Going dark for Thanksgiving really isn't enough for a beep me post, but I did want to ask that if anybody needs to email me (shyeah, right) please wait till Monday. Don't know if I'll be able to check my email, and I get so much spam my hotmail box will without question overflow and start rejecting mail. Ah, the joy of hotmail. Thanks.

Not Really Apocalyptic, but if anyone saw my cellphone from last night, drop me a line.

I am plagued by thieving fairies, evidently.

Ok, we have a verdict. I have polyps (nothing major, they are just like blisters) in my sinuses, along with a lot of mucus (aka snot). The polyps are blocking the airflow from my nose to the nerves that control smell in my brain. The ENT said my body is having an autoimmune reaction to an allergy or infection so it's attacking me through my nose.

The doctor has decided to take the "let's try this before surgery" route so he prescribed a short but intense round of the steriod Prednisone. I go back next month and he'll reassess my possible needs for surgery.

The doctor thinks that I'll have my sense of smell back in 2-3 days if the prednisone is going to work.

So, nothing definitive but there's progress.

happy ritual sacrifice with pie!

BELT

Booyah!

After 3 days of meds, I have regained about 60% of my taste and smell. It comes and goes, but I was able to taste my lunch and supper today.

A ham sandwich, stew, and homemade olive/rosemary sour dough bread have never tasted so good.

I am in vermont still ( will be so until late monday) but I felt it ws important to mention PIE as in in 4 pies were made before thanksgiving. aplle pie was eaten Thanksgiving am for breakfast. Thanksgiving evening ( about 10 pm) DH and brother decided to make a Turkey pie and a sweet potato pie. Tonight Dh and Brother made an apple pie for other brother to take home to dad.

pie pie pie pie pie pie PIE

when come back bring pie

Shameless Self-Promotion, Week #2:

I'm going to be on the radio again this Sunday (Dec. 1), reading a different piece from last week (NOT a re-run).

It's 9 p.m. EST (therefore 8 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Mountain, and 6 p.m. for the Westies).

Go to [link] and, in the left-hand column, select a streaming audio method.

I'm reading a piece about makeup. Not like Vogue magazine -- more like, why do we wear it, what does it mean, does it mean anything, etc.

I'm the second person reading, probably 10 minutes into the show. And my piece is about 5-6 minutes long.

Go, listen. There will be a quiz later...

Hi, kids.

I didn't want to post this while everyone was having ritual sacrifice with pie, because holidays are stressful enough even when we're having a good time.

My grandmother (mum's mum) died of pneumonia on Friday evening. I am now grandparent-less; she was the last. She had been living with congestive heart failure for 14 years; she wrote her heart surgeon a lovely letter four years ago, thanking him for a wonderful ten years she would not have had otherwise. She was 90 years old and "not wanting to stay in the game too long," but she was having wonderful, lucid, and intelligent conversations up until the week before she died. She got to meet her latest great-grandchild, born 6 October, and hear him named for the husband she lost so suddenly thirty-two years ago.

If I have treated any of you with kindness and with love, it is because this woman taught me how to see things from another's point of view, how to love people even when you don't understand them, and the crucial importance of recognising your own prejudices and working to overcome them. I owe her an unpayable debt; the most I can hope for is to share the love that she showed me with the people around me, and encourage them to love just as fearlessly and fiercely.

I will miss her terribly. But love is stronger than even death; what she has given me can never be taken away. I'm always willing to talk about her, to keep her memory alive; email me at my profile address if you want to know more.

The paper I cowrote this summer was accepted for publication in the International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences.