STO'B 5

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Several hours later Jevons and Boswell steered Philip out of the tavern to the street, and thence to the Crown. Here they handed him off to the night porter, who half guided, half supported him up the stairs, tipped him unceremoniously onto his bed, and departed, returning a minute or so later with a letter in his hand. "This came for you sir, while yous were out," he said, but as Phillip did not respond the porter placed the letter on the table and withdrew.

Phillip lay diagonally across his bed, filling most of it. The letter surprised him, and he puzzled over what it might contain. That man whom he had challenged - what was his name? McMullin? - could he have sent a challenge so soon? "A bloody-minded fellow," Phillip said to himself, "unless -" His mind ran along a series of hypotheses, but he had drank too much and he found it difficult to concentrate.

At length he rolled over and stared at the letter in case its cover might suggest an answer. It did not. He reached for the envelope, but succeeded only in knocking it to the floor. "Whatever it is, it can wait until morning," he said, leaving the letter on the floor and falling asleep.

* * *

In fact, the letter waited until early afternoon before Philip finally rolled out of bed and ordered a pot of coffee to be sent up. Some minutes later the porter knocked on the door, and as he arranged the pot, saucer and cup on the table, Philip, waiting impatiently for the coffee his whole being ached for, noticed the letter on the floor by the bed. The porter refused to leave until Philip produced a tip - a tip that he could ill afford - and finally he was left alone with his coffee. And his post. He bent to collect the letter and considered it as he sat down to his coffee.

He considered the seal as he drank his first cup. He had apparently trodden on it earlier, probably when he left the bed to order his coffee, and the seal had cracked and deformed under his weight. No matter how he turned it, he could not make out its original form from what pieces remained.

During his second cup, he considered the front of the cover. He did not know who had addressed it - the handwriting was unfamiliar - and whoever had addressed it clearly didn't know him, either, as the address read Captain Philip Fitton, RN, a particularly galling mistake in light of his loss of the Rattler.

Finally, with his third cup he opened the cover and removed the letter inside, which read

By the Right Honorable Lord Green, Knight of the Bath, Admiral of the Blue and Commander in Chief of Her Majesty's Ships and Vessels employed and to be employed in the Mediterranean, etc, etc, etc.

You are on this date hereby directed and required to proceed on board the Badger Sloop of War and take upon You the Charge of Command of Master and Commander of her; requiring all the Officers and Company, of said Sloop to behave themselves, singly and severally, in their several Employments with all due Respect and Obedience to You their Commander; and You likewise to carefully and diligently observe as well the General Printed Instructions for Discipline of the Navy, And what Orders and Directions you may from time to time receive from Your Superior Officers.

And for so doing This shall be your Order.

Hereof neither You nor Any of you shall Fail in this regard as You shall do so at Your Peril.

To Philip Fitton, Esq,
Hereby appointed Master and Commander of
Her Majesty's Sloop Badger
With seniority from 3rd April 1860

He took in all of this at a glance, but nevertheless he read the letter again, and then a third time, quite closely. He stood up and folded the letter to put it in his pocket, then unfolded and read it again, having quite forgotten its beautiful phrasing and, he realized, the beautiful penmanship, for although most of the order was printed on a press, his name, the name of the Badger, and several other details were necessarily written in by hand.

"The Badger, ha ha ha." He knew her well, having twice chased her (unsuccessfully) when he was a midshipman in the Atlas, and having seen her a few times since her capture from the French some time last year. The Admiralty had fitted her with an improved Watt engine powering a screw - none of those paddle wheels that were so vulnerable to gunfire, and with that he should be able to chase down anything of his size. Prizes, riches, glory; all for the taking.

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City Island Sunset

X-ray Chapter 5, part 3

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Coffee, post, and Frank buried himself in his copy of the Post. "Nine tenths of the job is putting up with boredom," Ian said to himself quietly.

Frank but down his paper. "What whore?" he asked.

"I said 'nine tenths of this job is boredom,'" Ian said, louder than last time.

