J'accuse!

Random images from the web that appealed to me

Nothing is more upsetting than being falsely accused of something. Aside from the whole Dakotagate fiasco, there have been other times this has happened.

First memory: I am 5 playing with my girlfriend Michelle in New York. Her younger brother yanks on her hair hard and she starts screaming and crying. Her grandmother rushes in to see what the problem is and Michelle between sobs gets out that her hair was pulled but is too inarticulate to say who did it. Grandma immediately assumes I was the culprit and pulls my hair hard.

See what it feels like!! 

Eventually she figured out I am innocent and offered a cookie.

Of course, these days Grandma would get into big trouble physically disciplining someone else's child.

At work, I signed on as a guinea pig to test the bioavailability of various drugs. I would select which ones very carefully. For their studies, it was often important that we fast before taking the drug. To ensure that we did indeed fast, they would check our  blood glucose levels. One morning, the director called me into her office. Generally she was very friendly towards me but on this day, she looked very annoyed.

You did fast, didn't you?

Yes I did.

Well your glucose levels were very high. Either you have developed diabetes in the past week (unlikely) or you didn't fast.

She then went on to see if I just didn't accidentally consume sugar such as breath mints. I suggested that there was a lab mistake. She didn't buy that either.

What I had done was run 3 or 4 miles before coming there. I would think that this would decrease my blood sugar but perhaps my liver was releasing glycogen and converting it to glucose. She said no more running while I am being dosed. The blood sugar shouldn't interfere with their studies, assuming I hadn't eaten but if they then noticed that the drug wasn't being metabolized as fast as the other subjects, then they could conclude I was a liar.

They didn't kick me out so I guess they figured I was telling the truth.

They kicked Steve off a study for testing positive for opiates. At the time, the company got these bagels very heavily encrusted with poppy seeds, which Steve liked to eat daily. They admitted that was probably the reason he tested positive, but still he was off the study. A few years later, the megacompany that bought our company out had a penchant for random drug testing even though it is illegal to do it without cause in many states including the sites that they have the most employees in and have their corporate headquarters. They claimed that poppy seeds would NOT cause a positive reaction. Each drug test cost the company a minimum of $200. I would love to see the cost benefit analysis of that edict.This does not include the cost of employee disengagement when undergoing such a humiliating exercise (someone had to listen to you pee, you couldn't flush, you had to stand there while they did various tests on the pee to ensure it was fresh pee, etc).

One of my favorite false accusations was that my whole family has eating disorders with the implication that this was all my fault. My ex-friend and I were visiting my college friend out-of-state that just happened to be a psychiatrist. Out of no where, the ex-friend piped in that every single person in my immediate family has some sort of eating disorder, wasn't that interesting and what does the psychiatrist think of that? I was flabbergasted. This was wrong on so many levels! Of course the college friend gave me the WTF? look and immediately changed the subject. He had no intention of practicing off-hours on an unwilling participant. And we ALL have eating disorders just because Shanna and Steve were thin? FYI, thinness is 'normal'; not every thin person has anorexia.

I ran in the cold drizzle out in the country; a good run. Then I rescued all my tuberous begonias so that they may produce next year. I am also trying to preserve some of my many geraniums out of the soil. They will presumably go into some kind of hibernation mode. Sticking cutting directly into the soil was about 75% successful in producing new plants with roots. I do better sticking cuttings into pots. All that is left in bloom and alive are my snapdragons, my black eyed Susan vine (unrelated to black-eyed Susans I think), some of the petunias, some California poppies, some pinks, some lobelia, marigolds, zinnias, some nemesia; all else dead.

Naomi is doing well with her patients. She has just one more week in her program.