The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Janet Miles:

Julia @65: "Conversely, slow-roasted thin slices of yam marinated in olive oil and soy sauce makes pretty decent 'ham,' particularly in split pea soup."

I am forced to admit that I initially read "thin slices of yak" and wondered if you lived in Tibet or something.

We are all Tanith. This is not going to make any sense to anyone who wasn't there at the time, but I nevertheless feel compelled to post it.

Regarding Sen. Kennedy, I must admit I had no idea all the things he'd had a hand in. I'm impressed. May he rest in peace; may those who loved him find comfort in memory.

Not using kitty litter for cleanup, but rather cleaning kitties: my parents once found on our doorstep a cat that had been drenched in used motor oil. (We don't know whether someone deliberately dumped oil on the poor thing, whether it was in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone was changing oil, or whether it got into a holding container.)

They called the vet, who said that if left alone, the cat would try to lick itself clean and probably die, and suggested:

1. Rub thoroughly with cornstarch.
2. Brush.
3. Repeat 1-2 until cat no longer felt oily to the touch.
4. Wash with baby shampoo.
5. Towel dry.
6. Repeat 1-5 if necessary.

Unstated was "dress all wounds," but the cat seemed to understand that, as miserable as it was, we were trying to help, and didn't claw or bite.

More personalized stories about concussions: I got one in my car accident seven years ago (photos of the car; the guy in the pictures is the husband of the friend who went to the junkyard to take the pictures for me).

Short form: I was rear-ended by fully-loaded tractor-trailer while I was stopped on the freeway (there had been another accident earlier, where a truck had lost a load all over the road, and the crews were still cleaning that up).

Car rolled and spun; I was thrown out of my seatbelt (yes, I was wearing my seatbelt properly; however, the seat back was broken by the impact and the seatbelt had nothing to hold me against) and put a lovely headstar in the windshield, on the passenger side, with the back of my head. I also broke three ribs and whiplashed my upper back, and acquired an assortment of comparatively minor cuts and bruises.

My memory of the accident goes from "I am stopped on the freeway and should turn on my hazard lights" to "I am upside down and there are paramedics in my car. Something is seriously wrong here." I don't know if I was actually unconscious, but the memory gap is probably about 10-15 minutes.

The first thing I remember saying was to answer the question, "Do you know what happened?" with "I think there's been an accident, is anyone hurt?" (Which was really an incredibly stupid thing to say, and I'm still embarrassed by it all these years later, not to mention by what I might have been saying before my memory and social censors came back online.)

But I knew who I was, where I was, and about what time it was. I think I greyed out or blacked out when they moved me out of the car onto the stretcher, because I don't remember that part very clearly at all (they gave me a blanket and told me to tuck it around my face and arms to protect me from breaking glass, then there were loud crunching noises, then they started to slide a backboard under me, and then I was on the stretcher).

I remember asking in the ambulance if anyone had my purse because that's where my insurance cards were.

The ER x-rayed me and scanned me (I'm pretty sure CT scan because I don't remember it being noisy). Another point of ongoing embarrassment is that I was so uncooperative; I whimpered and moaned when they had to move me around, and I couldn't roll over onto my side for them to X-ray me, they had to get a tech in to roll and hold me. (I did, at least, apologize for being difficult.)

After all the scans and such, they gave me a shot for pain and one for nausea, and were ready to release me to my husband (who I still think folded time and space to get from Maryville, TN to Cleveland, TN as fast as he did). I stood up from the bed, turned grey and sweaty, and started swaying. They sat me back on the bed, tried three times with no success to take my blood pressure, and started an IV.

I dozed off, and when I woke up about four hours later I could stand up without getting sick, so they went ahead and discharged me with scrips for pain and nausea (but no muscle relaxant, which still pisses me off -- I'd been in accidents before, and knew damn good and well that muscle relaxants are more helpful than narcotics in the week following).

It ended up being almost six weeks before I was able to go back to work, although that was mostly my fault for not pushing my own doctor hard enough to refer me to physical therapy (among other things, the first thing the PT showed me was how I could get into and out of bed without screaming -- I'd been sleeping in an office chair tipped back and my feet up on another chair for a month).

And given that I had dizzy spells for the better part of six months, I am (A) more inclined to think Dale was right and the ER should have admitted me for observation, and (B) damn lucky I didn't end up with worse outcomes.

Actually, more precisely for #16, gur sbk sebz Gur Yvggyr Cevapr

#16 Gur Yvggyr Cevapr

Done.

Xopher at #17: Did you catch Obama on Letterman the other night (I didn't, but someone posted a couple of YouTube clips)?

Letterman asked about the "lipstick on a pig" quote and whether it was about Palin. Obama replied (quoting approximately, here), "No, of course not, it was about McCain's failed economic policies. Technically, she'd have been the lipstick."

albatross at #11: I've heard of Pegler, in the context of the 1954 libel lawsuit filed by Quentin Reynolds against Pegler and his publishers, the Hearst Company. Pegler and Hearst lost, to the tune of $1 in actual damages and $175,000 in punitive damages. The defendants argued that if Reynolds's reputation was so strong that they had been able to cause only $1 in actual damages, the punitive damage award was unreasonable; the judge (and, I think, an appeals court, but I'd have to double-check that) denied that motion.

