Bravo Doctor Stuart!

Yes Virginia, there are some people out there...some of them even doctors, that really see the need to treat the segment of the population that need them most. Those without health insurance. This is one of those stories.

After 22 years in private practice and getting tired of seeing people get "kicked around by the system" Dr. Lorna Stuart found herself frustrated by the medical system and community and now she has done something fantastic about it.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau there are currently 47 million Americans going about their daily lives without health insurance. Having been there myself I know that they are just one major medical emergency away from a major financial situation. We used to just hold our breath that Max would not break an arm or leg on his skateboard. When we got sick we just waited it out and bought every "over the counter" medication that we could find.

Dr. Stuart had become very frustrated with the insurance companies and the rules and restrictions that came with them,

"The day-to-day time that I spent on paperwork was increasing, while my patients weren't getting the good care that I wanted to give them -- face-to-face time, one-on-one time," she recalls. "I vowed to do whatever little I could about this inequity of care."

"Every single person knows somebody without health insurance," says Stuart. "There are so many people that fall through the cracks."

So, she decided to do something about it. She sold her home, gave up her private practice and began to raise funds to open a clinic. Her efforts have resulted in" The Clinic: Medical Center for the Uninsured". Many patients pay as little as a dollar, even 50 cents, as the patients who may pay in full and receive the same treatment.

"Each day, I get to treat the patients whom our medical system has forgotten, without the hassle of insurance paperwork," says Stuart. "Is it any wonder I once again feel the real joy of practicing the craft that I love?"

Many kudos to Dr. Stuart!!

All Good Dogs go to Heaven

On Friday, April 18th, I had to take Burt to be put to sleep. The paralysis was returning to the front portion of his body again and it was just the humane thing to do. Since John is still in Finland I took him myself. They let us wait in the car until they were ready for him. We sat together in the backseat. It was the only time that I can remember that he let me get right in his face without barking at me. I took off his collar and harness.... and then the nurse came out to get us. I carried him in to the room, there we had a few more moments together.... and then I left.

It was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do. That beagle sure was the most unhealthy little dog we have ever had, but he sure brought us years of laughs and entertainment. Seeing as how he came from the APL and was in such a state when we got him I am happy knowing that we gave him 5 very good years. That dog may have been overweight, but he lived a very good life with us and that makes it all worth while.

Concealed Carry 101

It appears that along with Intro to Sociology, Spanish 101 and Philosophy that Ohio is now considering allowing the concealed carrying of weapons on college campuses.
Ohio is one of eight states that are currently debating the issue following the Virginia Tech shooting. This is going to be one huge, uphill battle. Not to mention heated and ugly. As someone who lives and works in a college town, in Ohio, I have many issues with this. As someone who has spent a good deal of years on a college campus I have reservations about this.

I realize that not everyone who owns a handgun has blood lust in his/her mind, but....do we really believe that putting a weapon in the hands of often emotional, unstable, drinking and drug using college students in a bright idea? Now, I know that not every college student fits into that category either, but what scares me is that the ones who do will be the ones who are carrying the guns. There is not a week that goes by that there is not a major, or minor, altercation of some sort on one of the fraternity house properties. Just this week, with the 70 degree weather, as I drove through town there were students outside by the dozens drinking, one group had a hand painted sign in their front yard that read. "You honk, we drink". Would you like someone in that group be walking around later in the evening carrying a weapon and have them get pissed off because they thought that you had "disrespected" them? Not this citizen!

Weekly the police blotters are filled with the names of the underage drinkers and those arrested for simple fighting in the bars. Do we want these people to be able to concealed carry so that these minor issues become shootings and murders? Over something as stupid as who wouldn't turn down their stereo or who looked at my girlfriend? There are so many reasons why I do not want to walk around my town wondering who is carrying. I don't want my kid to be riding his skateboard around a campus where they will be carrying.

