Stacy Horn

They are digitizing their directories! Full story here. The collection spans from 1786 through 1923. 1849 through 1923 are done, and they are currently working on the earlier directories. “The goal is to make the directories text searchable in powerful new ways, in order to build datasets that will inform research in New York City history, genealogy, and beyond.”

I was hoping that included telephone directories, but it doesn’t look like it does. Someday! I once spent an afternoon researching old phone directories when I was trying to find out everyone who had ever lived in my building. That would only tell me people who were well off enough to afford a phone, and this was a very working class neighborhood once, and not everyone had telephones, but still. I got a lot of names. (These were reverse directories that went by address.)

Still, this is big news, especially if you are like me and hate microfilm, which I think is EVERYBODY who has ever had to use microfilm more than once or twice. You should read the article for the examples of fun things you can find out in these directories. They used the Harper brothers (founders of Harper’s) Herman Melville, Boss Tweed, and others as examples. If you are an historian these directories are essential.

Happy spiders from Halloween.

I caught a glimpse of my old band at the Halloween Parade on NY1!

Upshot: They are recommending chemotherapy instead of radiation. It would cost $3,315.00 to $4,972.00, and they cannot give me *any* stats on how effective chemotherapy is for this kind of tumor. They do not know. At all.

They said they got really good margins in surgery, and if he didn’t have the most aggressive kind of tumor they would normally be telling me his chances of recovery are pretty good. But based on his tumor they said there’s a 50/50 chance it will metastasize.

I’m not going to spend that much money when there is not a single study which says it might work. I also don’t want to take him back to the vet five times for the treatment. This morning he peed himself the minute I picked him up to put him in the carrier.

I feel like I’ve done everything within reason (and some would say beyond reason). We’ll take our 50/50 chances and hope for the best.

I’m very happy I did the surgery though. Because he seems much better to me, and we’re going to get a few good months it looks like, maybe more. I’ll take it.

Pretty much everyone who follows this blog knows that I sing with the Choral Society of Grace Church. If you’re in New York, our holiday concert is a great feel-good way to start the season. Our concerts are at the beginning of December. AND, if you buy tickets from me, you get a discount (they’re $25 vs $30). But if you prefer to buy them online you can do so here.

Weirdly, I wasn’t as into it this year. My favorite thing was the dancing skeletons in the doorway in the very beginning of this movie. Maybe I should go back to drumming in the parade.