Peanuts Redux

A short anecdote to go with the peanut story:

Peanuts had to be dried on the roof. The watchman would help carry bags of peanuts up via a ladder. My mom would then climb a nearby tree up to the roof and sit there in the shade, waving a stick to scare off thieving crows. That may not have been the wisest choice of chore, though, since she herself ate as many as the crows.

Dream A Little Dream

Why is NASA so important? It provides a dream for the progeny of a nation. It inspires, and catches and holds the scientific interest of the naturally curious - children. Including myself.



Well said, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Tales of My Mother's Childhood - Peanuts

The house my mother's family moved to after living in the high school was again long and skinny. The man who owned it lived in the left half, while my mother lived on the right. He had an angadi, a little store, in the front section, flanked by two thin rooms. Where the store ended, the rooms widened, though the house was still split in two.

The man who owned the house ran a peanut business. He would buy from the farmers during the harvest, toss the peanuts into huge piles in his storeroom, and sell them for a much higher price during the off-season.

Large numbers of peanuts, of course, led to large numbers of mice. To reach the storeroom, they often dug through the walls on my mother's side of the house, and again through the partitioning wall. They scurried and squeaked, making their little mouse noises loud enough to provide a constant background soundtrack throughout the night.

Tales of My Mother's Childhood - Mercury

When my mother was in 5th grade, she moved with her family to a village where her father was assigned as headmaster (principal) of the local high school. Now, this was a village, and houses were not constantly changing hands like they do in today's (more like yesterday's) market. When they arrived, there was no apartment or house waiting for them.

The office building of the high school was a donated/loaned Vaishya satram. It was a long, skinny building, consisting of a small kitchen, a large front room, and a smaller room in between. The entry side of the front room contained a desk and a few chairs for the headmaster and a few teachers. A row of saris strung behind this area created a wall separating the actual office from the area now used to house a family of 8.

When my grandparents and the 6 children moved in, there were two boxes in the back half of that room. One held the school library, and the other the laboratory.

While my grandfather bought and brought a large part of the library in that box, the laboratory was always owned by the school. It consisted of a balance, a couple of meters for measuring various physical properties (thermometer, an old densitometer, etc.), and a bottle of mercury.

My mother, being as curious as Pandora, immediately opened that box. She didn't loose multiple horrors upon the world, but she did find the shiny, silvery bottle. At the time, the dangers of mercury were not well known. So my mom, at the age of nine, played with it.

She tipped it up and down, marveling at the way it flowed. When she tired of that, she opened the bottle and accidentally spilled some on the ground. She tried to pick it up, but it broke apart into little balls and rolled away. Each ball she tried to pick up simply squished apart in her fingers, resulting in a multitude of smaller balls. Eventually she gave up and scooped them all together. This unfortunately meant that dirt from the floor joined the mercury. In a stroke of genius, she found a cleaning cloth. By rubbing the balls of mercury in the cloth, she could get rid of the dirt and keep the mercury!

She carefully put it back, but returned to play with it in secret when her father was busy and nobody was nearby. Within a couple months, though they found a portion of a house to rent. The library went with them, but the lab (luckily for her health!) stayed put.

The Autistic Spectrum

Autism has fascinated me ever since I first learned about it in middle school. Why? Because at the time I was able to see a little bit of myself there. Autism comes on a spectrum, and so it was possible for me to see myself near the top, high-functioning enough that I could pass for normal.

I constantly questioned myself as to whether I was really on there, or whether I was being a hypochondriac, or whether in the back of my mind, I really wanted that gift that comes with being a savant, even at the expense of a normal life.

I don't think so anymore. Nowadays, I think I can say that the last bit is probably not true, but what about the first two? I mean, sometimes I think I fit, but I don't know where to draw the line.

How wide is the autistic spectrum? What does it cover? On the far extreme, it can be pretty obvious. Those children who cannot bear the onslaught their senses throw at them, who are unable to interact with others, who feel emotion but cannot empathize and catch others reactions. The ones who spend their days rocking, drawing, solving puzzles, all while locked in their own heads.

But what about the other end? How brilliant does one have to be in order to be placed on the spectrum? How much geekish, nerd-like, or introverted behavior is necessary to push you in that direction?

Hospital Results Take a Long Time

My little second cousin is in the hospital. That doesn't seem very closely related, but she's one of the few relatives my family has in this area. Most of my relatives are back in India. Besides, she's only...I think 5 years old?

Anyways, a few days ago, she was with a babysitter or something after school, and she began complaining of a headache. By the time her parents arrived, she had already vomited four times. The headaches (the back of her head, at the top of the neck) made them worry might be meningitis, so they took her to the hospital.

The doctors decided to do a lumbar puncture to find out whether it was bacterial or viral (if it was in fact meningitis). The problem? It hurt a lot. Even the injection of anesthesia hurt her, and after that, they had to try multiple times to get the cerebrospinal fluid. Afterwards, she complained of horrible pain, so much that she would lay still for hours because she was too afraid of the pain to move. The hospital had to give her morphine every three hours to fight off the pain. The first CSF test came up negative, but the fluid was pink. Whether that was because there was a problem initially or some damage was done by the repeated poking is still unknown.

She's getting better, or at least the pain is decreasing, and she's walking around and playing and eating a bit again, but the doctors decided to take an MRI. The room was booked yesterday, so they kept her in the hospital and took it today. Now the results are finally back, and it's negative. Except that there's one blood vessel that is apparently in the range of normal variation, but the doctors still want to ask a specialist to get a second opinion. Which can't happen until after the weekend. At least it seems negative.

I've been worried for both her and her parents. I'm worried for her because I want her to be okay, and I'm worried for her parents because they're worried for her. How can they stand it, constantly wondering what the result of the test will be, still uncertain about what exactly is happening with their daughter? They haven't left her side for more than an hour, and even then only one at a time, to come to our house, get some food, maybe take a bath, smile for a minute.

All we can do is offer them support, a shoulder to cry on, some home-cooked food so they can be with her all the time. I wish it were easier and faster and cheaper to diagnose a problem. At least they get to go home now for a couple of days, get some rest, and be in a more familiar environment. I hope all will go well.


Edit: She's okay now, back to normal. She was having fun dancing at a friend's graduation party recently, at least, and the pain is gone. They're still not completely sure what caused the pain in the first place, but I think they've settled on viral meningitis.