Virtual Versus Live Walks

We got some more snow! I so hope I can gather up the willpower to get myself out for a neighborhood walk. I also hope that we can all go sledding at the Rocky Run trail again.

I think a solitary walk is exactly what I need today. I’ve been grumpy and tired because I haven’t been sleeping enough (because I’ve been working and reading and watching TV shows with husband and not getting to bed before 1 am).

I read about “indoor kids” versus “outdoor kids” on stirrup-queens.com. I never thought about it before – I just kind of assumed that daily outside time is necessary and preferred by most people (well, with some exceptions: when my friend lived in Beijing they barely ever went outside because of pollution and their kids only went to indoor playgrounds that had air filters and air conditioning and the like). Now that I think about it – one of my kids may be leaning towards “indoor kid” personality, because it’s a struggle to get her to go outside…

Mel also wrote about walking in place at home while watching “virtual walk” videos on YouTube.  I didn’t try walking-in-place (maybe when the weather outside is terrible?), but the videos were… interesting and frustrating at the same time. I found virtual walks through cities where my grandparents used to live (Kharkov and Grodno). Depressingly, I didn’t recognize anything. Also, at least in some videos, the camera kind of “jumped” between city sections (and I was, like, wait! I wanted to keep going that way!!!). I didn’t find any virtual walks in towns and villages where I grew up (sniff!). I can see how these type of videos could be fun to use with a stationary bike or a treadmill.

My (indoor-child) daughter was really enthusiastic about the virtual walk videos. I think the kids may be going on some exotic “walk” while folding the laundry today. Hey, whatever works!

 

Lab Gremlins

Continuing on the theme of superstitions in the lab.

Like I said, I had a favorite sharpie marker. Fine point, blue, permanent. Perfect for labelling microtubes, centrifuge tubes, and solution bottles.

And those sharpies were always disappearing. Around the lab, we joked that we had a “lab gremlin” that roamed the place at night, stealing people’s sharpies and mixing up their perfectly sorted microtubes.

Seriously, those sharpies would not stay put! I would label them, using color tape, and scribble my initials. That helped, for a time.

I bet those gremlins had a nice fat stack of blue sharpies. I bet they had a mountain of sharpies stashed some place underground. I suspect they also had quite a few pairs of scissors.

Some day, archeologists would be digging through the old university site, and they’ll unearth a pile of objects (would sharpies degrade after a thousand of years?), all with my initials. They’ll probably think it’s a tribute to some ancient source of power. A proof, that we, humans, are a superstitious lot and have made a shrine of every-day objects, piling them high and letting them lie there, covered in dust.

 

I think those gremlins may have followed me home. Because sometimes, my favorite pair of scissors will mysteriously disappear.

Music Lessons: Part I

I grew up playing the piano. I started when I was 5 and took formal lessons until I was 13. When I was 13, there was a natural stopping point (I finished the 7-grade Music School). I kept on playing for fun after that – and if ever had any questions, I could always ask my mom, who is a piano teacher and a very gifted musician.

I was not really pushed to practice as a child. I knew I was supposed to practice every day, and my parents would ask if I practiced (and my mom could always provide extra help if needed) but no one stood next to me, monitoring what I was doing. Mostly, the amount of practice, and what to focus on during practice – that was up to me.

Now-a-day, we got 3 kids. The 12-year old plays violin (his 6^th year), 10-year old plays the piano (5^th year), and the 6-year old just started taking piano lessons this fall. I insist that they practice every day (except on the day they have their lesson – then it’s up to them and they usually skip practice that day). Other than that – it’s very much hands-off for the older 2. The youngest needs some help (luckily, both my husband and I can help her) and likes it when someone sits next to her when she practices.

The 12 year old daily practice is probably about 30 minutes. However, he tends to get distracted easily, so some of that time is spent playing random things by ear, looking out of the window, reading a book, arguing with a sister, etc, etc. Not enough practice, but…. He is making (slow but steady) progress. He is enjoying playing violin. He loves playing for other people. He is really proud of the skills he has acquired over the last few years and how nice the music sounds.

The 10 year old daily practice is 20 to 25 minutes. She is hyper-focused on her work. Her teacher has provided some additional suggestions to improve her practice habits – I hope she is implementing them. I do my best to stay out of it. I tried to talk to her about the satisfaction one could get from working on a tricky section – she wasn’t too receptive. She tends to fly through her assignments and I worry that she doesn’t put enough good-quality work into them (just playing things through instead of actually taking time and care to work on difficult passages). On the other hand – I can tell she enjoys playing the piano. She found the music she loves playing (jazz and blues), she is (slowly) getting better, and she only rarely talks about quitting.

