Sugar gliders, bless their little hearts, are animals with a lot of curiosity. They are drawn to investigate anything unfamiliar. At the same time, they are low animals on the food chain. So they are naturally afraid of anything unfamiliar. Phillip & I call it the "I don't like it, what is it?" syndrome.

I kind of felt like a sugar glider when I saw the envelope that arrived in the mail today. Addressed to me, it had the words "OFFICIAL NOTICE" stamped on the outside. On the inside, was a note from a "sales representative" who said she'd been trying to reach me regarding my $1,000,000 sweepstakes ID number. Please call the toll-free 800 number. Yeah, I knew it was a trick. But, darn it, I just had to find out what the trick was. So I called the number, said "no" to magazine offers, record club offers, life insurance offers, discount auto glass replacements, a dozen other offers, and am probably now on a dozen mailing lists, and no closer to winning that $1,000,000.

Images is the best online magazine about movies that I have ever found.

I work in what is, essentially, an imaging lab. Every patient who checks in at our front desk is here because their doctor has referred them to us. I suppose there are patients who take responsibilty for their own health care and decide for themselves whether or not to follow their doctor's advice. I see a lot who don't. These are the patients who take time off from work, travel all the way from their home to our hospital, and then ask me, almost as an afterthought, if I can tell them why their doctor sent them here. (I can tell them what type of scan they've been scheduled for, but it's not my place to explain their medical condition to them.)

There are patients who let their doctor schedule them for a scan they don't want, but instead of refusing the scan outright, will put themselves in a "perpetual reschedue" mode. For example, they're scheduled for the 5th of the month. They call us on the 4th, tell us they're not feeling well, and reschedule their appointment to the 10th. They call us on the 9th, tell us their car is in the shop, and reschedule to the 12th. They call us on the morning of the 12th, tell us they forgot about another appointment they had, and rechedule to the 22nd. It can go on for weeks.

The really clever patients tell us they can't make it to their appointment, but don't know yet when they can reschedule it. A few weeks later, they call us and tell us they have an appointment with their doctor tomorrow morning at 8:30, to discuss the results of their scan, and is there any possible way we can squeeze them in before then? It actually took me a long time to realize what's going on there. You see, there is only a slim possibility we can fit them in on such a short notice, so it allows the patient to tell their doctor, truthfully, that they tried to schedule their appointment, but we didn't have any openings.

I walked across campus this morning with "Eisler On The Go" (from the terrific Mermaid Avenue album - words by Woody Guthrie, music by Billy Bragg) stuck in my head. I still don't know why I would be thinking of that particular song on this particular morning.

It's always been one of my favorite songs from Mermaid Avenue, but I used to think that the song should explain better who Hans Eisler was, and why Woody Gutherie should be so concerned about him. Then it occurred to me this morning that I was betraying my own philosophy - that if you don't know something, you should look it up. We live in the Information Age. Libraries have internet access. (After all, that's how I learned about Hans Eisler - I did a Google search on "eisler.") So the song taught me something, because I was willing to learn. That makes the song even better.

This is very strange.

Following Phillip's suggestion, I went back to the quiz that told me my EF is 26 acres, and answered every question as before, except that I lied and told it I live in India. It told me my ecological footprint is 2 acres. (That's a big footprint for an Indian citizen, by the way.)

Then I went back and answered every question as before, truthfully telling it I'm an American, but omitting the optional ZIP code. It told me my EF is a more believable 10 acres. I then wondered if I was penalized for living in Seattle (which is generally a green city).

Now, the strange part is: I haven't been able to duplicate the 26 acre result. I double-checked my answer the first time I took the quiz, but I must have answered something wrong - twice.

According to this, my ecological footprint is 26 acres! That's even more than the typical American ecological footprint of 24 acres. I find this extremely hard to believe.

This, however, says my EF is 9 acres. That's more like it.

I know my EF could stand some improving, but I do think I'm doing better than most of my fellow Americans. I eat too much prepared food, but do I throw the cardboard packaging in the recycle bin. I live close to work, and I commute by public transit. I carry a canvas bag in my backpack for stops at the grocery store on my home from work. I walk to and from the grocery store, four blocks from home. We keep another canvas bag in the trunk of our gas/electric hybrid for times when we stop off at the grocery store after driving somewhere. I avoid meat whenever I can.

I think 26 acres is way off the mark. Was I penalized for just being an American?

(This post was written last night, and saved to a text file, when Blogger was down.)

We got a nice letter in the mail today (obviously not a form letter) from AMC Cinerama. It said they were sad that my movie-going experience was interrupted by a medical emergency. Enclosed were two free movie passes plus coupons for free popcorn and free soft drinks. I find this an amazing act of good customer relations, especially since they had nothing to do with my emergency room visit.

When I started working here, people complained about how old and unreliable our fax machine was. That was over three years ago. Three weeks ago, my boss finally let me replace that old fax machine - the same one that was old when I started here.

The new one is great. It is so nice to fax out a six page document without restarting it a dozen times. This afternoon, a 37 page document started coming in - it looked wonderful to see each page spit out cleanly and swiftly without fearing that it would jam at any moment. So I was surprised when the voice on the other end of the phone (a call from inside the hospital) said, "Your fax machine is broken." I looked over at it. "There's a document coming through right now. It looks like it's working OK to me," I replied.

"Well, I'm tring to send you something, and the line is busy," said the person from the other clinic. "That's because there's a document coming in," I explained. "So, what am I supposed to do?" "Wait a few minutes, and try again," I suggested.

(Are we so used to voice mail that we've forgotten what a busy signal is?)

I am tired of being sick. I am sick of being tired.

I hate being sick. I hate the attention and the dependence. I hate having to explain to friends why my eyelid is swollen. I hate the fact that doctors can come up with a name like "angioedema," but can't explain what causes it. I hate the idea that there seems to be no pattern to any of this. I hate having to write about my illnesses.

I thought that my lack of enthusiasm to yesterday's Pampered Chef party was due to the subject matter. Then I spent all afternoon yesterday being exhausted, but not being able to sleep. Then when I couldn't stay awake during playtime with the sugar gliders - even though we had an early playtime - Phillip pointed out that I'm always tired when my "face swells up." It's odd that I'd never noticed that before.

As far as I can remember, this is the first time this angioedema has struck my right eyelid.

I slept soundly until after eleven this morning. I'm usually up before eight on weekends. (We missed church, of course.) There was still a little swelling around my right eye, but also some slight swelling around my left eye and on both of my heels. I can't wake up completely today. I hate this.

I had a dream this morning. I was at a concert. I thought, in the dream, that whoever set up the show did a bad job of it. Instead of having the concert set up on the stage in front of the audience, it was set up off to the side of the building. I had a good view of the stage, being on the same side of the building as the makeshift stage, but I noticed that a lot of people wouldn't be able to see the performers at all, because of all the posts and walls in the seating area.

The first performer sang "Greensleeves." As soon as he started, the audience joined in, singing along. Then I noticed that the performer had stopped performing and had set his guitar aside. He just sat there, letting the audience sing "Greensleeves" for him. I thought, in the dream, that he was swindling the audience - we wasn't performing at all - but I seemed to be the only one in the audience to notice.

The next performers were an Irish group. (There was no transition in the dream from the first performer and this group, as if the dream had jumped forward in time.) They sang the line, "I went out walking one morning early," over and over, and that was all they sang. It was as if that was all they knew of the song. Again, I felt swindled, but I seemed to be the only one in the audience to think so. And the dream was over.