Frank looked disappointed. "Oh," he said, "yeah." He picked up his paper again, "and the other half is putting up skells and morons."

Ian ignored Frank's mathematics (he probably wasn't a math major, Ian reflected) but wondered whether the 'skells and morons' referred to him. Certainly his failure to prep his saline lock the day before had not been an act of genius. He felt his panic again, though at a remove, and the sense of relief when he realized that Three Two Boy had delivered him from his predicament. He could not count on that again.

Of course, Ian thought as his mind doubled back, in assuming that Frank wasn't a math major, he was assuming that Frank went to college. "When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me," Ian's brother had said many times, and Ian had to agree that this was sometimes true. "Did you go to college?" He asked the back of Frank's newspaper.

"What?"

"Nothing," Ian said. "I was talking to myself." His heart skipped a beat as their radios crackled, but the call was for another unit. He had to get used to that; he was going to give himself a heart attack if he kept on jumping every time the radio went off. He closed his eyes and leaned back as far as his seat would allow, and try to rela-

"Three-five x-ray, you've got a call," said the radio as the MDT beeped, and Ian's heart skipped again.

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Jessica Fletcher does penace for Mrs Lovett

I've only seen Angela Lansbury in three roles: Jessica Fletcher, the amateur sleuth on TV's Murder, She Wrote; the devious mother in the film The Manchurian Candidate; and the possibly sociopathic Mrs. Lovett in the musical Sweeney Todd. Of course, Jessica Fletcher was the last of these roles that Ms Lansbury created. Was it in penance for the crimes of the other two?

Shadow

I realized that I haven'd put up any photos of Shadow in a while, so, here she is.

I am the top hit for the meaning of 2 x 4 on Korean Google

take a look: http://www.google.com/search?hl=ko&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-US&q=meaning%20of%202x4&lr=

STO'B 4

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"Oh, Phillip," said Jevons, "I'm so sorry." Boswell made similar sounds of sympathy, and after an awkward moment Jevons went on. "Richards? Didn't he just run Osprey onto the Seven Stones?"

Phillip nodded. "Yes. The scrub. But he's the secretary's brother, and there it is. How was the opera?" he asked in an attempt to change the current of his thoughts. "I suppose Angela was onstage."

"Yes," said Jevons, "she was the fourth handmaiden, or perhaps the third. I'm sorry you weren't there with us."

The three crossed the street and stepped into a tavern, and once they had sat down, Phillip continued. "I only learned this morning when I saw him being pulled out to her, with that epaulette on his shoulder."

"Learned what?" asked Jevons, whose attention had wandered some during the several minutes it took them to place and order and find a place to sit in the crowded room.

"That Richards had gotten the command. And the promotion. The damned secretary didn't even have the nerve to tell me directly, and I don't wonder at it. And then I crashed into that - into that gentleman on the sidewalk and was on the point of calling him out on it. A duel! All because of that damned villain."

"Phillip, Phillip!" cried Jevons, then he lowered his voice "this is in public. There are other people here, you know."

Phillip looked around at the crowd, then turned back to his mug. "Ah!" he growled. "No one's paying attention. Nobody cares." Nevertheless he lowered his voice before he went on. "He's the one I should call out on a duel."

"Richards?"

"The secretary! Richards, too. But whining won't help. How was the opera?"

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I have been singularly unobservant of my cats

I had thought that Shadow had continued as dominant cat over Christian. Then, perhaps two weeks ago Shadow rolled backwards off of her perch, falling about 7 feet to the floor. There was a flurry of black fur and flailing limbs and then a 'thump' as she struck the ground. She did not appear to have suffered in anything but her dignity, though she was slightly less active for the next three days (she still ran around, but didn't climb the vertical poles as much) and it seemed in the aftermath of that that Christian became more dominant, as if the accident had upset the hierarchy.

But then I thought back over the past few months, and realized that perhaps Christian has been dominant for some time. This would explain why Shadow gave up some of her activities after he moved in (specifically, she no longer climbs the longer of the two climbing posts, even when I attempt to lead her up there with a favorite toy). So, I think she's been bumped.

