All posts by Peter

Jon Sick Day 368

Family Life, Jon

Okay, I exaggerate. It’s only day three. Only one major symptom. Sure, there’s a little sore throat the first day, a little fever the next, today he’s a bit stuffy. But the main symptoms of whatever it is he has seems to be grumpiness. Not huggy. Bite yer head off grumpy. But he’s cheered up now, so he must be getting better.

One of the interesting things about Jon (well, to us psych majors anyway) is how a minor illness reveals his internal wiring. We all get a little weaker when we’re sick, but for Jon it’s a bigger deal. For instance, his legs start to cross. One facet of his particular rendition of CP is that the inside muscles of his legs—the adductors–are stronger than his outer ones (bascially some fibres of that muscle group seem to be on more or less permanently). Jon has been able to build up his outer legs to compensate to some extent, but his compensation is close to a conscious action. So when he gets sick, even before any symptoms appears, the legs start to pull in. Last night, after a rough patch where I cuddled him back to sleep, he fell asleep with his legs bent up and together. When I tried to ease them down, it took all of my gentle strength. Gonna need a crowbar soon.

And incidentally, as his body tone goes down, I swear he gets heavier too!

High on a Hill Sits a Lonely Goat…

Cool Stuff, Family Life, Jon

Hallowe’en 2005: Logic and reason can help the worker be more productive. This year, Jon’s started a mantra days before: “If I go to lots of houses, I’ll get lots of treats!” That said, not everything went to plan: we built the costume for early November weather and then it turned out to be the temperature of a September evening. The fleece hooves didn’t last long, and the headpiece occasionally had to be doffed for air. Laura made the fabulous goat costume, while I worked in shades of grey: horns, and the wheelchair foreground and background.

We parents donned construction paper Lederhosen to accompany our goat. No still photographs exist of this, so unless some video of such a thing were to surface it will have to fade into the mists of mystery and horror. And were asked to yodel more than once, and the same applies to that.

The street was crowded with kids, partially thanks to another great show on Langley Avenue this year. Some of our neighbours down the block put on a show, and each year they invest more into it: this year featured a stage mounted on the front lawn all the way to the sidewalk, three banks of theatrical lights, and lighting board, backdrop, and a cast of a number of adult neighbours and a ton of the neighbourhood kids. It’s incredible. This year’s theme was Ghostbusters, with homages to a number of horror movies.

Ah, (what use is) love…

Cool Stuff

From Paris—bien sur—comes this lovely little bit of animation by Cube Creative Computer Company (really, it’s a French compagnie!) :
A quoi à§a sert l’amour? (Quicktime)

Via Enrico’s blog

Oh poop, they’ve gone and removed all of their work. Must have been flooded. Woohoo, it’s back up!

Laura’s gone and researched the lyrics. It’d help if you watched it first:

TS:
Ah, what use is love?
You always hear
silly stories,
What good is being in love?

EP:
Love cannot be expained,
It’s not like that,
It comes out of nowhere
And hits you all at once.

TS:
As for me, I’ve heard
That love brings suffering,
That love makss you cry,
What good is being in love?

EP:
What good is love?
It brings you joy
With tears in your eyes,
It’s sad and wonderful!

TS:
However people always say
That love is deceiving
That one of the two
Is never happy?

EP:
But even when one has lost it,
A love that one has known
Leaves you with a taste of honey –
Love is eternal!

TS:
All this is very pretty,
But when all is said and done,
You’re left with nothing
But an immense sorrow –

EP:
But all that seems to be
Tearing you apart right now
Will become a
Joyful memory tomorrow.

TS:
So essentially, if I understand correctly,
Without love in your live,
Without its joys and its sorrows,
There is nothing to live for?

EP:
Of course! Look at me!
I’ve believed it it every time!
And I will believe in it forever!
That’s what love is for!
As for you, you are the last!
As for you, you are the first!
Before I had you, I had nothing,
With you I am complete.
You’re what I want!
You’re what I need!
You’re the one I will always love..
That’s what love is for!

(translated in Google by commenter Bannister at drawn.ca)

BodyWorlds

Cool Stuff


Yesterday a number of us toddled to the Ontario Science Centre to see the BodyWorlds 2 show. It features actual human cadavers, preserved through plastinization, in various stages of muscular, nervous and skeletal undress and posed to show various aspects of anatomy, disease, and dynamic motion.

Almost everybody who went had a background in some aspect of what was only display: Laura’s sister Tamiko works with pathologists, Laura’s mom is a retired lab tech who has created plastinized biological samples (albeit on a much smaller scale), Laura’s aunt Michiko was a nurse, and Laura and I studied brain and behaviour (including surgery on, and post-preparation of, rat brains).

I had heard that there were about 25 cadavers and lots of body parts, and I went thinking the latter were filler. In fact, I now think that the bits and pieces were key to understanding and focusing on what was going on. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the whole-sized bodies became repetitive, but by the end the subtleties in the differences of the way they were displayed were more likely to be appreciated by an anatomist.

And no matter how comfortable you are with the concept of these latter-day Visible Men and Women (and occasional ungulates), we were all emotionally drained by the show. Is it coming face-to-face with the reality of the anatomy or of my own mortality in this fragile frame of bone and meat? For me it was the one-two punch of the two together.

And apropos of our visit (since he doesn’t know about the show), Jon suggested we sing Pinky and the Brain’s Brainstem song as we went up the stairs for dinner. How very fitting!

Sung to the tune of Camptown Races, lyrics by Tom Minton. In this evening’s performance, the role of Pinky was played by Jonathan, and the role of the Brain was played by Daddy.

Brain: Neo-cortex, frontal lobe
Pinky: Brainstem! Brainstem!
Brain: Hippocampus, neural node
Right hemisphere.

Brain: Pons and cortex visual
Pinky: Brainstem! Brainstem!
Brain: Sylvian fissure, pineal
Left hemisphere.

Brain: Cerebellum left!
Cerebellum right!
Synapse, hypothalamus
Striatum, dendrite.

Brain: Axon fibers, matter gray
Pinky: Brainstem! Brainstem!
Brain: Central tegmental pathway
Temporal lobe.

Brain: White core matter, forebrain, skull
Pinky: Brainstem! Brainstem!
Brain: Central fissure, cord spinal
Parietal.

Brain: Pia mater!
Meningeal vein!
Medulla oblongata and lobe limbic
Micro-electrodes…
Pinky: Naaarf!
P+B : THE BRAIN!!!

Yukoner Ho!

Family Life

Troy is back in town, and he brought meat! Moose shot on a river trip three weeks ago and bison hunted last March. Troy says bison tastes like the finest beef you’ve ever tasted. Can’t wait to try them!!

He told us all sorts of stories about the hunt. Apparently bison are quite difficult to hunt, even as a herd, even in light woods. They can just disappear. After killing one, it took them 12 hours to carve it up, drag the pieces down to the snow machines through deep snow and pack up.

Edit: Here a shot of the moose on the way to my tummy. Okay, okay, everybody else’s too.