Now, I know that there are many other dangers in life and in a college town, but why do we want to add an element like a handgun to the mix? Mental health services are already busy enough as it is on college campuses. Young people sometimes go through many issues during the years they are away from home, maybe for the first time, nights of partying on their own. Roommates and the troubles that that brings, not to mention carrying them in to the dorms after your significant other tells you that they are breaking up with you.

I am not one to say that there are certainly many responsible gun owners and if people want to hunt that is their personal business and recreation, but I do not think that they belong on a college campus. Granted the Virginia Tech shooting was a tragedy, but how many others might have been injured with shooters who would have been shooting back during a time of great stress. If you ask any police officer they will tell you that the casual gun owner is scary because in times of stress they are apt to shoot quickly without much thought. They are not nearly as trained as the police. Even if they go to a range and learn how to point and shoot they still do not have the further training and mental acuity that comes with the training of the police and the like.

No, it is something that I do not like to hear about on my local campus and strongly urge Ohio lawmakers to think twice before allowing.

Death Penalty, Innocence Project & Old Confessions all Rolled in to One.

In recent years we have seen more and more states holding back on the execution of inmates. More and more often groups such as the Innocence Project are proving, through various methods, that innocent people are on Death Row. There are more discussions than ever before on the reasons behind execution and more debate about whether or not we should continue with the practice. No matter how you personally feel about the issue there are many materials out there for you to read and information that will give you much food for thought.

This week, for the first time, the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing a case that involves the execution for an inmate accused of a crime other than murder. It is an awful and messy case that involves a child. There are other states that are also advancing their death penalty laws to include similar circumstances. Although no one has been executed, since 1964, for anything other than murder. Newsweek has an excellent article that details, not only this case Kennedy v. Louisiana, but also the way that perception has been changing about execution in this country. They ask, "Is this a burgeoning new trend for the execution of rapists or the last gasps of capital punishment?" Part of what they must look at, in the Constitution, is the "cruel and unusual punishment" versus the "evolving standards of decency". An excellent and informative article. It is often quite difficult to understand all the parts that the Supreme Court must evaluate when they hear cases and this article spells it out quite well about this very huge issue.

Another very important thing that one must look at when considering Death Row or those serving life sentences are those who are wrongly convicted and the numbers keep rising. If you ever have the interest, or desire, to read Barry Schecks book "Actual Innocence" you will be amazed at the conduct by some lawyers, or maybe not, how witness identification can be so wrong. In my mind there can be nothing more heinous than to spend a major portion of your life in prison for something you REALLY did not do. How drastically that must change a persons life. No matter what compensation you may receive later it can not make up for the way that your life will be altered forever. The book is amazing. I read it when it first came out and used to let some of my seniors use it, when I taught about the constitution and the death penalty, for those that wanted to stand on the side against. They would often debate the issue.

Soon, another wrongfully convicted man, who has spent 26 years in prison may get to walk out as a free man. He has spent those years in prison, even though another man confessed, due to a technicality in the law in his state. How pathetic and sad is that? There will be no way for him to get those years back or the peace of mind that he has lost by being incarcerated for that many years.

The actual guilty party confessed, in writing, and gave it to his own lawyers to be opened upon his death. He died in prison for an unrelated crime. The catch was, even though he told them, lawyers can only tell someone about this only if it will prevent serious bodily harm, death or criminal fraud. In this case, the other man was already dead. He was confessing about a murder that had already occurred and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. They had to sit on this for 26 years! This is another amazing story. A sad and pathetic story that tells how the justice system in this country needs to be scrutinized and given an overhaul. I am not saying that we need to change every bit piece by piece, but we need to look at loop holes like this and fix it, so something like this doesn't happen to someone else. How do we even know that it hasn't. Just because this story has come to light does not mean that there are not more men like Alton Logan who have lost the prime years of their lives in a place as humiliating and degrading as prison.