All of which probably means a lot more to me than it does to her. I am guilty of anthropomorphizing the cats to a degree, and I feel very badly for her not being allowed to do things that she previously enjoyed. I also feel guilty, since of course it's my fault that she's in this position. This is in addition to the guilt I feel for Scruffy himself.

Because Shadow is the favorite. She has been since day one. She wanted attention when I first met her and her brother, Scruffy, at the store to which the shelter had brought them, and when I tried to reach over and pet him, he didn't respond (apparently it had been a long day for both of them) but she came over for further petting and attention. Really, he came to my house because I was enthralled with her, and couldn't see separating them. I liked him well enough, and developed real affection for him, but she was the draw. And when he was removed from their cage for me to meet and eventually take home, he clung to the bars at the door, not wanting to leave the safety of that cage.

And Christian, too, is here in some degree because of Shadow. I didn't want her to be lonely and bored when I was away all day. If both Shadow and Scruffy had died - if I had killed them both, I wouldn't have adopted Christian. There would have been no reason to do so.

Which brings me to my point. I want Shadow to be top cat. I want the best of everything for her, even more so than I want the best for Christian, or wanted the best for Scruffy. All of it is ridiculous - ridiculous and juvenile - but that doesn't change the desire, or the pain at realizing that she's at the bottom of the hierarchy.

My poor kitten.

My poor Shadow.

Christianzilla!

X-ray Chapter 5, part 2

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The rest of the morning passed well enough, with a CHF-exacerbation before the even reached post, and a week-and-dizzy a little before noon. And the second call didn't even count, Ian thought, since they were canceled before they arrived. "What does that mean?" Ian asked BLS crew on scene called a code white.

"No patient," Frank said, "false alarm or something."

"She took a cab," Three-five David said when they met at another diff-breather later that afternoon. "You want to move her?"

Ian nodded and knelt to lift the patient onto the stair chair. "She took a cab?" He asked.

"Yeah. We're going to lift you onto the chair, sweetie," he said to their patient, "one, two, three."

"Why did she call an ambulance?"

"How do I know? We're going to lean you back, Mrs Rivera," he said, tipped back the stair chair and wheeled Mrs. Rivera out to the stairway. At the ambulance they buckled her into the stretcher, and five minutes later they dropped her off in the hospital.

"Why does someone call an ambulance and then take a cab?" Ian asked his partner as they climbed back into their ambulance.

"How should I know?" Said Frank, dismissing the subject with a growl. He took a careful sip of the coffee he had purchased before the call in made a face. "Coffee," he told Ian, gesturing in front of them with one hand and dumping the contents of his cup out the window.

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_________________

Author's note: is it clear who is talking, and whom is being addressed, in the scene with Mrs Rivera?

Timing is everything

Christian spent the past half hour asleep in the doorway, in as large a patch of sunlight as he could find on this overcast afternoon. A moment after the shutter clicked, however, he woke up, stood, and stretched. I'm surprised the shut isn't blurred by his motion, but I must have caught him just before he moved.

STO'B 3

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As Phillip considered, the opera let out, delivering him from his dillema. Dozens, hundreds of people suddenly appeared, flowing between and around the men; a fight was no longer possible. And here was Jevons, along with another officer Phillip recognized but did not know, calling Phillip's name. "Phillip, I say, Phillip, you missed a marvelous performance. But come, let us wet the swab, and drink to your new command. You know Mr Boswell, I believe. But am I interrupting something?" he asked, noticing first Phillip's intent look and then Black Coat, still standing there with his hand on his undrawn sword.

"No," said Phillip, and raising his voice above the crowd, "My name is Fitton, sir, and I am staying at the Crown."

"Mine is M'Mullen," Black Coat replied, "and any note left at the Grapes, on Fox Lane, will reach me." He turned his back and Phillip watched him vanish into the crowd.

"No," Phillip said to Jevons, again, "not at all." He turned to Boswell, standing there beside his friend, and extended his hand. "A pleasure to meet you," Phillip said, and when Boswell had said the same and they shook hands, Phillip continued, "Richards got the Rattler, and the promotion."


