Photo reference: Mehitabel

So, a while back, the excellent fidelioscabinet pointed me to Natalia Alexandrovna Pushkina as a good visual for Mehitabel Parr.

Earlier this week, I was looking at Wikipedia for something (the Golden Dawn, I think, but it might have been anything), and their main page had this picture of the 6'7" (!) Russian volleyball player, Yekaterina Gamova, and I thought, Hello, Mehitabel. (I believe it's partly the look she's giving the camera.)

And there are some similarities between Gamova and Pushkina, in the shape of the face and the angle of the eyebrows particularly. So I suspect if you did a mash-up of the two, you'd get something close to what I think Mehitabel Parr looks like.

second go-round

Second acupuncture session today.

This one was more difficult than the first, because this time I knew what to expect, particularly from Zusanli, which sends a bolt of agony from knee to toes. (I suspect there is correlation with my physical therapist's observation yesterday that the muscles of my lower legs are currently extremely tense.) It was hard to lie still and go through with it. However, it had the same effect: namely, the RLS got more and more agitated and then dissolved. We'll see how long it stays gone this time.

I need to accept that the clinic is too cold to be comfortable lying still for an hour without a blanket, because having to call the acupuncturist in the middle of the hour is really kind of disruptive.

I find myself a little more off-kilter post-treatment than I was last week, and my bad ankle is definitely affected. I was limping heavily on the way home, and it's now sore just behind and under the knob of the fibula--which may not be a bad thing. I just want to note it.

This was also my acupuncturist's last day at this clinic, so next week I get to meet the new acupuncturist. Excelsior.

And now for something completely different.

I've just been reading some really horrible information about snake venom and the ways in which it can fuck your shit up. (Yes, it's for a story. Almost everything is.)

So, as a palate cleanser, and in case anybody else needs this today, I offer you baby red pandas at the Knoxville Zoo. And another red panda, about to break the camera with pure undiluted cuteness. The Knoxville Zoo was the zoo of my childhood, and I remember the red panda exhibit, but things have obviously improved since the 80s, because the red pandas now have a village.

As well they should, says I.

(Also, I now totally want to write a early-Cerebus-style sword & sorcery send up with a heroine named Red Panda. Or, more accurately, I want ursulav to write it for me.)