On Being a Mom

This morning I am rushing around to get my own stuff done so I can get Max an appointment to see the doctor. Yesterday he took a spill on his skateboard and may a fracture to his heel. OUCH!! I returned home yesterday to find him with the frozen bag of peas, which we keep plenty around due to their excellent ability as ice packs, and he had propped it up on the coffee table. Yep, there was a good size bulge and it became increasingly difficult for him to bear weight on that foot. So, called him off school today and now the rush to get in the doctors office begins. But, as I say, better some other body part than the teeth!!

That, along with the stores already pushing Mothers Day cards, along with current news about "bad moms" not raising their kids in what are considered correct ways, giving your kids candy as a bribe or letting them watch cartoons as a babysitter and so on. Has given me reason to think about and contemplate my own experiences and qualifications as a mom. Or lack thereof!

I started out this adventure as someone, who in their twenties, never wanted kids. I was not one of those people who spent time pondering the joys of parenting or dreamed about marriage and children. That was not in any part of my mind or vocabulary! Then, lo and behold, one day closer to thirty I found myself pregnant. Not totally unplanned, but certainly an interesting prospect. The whole 9 months and birth were all just a blur that lead to the moment, before leaving the hospital, when I said to my own mom, " After I get home, what do I do then?" She laughed and said, "You take care of him." And so I did.

Now, we zip ahead to the present day where Max is now 17. This August he will be 18 and both he and I are quite excited about his first year to vote. The idea of his last year of high school is very odd. It seems as if this kid has always been in either day care or school. I have no idea what I am going to do with myself when I am not contemplating scheduling, packing lunches or shopping for "school clothes". Where will he go to school next? Where will he live? Who will reach those wine glasses on the top shelf for me?

My plans were to put cloth diapers on this kid, make all my own baby food. This kid was never going to eat hot dogs or macaroni and cheese! Well, since he often ate clumps of dirt, and I managed to get over that, the other stuff sort of fell by the wayside too. Not to mention the bribery that would take place as one was preparing to enter the grocery store. The best day of both of our lives was when my favorite grocery store added a day care center!! He used to cry when he had to LEAVE the grocery store!! I can not tell you how many times I got all the way home to discover that I was still wearing one of their pagers.

There were those times that I am sure that some people, maybe those that write the books on "perfect parenting" would say that I did things that were less than stellar in my child rearing practices. Like running in the house for a moment as he played outdoors, letting him sit in the bathtub for a second as I ran and grabbed an extra towel in the hall closet or letting the VCR play "babysitter" as I had my coffee and tried to wake up on an EARLY Saturday morning and was not quite up to early morning chatter with a 4 year old. Did all of that make me a bad mom or make him a problematic child? In my mind I think not. Like they say, all the best laid plans will often go awry. You do the best that you can at the time. Learning not to beat yourself up along the way. As long as what you do is not causing great harm, then I think that you are ahead int he game. It was only as he got older, and I grew more comfortable in my role, that I also began to see that I was in good company. All the other working moms were doing the same things as me and hell, I ever learned a thing or two from them. I think that is why moms need other mom friends.

The fact that he still needs me is a good feeling. Along with the Advil we looked for some old crutches last night. Put him to bed early and woke him up this AM to tell him I was calling him off school. I saw how he still needed me to care for him and offer comfort. To look at the "boo-boo" and tell him what needed to be done. Still needed me to make it "better". Although I was not kissing it like when he was four. Not the bottom of his foot that had been in a skate shoe for several hours!! The lessons learned as a mom, patience and selflessness being the top two, are and have been so important in my life. I had never anticipated how much it would impact me. As this Mothers Day approaches I would hope that we would all commend ourselves on a job "well done". Appreciate you for raising that child or those children and making it through an exceptional time, not only in your life, but in theirs as well.

Is Anyone Listening?

According to a CBS News- New York Times Poll 81% of Americans believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction. They said that," things seem to have gotten seriously off on the wrong track". This number is up from 69% a year ago, and 35% in early 2002. 78% of those responding felt that the country was worse off than five years ago, while just 4% said that they thought that things were doing better. Who are these 4%? I would love to talk to one of them and find out what their frame of thinking is and how they feel things have gotten better. I want to know where they shop for food and how they can afford the general basics of day-to-day living.

