tick, マダニ, tique: the aftermath

I had almost forgotten the whole ado about the tick, when I woke up one morning, nine days later, to find that the tick bite was beginning to swell. After searching on the internet, it appeared that I had succumbed to Lyme disease. I had symptoms mentioned on every website: the characteristic reddish "bulls-eye" rash (a red ring surrounding a clear area and a red centre) that was getting larger; a headache; and joint pain. I immediately made an appointment with the dermatologist, who, after questioning me, did not seem to think that I had Lyme disease (due to lack of some other symptoms) but instead, had some other infection. Nonetheless, he gave me a prescription for a three-week course of antibiotics, and the necessary blood tests.

Here is the funny thing about the blood tests: I was to be tested once immediately, and then the second time after my treatment is over. However, because antibodies to the bacteria do not start showing until two or three weeks after infection, even if I had Lyme disease, the first blood test would be negative, since it had only been nine days. Furthermore, the three-week treatment is intended to clear the infection, so the second blood test should be negative as well.

What, then, is the point of the tests?

I guess in cases like this, the precautionary principle prevails, which is a good thing. I must, however, concur with Sandra Steingraber, one of my favourite authors (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/347/): while doctors prefer to err on the side of caution in cases like this, why can't it be the same for environmental diseases that are caused by suspected contributors such as pesticides, solvents and heavy metals? Will I ever live to the day when a government will say, to quote Steingraber, "Look, we don't know if you have been exposed, but we are removing environmental carcinogens from your neighborhood because we want to err on the side of caution"?

Most likely, I will never find out if I had Lyme disease or not. Regardless, I am comforted by the sources I found on the internet, which tell me that if treated early, the disease can be cured 100%, although if left untreated, it can affect the joints, heart and the nervous system.

Thank goodness for that.

大家との戦い （７）

さて、８月末に出た判決では大家が完璧に負けたのですが、２ヶ月待っても音沙汰なし。どうしたらいいのか？と簡易裁判所に電話したら、なんと、判決執行のために執行吏 (huissier de justice) に連絡しなければならない、ということ。判決にも書いてあるはずだと言われたのでよく見たら、確かに書いてあったけれど、判で押してあったもので、きちんと押してなかったので半分以上読めなかったのです。さすが、フランス。

さて、この執行吏とはかなり権限があるらしく、差押えや立ちのきとかも執行できるらしい。だから、私が住んでいるパリではなく、相手が住んでいる町の執行吏にお願いしなければならないということ。しかし大家の住んでいる小さな町には執行吏がいないので、近くの大きな町の執行吏を調べて連絡する。事務所の人は「相手の職業は」「支払われなければならない金額は」と電話で確認したし、書類を送った後は「相手の銀行口座を知っていたら連絡して」という内容の手紙が来たので、ひとまず安心。それにしても、この判決執行の費用として１５０ユーロ支払わなければならなかった。これは戻ってこないらしい。今年中にお金が戻ってくるのであろうか？

ということで、まだまだ、大家との戦いは続く。

オランダ デルフト出張

オランダの Delft は、陶器のデルフト焼きと、画家 Jan Vermeer の故郷として有名です。６月に会議で１週間いましたが、ここに去年３週間ほど研修で滞在していたこともあります。 デルフトは町中を運河が流れていて、美しい景色。でも、この写真を見てもわかるように、富栄養化により水面に藻が発生しています。去年いたときはこれほどではなかったので、環境が悪化しているのでしょう。

デルフト旧市街で一番高い建物は、Markt 広場を面している新教会（といっても、１５世紀に建てられた）。教会の塔から見た街の眺めは素晴らしかったです。この写真は、この塔から旧教会を見ています。

あと、ここで泊まった Hotel de Plataan は面白いホテルでした。各部屋がテーマ別に飾られていて、私はたまたまランクの高い部屋に泊まることができたのです。私の部屋のテーマは、「オーストラリア」。アボリジニの楽器ディジュリドゥや、カンガルーの絵などが描いてあって、ベッドは直径２．５メートルの真ん円。日本のちょっといやらしいホテルみたいな感じですね。ちょっとびっくりしました。

Den Haag と Rotterdam の間にある小さなとてもかわいらしい街デルフト、１日の観光の価値はあると思います。

フランス南東部週末旅行：リヨン

リヨンは食事が美味しいというのが評判だし、ローマ遺跡もあるので、訪問するのをとても楽しみにしていました。

一番気に入ったの場所は、Musee de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine。この博物館は円形のローマ時代の劇場の真横にあり、古い像や生活用品、そして見事なモザイクも展示してありました。この劇場、夏には野外コンサートなど行われるようです。いつかぜひコンサートに行ってみたいです。

