Now you see it . . .

now you don't. Four drops of a homeopathic brew based on some testing the homeopath did using a MORA machine that I cannot adequately explain but is supposed to identify toxic things in your body and the brew helps detoxify - clear drops, 4 taken 3 times a day - they disappear when placed in water, but that may be because the brew is clear???My racing heart has been calm since leaving the hospital - now I have to get sticks (with a needle) to draw blood, twice a week, to measure coagulation factor - used to determine dosage of the warfaran I am on - currently 3.5 mg. I feel pretty good - get tired a little more easily and have had to reduce weight lifting from 1,500 to 1,000 kilos ten times (just kidding). It may be that my eyes and mind are a little clearer, as I bribed someone to tell me - my face a little more flushed (could that be the booze?) - but in general I think I am a better motor functioning me than I was, say six months ago. I see by the old thermometer on the internet wall that at this moment, right around 2 am there, that the temperature in Topeka is 32 Farenheit. Yesterday I visited the local French goods grocery store - yummy sour dough bread and lovely frozen croissants that when thawed overenight grow to about double the original size and become even a little larger when baked. Some good, gooey, stinky cheese, too. And a spice mixture to coat steaks - we cook them on the barbie (barby??), bar-b (??) - a New Zealand tradition (the meat, with the spices, that is, not the spices alone). Some possibly interesting facts - our system of blood vessels - arteries, veins and capillaries - is over 60,000 miles long. The heart beats about 100,000 times a day, nearer 1,000,000 when mine was galloping. Well, probably not that many. In a 70 year lifetime the average human heart beats more than 2.5 million times - wonder what the outlier range is? Perhaps you know of other interesting heart facts. Our bathroom remodel proceeds - now have a tub and vanity in place, with no fixtures, a fine working shower, and a start on waterproofing which must preceed painting. I am having the joy of peeling wall paper in our separate toilet room - it has grown to ten times bigger than the original size and I should be finished by 2014, if I keep at it - slow and steady wins the race. Emily and Joseph have each been chosen by their respective schools to be one of their representatives in somewhat different activities - emily part of a problem solving event in nearby Cambridge, Joseph at his school where he and some of his mates will interact with like-aged youngsters from out of town, I think. Well, hope all of you good readers are in good health and that life is treating you well. More later. Manford

Manford learns about fibrillation

So, doc, I was in the cold,cold ocean water off Waihi Beach for about 30 minutes,in my new wet suit, and there was a breeze and I started shivering and couldn't stop, and then we walked back to the camp Emily and other kids and I and other parents were staying and it seemed to take much more effort than getting there, and I lay down and checked my pulse and boy was it going - (sung to the tune of up on the rooftop click, click, click - up goes the heart rate, tick, tick, tick, let's bring it down, but not to quick) - zooming in at around 140 - 150 beats/minute. So I caged a ride home (about two hours) and went to hospital, where I was warmly greeted by caring (really), nice ER staff, they did an EKG, had to wait a while for a cardiology resident (learned later that as the evening went on there was a 6 hour wait in the ER for less pressing cases), then transferred to an observation unit until next day, then saw a big kahuna cardiologist around 10 am, then transferred to the cardiology unit annex, where I roomed with five other guys until my discharge yesterday, Sunday, after getting medication by mouth and from shots in the belly (subcutaneous, so not too painful), the old racing heart slowed down, while the old blood pressure went down to 80's over 60's, but they thought I was well enough to come home and be looked after by my doc whose office is nearby. The ward experience was interesting - felt a little like a prisoner, but had entertainment through books and mags brought by Carrie, and from listening to the kiwi guys who were there ahead of me and whom I left behind - with more serious heart concerns - one was a farmer, another a car salesman, another from India whose home was in Fiji and is a heavy equipment operator, and some unknown job guys, all good story tellers and many pithy comments re the current NZ elections and USA ones with apparently universal approval of Obama. Food was plentiful and tasteful. Staff very nice. Beds moderately comfortable. From time a hospital house cat wandered in from outside. Had a shower Saturday (last Wed am ) which may have made others glad - made me feel and smell better. Strangely enough I never had any discomfort or any other symptom - too brain damaged already, I guess - just a fast, and somewhat intermittent, heart rate. Well, I am happily at home now, observing the bathroom remodel we are getting done that should be finished by 2010 or thereabouts. All new fixtures,shower, vanity, stool, walls and ceilings, will be much nicer than our old moldy one. Take care of yourselves and try not to fibrillate very often - the cost of my stay is covered by socialized medicine here, but could be a big expense in the USA, I suspect. Med costs pretty much covered too. Wish you were here. Manford