The 6-year old practice time is closer to 30 minutes. It is difficult for her to get started, but once she gets started – she keeps going and going… And most of the stuff she is playing is fairly easy (so just a bit of a challenge, but not too frustrating). She loves it when I record her and send the video to grandparents and other family members. She has already said that she wants to play guitar or ukulele when she gets older, but for now she is OK with learning how to play the piano.

 

Dear reader: do you have fond memories of practicing musical instruments? Or did you hate it and only practiced because you were forced to?

 

Weekend Report

 We went sledding to a nearby park both Saturday and Sunday. It wasn't quite as exciting as last weekend and there was some bickering among kids, but it was still fun. And oh, hiking through the winter forest is amazing!!! I saw a Sandhill Crane (I think?). The trail we were on is barely used and we had the sledding hill all to ourselves. Which was good in terms of the pandemic, but no so good for general fun... kids miss doing things with friends. 

We have a gently sloped back yard, so after we came home from the trail, the kids took their sleds and continued sledding in the back yard. I was surprised at how much fun they managed to have - they made sled trains, they had races... Just shows that you never know with the kids... we try to take them places we perceive as amazing but (some days) they end up having way more fun in their own back yard, where they know every bush and every bump.

Screen time: The kids were watching Wolfblood, husband and I started watching The Mentalist and we also saw a couple of episodes of Dermot Bannon's Inredible Homes (it was awesome!). The kids did video-calls with their cousins. 

Books: I started a new read-aloud with kids: The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid by Colin Meloy. I am working through The American Spy - it's good. It took me a bit of time to get into it, and I have lots of complicated feelings about the characters and the themes, and the more I read it the more I like it...

We had some Vietnamese food (takeout) on Saturday, and I baked fresh bread, and we made Blueberry Pancakes on Sunday morning....

I had to reschedule today's mammogram because of impeding/potential snow this afternoon... quite possible it will turn out to be just a couple of flakes, but I guess it's not worth the risk. 

Didn't get done: Hamentashen... We were planning to bake a bunch on Sunday, but then I felt kind of meh about baking, and we were all enjoying being lazy and not doing too much... So yeah, will have to make those sometime in the next couple of days.

Superstitions and Science

 Superstitions* and science aren’t supposed to go hand-in-hand. Part of the attraction of science is the reliance on facts and solid experimental data. … More or less, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Superstitions, on the other hand are baseless, factless, wishy-washy – the opposite of science.

And yet, when I did hands-on science, I tended to have, let us say, rituals.

When doing experiments, I liked to arrange my pipettes and pipette tips in a certain way. I had a favorite microtube rack (orange!). I had a favorite sharpie (blue, fine point). When setting up an assay, I would pour microtubes out of a storage jar, and if an exact number I needed came tumbling out, that was super-good luck.

Reproducibility is a big deal in science – you want to minimize day to day variability when doing the same experiments. So, pipetting technique can matter a lot (and you would want to do it exactly the same way, otherwise that 1.5 µL can easily become 1.7 or 1.2 µL if you are not careful). And you definitely would want to use the exactly same set of well-calibrated pipettes, too. So some of that ritual-like daily set up makes sense – you would want to eliminate variability and control the physical set-up as much as possible. Some of it is fun – like, using only pink tubes for one type of assay and green tubes for protein purification, for example. Some of it is efficiency – if I have my pipettes arranged in a certain way every single day, I can grab the right one without even looking. But some of it was just… silly and yet compelling. Like, avoiding even numbers (except 10’s – those are good).

One of my co-workers (many, many years ago) had a little statue that he claimed helped him avoid having contamination issues when doing cell culture. I laughed at him. Guess what – I had a ton of contamination issues – I kept getting fungus in my media. Yes, I know, I know, coincidence, plus I was just learning sterile hood techniques, so it was my own fault. I got better at it – without the mysterious statue’s help – but I did develop my own set of “sterile rituals”.

Some of those rituals have “bled over” into my day-to-day life. When buying fruits or vegetables (like, apples, for example), if I need less than 10, I will only get prime numbers (5… or 7). Ten is OK, and so are 12 and 13. I will not be buying 4 peppers – only 3 or 5. When eye-balling salt for cooking, I count to 5 while sprinkling the salt (works OK most of the time!).

