The US Figure Skating Championships have begun in Spokane, WA and Michelle Kwan is thousands of miles away, across the Pacific Ocean. In her new role as America’s first “public diplomacy envoy,” Kwan is on a two-week trip to Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. A conversation with Condoleezza Rice at last year’s White House state dinner in for Chinese President Hu Jintao sparked Kwan’s assignment. She has not officially retired from skating but she’s focused on her studies at the University of Denver, including classes in Mandarin and political science.
Normal Room – “See how people live across the world! Explore the variety of lifestyles and cultural peculiarities! Normal Room shows you interior design and home furniture from all around the globe. Search our image database and explore the differences and similarities in architecture and home decoration between people in different countries.” (via xBlog)
Browsing through the jewelry on Etsy, I discovered a bracelet made out of a cello D-string. The creator, Samantha, is a college student studying cello (of course). She takes custom work so I’m wondering if I have old violin strings bundled away in my case that can be turned into something interesting. Xavior sells jewelry at Strings and a dare made from many stringed instruments, guitars and pianos included.
The Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting exhibit opens tomorrow at New York’s Museum of Arts & Design. The NY Times notes that Katja Gruijters will be exhibiting her lovely lace tiles. They are made out of “white, milk and dark chocolate; sugar; fruit paste; brownies; and shortbread each six inches square and stamped with an intricate floral pattern.” She’ll be hosting “An Edible Lace High Tea” on Monday where guests can consume her tiles. culiblog has some close-ups of her work.
A condition called “transfusion-related acute lung injury,” or TRALI, has been linked to plasma from blood donated by women. A few hundred people a year develop TRALI after a plasma transfusion. It is believed to be a result of the recipient’s white blood cells clashing with antibodies which previously pregnant donors produced in reaction to their fetus’ foreign cells. Britain began separating out blood donations by gender three years ago. Only plasma from men was used for transfusions and the TRALI cases dropped. The women’s blood was still used to manufacture blood products such as clotting factors (three quarters of donated plasma goes to the manufacture these products normally, so this was a change in allocation not quantity). American blood banks are now considering separating blood by gender. This news should not discourage any women from giving blood. Your donation will still save lives.
In Mark Bittmann’s “How to Cook Everything” (a super handy cookbook!) I found a practically hidden recipe for making your own coconut milk. It’s tucked into the fish section and I haven’t cooked seafood for a long time so I only stumbled upon it as I was idly paging through (p291 in my copy). It sounds easy, you just blend dried shredded coconut with boiling water (2c:2c) then strain it. You can add 1-2c more water and strain again. Coconut milk freezes indefinitely. I’ve been using a little bit from a can to flavor a curry-like dish, then freezing the rest in an ice cube tray or muffin tins, turning them out into Ziplock bags for next time. I’ll be looking for unsweetened shredded coconut on my next supermarket trip.
We’re always amazed when our 2 year old remembers things from months ago. Of course his mind is a lot less cluttered than his parents’. I often wonder what his first memory will be when he gets older and hope that it won’t be a painful one. Infantile amnesia, the term for that profound lack of memory we have for our first few years of life, could be either a storage or retrieval problem. Evidence supports that retrieval, not immaturity of our brain’s storage, is at the root of our inability to recall our early years. Babies have demonstrated memory more than a year later for experiences they had at both 8 weeks and 6 months. As we learn language and our brains are “pruned” for a different form of memory and recall, it may be that we just don’t know how to access early memories anymore. The indexing system is lost.
I hadn’t realized that Barbara Morgan, backup Teacher in Space for Christa McAuliffe, has remained active in the astronaut program for all these years. After continuing with her Teacher in Space duties, she entered NASA’s Educator Astronaut program in 1998 and is scheduled for a shuttle mission in June. Meanwhile, Eileen Collins, the first woman pilot in the space shuttle program, retired last May, and lamented the lack of women following the shuttle pilot path. Pam Melroy is the remaining women pilot in the program. None have been selected since 1995. Collins claims it’s a flexible career which allowed her to have two children and fly four missions “without too much heartache.”
Flashback Friday (WARNING: for 80s nuts only)
Mining YouTube for five music videos you probably didn’t want to see again (don’t say I didn’t warn you):
- Dead or Alive: Spin Me Round
- Dexy’s Midnight Runners: Come on Eileen
- Musical Youth: Pass the Dutchie
- Taco: Puttin’ on the Ritz
- Yello: Oh Yeah
- Bonus: Chicago Bears (1985): Super Bowl Shuffle (well, it was for charity)
And, what I was actually looking for, five music videos I did want to see again:
- Modern English: Melt With You
- Aztec Camera: Oblivious (there were two videos made, this one is the earlier version where they didn’t make Roddy up like Boy George (here’s the other); not great quality unfortunately)
- Icicle Works: Whisper to a Scream
- Trio: Da da da (Warning: gratuitous German violence!)
- Boomtown Rats: I Don’t Like Mondays
- Bonus…‘Til Tuesday: Coming Up Close (vintage Aimee Mann)
Tiffany’s launched a new engagement ring in Japan that is sparkling into the US next month, ready for Valentine’s Day proposals. Called the Tiffany Novo, it features a 57-facet cushion-cut diamond set in four prongs on a platinum band with bead set diamonds. Of course there’s a matching wedding band.