Before Secret Aaaaygent Man..

...there was Danger Man starring the same Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, an agent for NATO.  (Secret Aaaaygent Man worked for MI9.)  I remember the Secret Aaaaygent Man song, but no details of the show.  Now, I'm filling in some of my childhood blanks by watching the original Danger Man.  The show had a mere half hour to present, complicate, then solve some problem of international import.  The first John Drake had few secret-agent type devices to help him; perhaps NATO had no Q-type person.  I can imagine early John Drake telling later John Drake how in the old days he had to depend on his fists, his gun, his charm, and his brain.  Nowadays, super secret agents are spoiled!  (Later John Drake rolls his eyes.)

It Was Christmas Day in the City

And everybody went to the movies...

So I knew that Sherlock Holmes had the now seemingly compulsory action hero stuff:  slow motion fights with acrobatics, bodies flying everywhere, and ridiculously loud punch-thwacks, but even so, I was surprised by its overuse.  They also had a fair amount of building destruction and explosions.  I did like Robert Downey Jr. a lot.  And the filming and computer animation was beautifully done.  Too bad there wasn't a wee bit more character development.

My apologies to Sue, Julie, and Dave.  I was going to save SH to see with youse guys.  But Mary wanted to see a movie, and she's already seen Up in the Air.

Happy Birthday Sun

Was December 25 really celebrated as the birthday of Mithras Sol Invictus?  Wikipedia says there are doubts.  But since we must celebrate it sometime, it might as well be today.

Don't Eat Yellow Snow

The street in front of my building today after a few Photoshop adjustments.

I Like Plaid

I'm a New Woman!

So I got my abscessed tooth removed, and my transformation is comparable to that of the protagonist of Shirley Jackson's story The Tooth.*

Now, if you haven't read that story, I wish you would.

The dental surgeon tried to sell me on an implant, though it will probably cost $4K and not be covered by insurance.  Rosemary, my neighbor, has had several molars removed and still has no trouble eating.

* Shirley Jackson, The Lottery and Other Stories, Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 1949 pp. 265-286.

Health Update

In my last exciting post, I was waiting to get a CT scan that would confirm or deny rumors of an aneurysm.  Since then, a big chunk fell off one of my back teeth.  The dentist said it was abscessed down to the nerve, so that probably was the cause of my face pain.  (I'd had my teeth checked a year ago when the pain was only mild discomfort, but she couldn't find anything wrong then.)  Then today I found out that my CT scan was normal.  This was a medical mystery worthy of House!

A Look Inside my Head

As previously reported, I was suspected of having trigeminal neuralgia.  The Harvard Health Service's main neurology guy had recently left, so it took a couple of months to see a neurologist.  He didn't think it was TN, and I got an MRI.  The MRI confirmed that I didn't have TN, but I may have an aneurysm.  The aneurysm could be pressing on a nerve and causing my facial pain.  However, the suspected aneurysm could be merely me moving in the MRI machine.  So tomorrow I get a CT scan, which is fast enough to avoid wiggle misreads.
 Since trigeminal neuralgia is rare and difficult to treat, and aneurysms are common and simple to treat, this is good news.  In the meantime, enjoy my brain.

Unitarian Offerings Declined

Last weekend Mary and I checked out the annual crafts fair at the First Parish Church in Cambridge.  The usual windchimes provide a reassuring continuity from year to year.

There are always a lot of knitted things, especially for children.  Recycled materials were another popular theme.

There are always a lot of pretty things, but not outstanding things.  The things didn't grab me and say, "Take me home.  You can't live without me!"  I know when I go to the Cambridge Artists Coop (for instance), I'll see lots of things, too many things, that I'd like to take home.  But this fair was only fair.  So we went sadly away clutching our unspent money.