I have a few thoughts to catch up. As you know, Stephen Hawking died last week. the biopic movie about his life was run on TV a day or so later. I watched; I hadn’t seen it, and it answered some of the questions I had been pondering since I learned of his death. I wonder if anyone remembers the movie Marvin’s Room (1996). I had to look it up to get my facts straight because the only thing I remembered beyond the soap opera quality of the story was the criticism of the conclusion. Marvin, played by Hume Cronyn, who was a friend and probably the reason I went to see the film, is a bed-ridden stroke victim cared for by one of his daughters until she learns she has leukemia. She reaches out to her sister with a plea for bone marrow -a dramatic reason for a family reunion. Okay, this is what I remember, that rather than put Marvin into a long-term care facility, they – one of of them – will go on keeping him at home. It’s a full-time job, a full-time sacrifice, but it’s a Hollywood ending, supposed to make you feel good. The critics liked it a lot (good cast including Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton who earned an Oscar). But I read a letter to the editor questioning the reality of the decision , going into detail about the enormous work entailed, involving daily laundry to keep up with the incontinence and spoon-feeding and patience and subservience to his increasing need.

I thought of that movie when I read of Hawking’s death. He had ALS, as everyone knows – “Lou Gehrig’s disease” – a complete disintegration of the body before death. As his disease progressed, how trying and how expensive it must have been , to keep the body functions performing or substituted. My son was at UofT when the Science students invited Hawking to speak to them. He agreed, no fee required. However, the expenses for the entourage had to be paid – all the people plus equipment required to keep the genius functioning. It was necessary to organize a sizable fund-raiser to meet the financial demand.

I thought of this and wondered at what must have been the incredible cost of keeping Hawking alive for some 50 years past his prognosis. Worth it, of course, for his genius to have given so much to the world. He was aware (or the screenwriter was aware) of this. In the scene when the young (age 20) man is given his diagnosis and his death sentence with a harrowing description of the breakdown of his body, he asks, “The brain?”

The brain.

The brain would keep on but with no means of communicating. He received the means and we are all so grateful.

To whom much is given, much is required

Luke 12:48: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required

I am patient but there are limits. I had almost finished tidying this entry (had to transfer it from Word because SquareSpace would not accept me on my laptop), when it was erased, Too much.

I'll tidy it later and leave it as is for mow You get the idea.

Every dieter should know these first two words: leptin and ghrelin

leptin

noun [ mass noun ] Biochemistry

a protein produced by fatty tissue which is believed to regulate fat storage in the body.

ORIGIN 1990s: from Greek leptos ‘fine, thin’ + -in1.

ghrelin noun

an enzyme produced by stomach lining cells that stimulates appetite.

[ I’m reading some disparate things so the word I’m looking at are from different worlds.]

febrifuge noun: a medicine used to reduce fever. she employed a risky febrifuge and the fever finally broke.

DERIVATIVES

febrifugal |fɪˈbrɪfjʊg(ə)l, ˌfɛbrɪˈfjuːg(ə)l| adjective

ORIGIN late 17th cent.: from French fébrifuge, from Latin febris ‘fever’ + fugare ‘drive away’. Compare with feverfew.

aponeurosis

noun (pl.aponeuroses |-siːz| ) Anatomy: a sheet of pearly white fibrous tissue which takes the place of a tendon in sheet-like muscles having a wide area of attachment.

DERIVATIVES aponeurotic | | adjective ORIGIN late 17th cent.: modern Latin, from Greek aponeurōsis, from apo ‘off, away’ + neuron ‘sinew’ + -osis.

titrate verb (with obj. Chemistry: ascertain the amount of a constituent in (a solution) by measuring the volume of a known concentration of reagent required to complete a reaction with it, typically using an indicator. the sample is titrated at a pH near 10 with EDTA solution. titrate 25 cm3 of this solution against 0.10 M hydrochloric acid.

• Medicine continuously measure and adjust the balance of (a physiological function or drug dosage). each patient received intravenous diazepam and pethidine, the doses being titrated according to the response.

DERIVATIVES

titratable adjective,

titration |-ˈtreɪʃ(ə)n| noun

ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from French titrer (from titre in the sense ‘fineness of alloyed gold or silver’) + -ate3.

[ I understood this better in context in the book I was reading than I do now, with this scientific explanation.]

oxter noun Scottish & N. English a person's armpit.

ORIGIN Old English ōhsta, ōxta.

trapezius (also trapezius muscle) noun (pl.trapezii |-zɪʌɪ| ) Anatomy:either of a pair of large triangular muscles extending over the back of the neck and shoulders and moving the head and shoulder blade.

ORIGIN early 18th cent.: from modern Latin, from Greek trapezion ‘trapezium’ (because of the shape formed by the muscles).

froe noun: a cleaving tool with a handle at right angles to the blade.

ORIGIN late 16th cent.: abbreviation of obsolete frower, from froward in the sense ‘turned away’.

sachem noun (among some American Indian peoples) a chief. N. Amer. informal a boss or leader. a Mafia sachem. ORIGIN from Narragansett, ‘chief, sagamore’.

hussif [ Well, now, this one isn’t in the online dictionary but I know it. My father had a hussif, military issue, when he was in the Medical Corps during World war II. It was his toiletries bag. The word hussif is a quick, elliptic way of saying “Housewife” I guess the hussif was everyman’s home away from home and in that way functioned as a housewife to his needs.]

sclera noun, Anatomy: the white outer layer of the eyeball. At the front of the eye it is continuous with the cornea.

DERIVATIVES scleral adjective ORIGIN late 19th cent.: modern Latin, from Greek sklēros ‘hard’.

thrawn adjective Scottish 1 twisted; crooked: a slightly thrawn neck. 2 perverse; ill-tempered: mother's looking a bit thrawn this morning. ORIGIN late Middle English: Scots form of thrown (see throw), in the obsolete sense ‘twisted, wrung’.

hypocaust noun: an ancient Roman heating system, comprising a hollow space under the floor of a building, into which hot air was directed. ORIGIN from Latin hypocaustum, from Greek hupokauston ‘place heated from below’, from hupo ‘under’ + kau- (base of kaiein ‘to burn’).

fetor noun: a strong, foul smell: the fetor of decay. ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from Latin, from fetere ‘to stink’. Compare with fetid

boffin noun Brit. informal: a person engaged in scientific or technical research: the boffins at the Telecommunications Research Establishment. . a person with knowledge or a skill considered to be complex or arcane: a computer boffin. DERIVATIVES boffiny adjective ORIGIN Second World War: of unknown origin

I guess that’s all for tonight. As I am gradually breathing more freely, emerging from the bubble I was trapped in with my screenplay, other issues and commitments are rising to tug at me. Oh dear.

And I still haven’t discussed Stephen Hawking