The every-few-months buzz past the endocrinologist, who keeps me happily functional, and I’m doing fine…excellent blood pressure, no problems. Battled morbid depression for years until I got the thyroid problem figured out, and since then it’s been bluebirds and rainbows. (I know, glug, but it beats bats and cobwebs as general decor.)
The pond is still doing great and Ari’s gaping wound looks to us (I thought it, then Jane said it without my saying so) as if it’s healing in a bit. It was clear to the bone, and now is filled in, and looks as if it may skin over. We would so love it. She’s such a special fish.
Beyond that, just working, working, working.
What does not kill us makes us stronger. You go, Ari!
In re the past discussion, there’s a series called “Hot Rocks: Geology of Civilization” with Scottish geologist Iain Stewart as presenter about how the local geology affects the civilization that arises in that locale — The show is well written, the science is not dumbed down, his thesis is cogently presented and I could listen to that Scottish accent read the phone book. I would imagine it’s out on DVD (?). http://science.discovery.com/convergence/hotrocks/hotrocks.html
A good example of that is how the Pacific Islanders never made it out of the Stone Age, literally. With no accessible deposits of metal to draw on, all of the tools they could easily make were stone/bone/wood. Even bent nails and discarded bits of iron were incredibly valuable, once Westerners started exploring the Pacific; you could reprovision your whole ship for a handful of nails, a broken knife, and a couple of iron kettles.
What most Americans do not realize about the world is how lucky they are to have all sorts of major metal deposits inside their borders. Take Greece for example. Very little farmland, a lot of coast, and no great metal, oil, or coal deposits. There’s a limit to how you can parlay tourists and fishing into a robust economy. If you buy fuel, you buy at the price some other nation sets, and you hope to make it up on olive oil, figs, and cheese.
The timing is important too. The big iron deposits in the Great Lakes area were discovered about the same time as the potato famine in Ireland, so we had lots if immigrants to work the metals.
I agree with your connection of family history with world history. It might have made some difference in my case, but I was always more interested in “ancient” history, up to say 1600 or Louis XIV & Richelieu, after which it less about peoples, cultures and migrations and more about Politics. Unfortunately when I was in college, mid-60’s, Chemistry majors could graduate as long as they made “adequate progress toward the degree”, so a history minor was out of the question. 🙁
Yay, Ari. You go, girl!
So glad to read that you are doing well and Ari’s getting better. Fish are amazingly resilient. I imagine discovering and dealing with the thyroid problem made a big difference for the better. It’s amazing to me that you wrote as many books as you did while depressed due to low thyroid.