I am not even talking about the little extras like eating out, going on vacations and the like. Hell, for my family those are things of the past. If my mom was not having a birthday this weekend I would not even be going out to dinner! But it is a delightful luxury these days and I am looking forward to it with gusto. Not to mention that it is something that has to be strategically planned for and cash set aside towards. We never do fast food anymore. Assuredly we are better off health wise, but sometimes I just crave something greasy and fried, not to mention the convenience.

I am giving some serious thought to buying our own cow to defray the cost of milk. With all the milk I have at my fingertips, at the coffee mega giant, I could make some side cash selling it in the back alley for $2.00 or less a gallon!

If things are getting this out of control and more and more people are showing the signs of financial strain etc. I wonder who out there is listening and when are they going to begin to really address our concerns? To coin a much used and abused phrase, " Can you hear me now"?

Obama Yaps & Faith Kills

Seems that Barack Obama is bringing his flashy brand of rhetoric down a few pegs. He wants to try and appeal to the middle class working white voter. The New York Times has a good article about the Dem candidates stumping in PA. and how he is lower his yap to try and fit the mind set of the locals there.

"He is grounding his lofty rhetoric in the more prosaic language of white-working-class discontent, adjusting it to the less welcoming terrain of Pennsylvania." states Michael Powell of the Times. He goes on to point out how much like Ohio the working class folks are and the type of "plain speaking" that is preferred, "Mr. Obama’s effort to master a plain-spoken and blunt language that extends back centuries in Pennsylvania is accompanied by no small stakes. Voters here, as in neighboring Ohio, where Mr. Obama lost the white and aging blue-collar vote, tend to elect politicians whose language rarely soars and whose policy prescriptions come studded with detail." I understand that it is mostly election year yabber, but I also want real, tangible meat & potatoes. I took speech classes and love a rousing speech as much as the next guy, but I also want real facts and not just platitudes. Hillary may be nearly boring with the detail in her plans and speeches, but there is content there that I can function with and hear results oriented direction. "A thrill these talks are not, but G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, noted that politics that attended to the precarious details of life could provide comfort to the hard-pressed.

“If you’re an unemployed steelworker, a former coal miner, you want to know about job training, who pays your health care,” Dr. Madonna said. “Obama’s speeches are uplifting but without much specificity, and that’s a tough sell for working people who don’t live in a world of ideas.”

I am all for an adult following in any religious style that they would like, but when your choice, as a parent, can or does lead to the death of your child then I believe that you should be held accountable. It is a crime and it is neglect! Bottom line. You are the adult that is making choices for care that the child can not do for themselves. Here we have a story, yet another, of parents that belonged to some very strict little religion that allowed them to only pray for their child's illness and they watched the child die when some simple early medical care may have saved the child's life. How utterly sad. "The Worthingtons belong to a small fundamentalist sect, The Followers of Christ Church. The Followers believe that faith will heal all and that death, if it comes, it is God’s will.

In fact, death has come often to the children of the Followers. Before Ava, other children died in circumstances where simple, well-proven medical treatments might have saved them. According to an investigative report done some years back by Mark Larabee of The Oregonian newspaper, at least 38 young children lie in graves in the church’s cemetery in Oregon City. And the Followers have reported a suspiciously high number of stillborn deaths in recent years." All very sad indeed. How can anyone rationalize the death of an innocent child in the name of God? Parents have the right to feed and dress their children as they wish, but I stand firm in the fact that they do not have the right to watch them die.

