Reading a book by Oliver Sacks, MD: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Kindle version. Can’t say I like the prose style, but the case histories of his patients with severe neurological disorders, especially the symptoms they present with, are fascinating.

One in particular involved a patient who was blind. But there was nothing wrong this patient’s eyes or any part of the visual transduction system, the system that converts images to electrical signals and sends them to the brain. All of that was perfectly intact in this patient. Instead, this patient had a large lesion in a specific part of her brain that normally resolves these signals (occipital lobe), and consequently she literally could not “see” anything.

In another example, the basis of the book title, Dr. Sack’s was examining a man — a talented musician, teacher, and otherwise “normal” — who had slowly lost his ability to recognize faces (a disorder known as prosopagnosia). This was followed by him seeing faces everywhere, in places where there were no faces (on an umbrella for instance), and eventually he started showing symptoms of more general agnosia, the inability to recognize common objects. At one point during the exam this man had removed his shoe for some test Dr. Sacks wanted to perform. When Dr. Sacks told the man he could put his shoe back on, instead of reaching for his shoe the man grabbed his foot and seemed perplexed when he couldn’t put his own foot on his foot. Shortly after that when the exam was over, and the man and his wife (also in the exam room) were getting ready to leave, the man searched the room for his hat and mistook his wife’s head for his hat — he literally grabbed her head and tried to lift it off her body and put it on his head! What I found fascinating was that in spite of his mental deficit this man was otherwise normal. He was an accomplished music teacher at the local university, a job he kept because he was good at it, not out of any sense of charity. Dr. Sacks wondered how this man could be independent in his daily life — eating, bathing, dressing, etc.. His wife’s reply was that so long as he did these things while singing (apparently he sang songs while doing almost everything), he was fine, but the second he stopped signing, even lightly, his activity came to a full stop; he’d become completely bewildered because suddenly he could no longer recognize anything, even his own clothes.

Now, there were certain times during my misdirected youth — close your eyes Mom — when I saw things that weren’t really there, but I have never, ever mistook Happy Wife’s head for a hat.

Comment problem fixed.

Carry on.

Sensational view from my window seat on the slow descent to Anchorage of what I believe is the confluence of Harriman fiord and Barry arm. Don’t know the names of the glaciers to the north. I know, my bad, we may have been instructed by this time to turn off every electronic device with an on/off switch. Couldn’t resist.

BIGGER.

Later on the descent a view of the back (eastern) side of the Chugach mountains.

BIGGER.

Permit me a complaint about motion activated dispensers in airport bathrooms. Another example of purpose lost to good intention.

You see, planes, airports, and travelers are crawling with bacteria and viruses. The purpose of soap and water is to rid these disease vectors from my hands, not possible if the damn water will not come forth from any of the motion-activated faucets in the Men’s room, despite repeated waving of said hands in front of sensors: “Hello, soapy hands here. Any day now.”

Inevitably, moving to basin #2, having lost patience with the dysfunctional faucet in basin #1, in fact causes the faucet in basin #1 to come on! Have you experienced this? Quickly dashing back to faucet #1 causes it to shut off. Then you see a person at basin #3 merrily washing his hands, and when he departs you dash to faucet #3 in effect causing it — you got it — to shut off!

By now only a pointless volume of soap remains on your hands, so you wave them beneath the sensor on soap dispenser #3. Like the faucets this proves futile. In the meantime, you see someone satisfyingly washing their hands in basin #1. You can’t avoid the feeling it’s personal.

Eventually, you find a miserly faucet that works, dispensing just enough water to moisten one half of one side of one hand, leaving it coated with a sticky emulsion well short of your lathery goal. Nevertheless, you rub your hands together with futile vigor. It’s time to rinse. Copy/paste unfulfilled entreaties to stubborn faucets until, finally, one relents and dispenses one palmful of cold water. You concede defeat. It’s almost over. You walk to the paper dispenser which happens to be mounted rather high on the wall, such that by reaching one’s hands up to activate the motion detector the meager water left on your hands begins to slowly run down your arms inside your shirt sleeves. Isn’t that special!

