Sentimental Value

PZ has a post about an old pocket watch that he inherited that includes:

Not particularly rare or valuable, but I didn’t expect much — it’s value is all sentimental to me.

I thought of adding a comment, but it wouldn’t have been about watches, so rather than hijack PZ’s comment thread, I decided to write a short post of my own.

Years ago, my maternal grandmother found an old sampler in a trunk; and she put it in a frame and hung it on her wall.  I was the only grandchild who stood up on a chair, pointed to each of the letters, and said, “A-B-C-D…”, so I inherited it.

About thirty years ago, I showed it to a woman (I can’t remember her name) who was the curator of fabrics at the St. Louis Art Museum.  As soon as she saw it, her face dropped.  It’s in a rather common style for the time, and it’s unfinished.

But I got her to clean it up as best she could and mount it on an acid-free backing.  That cost me way more than the object is worth by itself; but, yeah, it’s sentimental.

photo of sampler

The Next Treatment

I mentioned in a previous post that the cancer had returned and that I’d be getting yet another round of treatments.  The plan was to start four weeks of more aggressive radiation, twice a day for five days per week, and start another round of chemotherapy on radiation day 1.  That changed for some reason I don’t remember; so the current plan is to do just the chemo today, tomorrow and Wednesday, and then start the radiation and second session of three days of chemo on the 28th.

2024-05-06 13:30:

Here I sit getting my first of three days of chemotherapy.  I got started shortly after noon with some administrivia, three drugs administered from a syringe hooked up to the IV, and a bag of some drug that took about half an hour to drip.  Bag number two has started and will drip for about an hour; and then there will be maybe ten or fifteen minutes of more administrivia.  I hope to be out of here by 15:00.

Social Media and Me

I’ve never used social media*, so I’ve never been affected in any way by the problems Facebook, Xitter, etc.  Am I missing something?

I remember PZ trying to choose between Mastodon and BlueSky, and Mike the Mad Biologist recently mentioned a couple of things that he likes about BlueSky.  Should I try out one of those?  What will I be able to do that I can’t do now?

*OK, I guess blogs are a kind of social media; but aside from that…

I did create a LinkedIn account near its beginning, but I wound up never using it for anything.