この博物館がある、Fourviere の丘から眺めるリヨン旧市街の景色もすばらしかったです。旧市街には、Traboule という、建物の間を路地にして通れるようにする屋根つきの小道がたくさん残っていました。これを迷路のように巡るのも楽しかったです。観光局に行くとこの抜け道の地図ももらえますが、ちょっと情報が古いようで通れない道もあったので注意しなければなりません。

あと、リヨンで泊まったホテル hotel du Theatre は安いしロケーションも良く、お勧めです。興味があればトラベルサイトに批評を載せたので見てください：http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g187265-d235940-r7750099-Hotel_du_Theatre-Lyon_Rhone_Alpes.html

最後の写真は、このホテルの近くを通るソーヌ川沿いから見る、旧市街の夜景。ライトアップされているのはSt-Jean教会とその上に Notre-Dame de Fourviere 聖堂、そしてテレビ塔。ソーヌ川沿いには日曜日市場があり、散歩していて楽しかったです。

フランス南東部週末旅行：アヌシー

フランスには日本のように、毎月１週末が３連休にはなりません。でも５月には休みが多く、今年は当たり年で、ほぼ毎週末ロング・ウィークエンドでした。この１週末を利用し、Rhone-Alpes 地方のAnnecy と Lyon に行ってきました。

スイス国境に近い Annecy は、街の雰囲気がとても素敵でした。特に、旧牢獄（左の写真）を囲む旧市街では花もたくさん植わっていて、かわいらしい感じ。アヌシー城からの景色は赤茶色のルーフトップが並んでいて、きれいでした。

一番楽しかったのは、アヌシー湖のクルーズ。愛犬ぶらんこも湖畔の景色を眺めていました。

あと楽しんだのは、チーズ料理。Savoie のチーズは世界中有名ですね。Annecy で初めて、本格的なラクレットを食べました。５月だったのでそれほど寒くなかったのにあつあつのチーズ料理を食べたので、暑くて半そでになってしまいました。これから寒くなる季節、また食べたいです。

The Diversity of Life

A fascinating book, which describes the miracle of life: how the world came to be as diverse as it is. Wilson has succeeded in giving an entertaining "ecology 101" course by writing such an accessible book. I could not put the book down--and this is coming from someone who managed to get a bachelor's degree from a liberal arts college without taking a single biology course! Had I picked up this book 15 years ago, when it first came out, I may even have become an ecologist! But alas, the two books that changed the course of my life were Eric Wolf's "Europe and the People Without History" and Karl Marx's "Das Kapital", and that is why I am an anthropologist today.

But I digress. The highlight of this book, which begins by demonstration of the resilience of ecosystems, is Wilson's account of how species are born and how, in 3 billion years, came to be as diverse as it is now. He then moves on to describe extinction of species--over 98 % of all species that ever lived are now extinct, but the world is currently at the peak of biodiversity. Wilson's depiction of the "unmined riches" of nature is also fascinating. In the last chapters of the book, Wilson tells us, in a rather preaching tone, that we must save the world's biodiversity from going extinct, and provides some concrete (but rather ambitious) actions that can be taken do so.

The only problem I had with the book is the species-centric view of the world; as is typical for books written by ecologists, people are described only as destroyers of nature, and a description of the rich interactions between humans and nature is only given two pages in the 400-page book.

This book should be compulsory reading for all those politicians and CEOs of multinational corporations, who are not convinced that we need to take immediate actions to conserve the environment. After all, as a Sengalese conservationist is quoted in the book, "In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught".

tick, マダニ, tique

Last night, I found what appeared to be a white sesame seed on my arm. I tried to brush it off, while wondering to myself, when was the last time we cooked with sesame? The sesame seed would not budge, and upon closer inspection, I found to my dismay that it had LEGS on it. I called my partner, who recognized it as a tick.

Yuck.

The problem came next: what to do? My partner, whose primary language is Japanese, learned via Japanese wikipedia that I should not remove it, but rather, see a dermatologist as soon as possible. He then proceeded to apply alcohol, in an attempt to drown it (he found this on the internet, too). When I searched the internet in English, I found that I should remove it ASAP. The French-language wikipedia warns AGAINST application of alcohol, as it may irritate the tick to the point of regurgitation of bacteria into the bloodstream. What to do?

Now, having obtained two degrees in anthropology, I know that illnesses are perceived and cured differently around the world. Also, it is most likely that the ticks that exist in Japan, the US and in France are different and thus require different approaches. But I was not prepared for such divergent options offered to us via the resources available.

