vickilicious

I went back to the doctor because I couldn’t breathe and kept having falling-down shaking coughing fits. She checked my lungs, gave me steroids (prednisone), nasal spray, heavy-duty cough stuff, and reluctant clearance to fly tomorrow.

I’m really nervous about traveling when I am this sick, but as long as I don’t end up in an Italian hospital with pneumonia, this should be a great trip!

I don’t know that I’ve actually explained what I’m doing, so please forgive the haste: basically, we’re taking on-site measurements of a mosaic and wall paintings in the Herculaneum and a medieval chapel in Urbino, using the NMR-MOUSE, portable XRF, micro-Raman, and FT-IR spectrometers and a colorimeter. What that means in lay terms is that we’re using analytical chemistry instruments and techniques to study the materials and state of degradation of really awesome art stuff, then reporting that information to conservators to guide their courses of treatment and preservation.

In summation: awesome, amazing, dream-come-true stuff.

I’ll be away until November 9th, and it’s practically certain that this blog’s template will fall apart and go to hell while I’m away. So, sorry about that, but I’ll see you in 3 weeks!