Believing in Myself

March 20 Today's Quotation: I believe that in our constant search for security we can never gain any peace of mind until we secure our own soul. And this I do believe above all, especially in my times of greatest discouragement, that I must believe--that I must believe in my fellow people-- that I must believe in myself--that I must believe in God--if life is to have any meaning. Margaret Chase Smith Today's Meditation: It's a shame that so many people have attached so much dogma and so many conditions to believing in God. We've turned one of the most important aspects of our lives into some sort of competition--you're not a true Christian unless you believe this; you're not a good Muslim unless you adopt this set of beliefs; a good Jew always will believe this. But what of our own relationships with ourselves and with God? What of our own ability to believe in who we are and who God is? Is it any wonder that we find it hard to believe in ourselves when we're told so often that our most basic beliefs are wrong or misguided? How can it help us to adopt other people's beliefs just because other people believe those things? For centuries, Christians believed that it was right to kill a person who committed blasphemy. Some cultures still do believe that. But for the most part, that belief has changed significantly. What once was considered a holy duty before God is now a crime in almost all countries of the world. But how many people adopted that belief in former times simply because other people told them it was true? If we insist on adopting other people's beliefs, we will find that we are unable to get to know ourselves, and that we are unable to believe fully and deeply. Our first duty is to ourselves, for the person who has come to know him or her self can then reach out and help others effectively. Questions to ponder: 1. Do you believe in yourself? How do your actions reflect that belief? 2. Do you believe in God, no matter what you conceive Him (or Her, or It) to be? How do your actions reflect that belief? 3. How many of your beliefs come from other people, and their insistence that you must believe certain things in certain ways? For further thought: Grant us a common faith that we shall know bread and peace--that we shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do our best not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make. Stephen Vincent Benet

This was the amazing meditative article, from the Living Life Fully web site, that gave me great food for thought. Especially after I had spent the larger portion, of my young adult and adult life, joining churches and molding myself into their ideas of who and what is good. It has not been until the last 2 years that I have actually come into my own and really started to enjoy my life. As the "questions to ponder" ask about believing in yourself.... I never used to. I believed that I was only as good as "they" said that I was. As long as I behaved in ways that fit with their teachings, as long as I went to studies and volunteered I was a-okay in their minds.

It was not until I totally took myself out of their influences that I began to discover myself. The fact that I believed in something divine was something that I had to develop on my own and on my own terms. I finally feel like I own my own emotions and beliefs, that they do not belong to some church or organization. Granted, I do not have any ladies to have punch and cake with on Sunday afternoons, but I am secure and strong. I am totally me and do not have to rely on those places to be my social network.

It doesn't even have to always be with a church either. I realized how many of the people that I used to think were my friends, ended up I was just fused to their behaviors and thoughts.

From the time I was 12 I was always looking for the "thing" that would help me to fit in and be part of something. It has taken this long for me to find the way to just be happy with myself and be part of the human race.

Finding God, Troop Deaths and Blackwater Works On.

In what can only be described as a larger scale "Where's Waldo" it seems that physicists are working on finding something that they call the "God particle". Seems that this is something that may or may not prove that there is something divine. A very interesting article at Newsweek. The project is going to begin this summer in Europe. I am actually quite interested to see what happens.

On Easter Sunday the death toll to U.S. soldiers hit 4,000. Now, I have been hearing the talking heads proclaim that the numbers were MUCH higher in all other wars. That can not be denied, but why should we even compare and contrast? Why did there even have to be any deaths? Why did there ever have to be young men and women sent into harms way? This article at AlterNet also points out something even more troubling about the service people that are not being killed, the huge numbers that are coming back with sever brain trauma and the tolls that it is going to take on our medical and mental health systems. A very significant point made in the article, that really made me think, was how it points out the lack of American media coverage. I had started to notice this recently myself. With all the political crap going on we have lost our focus on this unnecessary war. The Pew Research Center has shown that the sharp fall in the media coverage has left the U.S. public less interested in and knowledgeable about the conflict. A scant 3% on the news stories in February were devoted to the conflict while last July the number was closer to 15%. The study reports that the public has not seen the war as a top news story since last October. This, to me, is quite sad.

And finally we will end with Blackwater and their antics. Seems that they are making their services available to other countries and hiring their operatives from other countries and so on. For a good article about their latest hijinks's Mother Jones News had an excellent article. Especially as they too have dropped off the evening news radar.

