I Love Google

Or, more specifically, images.google.com -- without which, I couldn't have had "Mayflower" as a classroom vocabulary word for this week for my 6th graders, who are learning US History. :-)

Didn't get as much done as I wanted to today, and tomorrow starts another week...but maybe I'll at least get to watch "Act of Contrition" tonight before I go to bed...I know it's a cliffhanger, but I kinda know what happens anyway, thanks to tvtome.com, so I'll probably watch it...and then spend all week waiting for Friday, but oh well.

Grandma seemed a bit better today, but they have to keep her slightly sedated to keep her heart pumping at a reasonable level. See, you don't so much die from emphysema, as from complications of emphysema -- rather like diabetes. It's not that it keeps destroying your lung tissue until literally none is left (although, I suppose, that could happen if you never checked into a hospital where they could keep you from smoking) -- it's that your heart has to work so much harder to pump oxygenated blood to your body...or, that your organs start to suffer from lack of oxygen.

In some ways, it's a mixed blessing, but so far, grandma's heart has seemed okay...it's handled upwards of 160 beats a minute without...well, skipping a beat, if you'll pardon the pun. On the sedatives, it's about 110, so...we'll see.

You never know, really...I learned that with my dad and my grandpa. My cousin Jason is getting married in May, though, so hopefully that'll give her something to stick around for.

Ironically, people were wondering if she'd make it to my cousin's bar mitzvah in 2001...and then to my other cousin's bat mitzvah in 2003...so, like I said, who knows, right?