Rows of...?

 A really difficult meme for this Sepia Saturday, because they look like bombs. As a pacifist, I have nary a photo of any warlike ordinance.

Rows of things? I'll be off looking for something similar now... be back later!

1973 Flight Attendants, Pan Am (10 years after my class)

At the Community Clay Studio

M. C. Escher at the Columbia SC Art Museum

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“Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.”

Henry Beston - The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod, 1828.

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Babylonian cuneiform numerals

One of the earliest known number systems, developed around 2000 BCE.

Babylonians used a base-60 system (called sexagesimal), unlike our modern base-10 system.

They built all numbers using just two basic wedge-shaped symbols:

A vertical wedge = 1

A corner wedge = 10

By combining these, they could write numbers from 1 to 59.

Originally, Babylonian numerals had no symbol for zero

Examples
1 = one vertical wedge
10 = one corner wedge
23 = two corner wedges (20) + three vertical wedges (3)

Babylonians didn’t have a special symbol for “100” or “1000.”
They always built numbers out of 1–59 chunks, then used position to scale them by 60.

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So how did they write 100?

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We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story. Brian Doyle

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My personal whine with new oxygen devices:

Last Wednesday I picked up a second and third version of portable oxygen devices. I was thrilled that by going to their office I got plenty of instruction and more than adequate trials of the devices. Worth the gas to drive there and work with a technician rather than a driver who just delivered things. The first portable oxygen device was heavy and didn't work well.

 

Later I had tried using the home machine (which sits in front of the wall mounted air-handler unit) while changing the sheets on the bed. In  the past this was a daunting task leaving me exhausted halfway through. I finished the job, and then started coughing. Took off the canula, and continued to have trouble getting a breath with the coughing. This lasted several minutes when I wasn't sure I'd live to see the next one. I considered what might have caused it. And it happened several more times when I was just sitting watching TV...horrible coughs that left me exhausted!

You know already that I've had trouble with black mold growing (they call it mildew) in the walls of my apartment, especially in the bathroom. I now have auxiliary fans that dry it out after each shower.  But sometimes the air handler in the bedroom has spit out little flecks of black as well, and in the past I got a new filter, as well as had the unit cleaned inside by the maintenance man. I checked the filter and it looked ok, but the filter is on the intake of air, not that which is blown out by the air handler's fan.

This is a brand new unit, and you can see a lot of particles of dust including the little black flecks. I used it with my C-Pap to sleep for about 4 nights...but never knew if I was supposed to or not, and come to find out the Dr. wanted me to use oxygen when I'm walking or doing tasks, not sleeping or sitting!

I had asked the delivery driver when he set it up last Thursday what kind of air filtration it had. He showed me the intake louvers, and said if they get dusty, just take a paper towel and wipe them off. I assume there's some filtration system inside the louvers, after all, this is breathing equipment!

And I'm sorry to keep on giving all these details of my thinking processes, but when you think this cough is your last breath, you (I) seriously think of what's causing it.

My thought was that maybe some little black particles, or even dust, might have come through the 25 feet of tubing. Or maybe it was just oxygen itself that triggered something. Was this asthma again?

It was easy enough to use the albuterol puffer (rescue inhaler) after the coughing fit had subsided...but no way while it was happening. Just getting any in-breath at all was what I was focused on.

So I'm asking my Dr. about asthma. And I'm not using any of the oxygen devices for now. 

And fortunately today (Thursday) I was able to walk over to the laundry room with 2 loads in my cart, and go back two more times and bring my clean clothes home...without coughing. And only a bit out of breath...which is why I was originally getting the oxygen. I await a note from the Dr. on the patient portal! 

I guess the apartment manager needs to also see these shots of the little black flecks coming out of the air handler. That will be my next action.

Thanks for letting me whine. Would you like cheese and crackers with that? Me too!