Better Late Than Never
I forgot there were a couple of links I wanted to put in here for Easter. One, the Abston Church of Christ, I already put in here, but I thought it would be appropriate for the holiday. It's a complete church made out of Legos, with little plastic Lego people inside and a little plastic Lego preacher. The other one, The Lord of the Peeps, just cries out for an Easter visit. It is the Lord of the Rings done using little marshmallow peep bunnies. Too cute, if you ask me.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Take Two Kisses And Call Me In The Morning
Today's Medical Monday is about how healing is affected by your emotions. There was a study done where doctors used some kind of suction device that left a big puffy welt on people's arms. Afterwards, the test subjects were studied. Everybody was tested twice. After they got their welt one time, they talked with someone about something casual, like a vaction they enjoyed or tricks their pets did. The other time they had to talk about something unpleasant, like getting fired or being bullied in school. It took twice as long for the welt to heal if they had to think about something unhappy. So if you are sick, it really does make a difference what kind of environment you are in. I don't know if being unhappy actually causes you to get sick, but it can slow your recovery.
Today's Medical Monday is about how healing is affected by your emotions. There was a study done where doctors used some kind of suction device that left a big puffy welt on people's arms. Afterwards, the test subjects were studied. Everybody was tested twice. After they got their welt one time, they talked with someone about something casual, like a vaction they enjoyed or tricks their pets did. The other time they had to talk about something unpleasant, like getting fired or being bullied in school. It took twice as long for the welt to heal if they had to think about something unhappy. So if you are sick, it really does make a difference what kind of environment you are in. I don't know if being unhappy actually causes you to get sick, but it can slow your recovery.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Forgot The Cherry On Top
I forgot to write about the one really good thing that happened last week. My husband had a doctor's appointment Friday with his heart doctor. He passed with flying colors. He said the doctor checked him all over, and said all his arteries sounded good, he had good blood pressure, and he lost over 50 pounds.
We're not sure exactly why he lost any weight. I guess it's because he hasn't been eating his man steaks. He used to get steaks custom cut at the local meat market. He called them steaks, I called them roasts. I would also get custom steaks, but mine were lady steaks, cut about as thin as a pork chop. Anyway, he hasn't been eating as much but hasn't been on any kind of diet. Also he's not drinking as much beer anymore, which eliminates some calories. Not like he's a big drunk or anything, but he likes beer. So sue him.
I wish I could loose 50 pounds. I've been slowly expanding for quite some time. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and swear off the bottle. No more soda. No sweet bubbly nectar of the Gods. No refreshing pick-me-up to start the day. No relaxing citrus goodness greeting me at the end of a hard day at 411. No authoritative snap when I open a can. Sigh. This is going to be tough. I think I need duct tape. If I can't open the refrigerator, I can't drink the soda, can I?
I forgot to write about the one really good thing that happened last week. My husband had a doctor's appointment Friday with his heart doctor. He passed with flying colors. He said the doctor checked him all over, and said all his arteries sounded good, he had good blood pressure, and he lost over 50 pounds.
We're not sure exactly why he lost any weight. I guess it's because he hasn't been eating his man steaks. He used to get steaks custom cut at the local meat market. He called them steaks, I called them roasts. I would also get custom steaks, but mine were lady steaks, cut about as thin as a pork chop. Anyway, he hasn't been eating as much but hasn't been on any kind of diet. Also he's not drinking as much beer anymore, which eliminates some calories. Not like he's a big drunk or anything, but he likes beer. So sue him.
I wish I could loose 50 pounds. I've been slowly expanding for quite some time. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and swear off the bottle. No more soda. No sweet bubbly nectar of the Gods. No refreshing pick-me-up to start the day. No relaxing citrus goodness greeting me at the end of a hard day at 411. No authoritative snap when I open a can. Sigh. This is going to be tough. I think I need duct tape. If I can't open the refrigerator, I can't drink the soda, can I?
Holy Crap
The past week was a complete nightmare. It started out when I had to drive through a typhoon to get to work. After that my day got better, but my husband's day proceded to suck. Whoever designed the minivan he drives decided instead of using 4 or 5 little belts, they would just use one giant belt, about 38 feet long. That turns out to be a good thing, because when he was backing out of a parking spot my husband suddenly noticed the complete absence of power steering. If there had been separate belts he might not have noticed anything wrong until smoke started pouring out from under the hood. Luckily, the belt had just slipped off, and he was able to gimp all the way to our mechanic and get it put back in place.
The next day I was off work, and you would think that would be a good thing, but I still had a bad day. It started out when I opened the refrigerator and realized I didn't have any soda. Not a real tragedy, but that meant I would have to put on real clothes, not stay in my jammies all day, and drive to the store to get more soda. The tragedy that is my life. Anyway, I got dressed, went in the garage and started backing out. No, I didn't run over or into anything. I suddenly have a crack in my windshield. It starts about eye-level at the support post on the driver's side, and then curves out in a gracefull arc towards the dashboard. Not exactly what I wanted on my day off. I swear it wasn't there when I parked my car. My husband said sometimes when a car cools down a tiny chipped spot will suddenly pop and send out a crack, so it wasn't my fault.
Then, when my husband came home he had even worse news. The lady that owns, or owned, the restaurant where he works, or worked (can you tell where I'm going with this?) sold the business. Not only did she sell it, she sold it to someone else that works there, who, according to my husband, might be related to the Antichrist. She doesn't have as much experience as my husband, but that doesn't stop her from thinking she knows more than he does about everything. So he didn't know if he was going to keep working there or not. If he had to work with her as a boss, the general rule about most people who go on berzerk killing rampages having restaurant experience would have still been valid. Of course, nobody told my husband any of this until about 5 minutes before he was supposed to leave for the day. Assholes.
So we were sitting at the kitchen table, discussing my windshield and his employment future, when we noticed a strange noise coming from the basement. The washing machine decided this would be a fine time to break down. Not only did it break down, but it broke down with a load full of clothes inside. And it was full of water, too, but luckily it was on the last rinse cycle, so we just had to wring each piece out by hand and put in the drier. It took 4 hours to dry all the clothes.
The next day he went back to the restaurant to talk to the new owner. She told him A) she couldn't afford to pay him as much as he had been making (which sucked because the old owner had been about to give him a raise) and B) she had already hired another cook who needed to work 40 hours, so even if he decided to stay he could only work 1 day a week. So guess who needs a job?
That wasn't the end of the week from hell. My husband came home a couple of days ago and noticed about an inch of water on the bathroom floor. He had a hard time figuring out where the water was coming from. It wasn't the toilet itself that was leaking, but the shut-off valve leading to the toilet. At least he was able to fix it without having to buy a new toilet.
While all this was going on I really didn't have any interest in blogging, or even getting on my laptop at all. I kept thinking if I turned on my laptop it would shoot flames out the back, or electrocute me or something. I even had a dream that I opened my laptop and everything inside had melted.
The past week was a complete nightmare. It started out when I had to drive through a typhoon to get to work. After that my day got better, but my husband's day proceded to suck. Whoever designed the minivan he drives decided instead of using 4 or 5 little belts, they would just use one giant belt, about 38 feet long. That turns out to be a good thing, because when he was backing out of a parking spot my husband suddenly noticed the complete absence of power steering. If there had been separate belts he might not have noticed anything wrong until smoke started pouring out from under the hood. Luckily, the belt had just slipped off, and he was able to gimp all the way to our mechanic and get it put back in place.
The next day I was off work, and you would think that would be a good thing, but I still had a bad day. It started out when I opened the refrigerator and realized I didn't have any soda. Not a real tragedy, but that meant I would have to put on real clothes, not stay in my jammies all day, and drive to the store to get more soda. The tragedy that is my life. Anyway, I got dressed, went in the garage and started backing out. No, I didn't run over or into anything. I suddenly have a crack in my windshield. It starts about eye-level at the support post on the driver's side, and then curves out in a gracefull arc towards the dashboard. Not exactly what I wanted on my day off. I swear it wasn't there when I parked my car. My husband said sometimes when a car cools down a tiny chipped spot will suddenly pop and send out a crack, so it wasn't my fault.
Then, when my husband came home he had even worse news. The lady that owns, or owned, the restaurant where he works, or worked (can you tell where I'm going with this?) sold the business. Not only did she sell it, she sold it to someone else that works there, who, according to my husband, might be related to the Antichrist. She doesn't have as much experience as my husband, but that doesn't stop her from thinking she knows more than he does about everything. So he didn't know if he was going to keep working there or not. If he had to work with her as a boss, the general rule about most people who go on berzerk killing rampages having restaurant experience would have still been valid. Of course, nobody told my husband any of this until about 5 minutes before he was supposed to leave for the day. Assholes.
So we were sitting at the kitchen table, discussing my windshield and his employment future, when we noticed a strange noise coming from the basement. The washing machine decided this would be a fine time to break down. Not only did it break down, but it broke down with a load full of clothes inside. And it was full of water, too, but luckily it was on the last rinse cycle, so we just had to wring each piece out by hand and put in the drier. It took 4 hours to dry all the clothes.
The next day he went back to the restaurant to talk to the new owner. She told him A) she couldn't afford to pay him as much as he had been making (which sucked because the old owner had been about to give him a raise) and B) she had already hired another cook who needed to work 40 hours, so even if he decided to stay he could only work 1 day a week. So guess who needs a job?
That wasn't the end of the week from hell. My husband came home a couple of days ago and noticed about an inch of water on the bathroom floor. He had a hard time figuring out where the water was coming from. It wasn't the toilet itself that was leaking, but the shut-off valve leading to the toilet. At least he was able to fix it without having to buy a new toilet.
While all this was going on I really didn't have any interest in blogging, or even getting on my laptop at all. I kept thinking if I turned on my laptop it would shoot flames out the back, or electrocute me or something. I even had a dream that I opened my laptop and everything inside had melted.
THE INVASION IS OVER, WE WON
Don't know if my public has noticed, but I haven't posted anything for the past week. The reason is that we had housepests, Mary and her two kids. It was fun, but a definite distraction from blogging. We went to a lot of fast food joints, to a movie, to the mall, to Kohl's, to Wally World, to the museum, and hiking at Wildcat Bluff.
Dan has just got his driving license so he took the wheel for a lot of this. Linda is not old enough to drive yet, so she enjoyed listening to her Mom hector him about his technique. "Watch out for that car! That light is about to change! You're going too fast! Get in the other lane! Should you be driving with your hands shaking like that?" (The shaking was an obvious attempt to control the urge to strangle someone.)
My only suggestion was that he might fit into our older neighborhood better if he drove at 20 mph with his left blinker on.
Linda's special talents, aside from keen observation of mother-son conflict, include playing complicated video games, putting together 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, and winning at Spider solitaire on my computer. She taught me Spider but I have not advanced beyond Hopeless Amateur Level. Oh yes, another talent is her ability to keep track of her Mom's weight and what is on her diet, and inform her what she ought not to be eating. She has certain popularity issues within her family.
While they were here, Mary suggested rearranging the "Favorites" file on my computer. I had about three dozen favorite websites scattered higgledy-piggledy in a list, and she showed me I could put them into logical folders such as blogs, e-mags, politics, military, business, misc., etc. Now all I have to do is to remember whether Little Green Footballs was put under blogs or politics, and open the right folder.
HOWEVER--almost immediately after she finished improving my computer like that, we had the Onslaught of the Killer Pop-Ups. Just as soon as I would swat one down, another would pop up and take its place. I find it hard to believe that, as she insists, organizing my favorites has nothing to do with this. I am sure if I could just remember exactly how my old Favorites file was organized (or, more accurately, disorganized), putting them back that way would get rid of the pop-ups.
They are back in Missouri now, and I miss them. Now, if I could just fix my Favorites . . . but maybe I'll give Spider another try, I think I'm really catching on now.
Don't know if my public has noticed, but I haven't posted anything for the past week. The reason is that we had housepests, Mary and her two kids. It was fun, but a definite distraction from blogging. We went to a lot of fast food joints, to a movie, to the mall, to Kohl's, to Wally World, to the museum, and hiking at Wildcat Bluff.
Dan has just got his driving license so he took the wheel for a lot of this. Linda is not old enough to drive yet, so she enjoyed listening to her Mom hector him about his technique. "Watch out for that car! That light is about to change! You're going too fast! Get in the other lane! Should you be driving with your hands shaking like that?" (The shaking was an obvious attempt to control the urge to strangle someone.)
My only suggestion was that he might fit into our older neighborhood better if he drove at 20 mph with his left blinker on.
Linda's special talents, aside from keen observation of mother-son conflict, include playing complicated video games, putting together 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, and winning at Spider solitaire on my computer. She taught me Spider but I have not advanced beyond Hopeless Amateur Level. Oh yes, another talent is her ability to keep track of her Mom's weight and what is on her diet, and inform her what she ought not to be eating. She has certain popularity issues within her family.
While they were here, Mary suggested rearranging the "Favorites" file on my computer. I had about three dozen favorite websites scattered higgledy-piggledy in a list, and she showed me I could put them into logical folders such as blogs, e-mags, politics, military, business, misc., etc. Now all I have to do is to remember whether Little Green Footballs was put under blogs or politics, and open the right folder.
HOWEVER--almost immediately after she finished improving my computer like that, we had the Onslaught of the Killer Pop-Ups. Just as soon as I would swat one down, another would pop up and take its place. I find it hard to believe that, as she insists, organizing my favorites has nothing to do with this. I am sure if I could just remember exactly how my old Favorites file was organized (or, more accurately, disorganized), putting them back that way would get rid of the pop-ups.
They are back in Missouri now, and I miss them. Now, if I could just fix my Favorites . . . but maybe I'll give Spider another try, I think I'm really catching on now.
Just So You Know
In case you were wondering, I think if you are interested in going to church on Easter, you shouldn't wait until 9:30 Sunday morning to call for directions. It would also be nice if you actually knew the name of the church. If you want to get a nice juicy ham for Easter dinner, you probably should call Honeybaked Ham before 9:30 Saturday night. Also, if I give you a choice between number A and number B, the correct answer is not yes. I just wanted to clear that up in case anybody needed a clue. Not that anybody who reads this blog would make those kinds of mistakes, but it's good to vent. Speaking of venting, I'm going to post on my lunch break about the absolute week from Hell I had last week. Thank God that week is over.
In case you were wondering, I think if you are interested in going to church on Easter, you shouldn't wait until 9:30 Sunday morning to call for directions. It would also be nice if you actually knew the name of the church. If you want to get a nice juicy ham for Easter dinner, you probably should call Honeybaked Ham before 9:30 Saturday night. Also, if I give you a choice between number A and number B, the correct answer is not yes. I just wanted to clear that up in case anybody needed a clue. Not that anybody who reads this blog would make those kinds of mistakes, but it's good to vent. Speaking of venting, I'm going to post on my lunch break about the absolute week from Hell I had last week. Thank God that week is over.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Suggestions, Please
You probably noticed I haven't written in here much lately. I don't remember if I wrote about it already or not, but I just got a library card and have been like a kid in a candy store. I live in a small town outside of the library district, so since I don't pay any library tax they get their money by charging $65 a year for a library card. I was able to get a free card since my mother-in-law bought a house in the library district. I love the library. It can be hard to decide which books to take home and which books to leave behind.
I remember when I was younger I wouldn't read hardly anything but fiction, and now I have to force myself to walk away from the non-fiction section. Why read something made up when there are so many fascinating things that are real to read about? Non-fiction doesn't really mean dull and boring, you know. So now when I go to the library I try to get a varied diet of fiction, non-fiction, and biography books. This week the non-fiction book was Parasite Rex, and I just finished the fiction book, Comet Disaster, about people who survive a comet impact about 50 years in the future. Now my biography book is Carl Jung. He was a really interesting man. I can't wait to read it. Depth psychology is my favorite kind. Not that I've ever had any kind of treatment or counseling or whatever you call it, but I have taken classes and that was always my favorite part of the class.
I am already looking forward to what I will check out next. I plan on Lizarding Jung when I'm done with him, but don't have much to say about the comet book. It was good, but not great. There was another book I read a long time ago about a group that survived a nuclear war or comet or something that I liked a lot better, but now I can't remember what the name of it was, so I don't feel like writing about either of them.
I would like suggestions about what books to check out next. I have checked on the books Mom mentioned, but they are usually checked out, or not in the same branch. I really want to read the Curious Incident in the Nighttime or whatever it was called, but all 10 or so copies were checked out. Does anybody have a favorite author, or a book that really left a deep impression on them? I think for my next fiction book I'm going to take a ride in the Wayback Machine and read Anne of Green Gables. I can't decide about the non-fiction book, but I'm thinking about reading a book named Alien Invasion. I used to be a real science fiction fan, but this book isn't about space aliens, it's about plants and animals that have invaded like kudzu and whatever those clams or snails or whatever it is everybody is so upset about. I read it a couple of years ago, but would like to Lizard it here.
So, any suggestions or requests? Comments, please.
You probably noticed I haven't written in here much lately. I don't remember if I wrote about it already or not, but I just got a library card and have been like a kid in a candy store. I live in a small town outside of the library district, so since I don't pay any library tax they get their money by charging $65 a year for a library card. I was able to get a free card since my mother-in-law bought a house in the library district. I love the library. It can be hard to decide which books to take home and which books to leave behind.
I remember when I was younger I wouldn't read hardly anything but fiction, and now I have to force myself to walk away from the non-fiction section. Why read something made up when there are so many fascinating things that are real to read about? Non-fiction doesn't really mean dull and boring, you know. So now when I go to the library I try to get a varied diet of fiction, non-fiction, and biography books. This week the non-fiction book was Parasite Rex, and I just finished the fiction book, Comet Disaster, about people who survive a comet impact about 50 years in the future. Now my biography book is Carl Jung. He was a really interesting man. I can't wait to read it. Depth psychology is my favorite kind. Not that I've ever had any kind of treatment or counseling or whatever you call it, but I have taken classes and that was always my favorite part of the class.
I am already looking forward to what I will check out next. I plan on Lizarding Jung when I'm done with him, but don't have much to say about the comet book. It was good, but not great. There was another book I read a long time ago about a group that survived a nuclear war or comet or something that I liked a lot better, but now I can't remember what the name of it was, so I don't feel like writing about either of them.
I would like suggestions about what books to check out next. I have checked on the books Mom mentioned, but they are usually checked out, or not in the same branch. I really want to read the Curious Incident in the Nighttime or whatever it was called, but all 10 or so copies were checked out. Does anybody have a favorite author, or a book that really left a deep impression on them? I think for my next fiction book I'm going to take a ride in the Wayback Machine and read Anne of Green Gables. I can't decide about the non-fiction book, but I'm thinking about reading a book named Alien Invasion. I used to be a real science fiction fan, but this book isn't about space aliens, it's about plants and animals that have invaded like kudzu and whatever those clams or snails or whatever it is everybody is so upset about. I read it a couple of years ago, but would like to Lizard it here.
So, any suggestions or requests? Comments, please.
THEY SHOOT CATS, DON'T THEY?
The State of Wisconsin is holding public hearings in April on a bill to allow hunters to shoot stray cats. It all started when a birdlover in LaCross noticed cat tracks in the snow under his birdfeeder every morning, and went ballistic about what was happening to his songbirds. So he has came up with this proposal that would make free-ranging cats an "unprotected species" that can be shot on sight by any licensed hunter.
The whole thing is put forward as a way to protect disappearing songbirds. A few years ago a Wisconsin biologist published a paper claiming that 1.4 million feral cats in the state are killing anywhere from 7.8 million to 219 millions birds every year. The birdlovers are seizing on this as ammunition for their cause. Bad kitty. They want to hand Granny a gun and let her take sides between Sylvester and Tweety.
I am a little dubious about this. Anytime I hear numbers like this--1.4 million, 7.8 to 219 million--I want to ask, "Where the heck do you get this?" How did that biologist count these cats, not to mention the birds they killed? I bet he counted the cats in his alley and guessed how many birds they killed in a day and multiplied all that by the number of square feet in Wisconsin.
The proponents of this bill act as if all these birds that are being killed are wonderful little songbirds. I'm sure some are, but the odds are that most of them are sparrows, grackles, pigeons, and other nuisance birds.
I remember once Brandon was visiting us before we had air conditioning, and there was a mockingbird making a racket outside his open bedroom window all night. He got up and went outside and threw a dinner roll at it. I'm not sure what this says about his opinion of my cooking, that he would consider one of my rolls a lethal weapon, but it did put the mockingbird to flight for the rest of the night. If we had had a cat, he wouldn't have had to bother.
But I digress. Nobody has proved any cause and effect between feral cats and the diminishing numbers of songbirds. Everybody has seen a cat kill a bird at some time or another, and they are jumping to the conclusion that is what is happening. Now, that may be part of it, but we're probably missing a far bigger cause.
I remember reading not long ago about how the exploding deer population is changing the face of our forests. In their search for food, they are eating all the undergrowth in the forest--the bushes, small trees, vines, and so forth.
Where do the songbirds hide and build their nests? Not in the tops of big trees, but in this very underbrush.
So, who is killing our songbirds? How about Bambi?
(Source: rense.com, citing Star Tribune, March 8, 2005)
The State of Wisconsin is holding public hearings in April on a bill to allow hunters to shoot stray cats. It all started when a birdlover in LaCross noticed cat tracks in the snow under his birdfeeder every morning, and went ballistic about what was happening to his songbirds. So he has came up with this proposal that would make free-ranging cats an "unprotected species" that can be shot on sight by any licensed hunter.
The whole thing is put forward as a way to protect disappearing songbirds. A few years ago a Wisconsin biologist published a paper claiming that 1.4 million feral cats in the state are killing anywhere from 7.8 million to 219 millions birds every year. The birdlovers are seizing on this as ammunition for their cause. Bad kitty. They want to hand Granny a gun and let her take sides between Sylvester and Tweety.
I am a little dubious about this. Anytime I hear numbers like this--1.4 million, 7.8 to 219 million--I want to ask, "Where the heck do you get this?" How did that biologist count these cats, not to mention the birds they killed? I bet he counted the cats in his alley and guessed how many birds they killed in a day and multiplied all that by the number of square feet in Wisconsin.
The proponents of this bill act as if all these birds that are being killed are wonderful little songbirds. I'm sure some are, but the odds are that most of them are sparrows, grackles, pigeons, and other nuisance birds.
I remember once Brandon was visiting us before we had air conditioning, and there was a mockingbird making a racket outside his open bedroom window all night. He got up and went outside and threw a dinner roll at it. I'm not sure what this says about his opinion of my cooking, that he would consider one of my rolls a lethal weapon, but it did put the mockingbird to flight for the rest of the night. If we had had a cat, he wouldn't have had to bother.
But I digress. Nobody has proved any cause and effect between feral cats and the diminishing numbers of songbirds. Everybody has seen a cat kill a bird at some time or another, and they are jumping to the conclusion that is what is happening. Now, that may be part of it, but we're probably missing a far bigger cause.
I remember reading not long ago about how the exploding deer population is changing the face of our forests. In their search for food, they are eating all the undergrowth in the forest--the bushes, small trees, vines, and so forth.
Where do the songbirds hide and build their nests? Not in the tops of big trees, but in this very underbrush.
So, who is killing our songbirds? How about Bambi?
(Source: rense.com, citing Star Tribune, March 8, 2005)
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
CANDLES THAT SMELL LIKE JESUS
Did you know you can buy candles that smell like Jesus? A South Dakota couple is selling them in about 150 stores and over the internet at www.hisessence.com.
The couple, Bob and Karen Tosterud, got the formula--a mixture of myrrh, aloe, and cassia--from a verse in Psalm 45 that describes how Christ's garments will smell when he returns. They blended them into a candle they call "The Essence."
"We see it as a ministry," they say. "We wanted people to be able to experience Christ in new ways and to be able to read a bible and have that scent as a reminder that he is with us all the time."
The Tosteruds say this gives a whole new dimension to a person's relationship with Jesus. You can't see him or touch him, but now thanks to them, you can smell him. So far they have sold about 10,000 of these candles at $18 apiece.
This isn't really my idea of what Jesus smelled like. He lived in a hot desert country and traveled everywhere by foot, so he would have been all dusty and sweaty. And he hung out with fishermen and shepherds and common workers, and probably smelled a lot like fish guts and sheep dung. Remember the prostitute that poured her perfume all over him? Don't you think there was some reason for this?
I think Jesus had a bad case of B.O. But it was an honest, earthy smell, just like his message. The important people back then didn't get it, and they still don't. If you want to read your Bible and smell something that reminds you of Jesus, find somebody that can make a candle that is a mixture of fish guts, sheep dung, and sweat. And oh yeah, don't forget some blood.
Did you know you can buy candles that smell like Jesus? A South Dakota couple is selling them in about 150 stores and over the internet at www.hisessence.com.
The couple, Bob and Karen Tosterud, got the formula--a mixture of myrrh, aloe, and cassia--from a verse in Psalm 45 that describes how Christ's garments will smell when he returns. They blended them into a candle they call "The Essence."
"We see it as a ministry," they say. "We wanted people to be able to experience Christ in new ways and to be able to read a bible and have that scent as a reminder that he is with us all the time."
The Tosteruds say this gives a whole new dimension to a person's relationship with Jesus. You can't see him or touch him, but now thanks to them, you can smell him. So far they have sold about 10,000 of these candles at $18 apiece.
This isn't really my idea of what Jesus smelled like. He lived in a hot desert country and traveled everywhere by foot, so he would have been all dusty and sweaty. And he hung out with fishermen and shepherds and common workers, and probably smelled a lot like fish guts and sheep dung. Remember the prostitute that poured her perfume all over him? Don't you think there was some reason for this?
I think Jesus had a bad case of B.O. But it was an honest, earthy smell, just like his message. The important people back then didn't get it, and they still don't. If you want to read your Bible and smell something that reminds you of Jesus, find somebody that can make a candle that is a mixture of fish guts, sheep dung, and sweat. And oh yeah, don't forget some blood.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!
Last night we knew we were going to get a lot of snow when Channel 10's Doppler Dave issued a Wienie Dog Alert. When the weatherman gives a Wienie Dog Alert in the Texas Panhandle, you know something big is coming down. If you don't pay attention and instead let your little dog go out in the back yard, you may never be able to find him again. All over the Texas Panhandle today, careless people are out there with snow shovels trying to find their wienie dogs.
Sure enough, the ground was covered when we got up this morning, and it was still snowing. And there was no newspaper. We figured the paper carrier had been unable to make it though, but we hoped he would come later. We are dedicated news junkies, so it is a real blow to be deprived of our morning Globe-News. We kept watching, but no paper carrier.
It was still snowing late in the morning, but I felt like getting some exercise so I got the snow shovel out of the garage. I began clearing the sidewalk for the mailman, from the front porch to the street. It was a heavy, wet snow, a little more exercise than I had in mind. But we are tough out here in the Texas Panhandle, and I kept after it. I had almost reached the street when I struck something under the snow with my shovel. Oh, no! A weinie dog? I was almost afraid to look. But I scooped it up, and--hallelujah! The newspaper! The guy must have thrown it out there early, while the streets were still passable, and the snow had buried it.
I'm sure you are wondering about my own little dog, the rat terrier Mickey. Mickey did not like the snow at all. He is a very sensitive dog, and he does not like any kind of inclement weather. I opened the side door for him this morning so he could go out and do his little doggie business, but he took one look at the snow out there and wouldn't budge. He looked up at me like, "What, are you crazy? In THIS?" So I shut the door, and he did this cute thing he also does when it is raining. He trotted through the house to the front door and scratched to go out it. Like he expected the weather to be better over there.
But this time I was ready for him. Ha,ha, Mickey--there you go, right into a big snowbank. He gave me a look of pure outrage, then floundered over to a sheltered spot behind the hedge, and did what had to be done. Sometimes you just have to get tough with them.
Tonight, though, I don't know what to do with him. I just watched Doppler Dave, and he reported we have 12 inches of snow. So I have a problem. What do you do when you have 12 inches of snow and 10 inches of dog?
Guess it's time to break out the snow shovel again. Time to re-clear the sidewalk where it's drifted over since this morning. Time to shovel a path from the door to a bush. That's what we do out here in the Texas Panhandle when there's a Wienie Dog Alert.
Last night we knew we were going to get a lot of snow when Channel 10's Doppler Dave issued a Wienie Dog Alert. When the weatherman gives a Wienie Dog Alert in the Texas Panhandle, you know something big is coming down. If you don't pay attention and instead let your little dog go out in the back yard, you may never be able to find him again. All over the Texas Panhandle today, careless people are out there with snow shovels trying to find their wienie dogs.
Sure enough, the ground was covered when we got up this morning, and it was still snowing. And there was no newspaper. We figured the paper carrier had been unable to make it though, but we hoped he would come later. We are dedicated news junkies, so it is a real blow to be deprived of our morning Globe-News. We kept watching, but no paper carrier.
It was still snowing late in the morning, but I felt like getting some exercise so I got the snow shovel out of the garage. I began clearing the sidewalk for the mailman, from the front porch to the street. It was a heavy, wet snow, a little more exercise than I had in mind. But we are tough out here in the Texas Panhandle, and I kept after it. I had almost reached the street when I struck something under the snow with my shovel. Oh, no! A weinie dog? I was almost afraid to look. But I scooped it up, and--hallelujah! The newspaper! The guy must have thrown it out there early, while the streets were still passable, and the snow had buried it.
I'm sure you are wondering about my own little dog, the rat terrier Mickey. Mickey did not like the snow at all. He is a very sensitive dog, and he does not like any kind of inclement weather. I opened the side door for him this morning so he could go out and do his little doggie business, but he took one look at the snow out there and wouldn't budge. He looked up at me like, "What, are you crazy? In THIS?" So I shut the door, and he did this cute thing he also does when it is raining. He trotted through the house to the front door and scratched to go out it. Like he expected the weather to be better over there.
But this time I was ready for him. Ha,ha, Mickey--there you go, right into a big snowbank. He gave me a look of pure outrage, then floundered over to a sheltered spot behind the hedge, and did what had to be done. Sometimes you just have to get tough with them.
Tonight, though, I don't know what to do with him. I just watched Doppler Dave, and he reported we have 12 inches of snow. So I have a problem. What do you do when you have 12 inches of snow and 10 inches of dog?
Guess it's time to break out the snow shovel again. Time to re-clear the sidewalk where it's drifted over since this morning. Time to shovel a path from the door to a bush. That's what we do out here in the Texas Panhandle when there's a Wienie Dog Alert.
Monday, March 14, 2005
A GUEST BLOGGING BY GIULIA
My little granddaughter Giulia (that's Italian for "Julia") is six years old and in first grade. I mailed her a red teddy bear with a big heart for Valentine's day, and last week I got the following letter from her. I reproduce it here with the original spelling and punctuation so you know it's the real thing:
"Dear gramma,
"thank you for the bear. I love it very very much! I apricate it very much. I put it on my bed hug it evey night. I love you and I miss you very much.
"love
"Giulia"
Now I don't know about you or your kids, but I couldn't have written anything like that in first grade, and neither could Giulia's Daddy or his sisters. This is one bright little girl and just as sweet as she is smart.
When she was three, I took her to a movie. I think it was Scooby Doo or something like that. She had seen lots of movies on videotape but her family lives out in the sticks and this was her first visit to a theater. We got our tickets and found our seats and as soon we settled down into them, she turned to me and inquired, "Where's my soda and popcorn?" I said, "Giulia, what makes you think you get soda and popcorn at the movies?" She explained to me very distinctly, as you would to a very dimwitted person, "I saw other people with soda and popcorn, and I ASSUMED I would have some."
As you may guess, Giulia assumed right. Gramma made a beeline to the concession stand, and we both slurped and munched happily all through the movie.
My little granddaughter Giulia (that's Italian for "Julia") is six years old and in first grade. I mailed her a red teddy bear with a big heart for Valentine's day, and last week I got the following letter from her. I reproduce it here with the original spelling and punctuation so you know it's the real thing:
"Dear gramma,
"thank you for the bear. I love it very very much! I apricate it very much. I put it on my bed hug it evey night. I love you and I miss you very much.
"love
"Giulia"
Now I don't know about you or your kids, but I couldn't have written anything like that in first grade, and neither could Giulia's Daddy or his sisters. This is one bright little girl and just as sweet as she is smart.
When she was three, I took her to a movie. I think it was Scooby Doo or something like that. She had seen lots of movies on videotape but her family lives out in the sticks and this was her first visit to a theater. We got our tickets and found our seats and as soon we settled down into them, she turned to me and inquired, "Where's my soda and popcorn?" I said, "Giulia, what makes you think you get soda and popcorn at the movies?" She explained to me very distinctly, as you would to a very dimwitted person, "I saw other people with soda and popcorn, and I ASSUMED I would have some."
As you may guess, Giulia assumed right. Gramma made a beeline to the concession stand, and we both slurped and munched happily all through the movie.
Take Two Tape Worms And Call Me In The Morning
Today I have a combination Medical Monday and Library Lizard post. I just read a very interesting book named Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures by Carl Zimmer. It tells you everything you ever wanted to know about parasites and more. I suppose everybody knows about some diseases that are transmitted by parasites, like malaria being caused by mosquitoes, or sleeping sickness being spread by flies. Most people have heard about the dangers of eating undercooked pork, which could be carrying Trichinella cysts.
One of the most interesting things I learned in this book is about the parasite named Toxoplasma gondii, that is spread by cats. Not many people know much about that parasite, even though a third of all the people in the world carry it around in their brains. In some places in Europe everybody has it. It usually moves back and forth between cats and rodents. A mouse gets infected by eating an egg, which hatches and produces little parasites in the mouse, which sit around waiting for the mouse to be eaten by a cat. Once in the cat they start the whole cycle all over again. People get infected by this parasite when they change contaminated litter pans. It's very important to make sure you aren't infected by this parasite if you are pregnant or want to get pregnant, because while the parasite doesn't severely affect adult human hosts, it will kill developing embryos.
The most interesting thing about this parasite is that it is one of many parasites that can change the behavior of it's host animal. It is able to make the little mouse more likely to be eaten by cats than uninfected mice. Researchers put rats in a controlled environment. They put different scents in each corner. One corner had the scent of fresh straw, one had the scent of other rats, another corner had rabbit scent, and the last one had cat scent. The healthy rats avoided the cat corner, but the infected ones either didn't mind the cat scent or actually preferred that corner.
The most interesting thing is how it affects humans who become infected. "Psychologists have found that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Men become less willing to submit to the moral standards of a community, less worried about being punished for breaking society's rules, more distrustful of other people. Women become more outgoing and warmhearted." So maybe the first thing they should do with male criminals is give them a good worming. It doesn't sound too bad for women, but I bet that's why there are so many little old ladies with 50 cats.
