My brother sent me the link to his newest video. It’s really cool. When water is really pure, ice crystals sometimes can’t form because there’s nothing for them to grow on. Filtered water in smooth bottles is a good way to make “supercooled water”. Shaking or bumping the water starts the ice forming.
Who says Science isn’t fun? It makes me want to go out and get some bottled water. Maybe I can do it before the ice storm paralyzes the city.
Click HERE to go to the vid, or just click the “play” button below.
We have an electronic piano at church. It was donated by a family for when we needed piano accompaniment with singers. It’s quite nice. But we haven’t used it much for a while. Recently, our pastor asked me if we could work together and plan more intentionally to use it. I have played it before, but it was just fill-in music, so I wasn’t too worried about it. Now the music is going to be printed in the bulletin. My name will be there too. Pastor wants the music to be chosen thoughtfully and to connect to the service somehow. That turns up the heat a little.
My debut yesterday was Bach’s Prelude No. 1 from The Well-Tempered Clavier. You’ve probably heard it, even if you don’t recognize the title. I was incredibly nervous. But it went well. Practice paid off…
Thanks to Tara, I had an excuse to go out and get more fish for my aquarium. While I was there, I got new light bulbs too. I was long overdue. Fluorescent bulbs’ light output declines by 50% or more after the first year. I also got some ghost shrimp. These are small freshwater shrimp that some people use to feed to their big aquarium fish. My fish are too small to eat them, so they’ll just crawl around picking at algae and stuff. They die pretty quickly, so I don’t know that there will be any left in a month, but it’s fun to watch them while they last.
The new fish I got were Metallic Gold Barbs. I got barbs because I wanted some fish that swam in the middle levels of the water. The glofish swim mostly at the top. It makes them kind of hard to see unless you squat down. It looks like I didn’t get enough barbs though. Yay! I can get more!
Warning: Real, live pictures of a fat bump follow these words.
I had the fat lump out yesterday. I went to a hospital downtown to do it, so I had the day off of school. Woo hoo! The receptionists at this office are a little brusque. They scare me a little bit. I didn’t have a referral because I used it during my previous visit to this doctor. It was at his other location so these people didn’t remember. But thankfully it was in their computer. Whew!
He started by sticking me with “numbing juice”. That part didn’t hurt at all. In fact, he commented on my lack of pain. There were only a couple of times when I felt pain. The rest of the time, it was just disturbing sensations. I felt the pull of his cuts. I felt him squishing the bump to get all the fat out. And I could swear I thought he actually put his finger into the cut and swirled it around. All the while, he kept asking if I was okay. I wish he would’ve talked about the weather instead, because I couldn’t get the images out of my head. At one point, I started getting light-headed. He said if I passed out, that would be okay because I was already lying down.
After he was done, the stitches went in quickly. Then he covered the area with dermaplast (a plastic coating). Then he showed me what Fatty McBump looked like outside of it’s native habitat. It looked like chicken fat. I got my camera out to take a picture. He was a little taken aback. “I teach Middle School,” I said. “I told the kids all about it and told them I would take a picture.” He thought it was weird. I just kept saying, “I teach Middle School.” I forgot in my first pictures to use a quarter for scale. I went into my coat pocket to get one, and when I turned around, he had pulled the cap off the container so I could do a top-down shot. hehehe… So he DID think it was fun that I was taking pictures.
My back aches a little, but it’s not unbearable. He said that because of the plastic coating I could shower and everything. The stitches will dissolve. I will only have to visit back with him if there’s a problem.
I really had a lot of fun yesterday. Having given the kids enough warning, many of them wished me a happy birthday. That’s always fun. Many significant events occured:
1) The Muggers Revealed
Apparently, Principal Carol figured out that from the day we returned from Christmas break to the day of my birth was exactly 37 days. She figured if I got a mug per day, I’d have 37 on my 37th. They ALL did it! All my co-workers are guilty! I knew it!
3) A Pile of Presents
Apparently it is common knowledge that I sometimes have trouble staying awake during my free period. Having sometimes blamed it on low blood sugar, everybody gathered some “Snacks for Your Sleepytime” hehehe… I also received some awesome Superman stuff, including a picture of me as Superman. HA!
4) An Awesome Surprise
When I found the Jim Nabors Christmas CD for Peggy, she was very happy. She wanted to get me something that made me happy too. She made me snickerdoodles. I LOVE snickerdoodles. But unbeknownst to me, she had also ordered another thing. Unfortunately, it didn’t come in time for Christmas. So she held it until my birthday. Beth, brace yourself….
I will hold this until my family visits. Then we can share a solemn bowl together.
Thanks, everybody, for a really good birthday! I will continue to have them as long as they’re this fun!