Manford learns about wetsuits (a little)

Emily and many of her classmates are going on a camping trip this week, and Manford is going along as one of several parents who are going to be supervising groups of five of these children. As part of this trip there will be beach time, and if the weather is good and the seas calm, children will be allowed to enter the water, and parents will form a curved line to keep the children from straying. Given that the water is still pretty cool, the school recommended that parents bring a wetsuit. So off I goes, looking for one. I settle on a short-sleeve, short leg model. Says I to the clerk, I guess I will need a Large - says he - no, a medium should be fine. So I try one on, and this, folks, is not an easy task. First you put your own legs, one at a time, in the correct whole for legs, after several futile attmepts with at least one foot tending to go into the arm holes. When finally you get the leg thing straightened out you then have to PULL, PULL, PULL the suit up the legs until it is well up the thighs, and make sure it is tight in the crotch, for if you do not pull it up really, really good you will not be able to get the suit over your shoulders. So I worked at it, uhhgh, uhhgh, uhhgh, and then the helpful store person asks how I am doing, and I stand there with it half on, and try and try to get it over my shoulders, with my arms sticking out, but I need help, for it is not going on so good, so he helps, and finally the arms and legs and shoulder portions are actually pretty good - I can't breathe and it is choking me but he says it needs to be tight to work, so I guess that is the way it will feel. Getting out of the suit is a hell of a lot easier than in - you just peel it down, kind of like a banana skin, pulling on a cord attached to the zipper to start things off, then undo the velcro tabs that hold the neck closed, keep peeling, and finally it is off. Ooops, what to wear under the wetsuit. Most web ites related to this question recommend some Speedo like thing - so tomorrow Manford goes out to buy a bikini bottom sort of thing - but I do not think I will pose for pictures in it, as I do not want to cause people of faint, pass out, run screaming away from me, etc. Carrie laughs about this - I do to. I am definitely thinner now - can wear a 36 inch waist pant (that is what the stores call them here - I guess two pant would make one pants?) and weight somewhere around 180. I was pleased today (this is a topic change) to be told by my doctor that I looked great, much better than a year ago - maybe there really is something to the notion of me having mercury poisioning and not having it now since all the amalgam in my mouth has been removed and I am on a detox with some homeopathic drops. Well, I will stop for now - I managed to disappear some stuff I had typed in, so will quit while I am ahead. Thanks for all your thoughts and time. Manford

Correction

The correct spelling is: kassler. thanks

What I have been reading

I have read, or am in the process of reading: Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami - a strange but generally fantastic story, including a man who talks with cats; Mutant Message From Forever, Marlo Morgan - very interesting portraits of some aboriginies in Australia; The Girl With The Drago Tattoo - writing that to me is so good I don't want to read it because then I will be finished and won't have more - kind of like eating a wonderful icecream, or thanks to Dr. Hsu's daughter Emmie, who recently visited one evening at the end of her tour of parts of Australia and New Zealand, Haigh's chocolates from Australia. Things we have eaten lately of note, from a shop that sells South African goods and local cuts of meat - baby back ribs and kasser, I think it is - a cured pork chop - will get back to you on the spelling; and from our own efforts, fresh spinach and a few strawberries from our garden; and from our own kitchen, waffles with a recently acquired waffle iron that makes heart shaped ones; and some good cheese from local cheese makers. When we can find one we plan to plant a Japanese maple in the front of the house bed. Many of the blooms I saw last week are gone, but new ones keep coming, including lots of roses in other yards and some in our front of the house bed. The lawn is not so good, weedy and patchy so I may call in some help. Emily is having a small party on Haloween. Joseph is visiting with friends and seeming to enjoy school and has a couple, well at least one, project(s) going. Mom is busy at work. I have finally had all the amalgam out of my mouth, and all my crowns are now procelain, with non-amalgam fillings under them. We are healthy, even if not wealthy and wise, and hope all of you who read this are all three. Sincerely, Manford

Here I sit . . .

