Miss(ed) Manners

For the last month or two, Kadmium has been fighting what seems like a perpetual cold and cough.  He told us yesterday that he thinks he might have/had whooping cough.  Apparently he heard/read recently that it has been going around in the county where he lives.  He hasn't been "whooping" all that much, but the internet did say that adults can get it and not know they have it, and your childhood immunization for it wears off unless you get a booster with your tetanus shot.  So.....I guess it's possible.

I don't usually do book reviews on here, but here's one I read recently that I recommend:  "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."  The title sounds weird, but it's probably not what you think.  It's the story about one lady who had cervical cancer in the mid 1900's.  When the doctors removed the tumor, they sent it to a lab that was trying to grow human cells (unsuccessfully) at the time.  However, these special cervical cells could be grown in test tubes and have changed the course of modern medicine.  Maybe only 1/3 to 1/2 of the book is about her life and the science of tissue and cell growth, and the rest is the story of her family and how they came to grips with their mom's cells being in every biology lab in the planet.  I found it to have a good mix of science, human interest, and patient rights that really kept me turning the pages.

I had to tell my boss this week that a mistake I made last year now could possibly cost my department $6000.  That's small in the grand scheme of things, but it's still not fun to have to own up to being responsible for that.

Tonight I made a chicken marinade that involved the usual vinegar, oil, and garlic, but it also had some mustard, oregano, parsley, and bay leaves.  It smelled a little bit different and I wasn't sure how it would taste, but it tasted better than it smelled.  I may even use that marinade recipe again.  My only struggle with chicken is that I haven't learned the trick to grilling it yet.  I always get paranoid about salmonella and end up overcooking it so that it's dry.  I have a meat thermometer, but it doesn't seem to work all that well, and the chicken pieces were pretty thin tonight, so I'm not sure how well it would have worked.  Tonight the chicken still tasted good, but it was a bit dry.  Now brats on the grill......I have the hang of those.  Much easier than chicken in my opinion.

This is an older story from a month or two ago, but I'll tell it anyway.  I noticed that a lady at work may have gotten her hair cut, so I asked her if she had, and she confirmed it was in fact true.  To try to be sociable, I ask who her hair cutter was, and we made a little small talk, etc.  It wasn't until a couple hours later that it occurred to me that maybe I was supposed to comment on whether I liked the cut or not.  It honestly didn't cross my mind to do that before.  It seemed like a pretty standard trim/cut with a little bit of layering.  It was tastefully subtle, and she still looked like herself, so I didn't think much about it.  Did I totally miss my cue?  Am I supposed to be polite and say I like it?  What if in some cases (not this case) I don't like it?  If I notice someone got new glasses, am I supposed to say I like them too?  All this manners/social norms stuff if very confusing.

It's kind of like commenting on someone losing weight.  If you comment, are you implying that you noticed they were a bit overweight before?  Or, do people like it when you notice because then they know their weight loss efforts are paying off?  I suppose it depends on the personality of the person for how they take a comment like that.