Of course, I only know about that because my parents owned a copy of Louis Nizer's book My Life in Court (ISBN 978-0515027648).

Interestingly, this 2004 article in the New Yorker says that it was only after the lawsuit that Pegler became an avowed anti-Semite; Nizer was Jewish, and, according to the article, Pegler "interpreted what had happened as the Jewish world vs. Pegler."

I would not have recognized the quote, though.

I was under the impression that the McCain (and, by extension, the Republican) health care plan was, "Don't get sick."

Emma at #33: I believe Mary Sue's male counterpart is generally called Gary Stu. I've also seen "Marty Stu," but I think that's less common.

The specific form of aphasia where one is unable to remember a particular desired word at the time one wants to use it seems to be "anomic aphasia."

It appears that, technically, aphasia is only a valid diagnosis when the problem is caused by a brain injury (including disease processes like tumors), so everyday forgetfulness probably doesn't count.

As long as we're doing animal terms, one of my favorites is "puggle", a baby monotreme (echidna or platypus).

A baby kangaroo or wallaby is a joey.

A female kangaroo is a doe, flyer, or jill.

A marsupial's pouch is called a marsupium.

PJ Evans (#3): I hear you. My experience with three broken (not just cracked) ribs included a bout of hiccups.

Not recommended.

Dear ghods. I'm glad you are safe.

Your city and its inhabitants will be in my thoughts for a quick recovery from the storm and its effects.

I've been on the right side of a gun (that is, I was holding it). I didn't have to pull the trigger, and for that I thank all the gods. I tell myself that I could have if I'd needed to, but looking back on it from nearly 20 years distance, I no longer know.

I was coming home late, late one night. I stopped to turn left onto my street; a truck stopped behind me. I turned; he turned. I went past the first cross street; he turned off.

I thought, "Oh, just a coincidence."

I pulled into my driveway; he came around the block and pulled in behind me. I sat for a minute in my locked car; he sat.

I came to the conclusion that he did not have my best interests in mind. Given that I was carrying a gun on a regular basis at that time (yet another long story), I took it out of its case and got out of the car, holding it at my side.

He got out of his truck and said, "Don't be afraid of me, little girl."

I reaffirmed my earlier conclusion, brought the gun into a shooting stance, and said, "I'm not."

He got back in his truck, closed and locked the door, and put his hands up on the windshield. (I find that last a very telling action.)

I backed away as far as the gate to the courtyard, ran through it and to my apartment, and locked myself in.

I was then dive-bombed by a palmetto bug the size of my hand, and if weren't for the fact that my dad taught me good gun etiquette and I'd taken my finger off the trigger while I was running, I'd have blown a hole in my damn ceiling. I spent the remainder of the night locked in my bathroom, whimpering, and got a neighbor to capture and release the bug in the morning.


I think that Old Jarhead has the right of it, and his recommendations make good sense. I hope I'm never in a situation where I find out for myself.

I've seen the text string "Atchoafe wigthats" in a couple of Kathryn from Sunnyvale's comments, but can't decode it. Help?

Teresa (74) -- My description of what happened is based on the accident report and its witness statements. (And the article in the paper the next day, in which the senior cop at the scene was quoted as being amazed there were no fatalities -- one 18-wheeler hit four cars; he sideswiped the first, I was the second, and then he hit two more before finally coming to a stop.) My memory of the whole thing goes from "Hm, traffic is stopped [on the freeway], I should turn on my hazard lights" to "I am upside down and there are paramedics in my car."

Whey they started asking the orientation questions, I knew who I was, approximately where I was, and about what time it was, but when they asked me what had happened, all I could come up with was, "There's obviously been an accident -- is anyone hurt?" I get stupid -- and very talkative -- when I'm in shock.

I'm not playing devil's advocate. I use my seatbelt every time I'm in the car, and have been seriously glad more than once.

I managed to be in an accident where I was thrown free of my seatbelt (but not out of the car).

I was rear-ended by a loaded 18-wheeler, hard enough to break the back of the driver's seat; pushed up the highway; then popped out from under the truck bumper and rolled and spun. I left a headstar in the upper *passenger* side of the windshield -- with the back of my head. When EMS cut open the door to get me out, I was on the roof of the car, with one leg still hanging through the belt.

And through all that, I came out with just three broken ribs, whiplash, a hell of a concussion, and assorted scrapes and bruises. The broken ribs took about a month to heal and a year to stop hurting all the time, the effects of the concussion lasted about six months, and I have sensory nerve damage in my upper back, which is aggravating but not life-impairing. I suspect that had I not been wearing the belt to begin with, things would have been a whole lot worse.

(If you're interested, here are pictures of the remains of the car.)

Bruce at #145 -- Similarly, there is a Patricia Cornwell mystery that has the protagonist arriving in Knoxville, Tennessee, on a football Saturday and getting a hotel room downtown without a reservation. (For those of you not from The South, it is commonly believed that on football Saturdays, Neyland Stadium becomes the third-largest city in the state.)

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