A Small Slice of Summer--Discussion Thread

A Small Slice of Summer begins with a 'Commando operation'. For the potty-minded among us (imagining a team of surgeons operating without their knickers on), I offer the true definition: Surgery A term attributed to Hayes Martin, a pioneer in head & neck surgery, for the en bloc removal of an advanced 1º malignancy of the oral cavity, usually SCC–lymphoma is amenable to RT or chemotherapy; the CO is a very aggressive procedure, and entails partial removal of the mandible, floor of the mouth and/or tongue, accompanied by a radical neck dissection. Bo-ring.


I don't like Tishy much but can totally relate to her penny-pinching ways. 'Buying her meals had become a major exercise in basic arithmetic.' During my second semester of college (after my scholarship ran out and before I got my first paycheck) I was in a similar way. I had a 10 pound sack of potatoes, a few sticks of butter and some salt. Maybe I was hoping for a repeat of the Old Testament miracle (the one about the meal and oil and the widow) as it would have to last me two weeks. I would have done it too but my student congregation (my ward) was having a pay-it-forward week going on and one day I stepped out of my front door at 6:30 in the morning (in the freezing cold and snow to head off to work) and found a large (for a student) sack of groceries. I never found out who that person was but it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me and probably represented a sizable amount of their food budget. I felt very Tishy-esque.


Jason drives a Jensen Interceptor convertible (right). (Can I get a show of hands for those that mentally hear "The Dauntless is the power in these waters but there's not a ship that can match The Interceptor for speed."?) When he drives her home he does so with the 'hood down'. Those crazy Brits--calling hoods 'bonnets' and tops 'hoods'. I live in rainy Oregon so 'hood down' driving is more theoretical than actual. But even if it were sensible, I have hair issues. No, better to cover it up and crack a window...

Gypsies with Typhoid! Whenever La Neels discusses gypsy caravans I know I'm supposed to picture crummy RVs but I instantly conjure Stromboli from Pinocchio with the wooden cart. As for Typhoid... Typhoid Mary, was the first person in the United States to be identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever. Over the course of her career as a cook, she is known to have infected 53 people, three of whom died from the disease.Her notoriety is in part due to her vehement denial of her own role in spreading the disease, together with her refusal to cease working as a cook. She was forcibly quarantined twice by public health authorities and died in quarantine. It is possible that she was born with the disease, as her mother had typhoid fever during her pregnancy.

'Typhoid is not the long drawn out thing now that we have Chloramphenicol.' Sure, but once upon a time it was a real danger. First Lady Abigail Adams, the third son of Abraham Lincoln, one of the Wright brothers and Prince Albert (consort of Queen Victoria) all died from the disease. The moral of the story? There were no good old days.

Tishy usually tries to keep her food budget around 40 pence a day, she tells the doctor while dining with him at Le Gaulois in Chancery Lane. Not to harp on my desperate college days, but if I recall correctly, my monthly food budget was around $50. Lots of rice and potatoes and eggs and barbecue sauce and ramen noodles. I don't think a RDD would be on a speaking acquaintance with ramen noodles.

Jason buys her a painting of a gypsy caravan which she nails to her wall with the heel of her winter boot. I wonder if nailing things to the wall was strictly allowed in the nurse's home. To me it sounds like a cross between a nunnery and a dorm room--places where the integrity of the walls are guarded like a Romulan warship. Stands to reason that she couldn't get a hold of a simple hammer.