"Dang it," said my sister* crossly, "I HATE flabby earlobes." I looked up in mild surprise. "Flabby what?" "Earlobes. You know how your earlobes get all flabby when you get older? Like empty, saggy bags that you could roll up and pin out of the way?" "Nope," I said, a tad indignantly, "I haven't noticed anything like that!" "May I [...]
If you added up all my blogposts since 2003, you’d have something like 7,200 separate articles. Only about 650 are actually searchable on morganica.com right now. Tried to import the rest, but so far can’t figure out a way to do that without spamming the heck out of the 1,500 or so subscribers who asked to be notified when I [...]
Would everyone whose genomes do not contain exactly 46 chromosomes please vacate the premises immediately? This means YOU, antmind. Feathered friends. Cute li'l gophers and raccoons. Eight-legged buddies. Numerous insectivorous pests munching in the garden, chewing on my books and masticating in my closet. Mother Nature and I haven't always seen eye to eye, but this is getting ridiculous. A [...]
There is undoubtedly a period in my life where I was not owned by a cat. I just don't remember it. With Rajah's death, however, I'm presently catless, and likely to remain that way for quite some time, for reasons I won't go into. Well-meaning and much-appreciated friends ring up with news of kitties needing a home, and I patiently [...]
Hypothesis: A glass framework stabilizes a tack-fused stringer construction, requiring fewer stringers (and likely fewer firings). Background: I'm having a fair amount of success with tack-fused stringer projects that build on a glass support structure. Since the support framework is tedious to construct, I'm wondering if it's really contributing enough to be worth doing. Test: Make a stringer vessel without [...]
Thickness isn't the only consideration when engineering a project in kilnformed (fused) glass. The shape of the object can be important, too. If you're making a long, thin panel that's rather thick, such as the transom window I recently made for my parents' bathroom, you'll need to understand how the glass moves and responds throughout the firing cycle. I don't [...]
Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep. --Fran Lebowitz Oh, c'maaaaaaaaaan! So today, I get this call from Kaiser, can't answer right away because my boss' boss is teaching a class and I'm in the front row. I figure they want to talk about Elmo and my leg, and what's going on with the proposed surgery(ies) [...]
The look he gave me was pure disgust. "Do you expect to put THAT," he spat, pointing to my wheelchair, "Into MY car?" I stared, not quite able (or willing) to understand. "Excuse me?" On Friday night, Sept. 16, 2016, I fractured my left femur just above Elmo, my replacement knee. I lived in a wheelchair, facing hip-high amputation of [...]
BANG!! The crutch crashed down onto Elmo. Ouch. "I'm so SO sorry!" he gasped, taking my hand, "Oh my god I feel so bad! Are you alright?" On Friday night, Sept. 16, 2016, I fractured my left femur just above Elmo, my replacement knee. I lived in a wheelchair, facing hip-high amputation of my left leg, for about two years [...]
Cramming four flights, three states, and two surgical consultations into three days would be a challenge for anyone, but moreso when you do it from a wheelchair. Gets even more challenging when you're also processing some pretty life-changing information, because the folks at University of Utah agreed with Stanford: Elmo-the-knee-replacement, about to be ejected by a nonunion fracture, can most [...]