Another little piece of trivia from this book is a hypothesis about how the medical symbol of the stick with the snakes curled around it, the caduceus, got started. There is a parasite called guinea worms, that eventually leave your body by poking a hole in your leg and slowly crawling out. You have to let it crawl all the way out at its own speed or it will break in two and the half still in your leg will fester and you could die. The traditional way to remove a guinea worm is to just sit around and slowly wind the worm around a stick until the whole thing comes out. I assume after you get it all out you can stomp on it, or throw it in a fire, or whatever you want, but you have to be nice to it while it's still oozing out of your leg, which could take days because they can be two feet long and they're slow. I think I would rather get the Toxoplasma than the guinea worms.
Then there are diseases that seem to occur because you don't have any parasites. People in poor, developing countries don't suffer from asthma and allergies. Their immune system is too busy working with different parasites to worry about pollen or cat dander. Some scientists took a small group of people with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, who didn't get any relief from standard medical treatment. They infected them with tapeworms and within a couple of weeks six out of seven had gone into complete remission.
Now you know.
Today I have a combination Medical Monday and Library Lizard post. I just read a very interesting book named Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures by Carl Zimmer. It tells you everything you ever wanted to know about parasites and more. I suppose everybody knows about some diseases that are transmitted by parasites, like malaria being caused by mosquitoes, or sleeping sickness being spread by flies. Most people have heard about the dangers of eating undercooked pork, which could be carrying Trichinella cysts.
One of the most interesting things I learned in this book is about the parasite named Toxoplasma gondii, that is spread by cats. Not many people know much about that parasite, even though a third of all the people in the world carry it around in their brains. In some places in Europe everybody has it. It usually moves back and forth between cats and rodents. A mouse gets infected by eating an egg, which hatches and produces little parasites in the mouse, which sit around waiting for the mouse to be eaten by a cat. Once in the cat they start the whole cycle all over again. People get infected by this parasite when they change contaminated litter pans. It's very important to make sure you aren't infected by this parasite if you are pregnant or want to get pregnant, because while the parasite doesn't severely affect adult human hosts, it will kill developing embryos.
The most interesting thing about this parasite is that it is one of many parasites that can change the behavior of it's host animal. It is able to make the little mouse more likely to be eaten by cats than uninfected mice. Researchers put rats in a controlled environment. They put different scents in each corner. One corner had the scent of fresh straw, one had the scent of other rats, another corner had rabbit scent, and the last one had cat scent. The healthy rats avoided the cat corner, but the infected ones either didn't mind the cat scent or actually preferred that corner.
The most interesting thing is how it affects humans who become infected. "Psychologists have found that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Men become less willing to submit to the moral standards of a community, less worried about being punished for breaking society's rules, more distrustful of other people. Women become more outgoing and warmhearted." So maybe the first thing they should do with male criminals is give them a good worming. It doesn't sound too bad for women, but I bet that's why there are so many little old ladies with 50 cats.
Another little piece of trivia from this book is a hypothesis about how the medical symbol of the stick with the snakes curled around it, the caduceus, got started. There is a parasite called guinea worms, that eventually leave your body by poking a hole in your leg and slowly crawling out. You have to let it crawl all the way out at its own speed or it will break in two and the half still in your leg will fester and you could die. The traditional way to remove a guinea worm is to just sit around and slowly wind the worm around a stick until the whole thing comes out. I assume after you get it all out you can stomp on it, or throw it in a fire, or whatever you want, but you have to be nice to it while it's still oozing out of your leg, which could take days because they can be two feet long and they're slow. I think I would rather get the Toxoplasma than the guinea worms.
Then there are diseases that seem to occur because you don't have any parasites. People in poor, developing countries don't suffer from asthma and allergies. Their immune system is too busy working with different parasites to worry about pollen or cat dander. Some scientists took a small group of people with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, who didn't get any relief from standard medical treatment. They infected them with tapeworms and within a couple of weeks six out of seven had gone into complete remission.
Now you know.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
THE AMERICAN WAY
Gene and his friend Dale enjoy meeting for coffee at McDonald's a couple of afternoons a week. The big attraction used to be that a "senior cup" of coffee cost only 27 cents, with unlimited refills. I think it has gone up to 31 cents now, and they think that is terrible. Typical geezers.
I joined them one day last week and had a senior Dr. Pepper, also 31 cents. Like them, I had to gripe a little. I thought it tasted flat. For 31 cents, they ought to do better.
There's always something interesting going on at that McDonald's. The afternoon manager is a woman who knows them by sight and yells across the room at them. She has one of these born-in-a-barn voices that echoes off the walls. Usually she is yelling at one of the teenage employees, who no doubt deserves it, but she also enjoys heckling Gene and Dale. I suppose they deserve it too. Couple of big spenders.
This particular day she wasn't there, and some other manager was having to deal with a city inspector. Oh, boy. He had just inspected some kind of big grease trap outside the building, and she was out there arguing with him. We couldn't hear either of them, but we could see her mouth moving a mile a minute and her arms waving around and him scribbling away on his little pad. Looks like Mickey D has got himself a ticket. Dale was enjoying this hugely because it brought back fond memories of when he had his Pizza Huts and had to deal with city inspectors himself.
For some reason, this got Dale thinking of plumbing and that led him to a story about a plumber he knew. This plumber worked all by himself and had a lot of business. One day it occurred to him that he could do even more if he hired some help. So he took on two Mexican assistants, whom he called Juan and Two. For a while things were going great. He got lots of calls and sent Juan and Two out on them, and his business was booming. But after a while, he began to notice that it was slacking off. He wasn't getting nearly as many calls; in fact, after a while the phone practically stopped ringing. It got so bad he had to let Juan and Two go. They said that was okay, senor, they would get by. It was some time later that a customer of his revealed what had happened. When he was sending Juan and Two out on calls, they were telling his customers, "Here's our phone number--next time, just call us at home." Nod, nod, wink, wink; call us, we work cheaper.
Hey, it's the American way.
Gene and his friend Dale enjoy meeting for coffee at McDonald's a couple of afternoons a week. The big attraction used to be that a "senior cup" of coffee cost only 27 cents, with unlimited refills. I think it has gone up to 31 cents now, and they think that is terrible. Typical geezers.
I joined them one day last week and had a senior Dr. Pepper, also 31 cents. Like them, I had to gripe a little. I thought it tasted flat. For 31 cents, they ought to do better.
There's always something interesting going on at that McDonald's. The afternoon manager is a woman who knows them by sight and yells across the room at them. She has one of these born-in-a-barn voices that echoes off the walls. Usually she is yelling at one of the teenage employees, who no doubt deserves it, but she also enjoys heckling Gene and Dale. I suppose they deserve it too. Couple of big spenders.
This particular day she wasn't there, and some other manager was having to deal with a city inspector. Oh, boy. He had just inspected some kind of big grease trap outside the building, and she was out there arguing with him. We couldn't hear either of them, but we could see her mouth moving a mile a minute and her arms waving around and him scribbling away on his little pad. Looks like Mickey D has got himself a ticket. Dale was enjoying this hugely because it brought back fond memories of when he had his Pizza Huts and had to deal with city inspectors himself.
For some reason, this got Dale thinking of plumbing and that led him to a story about a plumber he knew. This plumber worked all by himself and had a lot of business. One day it occurred to him that he could do even more if he hired some help. So he took on two Mexican assistants, whom he called Juan and Two. For a while things were going great. He got lots of calls and sent Juan and Two out on them, and his business was booming. But after a while, he began to notice that it was slacking off. He wasn't getting nearly as many calls; in fact, after a while the phone practically stopped ringing. It got so bad he had to let Juan and Two go. They said that was okay, senor, they would get by. It was some time later that a customer of his revealed what had happened. When he was sending Juan and Two out on calls, they were telling his customers, "Here's our phone number--next time, just call us at home." Nod, nod, wink, wink; call us, we work cheaper.
Hey, it's the American way.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
THE LIBRARY LIZARD
A VOICE FROM THE OTHER SIDE
Ever since I read "Dutch Shea, Jr.," its author John Gregory Dunne has been tops on my list of writers. He does lowlife felons better than anyone I have ever read, which is surprising given that he comes from a lace-curtain-Irish-Catholic family in Connecticut, went to Princeton, and travels in highbrow literary circles with his wife Joan Didion. His brother, by the way, is novelist and gossip monger Dominick Dunne, whom you've probably seen on TV.
It was like an old family friend was gone, then, when I learned that Dunne had died in December of 2003. But surprise, surprise--he left behind the manuscript for one more novel, "Nothing Lost," which came out last year to such little fanfare that I had never heard of it until I ran across it on the New Books shelf. It was like a voice from the other side.