Burt Update: After a week of steroids and pain meds Burt is walking once again. We are still very careful and are carrying him up and down the stairs from the second floor. We lift him up on the couch, but he will sometimes jump down before we can do anything about it. He has a bad back. It is not anything that will ever heal. A $4,000 dollar surgery was suggested, but with his heart problems the chances of him dying on the table are great. So, eventually he will need to be put down. I am hoping that it is not while John is in Finland, which by the way, he is arriving there today for 2 months, maybe longer! It is -10 degrees there right now. I think he is going to lose his tan. Too bad. So, Burt is able to walk outside on his own although we still are watching him closely. Nice thing is he doesn't wander anymore and we don't have to put him on the runner. He does his thing and comes right back in the house. Now that he is on the "juice" I wonder if we might be brought before a congressional hearing? He is getting quite large biceps. Not sure how much longer I can continue to even pick him up!! We have nicknamed him the "Burtinator".

Hot Topics & Dillemas with Dogs

Have not had much time to blog recently due to a serious medical condition with our oldest dog, Burt , the Beagle. I'll blog more about it later, but for now it is just too demanding and let's just say that it involves his inability to walk and us having to carry him outside to pee, or letting him go on the towels we have on the floor. Needless to say it has been exhausting and required trips to the veterinary emergency hospital and the like.

I did, however, have time to read these two very interesting and hot button topics courtesy of AlterNet's web site. Feel free to check them out, if like me, you are tired of hearing about so and so's pastor or who did what when they were in the White House, not to mention tape of G'Dubs dancing.

Economics 101

I do not know about you, but I have been more interested in the real "meat and potatoes" of the campaign between Obama & Clinton, than the television ads and the debates. The debates are just too short too cover and real material. They just hit the tip of many icebergs. One of the things that I am very concerned about, as I am sure most of us are right now with the prices of things continually going up and the entire health care mess, I wanted to know what their economic stances were. Also, maybe like you, I want all my information in one nice, neat package. I hate to go back and forth between web pages to read and compare and contrast. So, lucky for me that Mother Jones had an excellent tutorial. An economic policy primer with the stances of both candidates spelled out all nice and the like. It was a good way for me to get the key info, that I desired, with each candidate back to back.

If you have questions about the areas of subprime bailouts, health care and social security, to name a few, then you might want to check this out.

That Could Change Things or Better Living Through Chemistry

Seems that Benny Shannon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published a study in the Time and Mind Journal. He is suggesting that Moses ,and others during biblical times, were using mind altering substances and that would explain the many scenes of burning bushes, voices from the heavens and the overall feeling of a religious experience. Raw Story and American Foreign Press both had articles about this recent publication. The publication suggests that it was common for the people of the time, especially the religious leaders and followers, to take mind altering substances that would come from the acacia tree which is mentioned often in the Bible.

It makes you wonder if they had music that went on for 17 minutes. How popular would the Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd have been? Maybe the Last Supper was really just a food fest because everyone had the munchies. Hmmmmmmmmm.........

Travelog

Mixter had it right when she said that the "liberal ladies" that contribute to her mix are busy...and sick. I seem to have come up with a nice cold/upper respiratory mess. I am losing my voice and generally feel like crap. So, I have decided to warm us all up with a travelog of John's travels. You will find some shots of his apartment in Broadbeach which is on the famous Gold Coast of of Australia. It is quite famous for its surfing as you will notice by the size of the waves. He said that they were small that day, but that he has seen some really huge ones that just tossed him around like a toothpick in the water.

His apartment is the brightly colored building and the view behind it is the awesome one of the beachline. Yeah, I want that job!! I have also included a few of the cool native birds. Since we are both avid birdwatchers he likes to check out all the local ones and send me info on them. I have included two of the more colorful for your viewing pleasure.

The really cool looking wavy building is an office that has, of course, a Starbucks on the bottom level. He tries to hit them up in all the countries he visits and pick up a city mug for me and my boss.

