Supercooled

What's better than a freezing fog?

To go all partially sciency, fog is simply a big load of liquid phase water droplets suspended in the atmosphere at or about ground level. For various reasons having to do with the properties of molecular water, a great many of those droplets remain in their liquid phase even when the ambient temperature falls below the freezing point of water. By definition, these droplets are supercooled.

When the supercooled water droplets contact ground level stuff, like grass or trees or your windshield, the kinetic energy of the collision between liquid water droplet and stuff is enough to cause the water to instantly shift phase from liquid to solid. Well, not really instantly, it takes time for the shift to happen. But not very much time. Those droplets become ice much faster than you can blink your eye.

For all the hassle of freezing fog -- low viability, slippery roads, the misery of damp cold -- it's also a very beautiful thing. For some reason it feels good to me to recognize and appreciate the beauty. I didn't ask for it, but nature served it up anyway. How's that for a gift?

The Siberian tiger flu I've been battling is turning out to be a tricky one. I get a little better, then a little worse, then a little better, then a little worse. While it's rather a pain in the nether regions, it's also sharply tilted toward being a fascinating example of the body's ability to fight off foreign -- especially Eurasian foreign -- invaders. (Had to inject some racism there in keeping with my membership in the Great Caucasian Male Patriarchal Ownership Of The Universe Society).

See what I did there? Siberian? Eurasian? Caucasian? I keel myself.

Being a comedic ailing racist, it turns out, is another of nature's priceless gifts.

And from the "it's good to live in deplorable-irredeemable land" file...

We're blessed to have a very good hospital here. We've got everything the big city hospitals have except for the enormous crowds.

This morning I wanted to see if I could arrange for my Dad to have his weekly paracentesis tomorrow instead of Thursday. Tomorrow he's scheduled to have his picc line replaced, he's got some extra fluid build up going on this week, and it'll be a bit easier on him to make one, rather than two, trips to the hospital this week.

So I just walked into the hospital and back to the nurses station and asked. Doctor Broomfield heard me asking and stuck his head around the corner. "Sure," he said. "I'll look at him when he comes in tomorrow and we'll take fluid off if we need to."

Where else can you just pop in unannounced and make medical arrangements?

Seems like I'm surrounded by gifts of wonder. Which is cool.