I've had zero attention span the last couple of days. So, minimal writing. Not zero writing, but...discouraging nonetheless.

But! I have dug into a few interesting topics while in Guilt-wracked Avoidance Mode

Thing the 1st

The town where I spent several formative childhood years was in the news recently. My brain did its bouncy thing and sent me (SPROING) to Google Maps to see how close the incident was to my old house. (A couple of miles away.)

That led to checking out the old neighborhood on street view and retracing my route from house to elementary school. (C'mon, haven't you done that? If not, you should. It's a virtual trip down memory lane.) Sometimes placed I've lived have changed beyond all recognition, but my old school is still there, and still looks EXACTLY like I remember the buildings and grounds looking. So of course I looked it up. Nothing. Doesn't exist. More digging ensued, starting with peering closely at the map images to make out the bulding names. (Which, no, did NOT match the listed name of the location, interestingly enough.)

Turns out the place has changed names twice and purpose once. It is now a Variable-Credit High School for students who aren't thriving at the district's regular grade 9-12 schools.

So, that was interesting.

Thing the 2nd

My cracked & gnarly fingers are doing better, but one cracked open yesterday, which was distracting In the Extreme. That made me wonder, how the heck do diabetics who have to do jab their fingertips for blood draws deal with the constant pain of injured fingertips? And who the hell decided fingertips were the best spot to jab, of all the places on the human body to choose from. And WHY?

Well. I'm here to tell you there are a ton of techniques for minimizing the ouchiness, plus modern glucose meters do allow for "alternative sites" although it isn't recommended because "fingersticks still provide the most accurate readings." All the sites discussing the matter seem to be round-robin quoting from each other with regards to that accuracy claim, though. When they all use exactly the same phrasing, and I do mean word for word, despite the sites ranging in visibility & intended readership. And the only journal article I found was focusing on test strip accuracy, not body location issues.

So I remain unconvinced that anyone really THINKS about "why fingers?" or they accept unquestioned the prevailing wisdom that it delivers the "best" result.

Sidebar: If you think my suspicions overblown, entertain yourself with a peek at the vast amount of scientific detective work that had to be done to debunk the medical research community's entire foundation for deciding what size particle constituted aerosol contagion. The medical community had its standards & JUST KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT, but as it turns out, they were WRONG, because their fundamental size value was based on a single solitary set of experiments done DECADES before modern aerosol measuring tools were available, AND the results came from an outlier, hard-to-catch respiratory disease, too. Interested? Start with the Wired article titled "The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill". There's a lot more info, but this is all a digression, so ANYWAY...

I'd need to do a LOT more digging to find the primary lit behind "why fingers FFS?" and that's more distraction than I need right now. If I ever write a story about a diabetic character who has to test, I'll get out th research backhoe. Until then I'll stick with my gut feeling that this is another of the many medical, "we've always done it this way" situations where "accurate means "all our systems & tools are designed for the reams of data we already have" as opposed to "what systems and tools should we design for the best comfort and convenience of our patients." See also: cold metal speculums for vaginal exams, among other things.

Humans are not as eager to acept new things as we think we are, sometimes.

Thing the third.

There was a bug in my office today. A big roughly hexagonal beetlish kind of bug. I would describe it in more detail, but Pippin woke up when it buzzed past us (he was on the desk, quelle suprise) and he intercepted it and ate it before I got a decent look at it. He has impressive reflexes and spectacular aim. He scoped it right out of midair.

From his expression as he chewed, I got the impression it did not taste good, which made me think it was probably a stink bug. A couple of hours later, another bug went buzzing around the room. (This time of year, a lot of different bugs often hatch out of plants I bring in from the garden. Some combination of warmth & increasing light, I suspect.)

Anyway. Pips was snoozing downstairs by that time, so I had to gently capture and flush the bug myself. Carefully, because this one was indeed some kind of stink bug. But what kind? There's an invasive species (known as the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, how's that for a name) that's been seen in the Chicago area this year, but there are also at LEAST two lookalike native species similar in appearance.

Which one had mine been? I didn't know! So of course off I bounced to investigate stink beetles.

Beetles are fucking amazing. I had a good time combing through the various agricultural university extension documents and nature websites, but I still don't know which variety of bug I flushed. ID requires close examination of things like antennae stripes and protrusions on the shell, and...honestly? Invasive or native, it was in my house, and it had to go.

And now the day is done and so am I.

Still had no focus in the evening, but I've made supper (don't get excited, it's green salad & leftover takeout gyros meat mixed into boxed rice mix & baked in the oven because I'm too distracted to cook on the stovetop) and now I'm playing Wordles from the online archive and drinking wine while I watch Witcher Season 2.

I am a powerful creative force to be reckoned with, eh?

Anyway. That's it for this installment of "writing something even if it isn't BOOK writing. Until later, enjoy this pic of the Ferocious Critter Cruncher.