*Actually, I have a funny block about superstitions. I can either remember the word in English or in Russian. I can’t seem to remember it in both languages at the same time. Ah, “predrassudki” – here we go.

Pandemic Fatigue

 My husband and I are not outgoing people. We weren’t really into going to bars, clubs, or parties – ever. We weren’t big on travel, either. So when the pandemic hit, we didn’t feel like we were making too many life-style changes, aside from adjusting to everyone working and schooling from home full-time. And mask-wearing when going grocery shopping or to medical appointments. Spending most evenings and weekends at home wasn’t an adjustment. We were already doing it pre-pandemic.

 Also, we live in a quiet semi-rural area, so going for walks in the neighbourhood and hikes in the nearby parks stayed pretty much the same pre- and post-pandemic (well, except masks).

Instead of kid sports (soccer and gymnastics), we had a volleyball net set up in the front yard, soccer goals set up in the backyard, and (in the winter) ping-pong table in the living room. Instead of going to the neighbourhood pool in the summer, we let the kids wade in the stream and pond that are right next to our house. We (occasionally) got together with close family for outside fun and did our best to social-distance and wear masks.

Yes, we had to cancel a couple of trips, but we did manage to have a week-long getaway at the end of summer to a house in the middle of nowhere (very rural PA) where we went on hikes, fished, and managed to barely see any people at all.

So, you see, gentle reader, we weren’t suffering at all. Yes, some things were rough (like working with 3 kids at home without childcare) and some things were very stressful (shortage of flour last year freaked me out… and then, of course, the whole political situation in the country). Also, breast surgery last year and being high-risk for developing breast cancer can be super stressful. My father’s prostate cancer diagnosis – that’s beyond stressful, that’s devastating.

But now… I am so tired of this pandemic. It’s not so much the need to social distance or to wear masks – that in itself is not a big deal in our household. And I can live without recitals, symphony, museums, theatre, or indoor ice skating for another year or five. (I do wish we could figure out a way to go ice skating safely… If it gets cold enough this winter, kids could do it on our pond). I can also be totally fine without in-door dining for the foreseeable future. Occasional takeout is working pretty well for us (same as pre-pandemic… we rarely went out to eat).

The plague fatigue is because of constant need to make risk evaluations and decisions. Do we agree to do an outdoor playdate with family friends? Will their kids keep their masks on or would it be safer to just say no? Do we keep my parents outside in the near-freezing temperature or invite them inside? If I see someone else walking towards me when I am out for a walk in an otherwise empty street, do I cross the street, or put my mask on, or both, or is this just rude and crazy? Do I hug my father? Do I let my kids hug my father?

This is simply insane – previous set of norms and behaviours no longer applies. I always feel like a jerk – either because I am standing too close to someone or because I back away from them. They can’t read my facial expression because I have a mask on. Using body language that is typically reserved for situations when I don’t like someone or am afraid of them (like, backing away and keeping distance) is creating extreme cognitive dissonance when I am talking to family, or friends, or neighbors. Or, maybe I shouldn’t be talking to anyone at all, even in masks, even outside, even distanced. Maybe I should just stay inside and never come out – that, after all, would be safest. For everyone. (See Risks)

Weekend Report

 What got done:

·         Lots of cooking! Dinners are covered until Thursday.

·         Baking bread (Sourdough Rye and Sourdough Honey Whole Wheat)

·         Kids made cookies

·         Walks and hikes

·         Sledding!!!

·         Reading books (School Spirit, with kids) and watching movies (Mio in the Land of Faraway, C’s pick).

·         Laundry

·         Husband worked on organizing garage

·         Video-calls with friends/cousins/grandparents

 

What didn’t get done:

·         Cleaning (ah, well…)

·         Work

So… my mammogram is coming up in less than a week. Terrifying, as usual. Just the unknown – will they find something? Will I need biopsy? Will this be a direct hit this time? I can’t self-sooth with “low chance of anything bad” because I am now “high-risk”. Also, weird aches and pains aren’t helping to calm the anxiety.

Dad has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, but they didn’t find any metastases in bones. Not sure what the next step there would be… He needs to evaluate risks and benefits of surgery.