It's one of Dunne's more difficult novels to read, largely because he jumps around from one viewpoint to another and because his chief narrator is never fully fleshed out. It probably needed a little more work, but I'm too grateful to quibble. Basically, it is the story of a hideous murder and of its effect on everyone who becomes involved in the case. It takes place in a Great Plains state that the narrator calls South Midland, a lagging red-state backwater where the main religion is worship of the college football team "the Rhinos".
The murder victim is a presumably endearing old black man, beaten to death by a couple of vicious young white lowlifes, after first being skinned alive. The case becomes a media sensation when it becomes known that one of the perps is the half-brother of an actress/model teen idol who uses the trial as a publicity stunt. In addition, the prosecutor's wife is a grandstanding congresswoman, a cross between Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, and the chief defense attorney is a woman recently involved in a Washington sex scandal. The case becomes the sort of media circus that is familiar to us all.
I did not get caught up in the lives of the lawyers, the actress, the congresswoman, etc., as much as I did in the passages about the thrill killers Duane and Bryant, their jailhouse cohorts, and Duane's girlfriend Merle Orvis. Dunne turns a pitiless spotlight on this repellent bunch and on the rural wasteland they inhabit.
Take Merle Orvis, for example. We learn that she has a teardrop tattooed under her right eye, had been in and out of juvenile detention since she was twelve, and is a former topless dancer at a bar called Boobs. She lives in a trailer park across the highway from the town dump with her three-year-old son Boy. Here is how Dunne describes the defense lawyers' visit to her home:
"Merle Orvis's trailer was a pigpen of dirty dishes, unemptied wastebaskets, open garbage bags, ashtrays filled to overflowing, and moldy French fries that seemed to be growing out of the sprung couches. Boy had no other name, although occasionally she called him Baby. After Baby was born, she said, she had made arrangements for him to be adopted by what she called a couple of muff divers from San Francisco, but then decided that lesbian parents would not give Boy the kind of upbringing she thought he deserved. . . . Boy wore no clothes and was not yet toilet-trained, although he was almost three. He piddled constantly, and was still being nursed. Titty, he would say to his mother, and Merle Orvis would hoist a flabby breast from under her T-shirt. Boy would line up the nipple and pop it into his mouth, picking his nose and viewing his surroundings as he slurped his mother's milk. Shitty, he would then say, and squat and crap."
How can you not love a book like that?
I suppose I should add that this book is very graphic in some places and is not for the squeamish. And it reveals one detail of homosexual practice I had not heard of, and could have lived happily without knowing.
What, Mom, what????
You'll have to read the book.
A VOICE FROM THE OTHER SIDE
Ever since I read "Dutch Shea, Jr.," its author John Gregory Dunne has been tops on my list of writers. He does lowlife felons better than anyone I have ever read, which is surprising given that he comes from a lace-curtain-Irish-Catholic family in Connecticut, went to Princeton, and travels in highbrow literary circles with his wife Joan Didion. His brother, by the way, is novelist and gossip monger Dominick Dunne, whom you've probably seen on TV.
It was like an old family friend was gone, then, when I learned that Dunne had died in December of 2003. But surprise, surprise--he left behind the manuscript for one more novel, "Nothing Lost," which came out last year to such little fanfare that I had never heard of it until I ran across it on the New Books shelf. It was like a voice from the other side.
It's one of Dunne's more difficult novels to read, largely because he jumps around from one viewpoint to another and because his chief narrator is never fully fleshed out. It probably needed a little more work, but I'm too grateful to quibble. Basically, it is the story of a hideous murder and of its effect on everyone who becomes involved in the case. It takes place in a Great Plains state that the narrator calls South Midland, a lagging red-state backwater where the main religion is worship of the college football team "the Rhinos".
The murder victim is a presumably endearing old black man, beaten to death by a couple of vicious young white lowlifes, after first being skinned alive. The case becomes a media sensation when it becomes known that one of the perps is the half-brother of an actress/model teen idol who uses the trial as a publicity stunt. In addition, the prosecutor's wife is a grandstanding congresswoman, a cross between Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, and the chief defense attorney is a woman recently involved in a Washington sex scandal. The case becomes the sort of media circus that is familiar to us all.
I did not get caught up in the lives of the lawyers, the actress, the congresswoman, etc., as much as I did in the passages about the thrill killers Duane and Bryant, their jailhouse cohorts, and Duane's girlfriend Merle Orvis. Dunne turns a pitiless spotlight on this repellent bunch and on the rural wasteland they inhabit.
Take Merle Orvis, for example. We learn that she has a teardrop tattooed under her right eye, had been in and out of juvenile detention since she was twelve, and is a former topless dancer at a bar called Boobs. She lives in a trailer park across the highway from the town dump with her three-year-old son Boy. Here is how Dunne describes the defense lawyers' visit to her home:
"Merle Orvis's trailer was a pigpen of dirty dishes, unemptied wastebaskets, open garbage bags, ashtrays filled to overflowing, and moldy French fries that seemed to be growing out of the sprung couches. Boy had no other name, although occasionally she called him Baby. After Baby was born, she said, she had made arrangements for him to be adopted by what she called a couple of muff divers from San Francisco, but then decided that lesbian parents would not give Boy the kind of upbringing she thought he deserved. . . . Boy wore no clothes and was not yet toilet-trained, although he was almost three. He piddled constantly, and was still being nursed. Titty, he would say to his mother, and Merle Orvis would hoist a flabby breast from under her T-shirt. Boy would line up the nipple and pop it into his mouth, picking his nose and viewing his surroundings as he slurped his mother's milk. Shitty, he would then say, and squat and crap."
How can you not love a book like that?
I suppose I should add that this book is very graphic in some places and is not for the squeamish. And it reveals one detail of homosexual practice I had not heard of, and could have lived happily without knowing.
What, Mom, what????
You'll have to read the book.
Got Me Good
I had a bad day at work Monday. I knew it was going to be bad when the first two callers wanted to yap on and on about whatever it was they were fixated on. I think one was explaining about getting a wrong number the last time and the other one was just some senile old bat with nobody else to talk to. Plus, every day I end up sitting in a different cubicle, and the computer in the cubicle I was in that day was possessed by the Devil. Some times it would tab over to the next field like normal, and then other times it wouldn’t and I would be typing away before I noticed I was still in the location field. I think the problem was one of the letters on the keyboard was alternating between stuttering and putting the same letter 2 or 3 times, like thhhis, or whispering and not putting any letter down at all, like tis.
After my break I moved to a new cubicle, and you would think my day would have gotten better. It did, mostly. The key word there is mostly. Then I got a really rude caller. She was sick and needed the phone number of a pharmacy. A pharmacy I’m sure she’s been to about 1,286 times, but still had no idea how its name was spelled. I was nice to her, because she was sick and I really wanted to find the number she needed, but I had no idea how to spell the name of it, and she wasn’t talking clearly enough for me to even be sure what the name was. All I could understand was it started with an O. I asked her to spell the name, but she obviously didn’t spell it right, so I asked her what street it was on. I looked for O Pharmacy on the street she told me, because any pharmacy with a name starting with an O would have come up. Nothing. So then I tried just Pharmacy, in case if didn’t really start with an O. Nothing. I asked her to spell it again, and she got really rude. She thought I was just playing games with her or something. Like I don’t have anything better to do with my time than play mind games with the callers. Finally she just yelled “Shut up you whore!” and hung up. Oooh, you got me. I’m such a whore.
I had a bad day at work Monday. I knew it was going to be bad when the first two callers wanted to yap on and on about whatever it was they were fixated on. I think one was explaining about getting a wrong number the last time and the other one was just some senile old bat with nobody else to talk to. Plus, every day I end up sitting in a different cubicle, and the computer in the cubicle I was in that day was possessed by the Devil. Some times it would tab over to the next field like normal, and then other times it wouldn’t and I would be typing away before I noticed I was still in the location field. I think the problem was one of the letters on the keyboard was alternating between stuttering and putting the same letter 2 or 3 times, like thhhis, or whispering and not putting any letter down at all, like tis.
After my break I moved to a new cubicle, and you would think my day would have gotten better. It did, mostly. The key word there is mostly. Then I got a really rude caller. She was sick and needed the phone number of a pharmacy. A pharmacy I’m sure she’s been to about 1,286 times, but still had no idea how its name was spelled. I was nice to her, because she was sick and I really wanted to find the number she needed, but I had no idea how to spell the name of it, and she wasn’t talking clearly enough for me to even be sure what the name was. All I could understand was it started with an O. I asked her to spell the name, but she obviously didn’t spell it right, so I asked her what street it was on. I looked for O Pharmacy on the street she told me, because any pharmacy with a name starting with an O would have come up. Nothing. So then I tried just Pharmacy, in case if didn’t really start with an O. Nothing. I asked her to spell it again, and she got really rude. She thought I was just playing games with her or something. Like I don’t have anything better to do with my time than play mind games with the callers. Finally she just yelled “Shut up you whore!” and hung up. Oooh, you got me. I’m such a whore.