But wait, here comes a single sheet of one-ply paper — six by eight inches. You quickly tear it at the perforation, not daring to risk the time required for sensor reset and more hand waving for additional sheets. Touching only one hand the tiny sheet becomes instantly sodden. By now most of the water has drained to your elbows anyway, so you dry with your shirt sleeves. You crumble the sheet of sodden paper into a ball the size of a nose booger, toss it in the general direction of the trash can burgeoning with other waste, but alas, it’s a rim shot, and falls to the floor.

Leaving the bathroom you open the door with the handle (crawling with disease vectors) pleased with yourself for having incrementally saved earth’s finite resources.

I’ll be in Boston next week, and blogging infrequently if at all. Our company and academic liaison was selected to present a paper at a conference, and we’ll have our shingle out on the exhibition floor in the commercial space. Stop by and say hi you, whoever you might be reading this. All that plus a few meetings with candidate clients will make for a fast-paced and very busy week. “How will I survive without your blogging?!” you ask? There there now, I’ll be back on Friday. In the meantime, enjoy a walk down memory lane. That’s what that search bar over there on the right is for.

It will be nice to see Spring! See, just yesterday we got hammered with an unseasonal snowfall — unseasonal even for us really. And the weatherlady said maybe more on the way. Where would the credibility of forecasters be absent the safety of probability. Weather isn’t true until it arrives, before that it’s merely a likelihood. Before this snowfall it was bluesky for a week and well into the 40s. Qua Alaskan, I should have known better than to get too excited.

Beautiful before the storm came, though! Happy Wife and Harry take a break near the Hope cutoff, during the drive to our Nest on the beach in Seward this past weekend:

BIGGER.

I feel like this could be a long post. Only nine words in and I can’t be sure, but I feel a buildup inside me, the same feeling of urgency to expel one has after four Americanos (Venti) riding in a car on the interstate and the road sign says: Next services, 25 miles.

Why the buildup? Been grant writing again is why, revising really, which takes the concerted focus of every neuron and synapse I have left. Talk to me when I’m in grant writing mode and my reply, assuming I could muster one, would be like Jabberwocky. Think Joe Biden on the campaign stump. Needless to say blogging stops until the grant gets submitted. Tomorrow!

Let’s begin with the weather! Bluesky lately and warm, that is warm in the sense we living here at 61° north in late March mean warm. Which is not what most anybody else in America would call warm; they may be generous and say warm-er or less cold or okay but room for improvement, but not warm like an Alaskan means warm: “43°! No way! Shut up! That’s awesome. Let’s go crust skiing in shorts and tank top!“

A moose was struck by a car and eventually killed by a state trooper the other morning. Not a hundred feet from our house. I was still in bed, Happy Wife tending to her morning ablutions, when I heard two loud cracks one right after the other. My first guess was gun reports, so I ignored ’em — irreconcilable differences at the neighbor house, maybe. Harry heard it too, he went off with a few dozen throaty barks stopping only after I shouted at him, Dude, Chill! For some reason he responds to Dude. A few minutes later I was hop-stepping downstairs, simultaneously (and unwisely) trying to thread my legs into my morning comfys, when I  looked out the front window and saw the traffic in the street had slowed, and then I saw the moose lying in the left lane, barely alive, a miniature fog rising from its nostrils. The two loud cracks I’d heard earlier were moose bone breaking against glass ‘n steel.

I walked back upstairs to notify Happy Wife, who was crestfallen at the news, and then back downstairs to the front window. By then a trooper was standing over the moose, gun pointed, another trooper farther down the road waving his arms to halt traffic, and then two reports from a handgun in close succession. .45 cal, possibly .44 mag.

Less than a half hour later the moose was removed, perhaps by the moose salvage people. A sad fate to contemplate, really, one minute you’re struggling to sustain 1500+ pounds during the wee days of Spring subsisting on frozen twigs and buds, and the next you’re in pieces somebody’s freezer.

