Month: January 2015

I noticed someone came to my blog searching on Lantus and I wanted to share this tip. If your cat has been diagnosed with diabetes and the vet has prescribed Lantus you’re probably experiencing severe sticker shock right now. I researched the best costs for Lantus insulin and this is what I’ve found.

A 10 ml bottle of Lantus costs $250 (best price I’ve found not online). The bottle contains 1000 units. But, as you’ve learned, or will learn, it expires after three months so you have to throw it away when you’ve only used only 180 units. (For a cat getting 1 unit twice a day. 2 units x 90 days = 180.)

A box of five 3ml Lantus pens costs $400. Each pen contains 300 units. Now bear with me: it’s a bigger investment up front, but each pen lasts three months so that $400 investment lasts you 15 months. In the same amount of time, if you bought by the bottle, you would have spent $1,250. This works out even if the cat is getting 2 units twice a day (but the pens would last a year vs 15 months).

There are probably less expensive places to buy insulin online or in Canada, but buying the pens vs the bottle would still be the better way to go.

People photograph this little wooden house all the time. It’s pretty up close, but I noticed from across the street it looks less idyllic, against that big, unattractive building behind it.

I’m meeting with my editor today to discuss my new book about Blackwell’s Island. Life is good when you have a new book in the works. I’m putting together a “to-do” list and everything on my to-do list is something I’m chomping at the bit to do. There is not one thing that I need to research that I am not absolutely fascinated by. The first item up on my holy grail list (things that will be hard to uncover, but I’m determined to succeed) is to learn whatever I can about an 1828 murderer.

I think I’ve posted before how no matter I’m writing about, I always uncover a murder. Well, with a book about a place like Blackwell’s Island, which housed a penitentiary and a workhouse and a poorly run almshouse and lunatic asylum, murder was always going to be in the cards.

Another picture of my neighborhood on the night before the non-Blizzard of 2015. I shouldn’t be mad about the blizzard that didn’t happen. It caused me to take a walk that night and it was so pretty and serene out. There was something enchanting in the air. Everyone was stockpiled and ready for something exciting to happen.

In the sixties, places all over the City were designated as fallout shelters and stocked with the items the Office of Civil Defense deemed crucial to survival. I found various lists of them at the Municipal Archives. I’m dying to spend a few days going to all the locations listed to see if anything is still being stored there and what shape it’s in. From one memo:

“The Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Park Avenue and 50th Street will be the first hotel in New York City to be stockpiled with Civil Defense Emergency Fallout Shelter supplies and equipment provided by the Federal Government … Beginning Wednesday, March 6, 1963 at 10:00 a.m. … eleven trucks of the New York City Department of Highways will transport 7500 units of Civil Defense supplies to the truck entrance … The supplies consist of emergency food, water containers, medical supplies, sanitation equipment and radiological detection instruments.”

—March 5, 1963 press release issued by the City of New York Office of Civil Defense, Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Subject Files, Roll 18, Civil Defense.

The medical kits included, among other things, Eugenol, (a toothache remedy) Kaolin and Pectin (diarrhea medicine) Penicillin and Phenobarbital.

From yesterday: a beautiful dog wearing snow boots.

Our choir rehearsal tonight was cancelled for no good reason, in the end. The only times choir rehearsal has been cancelled in my entire 30 year history of singing with the Choral Society of Grace Church was on 9/11/2001, and during Hurricane Sandy! We only got what I would call a modest snowfall.

But New Yorkers are appreciating the atmosphere of a day off. I took a lot of pictures of people with their dogs after my friend Jackie explained the trials and tribulations of walking your dog in the snow. The one that got to me was how the salt hurts their poor little feet and some people put booties on their paws to address it. This dog was having a great time, though.

Runners gotta run. I stopped by my gym to see if I could take a swim and the answer was, “You can if a life guard shows up!” I’ll call later to see.

There was a bunch of sledding even though we don’t have much of what anyone would call “hills” around here. This was on the banks of the Hudson River.

Parents were using sleds instead of strollers to take their kids around. I got the sense that kids everywhere give this mode of transportation a big thumbs up.

More dog joy. This dog in the picture below was absolutely in love with the snow. My poor cats. They have never had the opportunity to play in the snow. Perhaps they are fine with that.

So that was our blizzard. Happy snow day everyone!!

Okay, I went out and took some pictures. Even though it was only just barely snowing there was almost no one out there! A cop car went by with a loud speaker calling out, “A curfew is in effect,” even though the curfew doesn’t begin until 11 (it was around 9) and there’s almost no snow on the ground! One couple was out on a romantic stroll at least.

Almost everything was closed but a few places saw an opportunity.

The Empire State Building from my roof. It is too soon to call bullshit on this storm? It’s supposed to really start going at 11, but it’s 11 now and nothing is happening out there. No wind, still barely snowing. Watch, it will get really bad, I’ll lose electricity and heat and hot water and boy will I be sorry then.