Reading Slump and Read-Aloud

I love books. Book + snack + comfortable chair + blanket = HAPPY

That said, I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately. I’ve been craving something but can’t quite figure out what it is. I started a bunch of books (different styles, different genres) but just couldn’t get into anything… I finally stumbled on Lisa Black’s books (suspense, mystery, forensic science) and it is brining me out of the funk. The other day, I had to re-read a paragraph in the "Evidence of Murder" about microtubes, repeater pipette, incubators, and slipping timers into pocket when gong to lunch because, hey, I did that! I isolated and purified DNA – probably using similar protocols, too. When I think about my previous career as a scientist, I tend to think about the big picture – the main focus of my research, how it could be applied in medicine, how the results could be published. But the daily hands-on bench work was such a huge part of it. I miss it – neat rows of solutions, bottles filled with buffers, racks with microtubes, those nifty Falcon 50-ml tubes with orange or blue screw-on lids… My trusted pipetters (1 ml, 200 µL, 20 µL, and 2 µL), and yes, that repeater pipette that was super handy when I was doing enzymatic essays and had to dispense very precise amounts of liquid into dozens of microtubes in a very short time.

Besides my personal reading slump that I am recovering from, I am also in a read-aloud slump with kids. The youngest is OK – we are reading “Pippi in the South Seas” by Astrid Lindgren (we already finished the other two books about Pippi, Mio my Mio, and Karlson on the Roof trilogy… I’m going to have to see if I can find Lindgren’s books about Kalle Bloomkvist)

For the older kids – we finished Dune a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to come up with anything else. I read a couple of Sherlock Holmes mysteries to them – and that went OK, but H was not super enthusiastic. I tried reading some of Isaac Asimov’s short stories, but I was having a hard time reading them aloud, like I couldn’t get into it, or couldn’t get the voice quite right and kept stumbling over words… Also, H wants a break from science fiction.

H suggested to continue with Harry Potter (it would be book 6, I believe), but I am not in the mood for HP and, besides, the older kids already finished all the books and C is still a bit young for books 6 and 7.

I want to read something that they wouldn’t read on their own, but I also want it to be fun…

Dear reader, what are your favorite books to read with your children?

Life

Yesterday, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I don’t know too many details, except it’s Gleason Score 8, which means it’s aggressive and may have spread already. We will know more in a couple of weeks.

He is 74 years old.

It’s terrifying and I don’t know the best way to support him and mom.

Also, the pandemic – we’ve been minimizing how much we see the parents because of covid-19 risks. Cancer changes everything. I wish my parents could get their vaccines soon, but so far, they haven’t been able to get through anywhere. My husband and I are unlikely to get vaccinated before the fall (we are in a low-priority group) and kids – well, who knows when that’ll happen.

I want to spend as much time with my parents as possible. Our time is limited – that is always the case, but cancer diagnosis forces this unpleasant fact to the forefront. Time is limited, and no one knows how much or how little we have to spend with each other. We are going to die, but I keep telling myself “not today”. My parents will not be around forever – but they are here now. We can’t afford to waste time.

I am going to try and plan some outside get-togethers. My parents like going on walks, maybe we can join them. Maybe we can do something indoors, with social distancing and masks (movies? games?). Maybe we can do a bonfire.

I will ask my dad and see what he wants to do.

My parents have always been there for me. My father always had a joke ready to cheer me up. He’s been a source of strength and comfort – simply by being who he is.

It’s time to pay it back.

Risks

I don’t do well with risks.

I do my best to avoid taking risks as much as possible – financial risks, relationship risks, physical risks.

Rock climbing: no, thank you. Downhill skiing – nope. Cross country skiing – maybe… if it’s super flat. Anything that involves a risk of injury terrifies me. Climbing on a roof – just thinking about it makes me feel weak in the knees.

I don’t want to invest in anything risky(actually, I don’t want to invest in anything at all, but I know that’s even more risky due to inflation and the like).

There are some perks to being risk-averse, I suppose. I have zero interest in alcohol, drugs, smoking, or gambling.

And yet, I wonder… am I leading a super-boring life? If I dared to take a few risks here and there, would I have more fun?

I suppose I need to ask myself, do I want to have more fun? Or would I rather be content, safe, and comfortable?

Weekend Report

 We got a bit more snow and the temperature is turning sub-zero (Celsius).

What got done:

• Family walk in the park
• Cheesniki for breakfast
• Sourdough bread: beet and country (new recipe)
• Borsch (big pot! should last for most of the week!)
• Lentil soup (not quite as big of a pot, but will last for 2 lunches)
• Lazy goluptsi (cabbage and ground turkey casserole)
• Laundry
• Cleaning and chores around the house
• Reading for fun
• Playing board games
• Finished reading Mio, my Son with C.
• Read Asimov's "The Last Question" to big kids - I don't know if they quite got it... maybe E did.
• Made a giant snowman with kids.