BIGGER.

Occasionally we’re told, “Unless you have children of your own you can’t really understand.”

Okay, got it now!

The nieces were here for an overnight, to celebrate Happy Wife’s birthday, and afford their parents an indulgent date night here in Anchorage. The family lives in Fairbanks. Homemade pizzas were prepared, baked, and topped ONLY with white cheese because niece #1 insisted, with arms sternly folded, “I won’t eat YELLOW cheese.” Okay then.

Niece #2: “I want Rise of the Guardians!”

Happy Wife: “How do you ask?”

“PLEASE!… NO WAIT…I want Kung Fu Panda 2! … PLEASE! PLEASE!”

I drive to Blockbuster; they have KFP 2, one copy. Whew. But DVD, no BluRay. I drive back hoping the nieces won’t notice.

Movie is deployed and the pizza is served. Much of it found its way into human mouths! Some, however, was cached between and behind couch cushions — nieces prepping for leaner times? —  and I can’t be certain Harry didn’t take advantage of an unwatched plate. This, despite our earlier beseechment, “Girls, please don’t allow Harry to get any pizza.”

KFP 2 was terrific — sated on cheese ‘n dough we all settled in and enjoyed it. Happy Wife & I eased into our third (fourth?) glass of wine. Thinking, as rookies might, the calm would carry to bedtime. Suckers.

Spoiler alert: Po Panda and friends prevail in the end, vanquishing the evil Peacock. The credits begin to roll.

Happy Wife: “Do you girls want a bubble bath in the Jacuzzi tub?”

You’d have thought the boys had just returned from war.

Nieces (in chorus): “YEAH!! YEAH! Hot tub!! Hot tub! Hot tub!… (x8).” Much frenzied jumping and running ensues.

Happy Wife begins tub fillage and I shout a caution upstairs not to turn on the jets until the water level is…but this is drowned out by oven timers going off (cupcake prep), the TV audio at 100 dB or better, agitated dog barks, and gleeful shrieks of two pre-adolescent girls: “WE WANT TO SEE THE BUBBLES! BUBBLES! BUBBLES!”

I issue a final caution, which evidently goes unheard: “Careful with how much bubble bath you put in. Goes a long way you know.”

Minutes later I hear the jets start up and Happy Wife’s alarm, “Oh my, this stuff really goes a long way!”

Nieces: “Aunt Nancy LOOK AT OUR BEARDS! LOOK AT OUR BEARDS! MAKE A BEARD! MAKE A BEARD!”

There is bubble foam oozing onto the bathroom floor. The oven timer goes off, the cupcakes are done. I steal another therapeutic pour of wine.

Nieces reappear downstairs in their jams and robes. Soothed and serene. It’s 8:30. Parental instructions were: In bed by 8:30, 9:00 at the latest.

Right. Half hour left. What better way to induce pre-bedtime drowsiness than sugar!

Niece #2 erupts: “CUPCAKES!”

Niece #1 crescendos: “YEAH! CUPCAKES!”

I jump up. The dogs jump up. Quiet has ruptured, again.

A flurry of activity ensues in the kitchen and spills over to the dining room.

Cupcakes are liberally smeared with frosting, but chairs and table get some too! Niece #2 makes one just for me and hand delivers it to the chair where I’m seated recovering. Vanilla with pink speckles! Delicious. I note my wine glass: Empty, again.

Candles are placed, matches played with, and we all sing happy birthday to Happy Wife:

Sugar is fast-acting. Before long the lower floor becomes a track ‘n field course. The nieces are running laps. Harry snarls when one runs too close. Happy Wife’s eyes meet mine. We hold the stare a moment and say nothing, smile and shake our heads.

Time has passed. I’ve grown older. Nieces say good night to me, and Happy Wife encourages them upstairs to their bedroom, a stop in the bathroom for pre-adolescent ablutions. Then niece #2 reappears downstairs, gives me the shush sign, and proceeds to head for cupcakes.