Needless to say, we promptly put poison (in the form of frontline, a product for flea and tick control) on our beloved dog last night, the most likely culprit of this whole mess. I also must monitor myself carefully to make sure that I do not succumb to some infectious disease. Wish me luck!

Hocus Pocus

An intriguing tale of the life of a man currently awaiting trial for masterminding the greatest prison break in American history. His reminiscence takes us back to his high school's science fair, which led him to a career in the US Army that took him to Vietnam; then as a professor at a school for the learning-disabled; then as a teacher, then a warden, of a prison. During his life he fathers a son about whom he does not find out until the day he is arrested; marries a woman with a strain of insanity on her mother's side of the family, which becomes evident when her mother, then herself, becomes crazy at middle-age; he has numerous affairs with women (the number of women he has slept with is exactly the same as the number of people he killed during the war in Vietnam, which happens to be a lot).

Vonnegut's impeccable sense of dry humour makes this book a joy to read: World War II is referred to as "Finale Rack of so-called Human Progress"; foreign businesses buying American land, enterprises and facilities are called "an Army of Occupation in business suits"; and the modern times are descibed as human beings "killing the planet with the by-products of their own ingenuity". Here's my favourite: Harvard Business School is full of "movers and shakers who were screwing up our economy for their own immediate benefit, taking money earmarked for research and development and new machinery... and putting it into monumental retirement plans and year-end bonuses for themselves". It thus comes as no surprise to find that Vonnegut was a humanist and has criticized the Bush administration and the Iraq war.

I only became interested in Kurt Vonnegut's books after I read his obituary after his death earlier in the year: it turns out that we had two things in common: one, that both of us had obtained our MA in anthropology; and two, neither of had decided to get a PhD in anthropology. I found "Hocus Pocus" an enjoyable read, much more entertaining than his more famous "Slaughterhouse-Five". I look forward to reading more of his books.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

A truly delicious read (literally! Reading this book made me constantly hungry, I recommend that you only pick up this book when you are full, after a home-made meal of locally bought products) that traces the four seasons during which a family of four ate only local vegetables and animals. The year of eating local begins in spring, when the asparagus shoots emerge from the ground; thereafter, the family subsides, as much as possible, only on what they harvest or collect from their farm, what they can purchase at the local farmer's market, and what their friends give them. This takes us through seasonal eating of heirloom vegetables, potatoes, wild mushrooms, carrots, chickens and their eggs, cheeses, tomatoes (lots of them!), turkey, and pumpkins. Kingsolver, with her husband, does not neglect to give us lessons on why we should eat organic or local foods that are in season—the implications of food traveling 1,500 miles to reach our dinner table, genetically modified crops, the problem of overfed but undernourished Americans, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), subsidies paid to keep "conventional" industrially grown foods cheap—and why we should cook our meals from scratch and avoid, as much as possible, eating processed foods. In beautiful prose, Kingsolver also takes us through her trips to north-eastern part of North America and Italy, and the slow food movements there. We learn that aside from the rare items (such as fair trade coffee, wheat grown out of state, and breakfast cereals), the family succeeds in their efforts—and saves money in the process.

Kingsolver makes a case that organic food should not be seen as an elite privilege; penny-pinching should not be "an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains". We also learn that liberation of women from the home into the workforce, but WITHOUT the liberation from housework, has meant that less and less food is cooked at home—as Kingsolver notes, nobody looks forward to cooking at the end of a long day—and this is where a profiteering industry comes in: “hey ladies... go ahead, get liberated. We'll take care of dinner”. But cooking is not only "the great divide between good eating and bad"; "home-cooked, whole-ingredient cuisine will save money" and also "help trim off and keep off extra pounds". How could we possibly argue against that?

My only problem is that Kingsolver mentions next to NOTHING about the problems of eating fish and seafood—such as overharvesting and depletion of fish, the dangers of eating large ocean fish as well as fish from most rivers in the US due to toxic poisoning, and aquaculture and its negative effects on the environment, to name a few. She mentions that when she and her family denounced CAFOs, they would only order vegetarian or seafood menus when they ate at restaurants, but the cultivated shrimp typically found in American restaurants are just as likely to have had negative environmental impacts and ethical concerns as CAFOs. But the book is, as the title suggests, about animals and vegetables, and another whole book would have to be written to delve into such issues. Kingsolver is one of my favourite authors since I first read her work as a college student in the U.S., and I have read almost all of her books. In particular, "Prodigal Summer" and "Small Wonder" deal with topics that I can really identify with. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" will be an addition to my bookshelf that I am likely to pick up often, whenever I need an inspiration—whenever I am tempted to succumb to eating out or order take out, after a long day at work.