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Give me a saddle, I’ll trade you a car

Earlier this evening I repaired a cassette tape. The repair was simple enough – the leader had broken, but enough of it was left over so that when I opened up the cassette and attached the remaining piece to the reel I’m not already into the brown magnetic portion of the tape every time I press ‘play’, but it led me to thinking about cassette tapes, CDs, mp3s, etc. The benefits of technology, etc. Because although I’ve repaired several tapes, I’ve never yet had to repair a CD. Not that I’d know how, aside from the polishers that I’ve seen for sale. And to repair an mp3? Forget it.

There is a connection here to the difficulty that the medical community presently has with death, though for the moment I forget what it is (I placed the newspaper article down on the computer before I left earlier, since I saw the connection, but now that I’ve returned to the keyboard the thought has flown). And by problem with death, I don’t mean delaying death; I mean deciding when to declare it.

100 years ago, when you were dead, you were dead. No pulse? That’s it; send for the grave-diggers. But then we began to parse death. What do we do with someone who continues to have a pulse, but is irresponsive to all stimuli? Is this person alive? Technology advanced, and things only got messier. Heart-lung machines enable the body, and sometimes the mind to survive periods of death. Heart transplants involved patients living without hearts in their bodies at all, albeit only for the period between when their own heart was removed and the donor heart installed. CPR confused matters as well, as did defibrillation, with their abilities to return a nonbeating heart to proper order.

At the same time, we plunged further into the brain, developing EEGs and debating over the meaning of “brain death”. Some of you will remember the Terri Schiavo case of 2005, which revolved on this issue, among others, but another focus of this discussion is organ donation. Organ viability rapidly declines after perfusion ceases, or even decreases below normal levels. Thus, it is in the best interest of the patient receiving the organs to declare the death of the donor earlier, rather than later. Of course, it is arguably in the best interest of the donor to declare death later, rather than earlier. The same declaration of death must be used for both contexts.

I am here reminded of sub-subatomic particles. The presence of electrons, neutrons, and protons seems obvious to anyone looking at atomic structure, but what about quarks, mesons, etc? Did these only come into being once we shattered our protons and neutrons, much as the shards of a mirror only come into being once the mirror is shattered?

Well, it's late, and I'm tired. I don't know how coherent this is, but I'm off to bed.

Source: Nano, Stephanie. “Doctors Examine When to Declare Organ Donors Dead”. p8B, The Journal News, 14 August 2008

EDIT: in an earlier version of this article it was incorrectly stated that for organ recipients, best practice was to declare the death of the donor later rather than earlier. This is incorrect: organ viability decreases as blood flow decreases, thus donated organs are healthier if harvested earlier. Some spelling errors were also made.

X-ray Chapter 5, part 1

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When Ian woke the next morning, Sara had already left for work, and the impression she had left in her pillow was cool to the touch. He lay in the bed for a while, still somewhat sleepy, collecting himself into a coherent person. His face darkened as he realized that he might be working with Frank again, lightened some when he remembered how Frank had been less of a chore by the end of the day, and broke into a smile as he recalled the events of Mortimer's escape. He wore a small smile, therefore, when he walked into the station several minutes early and found Frank in the break room. "Our truck isn't here yet?" he asked.

Frank looked up from tying one of his boots. "Our truck?"

"It's not here yet?" Ian asked again.

"Our bus." Frank shifted in his seat to lace up his other boot. "No. They're finishing a call." He finished tying his boot and sat up. "Get yourself a cup of coffee or something and sit down," he said awkwardly.

Ian was still sitting with Frank, though his smile had faded, when their Tour I crew came into drop-off radios and keys, and to sign over their narcs. Ian had forgotten about his interaction with the woman with the green eyes, but the incident replayed itself in his mind as she walked in. Should he apologize? The urge was very strong, but he said nothing; he couldn't think of anything appropriate to say. In any case, he wasn't able to say anything to her at all, or even to meet her green eyes. He focused instead on her nameplate -- the root of the whole mess, he thought ruefully. Lest she think he was staring at her breasts, he quickly dropped his gaze to the floor, accepting the equipment without meeting her eyes.