I practice my new found skill: “Why don’t we wait until breakfast to have another cupcake, Honey?” She considers this briefly, eventually conceding the wisdom of my advice. I decant the last glass of Amarone and return to my chair.

The prior day niece #1 had lost a tooth which she carefully places bedside. By morning it has been replaced by a silver bullion liberty dollar. We all agree over waffle breakfast who did this, and how beautiful it is!

Parents arrive to pick up their children and return to Fairbanks. We ask, “How was your evening?” Great. Wonderful. Ours? Oh, we had a grand time. They were angels, no trouble at all.

Touched the weather widget on my phone last night to see the 5-day forecast. Present evening temperature? Minus zero (-0). I wondered how this differed from plus zero (+0).

No worries. By Saturday it will be 45°! Better yet, the weatherlady on TV said there is a 40% chance of Spring! Better than -40%, right?

Harry threw up late last night on the snow in the backyard. Happy Wife, who had gotten up to let him out, retrieved it, brought it inside, and inspected it like one inspects crime scene evidence. Nothing suspicious — undigested kibble and green beans. We were made aware when we adopted Harry that he has gastric torsion. This is a life-threatening condition in a dog when it occurs, but manageable over time if he survives. He’s a frenetic eater and to avoid another torsion event we deliberately slow him down by feeding him a handful of kibble at a time. If we fed him what we feed Lucy — beef, rice, beans — we fear he’d scarf it up way too fast for his own good. After last night we’re going to return to feeding him Beneful (from Iams), which, despite our misgivings, does appear to agree with his sensitive GI tract.

Oh, and would you look at that, the sun has just breached the Chugach mountains and is now beaming through the kitchen window. It’ll be with us today until 8:33 pm, past 9:00 pm come April. Take that winter!

Told you so, the lion and lamb forgot their order.

10-12 inches of snow last night, more in some places about town.

Was the national press a-twitter with our misfortune? No, of course not. But five inches and thirty-four in Cincinnati, a calamity!

Whatever.

Drove Lucy and Harry to Kincaid park for a walk anyway. Roads were unplowed, no visible pavement, an edgeless landscape of white. Navigation was by memory, or sans that, follow the driver in front of you and hope she knows. Even our 6-cyl, 4WD Outback, ordinarily an invincible beast, bucked ‘n chugged.

Alas, we arrived safely and pulled into the parking lot, steering to stay in the deep tracks of a vehicle that had gone before us, feeling the undercarriage shave flat the high mound of snow between. Harry’s a sweet boy, patient, well-behaved, good with other dogs, likes Lucy, etc. etc., but just park the car and grab a leash and he’s in the front seat with you anxious to get out before you know it.

We trudged through knee-deep (my knees) snow until we reached the established trail. Unless you didn’t know there was a trail, in which case your only clue today would’ve been that the snow was suddenly slightly less deep. I know these trails as well as anyone, so even covered in 10-12″ of fresh snow, boundaries indistinguishable, we navigated them with relative ease. Harry somewhat less confidently, tacking back ‘n forth on a long lead (temporary until we get to know and trust him off lead), and Lucy — The Streak — bounding effortlessly ahead, blazing trail. Total showoff that girl.

After the walk we drove back home and I fed the beasts. They both appeared tuckered out.

Some people have wondered why we did it, why adopt an elder Airedale? That’s a fair question. My answer is he’s a sweet boy and we were ready to give another rescue a chance, and I’m partial to Airedales. Plus Harry isn’t technically a rescue, he was surrendered by his family of nearly 11 years, for reasons we don’t really understand, but pretty clearly they took good care of him, he’s certainly a vital 11-yr old, and so Happy Wife and I agreed we’d like to care for him in his sunset years.

Q: “Sure, but aren’t you concerned, you know, given his age ‘n all, that, well, you know.”

A: It’s less about how many years you have left, more about how well they’re lived.

BIGGER.