What did not get done:

• Reading more and starting a new book with big kid (can't quite figure out what to read with them).
• Work-related writing.
• Brisk walks and exercise.

Knee and Wrist

There is snow on the ground and we are about to have a cold spell for a few days (below freezing temperature, if the weather forecast is to be trusted). I hope the snow sticks around. I hope we get more snow. I hope our pond freezes and kids can go ice skating.

I can’t ice skate. I mean, I can shuffle my feet and move around slowly (helps if I have something to hold on to). But right now – I can’t. I did something to my knee without realizing I did anything at all. Now, I am hobbling around, and it hurts to go up and down stairs, and it hurts to sleep, and there is no way I would get my ice skates on because I don’t want to make it worse.

I actually went for a walk yesterday, being desperately in need of fresh air and a bit of exercise. I was grinding my teeth the whole time. One of the neighbors called out to me, commenting on my “carefully measured steps”. Yeah, really, carefully measured indeed – because my knee did not work right.

I don’t know if this is about getting old, or just a temporary thing that will get better on its own, or something that will end up killing me.

Also, our son hurt his wrist pretty badly while snow-boarding in our back yard. We haven’t taken him to see a doctor (because pandemic and we are trying to minimize going places) and we are waiting to see if it will (hopefully) get better on its own. My dad took a look at it (he was a doctor back in the USSR) – he thought it looked like a sprain. So… we’ll give it until early next week and then will decide what to do.

So yes, rough week.

Also, I am in a reading slump. Usually, books are a great way to relax for me (escapism? Yes, please!) but I just can’t seem to find anything that works right now. I started “American Spy” – it’s good but not super-engrossing. I tried a couple of romance novels – yuck, apparently that is not the kind of escape I need at the moment.

And yet – the snow is beautiful, our snow sculptures haven’t melted yet, and I am hoping that (knee-permitting) we can go on some winter hikes this weekend.

 

Prestige

 We all grow up with biases. Some are bad, some are ugly, and some are just plain idiotic.

I am no exception.

Ranked from highest to lowest prestige, here is the ranking of academic fields based on the biases I picked up growing up in the USSR. Over-simplified and incomplete. This is so wrong, but somehow so fun…

1.   Math

2.   Physics

3.   Medicine

4.   Chemistry

5.   Biology

6.   History

7.   Philosophy

8.   Literature

9.   Art

10.  Psychology.

Specific to my family:

• Music (classical…. Like concert pianist, or piano teacher) – pretty high up, but not quite as high as math.
• Sports, ballet, rock climbing, contemporary music – not even on the scale, only OK as a hobby.
• Business (like running a business, having your own business, etc) – completely off-scale alien concepts.

Dear reader, please feel free to share (or complain about) biases when it comes to career or academic fields of study.

Weekend Report

It was a quiet weekend with lots of outdoor time. Restful and relaxing, except for occasional bouts of temper-tantrums from the girls.

What got done:

·         Family hike (there was some whining and complaining, but, once again, nature won everyone over)

o   Kids enjoyed ice-covered puddles

o   E. told C stories.

o   I spent part of the hike “in my head” – much needed day-dreaming, looking at the blue sky, and thinking – while the rest of the family kept themselves busy.

·         I cleaned the kitchen while listening to “History of Sci-fi” podcast.

·         Husband finished the woodshed.

·         We moved the wood into the new woodshed.

·         We watched a few episodes of Wolfblood (with kids) and Buffy (with J).

·         I baked Beet Bread (it got nearly completely devoured in just one afternoon).

·         Buttermilk Pancakes (Saturday breakfast) and Sourdough Waffles (Sunday breakfast)

·         Baked chicken and vegetables (enough for 2 dinners)

·         I worked for a couple of hours while kids played.

·         C and I looked at snowflakes through the magnifying glass (snowflakes were amazing…).

·         Kids practiced their instruments.

·         E. went for a brief walk with his best friend (masked).

·         I played cards with kids (it was fun until C had a massive meltdown because she kept loosing).

·         Reading and playing in front of the fireplace.

o   Mio, my Son with C

o   American Spy – me.

o   Spy Camp and Evil Spy School – E.

o   Listening for Lucca – H.

o   The Spy and the Traitor – J.

·         Quick ping-pong game with E.

·         Hebrew school (kids)

·         Community stuff/committee meeting

 

What didn’t get done:

·         Non-essential chores (ie, folding laundry and cleaning)

·         Solitary hike in the morning