Hello, good readers. Here I sit, in the dining room, listening to a sudden, pounding (but intermittent) rain as it splatters against our metal roof (this is the most common roofing material in New Zealand, as far as I can tell). Well, all of a sudden, quiet. The afternoon was characterized by immense, powerful, largely white clouds in the West and South, and by even more coverage of the East and North by big grey swatches, so I am not surprised to have the rain - and we can use it. No wonder NZ is so green in most places. The big news of the week is that I have had my last amalgam filling replaced, and no longer have a mouth full of metal crowns, all replaced by porcelain. I struggle to keep still in the dentist chair, and am rewarded by his telling his nurse that I am his best patient - true or not is flattering, and he may have been obliquely referring to the payments I have made which might help him send his kids to the Uni! So far so good. Next week a visit with the doctor in Tauranga who started the whole thing, so I can learn a detox regimen that theoretically will remove mercury remaining in my body. Even if it is not the whole case, I do feel better, more alert and less tinnitus and word finding problems, and better more confident driving, and just happier in general. I have a question: what do the following words have in common? Grand, Hyatt, Sheraton, Oscar, George, Fat Hippo (Fat Hippo???) and Frank. If you guessed they are the name of tents shown in a recent advertisement by a sporting goods store here in Hamilton you win a prize. Many of the ads we see on tv here are funny or clever, and we enjoy that. Emily is back in drama class once a week where she is honing her already prodigous talents, preparing at eight for teenager hood, I suppose, with big ups and downs. Joseph seems to be getting invested more in some of his school projects. I do the odd VNG, and wish I had more because I always feel a little rusty, and doing several in a pretty close row at least shakes some of the cobwebs out! Carrie is working really hard. I am hardly working. Har, har, har - see. Some trees are still blooming, but many are now leafed out as we head toward summer. We will go to the South Island in late December, early January for a Quaker gathering, then have about a week to tour around before coming back. I am sure we will have lots of pictures and we are trying to figure out a way to get more of them into the blog - anybody used the Google Picasa program for this? I am still not very good with it, but then they don't seem to be able to spell, or they are sort of creative with their name? I am trying to take pictures of flowers and tree blossoms, and sometimes, using the autofocus program of the camera get really clear pictures of leaves below the blossom. Oh, well, har, har, har. I am very happy that we get the New Yorker - always something interesting in each issue. Anyone know about the painter Elizabeth Peyton? I weigh in around 180 these days, and at least to me seem to be walking better due to instructions I have received from a lady who is versed in the Alexander Technique. I don't think I have yet completely found my place in this small nation of around 4,000,000 (human) inhabitants (lots more sheep) but am gradually working my way out into the public and maybe for the next year will be more of a tourist, if gasoline prices don't get much higher. I am very sorry about the rough financial times so many seem to be going through recently, and look with some dismay at the latest news from the companies we have invested in, but am hopeful that in the long run things will get better. Last note - Joseph and I watched Breaking Bad, a new tv show for NZ - interesting and will be interesting to see what happens next. Thank you for reading this, and our best wishes to all who do. Manford

A Quiet Week

It has been a quiet week for us - Joseph off to Quaker youth camp in a town pretty far away and Emily in a ymca camp 8:30 - 4:30 Mon - Thurs. Friday the three of us went to a home and garden exposition that had well over 100 booths and displays - I particularly enjoyed watching some of the artists working on stone and wood sculptures, and Emily found a fairy costume for Haloween. The weather has not been delightful, with frequent cloud overlay - big dark ones. Joseph came home yesterday evening. Earlier in the day Emily and I went to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua and enjoyed it. The theatre is in a mall, so she enjoyed a tub of chocolate gelato afterwards from one of the many options in the food court. A daughter of a friend of ours who was in Topeka and moved to California is visiting Australia and New Zealand and we hope to have a chance to meet her sometime this month. I have one more crown to go before all the amalgam is gone. Will bring a bottle of champagne to celebrate! Carrie has been grading papers all weekend. Our latest acquisitions - a waffle iron (somewhat hard to find) and a GPS - fun to listen to it recalculating as I take streets not in its original route! Pretty amazing technology, huh. The kids have one more week of schoobreak - Emily to continue camp, Joseph to continue downloading stuff - his favorite word - stuff. We can get 20 gigs of data a month without penalty - should be enough and more. Cleverest business name we have seen recently - Pasta la Vista - per their brochure - "Traditional Argentinian pasta made fresh . . . every day" and they now deliver in Auckland and are coming to Hamilton. Yesterday we went to a pond on Carrie's Uni campus and fed the ducks stale bread - at one point a mama and four babies came up on land very close to Emily's foot and I tried to get closer and away they went somewhat to the dismay of an oma who pulled out her (previously hidden) bread to feed them while I scared them back into the water not realizing until they were off land that she had bread - ooops. Oh, well. We are heading for warmer weather, with current temps in the 50's, while those in North America, where temperatures are in the 50's, are heading in the opposite direction. We had a time change last weekend so now North America west coast is six hours later, instead of seven. My head spins. Take care, and our best to all who read this.