Monday, March 07, 2005
MEDICAL MONDAY BONUS
A GUEST BLOGGING BY GENE
I am currently taking 17 (count 'em, 17) different prescription drugs daily (some of them 2x or 3x daily). Practically all of them list the following common side effects: diarrhea, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, and a whole host of less common ones. If I gobble 17 of these things every day simple math will demonstrate that the odds are 17 to one that I will experience each and every one of these side effects every day, even though not caused by the same pill each day. Thus, for example if one misses giving me diarrhea on a particular day you can be sure that another one will pick up the slack. This situation proved to be totally unsatisfactory, so by intense effort I was able at last to "train" these 17 drugs to cooperate with one another. Now all 17 of them join to give me diarrhea only on Monday, nausea on Tuesday, dizziness on Wednesday, drowsiness on Thursday, and blurred vision on Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are sort of pot luck (no pun intended). Isn't modern medicine a miracle?
A GUEST BLOGGING BY GENE
I am currently taking 17 (count 'em, 17) different prescription drugs daily (some of them 2x or 3x daily). Practically all of them list the following common side effects: diarrhea, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, and a whole host of less common ones. If I gobble 17 of these things every day simple math will demonstrate that the odds are 17 to one that I will experience each and every one of these side effects every day, even though not caused by the same pill each day. Thus, for example if one misses giving me diarrhea on a particular day you can be sure that another one will pick up the slack. This situation proved to be totally unsatisfactory, so by intense effort I was able at last to "train" these 17 drugs to cooperate with one another. Now all 17 of them join to give me diarrhea only on Monday, nausea on Tuesday, dizziness on Wednesday, drowsiness on Thursday, and blurred vision on Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are sort of pot luck (no pun intended). Isn't modern medicine a miracle?
Illuminating
Today's Medical Monday is just a little bit of interesting trivia. If you close your eyes and put a flashlight in your mouth, the light will look like it is coming from above you. That is because your genious brain knows when light passes through your eye the lens flips the visual signal upside down, so your brain flips everything back right side up before you even know what you are seeing.
Now you know.
Today's Medical Monday is just a little bit of interesting trivia. If you close your eyes and put a flashlight in your mouth, the light will look like it is coming from above you. That is because your genious brain knows when light passes through your eye the lens flips the visual signal upside down, so your brain flips everything back right side up before you even know what you are seeing.
Now you know.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
PISSR
Yesterday's New York Times has an article about the "political epiphany" a certain Riki Dennis had recently at a rest area on California's Highway 101. Riki, a transsexual in the early stages of becoming female, was beaten up after using the women's restroom--by the boyfriend of a female patron who thought, erroneously, that she was a man. Riki told the Times, "I said, 'Sir, I have no designs on your girlfriend. I just want to use the bathroom.'" Unfortunately, Riki's voice is still quite masculine, so her protest didn't do much good. The guy kept pounding on her.
According to the Times, Riki is "a foot soldier on a new political frontier: the campaign to establish gender-neutral bathrooms in public places." She is one of 250 or so members of "People in Search of Safe Restrooms," a mostly-California group dedicated to removing "Men" and "Women" signs on public restrooms. Members of PISSR (what an acronym!) include cross-dressers and people who are uncertain which sex they are, as well as transgendered people like Riki who are midway in a sex-change process (man into woman, or woman into man).
The movement is not a large one but it is making itself felt in large cities and on college campuses. At the University of Chicago, for instance, a similar group called "the Queer Action Campaign for Gender-Neutral Bathrooms" got a dozen "single-user" restrooms on campus changed into gender-neutral ones. Two new campuses of San Francisco Community College are being built with men's, women's, and gender-neutral restrooms on each floor. Where they have been put into place so far, these gender neutral restrooms are all single-user ones, to get around objections from people who feel uncomfortable with members of the opposite sex sitting in the next stall.
A Wisconsin law professor named Ann Althouse has blogged on this situation at althouse.blobspot.com. The main objection she has is that she doesn't like single-user restrooms, period. She argues that men are messy and that, like most women, she hates to use a bathroom after them. Let them have their own messy restrooms, and women have theirs.
I think her attitude is way off. When we ran Harmony Harbor down by the river, one of my jobs was to help clean the rest rooms, and I would take the men's over the women's any day. It was always the women's room that had pee on the toilet seat, paper towels all over the floor, and toilets plugged up with unflushed turds and big wads of toilet paper. About the worst thing I had to contend with in the men's room was cigarette butts in the sinks.
Anybody out there with any experience in this? Who are the biggest bathroom slobs, males or females? What do you think of transgendered restrooms? Is the public ready for this brave new world?
Yesterday's New York Times has an article about the "political epiphany" a certain Riki Dennis had recently at a rest area on California's Highway 101. Riki, a transsexual in the early stages of becoming female, was beaten up after using the women's restroom--by the boyfriend of a female patron who thought, erroneously, that she was a man. Riki told the Times, "I said, 'Sir, I have no designs on your girlfriend. I just want to use the bathroom.'" Unfortunately, Riki's voice is still quite masculine, so her protest didn't do much good. The guy kept pounding on her.
According to the Times, Riki is "a foot soldier on a new political frontier: the campaign to establish gender-neutral bathrooms in public places." She is one of 250 or so members of "People in Search of Safe Restrooms," a mostly-California group dedicated to removing "Men" and "Women" signs on public restrooms. Members of PISSR (what an acronym!) include cross-dressers and people who are uncertain which sex they are, as well as transgendered people like Riki who are midway in a sex-change process (man into woman, or woman into man).
The movement is not a large one but it is making itself felt in large cities and on college campuses. At the University of Chicago, for instance, a similar group called "the Queer Action Campaign for Gender-Neutral Bathrooms" got a dozen "single-user" restrooms on campus changed into gender-neutral ones. Two new campuses of San Francisco Community College are being built with men's, women's, and gender-neutral restrooms on each floor. Where they have been put into place so far, these gender neutral restrooms are all single-user ones, to get around objections from people who feel uncomfortable with members of the opposite sex sitting in the next stall.
A Wisconsin law professor named Ann Althouse has blogged on this situation at althouse.blobspot.com. The main objection she has is that she doesn't like single-user restrooms, period. She argues that men are messy and that, like most women, she hates to use a bathroom after them. Let them have their own messy restrooms, and women have theirs.
I think her attitude is way off. When we ran Harmony Harbor down by the river, one of my jobs was to help clean the rest rooms, and I would take the men's over the women's any day. It was always the women's room that had pee on the toilet seat, paper towels all over the floor, and toilets plugged up with unflushed turds and big wads of toilet paper. About the worst thing I had to contend with in the men's room was cigarette butts in the sinks.
Anybody out there with any experience in this? Who are the biggest bathroom slobs, males or females? What do you think of transgendered restrooms? Is the public ready for this brave new world?
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Puzzled
I haven't been doing anything lately. Nothing except putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I have been trapped in the kitchen, pouring over little tiny bits of cardboard, muttering to myself. The picture is called Alphabet of Thorn, by Kinuko Craft. Really pretty. Now I want to go back to the store and get another one, Eleanor of Aquitaine. This guy, or girl, can sure paint. My husband says the only good thing about jigsaw puzzles is how pretty they look when you burn them. I, on the other hand, would love to have a puzzle contest. Get a bunch of people together and give each of them the exact same puzzle and see who finishes first. That would be fun. I sure lead a wild life, don't I?
I had a real scare because somehow I lost a piece. At least, a piece was missing when I finished it. I looked all over, on top of the table, underneath the table, on the chairs. I looked all over the house for chewed up pieces in case Little Dog decided to help with the puzzle. After my husband came home from work it mysteriously appeared right on top of the puzzle. Not saying he would be mean enough to do something like that, but you never know.
I haven't been doing anything lately. Nothing except putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I have been trapped in the kitchen, pouring over little tiny bits of cardboard, muttering to myself. The picture is called Alphabet of Thorn, by Kinuko Craft. Really pretty. Now I want to go back to the store and get another one, Eleanor of Aquitaine. This guy, or girl, can sure paint. My husband says the only good thing about jigsaw puzzles is how pretty they look when you burn them. I, on the other hand, would love to have a puzzle contest. Get a bunch of people together and give each of them the exact same puzzle and see who finishes first. That would be fun. I sure lead a wild life, don't I?
I had a real scare because somehow I lost a piece. At least, a piece was missing when I finished it. I looked all over, on top of the table, underneath the table, on the chairs. I looked all over the house for chewed up pieces in case Little Dog decided to help with the puzzle. After my husband came home from work it mysteriously appeared right on top of the puzzle. Not saying he would be mean enough to do something like that, but you never know.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
THE BTK KILLER GOT ME TO THINKING
The cable news channels have been full of stories about Wichita's BTK serial killer the last few days. I'm glad they finally arrested the guy, but it made me think of all the other killers you never hear about. Are there more that get away with it than ever get caught? I'm not talking about one family member plugging another one--that's easy to solve--but these random killers who strike for the sick thrill of it.