"What's with you and Green?" Frank asked several minutes later as they dug through their bags to see if everything was there.

Ian didn't know what to say. "I don't know what to say," he said. "I don't know what to say."

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No, it's not okay

Often, when a computer is unable to comply with a request, it brings up an error window to tell you as much. All fine, though I'd of course prefer that the computer do as I ask, but that can't always happen. What I don't care for is that I have to click 'ok' to clear the window. What if it's not okay? Don't I get a choice here; can't I register my dismay?

Next post, previous post: where do I go from here

The sharp-eyed among you will discover "First Post", "Previous" and "Next" links in the running fiction series - it seems unfair to someone who starts late, or misses an episode, to have to dig through all of the other, unrelated enteries just to find out what happened to Ian's patient, or Phillip's promotion.

Of course, this is a bit of a pain to construct anew each time, so if anyone knows of a better (easier) way, I'm all ears. Or eyes, or what have you.

STO'B 2

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The other man rolled onto his knees and picked himself up. Phillip saw that he was a small man, perhaps two-thirds of Phillip's weight, with bristly, close-cropped hair and dark eyes. He looked pale apart from a blotch of pink on his forehead, where he had struck the ground on falling. The man's dusty black coat suggested that he was a mere civilian, not a sailor or a marine, or even someone from the army. He opened his mouth to speak but Phillip cut him off.

"Why can't you bloody well watch where you're going, hey?" Phillip shouted. He felt in command of the situation and he advanced on the man in the black coat, knowing that Black Coat would fall back and then he, Phillip, would have established his victory.

But Black Coat did not retreat. Instead, he crouched to receive Phillip's attack, and now for the first time Phillip noticed a basket-hilted sword at the man's hip. Phillip's own sword was in hock; he had hoped to ransom it with an advance on his pay from the Rattler. If he advanced, and if this man knew how to use his sword - a big if - then Phillip risked real injury. If he retreated - no, he could not retreat. His pride, his honor, would not allow it.

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___________________

Author's note: STO'B will update on Sundays

Cat text

Recursion?

A trash truck waiting to be scrapped

Some days you get the mail...

Click the pic for the original

X-ray Chapter 4, part 4

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Ian's eyes adjusted to the half light, and he saw an oxygen tank standing in its wheeled cart in the hallway. The regulator was set at two Lpm, but the tank was empty. Lengths of oxygen tubing, strung end-to-end, formed a trail into the distance. Ian followed the trail. Frank followed Ian.

After a few feet, the hallway opened into a small living room on the left, but the tubing continued to follow the right wall to a bathroom before snaking back, crossing the carpeted floor in a series of lazy S-curves, and finally arriving at a small, hunched-over old woman in a shabby easy chair. An orange cat sat on top of a television set on the other side of the room, eyeing the two men as they approached. "I'm having trouble breathing," said the old woman, "I can't breathe. Mortimer -- Mortimer! Don't claw at the furniture. You know better than that!"

"What's going on today?" Ian asked. In the background he saw Frank open their O2 duffel and hook up their tank to the woman's oxygen tubing. Mortimer licked his nose.

"He knows better," the old woman said. "He does. Shame on you, Mortimer!"

"Yes ma'am. My name is Ian, what seems to be the problem, Mrs. -- ?"

"Oh, that cat. I'm having trouble breathing."

Ian nodded, and waited for her to continue. If she could speak in full sentences, there was a limit as to how bad things could be.

"I'm having trouble breathing," said the woman again. "I can't get enough air -- oh," she threw plastic cup at the marmalade cat, missing it, but causing it to dart from the room.

He picked up the cup and returned it to the woman. "May I check your pulse?" He asked, and when she offered her wrist "how long has your breathing been bothering you?"

