I am so pumped. Seriously. I am so excited. We are going to have a woman VP. And what a woman.

I read about Sarah Palin months ago on Secondhand Smoke, when Wesley reported that she found out her last baby had Down Syndrome during the pregnancy and she and her husband chose life for him. Everything else I read about her I liked too ... she's a strong conservative and I like that, being somewhat conservative, myself. When I learned that she was on McCain's short list I had my fingers crossed.

I think she'll make a great VP. But also, I hope that her son's story will give people second thoughts about the automatic choice so many seem to think necessary, to abort babies who have Down Syndrome and other challenges. Women report being told, in the same office visit that they get their amnio result, that they need to go on and schedule the abortion right away ... it's assumed that they'll have one. If they have the baby, they report being asked why they didn't abort. Nzingha reported that. We need to bring that culture-of-death stuff to a squeaking halt.

Well, ha ha, ten days later.

Fay turned out to be, for us, the storm that wasn't. We were right in the path for a while but we ended up getting the usual amount of rain that we get every day in the rainy season, maybe just a bit more wind than usual. It's pretty breezy right now, in fact. One of the many things I like about living here is that after the sun goes down the temperature drops, there's a breeze, and you might want sleeves even in August. I keep a sweater handy for my evening stroll. I do feel for the people east of us who are being flooded out of their homes. A spectacular amount of rainfall will do that. When F and I came here last year to find a place to live we were very conscious of wanting whatever high ground there was, and we have it.

And she cracked me up on Tuesday afternoon, calling to check up on us. She gets jittery not being here to look after us, because we probably won't have any better sense than to run out to look at the hurricane - "I've never seen a hurricane before!" she imagined me saying in a ditzy voice - and have a tree fall on us, or something. But I have, I've seen what there was of Camille when it swept through north Mississippi when I was a girl, and I think we got some stormy weather when the remnants of Katrina blew through. And Hurricane Elvis, of course, which was bad news. No fun at all.

Eventually I will stop talking about myself, but here's some more stuff. I stopped Ultram on the weekend. I was on it for 3 months and that's possibly long enough to get a little used to it. Major insomnia. So I added another herb last night (Valerian) and it made all the difference in the world. Will do the same tonight. Before long I should be re-adjusted. I feel not having Ultram in that my shoulder is griping at me more, and more often, but it's nothing like it was three months ago. I'm very hopeful of getting past this, maybe completely by the end of the year.

Work has been pretty busy. We're trying some things to get the plant back up and running and back to the usual 30 or so employees. I've called back another tech to help with that. Kind of miss being by myself in the lab, but I knew it couldn't last.

My mom told me a couple of weeks back to "get off my duff and update my blog". I guess I will.

I think it's the Ultram. I can read stuff and comment on it but it's hard to initiate writing, for some reason.

First a quick synopsis of my physical difficulty. I have adhesive capsulitis in my left shoulder. This is growth of scar tissue inside the joint capsule. Wikipedia has an excellent article about it. I have had a cortisone injection into what there was of the joint space, physical therapy, and oral steroids, with little or no effect. In addition, I am taking Celebrex for inflammation and pain, and Ultram to help with the pain. The orthopedist told me at the beginning of July that we had tried just about everything (as I cried in his office) and that the next step is surgery. I couldn't schedule surgery right then so I said I'd call his office when I could. When I did call, I had to leave a message which was never returned. This had happened before. So I was given pause as to whether I should let this man perform surgery - if I had post-op problems, would I be able to get in touch with him?

I had decided to try some "snake oil" while I was waiting to be able to schedule surgery - things I couldn't miss at work were going on and then I needed to go back to Mississippi last week, which I did. So I ordered this device and began using it 2 or 3 times a day, doing stretching and strengthening exercises at home, and taking yucca and turmeric 3 times a day in addition to the other meds. I actually think all this is going to do the trick and I'll be able to avoid surgery. I feel a little less desperate and depressed now, so that's a plus. And I only have a few days left on my Ultram prescription. If the pain isn't so bad that I have to ask for more - and it is greatly diminished from what it was - maybe I'll be able to keep this thing updated again.

So that's that. I'll write more later.