Specifically, I got to wondering about some bodies that were found along Highway 79 some years ago, I think back in the 1980's. Does anybody remember this, or have I imagined it? The way I remember it, there was a local girl that was murdered and everybody thought (but couldn't prove) that it was a certain well-known Winfield thug who shall go unnamed, who had been out with her earlier that night. (Can a blog be sued for libel?) About the same time there were reports of other young women whose bodies were dumped along Highway 79. I think there had been two or maybe three of them, and nobody had a clue who was doing it. What ever happened? Or do I have this confused with a murder mystery I read? I also thought about that little boy who disappeared at Fountain N Lakes years ago. Do you have your own home-grown BTK killer in Lincoln County and nobody has noticed? Comments, please!
The cable news channels have been full of stories about Wichita's BTK serial killer the last few days. I'm glad they finally arrested the guy, but it made me think of all the other killers you never hear about. Are there more that get away with it than ever get caught? I'm not talking about one family member plugging another one--that's easy to solve--but these random killers who strike for the sick thrill of it.
Specifically, I got to wondering about some bodies that were found along Highway 79 some years ago, I think back in the 1980's. Does anybody remember this, or have I imagined it? The way I remember it, there was a local girl that was murdered and everybody thought (but couldn't prove) that it was a certain well-known Winfield thug who shall go unnamed, who had been out with her earlier that night. (Can a blog be sued for libel?) About the same time there were reports of other young women whose bodies were dumped along Highway 79. I think there had been two or maybe three of them, and nobody had a clue who was doing it. What ever happened? Or do I have this confused with a murder mystery I read? I also thought about that little boy who disappeared at Fountain N Lakes years ago. Do you have your own home-grown BTK killer in Lincoln County and nobody has noticed? Comments, please!
THE LIBRARY LIZARD
A HIT AND A MISS
First, the miss. The best thing about Nick Flynn's memoir is its title: "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" (W. W. Norton, 2004). Basically, it's a good idea that runs off the rails about halfway through. Nick grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts, with a struggling, erratic single mother and his brother, and only a vague notion of who his absentee father was--an alcoholic criminal, a street bum, and a charming world-class moocher, with pretensions of being a novelist. Nick goes away to college after his mother's suicide, but flounders around and drifts though life without much purpose. A classic slacker.
The most interesting part of the book is the first third, which brilliantly describes his part-time job dealing with the derelicts in a Boston homeless shelter. It is there, incidentally, that he finally meets his father. Unfortunately, the book begins to sag after this point (or maybe I did), and it becomes a narration of "I did this, and then I did that, and then I did the other, and it all sucked." It's probably a generational thing, but I found myself becoming increasingly bored and impatient with Nick and bailed out two-thirds of the way through. Another reader might really enjoy it, so don't let me put you off. If you like NPR, you'll probably like this narrator.
The hit is a first novel by Jason Headley, "Small Town Odds" (Chronicle Books, 2004). Somehow this one struck a chord with me. It tells the story of Eric Mercer, a highschool star (football and academics both) in a declining West Virginia small town called Pinely. He and his girlfriend Jill (another high school standout) both have scholarships to college. It will be their ticket out of Pinely, and the future is full of promise. Then he, quite literally, screws up. He gets drunk at a beer bust and has sex with a girl named Gina, hardly even knowing that he is doing so. Three months later she shows up at his door and tells him she is pregnant and won't even consider an abortion.
At first he thinks he can still go away to college with Jill and nothing will change, but he soon realizes how unrealistic that is. Jill is devastated by what he has done, and their relationship is over. She goes away to college without him, and he stays in Pinely to shoulder his responsibilities as a father. The book is primarily about what his life is like five years later, working two dead-end jobs (handyman at the local funeral home and part-time bartender at the VFW) and having his daughter Tess on weekends. He loves Tess and can't imagine a life without her, but at times he wishes she had never been born. He is bitter about his wasted life and takes it out by drinking too much, fighting, and getting into trouble with the police. It is obvious that Gina would like for them to get together, but he wants to have as little as possible to do with her.
The writer brings all the secondary characters to life--Eric's employers, his long-suffering parents, the sympathetic town cop, Jill's parents (who still like him), Eric's friends. He avoids making Gina a slut who tried to entrap Eric; she is as much as a sympathetic character as he is. Much of the book concerns the crisis that arises in his life when Jill returns to town for a funeral and, after years of avoiding contact, he has to confront her. It is then that it really sinks in to him what his life is and what it will be, and he makes a shaky peace with himself and his choice.
A HIT AND A MISS
First, the miss. The best thing about Nick Flynn's memoir is its title: "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" (W. W. Norton, 2004). Basically, it's a good idea that runs off the rails about halfway through. Nick grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts, with a struggling, erratic single mother and his brother, and only a vague notion of who his absentee father was--an alcoholic criminal, a street bum, and a charming world-class moocher, with pretensions of being a novelist. Nick goes away to college after his mother's suicide, but flounders around and drifts though life without much purpose. A classic slacker.
The most interesting part of the book is the first third, which brilliantly describes his part-time job dealing with the derelicts in a Boston homeless shelter. It is there, incidentally, that he finally meets his father. Unfortunately, the book begins to sag after this point (or maybe I did), and it becomes a narration of "I did this, and then I did that, and then I did the other, and it all sucked." It's probably a generational thing, but I found myself becoming increasingly bored and impatient with Nick and bailed out two-thirds of the way through. Another reader might really enjoy it, so don't let me put you off. If you like NPR, you'll probably like this narrator.
The hit is a first novel by Jason Headley, "Small Town Odds" (Chronicle Books, 2004). Somehow this one struck a chord with me. It tells the story of Eric Mercer, a highschool star (football and academics both) in a declining West Virginia small town called Pinely. He and his girlfriend Jill (another high school standout) both have scholarships to college. It will be their ticket out of Pinely, and the future is full of promise. Then he, quite literally, screws up. He gets drunk at a beer bust and has sex with a girl named Gina, hardly even knowing that he is doing so. Three months later she shows up at his door and tells him she is pregnant and won't even consider an abortion.
At first he thinks he can still go away to college with Jill and nothing will change, but he soon realizes how unrealistic that is. Jill is devastated by what he has done, and their relationship is over. She goes away to college without him, and he stays in Pinely to shoulder his responsibilities as a father. The book is primarily about what his life is like five years later, working two dead-end jobs (handyman at the local funeral home and part-time bartender at the VFW) and having his daughter Tess on weekends. He loves Tess and can't imagine a life without her, but at times he wishes she had never been born. He is bitter about his wasted life and takes it out by drinking too much, fighting, and getting into trouble with the police. It is obvious that Gina would like for them to get together, but he wants to have as little as possible to do with her.
The writer brings all the secondary characters to life--Eric's employers, his long-suffering parents, the sympathetic town cop, Jill's parents (who still like him), Eric's friends. He avoids making Gina a slut who tried to entrap Eric; she is as much as a sympathetic character as he is. Much of the book concerns the crisis that arises in his life when Jill returns to town for a funeral and, after years of avoiding contact, he has to confront her. It is then that it really sinks in to him what his life is and what it will be, and he makes a shaky peace with himself and his choice.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Make Money at Home!
While browsing around on Ebay, I found a weird way some people make money. Somehow, they get a bunch of Sunday papers. I don't know if they buy them or just get them from friends. Then they cut out all the coupons, package the like ones together, and sell them on Ebay. And people buy them. Why would anybody buy them, you may wonder? Well, listen to this. The big grocery store near me (Kroger) had Hamburger Helper on sale last week for $1/box. I bought about 20 boxes because that is one of the few things my kids are able to cook for supper. Then when I was looking on Ebay, I saw somebody had for sale 20 coupons for $.50 off a box of HH. Kroger doubles all coupons that are less than a dollar, so at Kroger those coupons were really worth $1 off. If I had had those coupons, I would have gotten all 20 boxes for nothing! Right now the lady (or guy) has more HH coupons for sale. The bidding is up to $5.
While browsing around on Ebay, I found a weird way some people make money. Somehow, they get a bunch of Sunday papers. I don't know if they buy them or just get them from friends. Then they cut out all the coupons, package the like ones together, and sell them on Ebay. And people buy them. Why would anybody buy them, you may wonder? Well, listen to this. The big grocery store near me (Kroger) had Hamburger Helper on sale last week for $1/box. I bought about 20 boxes because that is one of the few things my kids are able to cook for supper. Then when I was looking on Ebay, I saw somebody had for sale 20 coupons for $.50 off a box of HH. Kroger doubles all coupons that are less than a dollar, so at Kroger those coupons were really worth $1 off. If I had had those coupons, I would have gotten all 20 boxes for nothing! Right now the lady (or guy) has more HH coupons for sale. The bidding is up to $5.
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