Barbara had a brilliant idea. Her parents are a distance away and in the middle of lots of medical and therefore logistical challenges. She needs to deal with lots of people to line up help. She had nice informal-looking business cards made with her parents’ names and “Family Contact Information” printed on them, with her and her brother’s name, phone numbers and email addresses. Her parents can proudly hand them out (“Isn’t my daughter clever?”) to neighbors and friends who offer and then people can easily reach Barbara and her brother.
Category: Useful Things
Visiover and Out
Raveen taught me that Visio, or at least our installation of it, does not default to having an auto-save function. You can set it, and you should! Otherwise you can lose your work in progress. Good to know!
Pro-Whining
From Sal
Sometimes, whining works! I canceled my Comcast service and switched to a new cable provider for my new apartment, since I had such trouble with their billing department for the last 12 months. The first time I called to cancel, they wanted to charge me $75 to end one week early, make me sit around with my cable box, and keep the new people from getting cable for a week. But I tried back a few days later, and explained my problems right up front to the new person, who is not only easily ending our service as requested, but we get to deliver the box whenever we’re done with it and we are getting a refund, instead of a fee. Whining win!
ZING
I have learned how to make really good iced lattes at home but I have also learned that using up all the espresso at once is WAY too much caffeine for me at a shot!
Going Way Too Green
I have learned that if I want to be all green and dry my clothes on racks in the free sun and wind and air, then I better not store those racks where they can become laden with also-green pine pollen and not noticed in time. Not a pretty picture.
Ask the Universe First!
From Sal with my full endorsement and participation:
Sending positive vibes into the universe can yield physical results. This weekend’s proof: a footstool, and ipod, and a cell phone that all found their rightful owners just by sending out good vibes and asking the right people
Say What?
Today I learned that learning how to pronounce complex and unfamiliar drug names makes me feel like I sound more like I know what I’m talking about in a room full of cancer research experts.
And I learned how to pronounce:
BEVACIZUMAB bev a CIZ oo mab
METRONOMIC ˌme-trə-ˈnä-mik
CYCLOPHOSPHAMIDE sye kloe foss’ fa mide
ZOLEDRONIC zole DRO nik
Sugar Sugar
Today I leaned that you can soften your brick-hard brown sugar by heating it in the microwave.
AND I learned that you should then sift through to pick out the tiny sugar rocks that form, before you mix it into the rest of the ingredients, where it will be much more work to sort through.
The banana oat almond muffins were yummy. Wish I had one right now!
No New Messages – Really!
I have learned that there is a menu-accessible setup function on my Uniden phone that lets me turn off the “new voice mail” indicators that happen to be lying but stuck.
Here, I Did the Math
It takes 5 seconds to hang up a multi-strand necklace, but up to 10 minutes to untangle it later if it’s not hung up.
Jane's Lessons Learned 