammatory site and since one of those teeth is of the (only) two teeth I have that are crowned, I think while inflamed, a damnable sesame seed lodged its way between the edge of the crown and my gum.... continually irritating the spot further.  It must have been wedged under the crown quite well, and until it started to work itself out, I could never catch it with the edge of dental floss, so I was not aware of it being there.  I just felt its pain as part of the bursa pain.  With the exiting of that damnable seed, my jaw feels ~90% better, and I was able to eat in relative comfort last night, which was wonderful.  I think it may be a bit of time for my gingiva to fully heal/recover, so I am still going to eat rather gingerly on that side for the time being... and also for the time being.... no tiny seed-like items! The power of a mustard seed (and even a sesame seed) is not something to dismiss.
  

So, this morning, I ran my 10 miles (10.1 actually,  ~16.25 km) and it actually FELT enjoyable.  It was around 50 degrees outside, with little wind, and it was heavily foggy, and would rain gently occasionally through the run.  

One small less than delightful thing also occurred.... at about 1:00am this morning.  I try to the best of my ability to be quite fastidious about the goings on in my lab.  But, over the decades, I have had to make a "panicked" trip back to the U to make sure I did not leave some sort of dangerous piece of equipment on.  I would say it has happened to me, perhaps once every other year or so.  Well, as I was drifting off to sleep... and yes, I was imagining the hoped for cigar shop meet up in about a week-and-a half, and I was imagining being there and still debating between whether I would choose a cigar (to fit in) or my pipe (which apparently is "allowed" but my impression is that it is not the norm.... but what I  would like most to indulge in, truth-be-told).  It was quite pleasant just having the gentle debate of which delight to pursue in my mind..... when suddenly a different, damnable thought exploded into my mind, "Did I turn off the hotplate I had used to warm a solution I had made, earlier on Saturday before traveling to the Earth Day expo?"  I have a protocol that I follow and my students follow to check and double check the "hot" items (hotplates, bunsen burners etc) before any of us leave for a day.  But, dammit to hell, I could not say with certainty that I had turned off the damnable hotplate, because in the rush to get traveling to that farther away event, I did NOT follow my own damn protocol.  I was even more worried because it was a day and a half later.  Luckily, I knew I had the hotplate ONLY on warm, not on a setting where the element would be firey red in color.  But, that thought and the uncertainty of what I had done was like a jolt of lightning going through my body.  I had to get dressed and head over to the U at 1:00am.  Very fortunately, I happily found that I HAD turned off the hotplate, and there was no worry. 

PipeTobacco