The patient's story, once it was prized from a wealth of irrelevant information and a steady stream of abuse of Mortimer (who appeared to Ian to be a perfectly docile cat and who, he realized, was that she hadn’t realized that her oxygen tank had run out, and had no spare to replace it with, anyway. She was also very weak, and Ian wondered if she needed a cane, and perhaps a part-time caretaker. She couldn’t remember when her last meal was, but thought it was "sometime yesterday." They moved her to the stair chair and wrapped her up, and as they left the apartment they were careful that Mortimer, who was now nowhere to be seen, did not escape.

“What hospital?” Ian asked Frank is the all row down the elevator.

Frank looked at his watch before replying. “Rockland.”

At the hospital they gave a quick oral report and transferred their patient over to a hospital cot. Ian handed the O2 cylinder to Frank, completed his written report, and collected clean linen for the stretcher. He turned back just in time to see Frank open O2 duffel to replace the cylinder; the yowling orange streak steak that emerged from the bag was Mortimer who, having taken the opportunity to enter the bag when it was opened in the apartment, now took the opportunity to escape as the bag was opened again.

"What the hell," cried one of the nurses, "how the hell did a cat get in here?"

Ian glanced at Frank; Frank's face was studiously blank as he started to roll the stretcher back out to the bay in a strikingly urgent fashion.

Out in the bay, Ian and Frank tossed the unmade stretcher into the back of the ambulance, slammed the doors closed, and ran around to the cab. Frank started the motor -- clearly not waiting on the wait-to-start light, Ian noticed -- and pulled out of the bay, cutting off a taxicab to do so.

Twenty seconds later, once they were safely around the corner, both men burst out laughing.


[END OF CHAPTER]

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Christian

Looking fierce!

Christian

STO'B: a beginning

Author's Note

Philip was not happy. He stood on the quay, watching the Rattler, a beautiful little coal-fed steam/sail sloop, take on coal, water, and provisions, and he was not happy. He had been promised command of her - had been promised promotion into her, in fact - but the secretary's brother had gone and run his brig onto the rocks (the blind fool), and the Rattler, along with the promotion, went to him instead. Philip saw him on the Rattler's deck, just abaft the starboard paddle wheel housing, directing the operations. The scrub was impossible to miss as his fresh new Commander's epaulettes gleamed in the setting sun. Philip, still just a lieutenant, turned his back.

As he walked away he remonstrated with himself: he should have protested when the news reached him. He should have dealt with the matter firmly and immediately. For now, having misused him once, the secretary would no doubt look upon the name of Philip Fitton with disfavor. Not at all, he argued back, one of the tenets of the service was that argument in such a case was not allowed. He was bound, hand, foot and tongue, by the Articles of War, and answering back might be the end of his career.

Nevertheless, he needn't have so politely acquiesced. There must have been some remark he could have made that would have pointed out the unfairness of it all, which would have reminded the secretary of his promise without being too gross. He went on in this way for a while, arguing with himself and becoming increasingly unhappy. He thought of other men, junior to him on the Lieutenant's list, but now promoted and ahead of him forever. And others, also junior to him, who had commands of their own as lieutenants, and were on full pay, whereas he only drew his half pay of [XXXX] a lunar month. He stared at his feet, feeling thoroughly low.

His feet carried him past the opera. His friend Jevons, whom he had known since they were both squeakers in the old Resolution - no use to mouse nor man - had invited him to tonight's performance, but he had begged off, intending to be overseeing the provisioning of his new command. But no new command, and no opera, either. Probably a perfect performance tonight, too; no doubt Jevons would regale him with all he had missed tomorrow. No doubt, too, Angela would be on stage, probably at this very minute, and -

Instead of completing this thought he walked bodily into a man standing outside of the theatre and the two of them tumbled onto the sidewalk. "Why don't you pay attention to where you're going!?" Philip cried. He knew that he was in the wrong, but he didn't care. He was looking for a fight, and he had found one. "Can't you see there are other people here?" he continued.

[EDIT 1 SEPT 2008]
[EDIT 20 MAY 2009 (description of relation to Jevons)]

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