He has basically been gone for the entire, coldest parts of our winter. This week makes 7 weeks that he has been abroad. No return date yet.

When Harry Met Sally & Bill O'Reilly Continues to Piss People Off

As I am still recovering from my fall, and subsequent back injury, I have been watching much more TV as of late. That meant that along with the muscle relaxers, and no wine, I spent last night watching one of my favorite movies of all time, "When Harry Met Sally". Even when I don't catch this little gem right at the opening speeches, by the married couples, I still get drawn into it. Then, just my luck, TBS played it again and I got to see all the parts that I missed! Since I was in my drug induced stupor it was all just fine with me. Who can not love how cute and adorable Meg Ryan was in those days, or how funny & smart the dialog was. Now Bruno Kirby has passed away, at too young an age, and Carrie Fisher is almost unrecognizable!! Time does march on.....

Seems that Bill O'Reilly is up to his usual bag of tricks. Pissing folks off and getting away with it. You know, these radio & TV people are not stupid. They read teleprompters, but they also know what is going to sell and get them their beloved ratings. DUH! How else will they be able to hold their place in the competition if they do not generate some controversy? So, we have Mr. O'Reilly making an obnoxious remark about Michelle Obama and talking about a "lynching" in the same sentence. What a tacky asshole. It gets him noticed and talked about, which is exactly what he & his network people want us to do. He really is a nasty jerk, just like Rush et al, and we all play right into their hands. I personally can not stand the guy and I hate that I am even talking about it, but now he has issued some lame apology yadda, yadda, yadda.....It will not ever end. As long as you have the talking heads and "stir-it-up" radio people there are going to be remarks made that are insensitive and obnoxious. I wish that we could just ignore them, but this article, as well as my rambling, just proves that we can not.

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!

After sleeping like I had the day off, I was awakened by another employee calling to tell me that it was 5:15 and I should have been there. I thought that I had the day off!! What a way to start the day. So, I brush my teeth & put on deoderant, I thought the general public might appreciate it, and flew in to work. As I was walking hit I hit a patch of black ice and down I went. Both of my hands were full, so there was no way to stop. I went flat out on my back.

After spending 2 hours waiting and getting serviced at an emergency care facility I came home stiff as a board and armed with several medications for a back and neck injury that has me very stiff and uncomfortable right now. They gave me Vicodin, an anti-inflamitory and a muscle relaxer. Needless to say that I better spell check this. So, here I am all wacked out on misc. drugs, I ordered pizza and plan to veg out on a Cops marathon.

It's Ohio Time, Dumping Cops & a Mini-Marathon

It's back to Ohio time for the candidates! The very day that they began to talk about Ohio the political ads began to run also. At 3:30 AM, as I was getting ready to go make coffee for the masses, I saw the first one. OMG!! Is it that time. God how I hate TV when they begin to run the "I am so and so and I endorse this message". It makes me run right out and buy new batteries for my remote so I am able to change the channel fast! Thank the lord for DVR so we can fast forward through commercials. I would like to be able to see their debate, in Columbus, but realize that it is out of the question, so I will either watch it or read about it later. Even though I am quite tired of the whole dog & pony show I know that I owe it to them and myself to watch and listen some more, so I can make an intelligent and well thought out decision.

How about these great cops that dumped the quadriplegic out of his wheelchair because they did not believe him when he told them he was paralyzed!! I watched the video and it just pissed me off. Especially when you could see the older cop walking past the camera and he was obviously laughing about the whole incident. Sick assholes indeed!! Very degrading for that poor guy. To be dumped on the floor like a piece of trash or tossed around like a rag doll. The indignity of it all. There need to be some people out of a job. I realize that hardened criminals, or those that put up a struggle, need to be handled, but what the hell was this guy doing but sitting in his chair!! Have you seen the video? Sick. I hope that he gets some justice from this. No human being needs to be treated in such a manner. I thought that we had laws to protect people with disabilities. I guess this particular police dept. has not yet received this training.

Eating healthy and working out is no fun. I have hit my 15 pound mark. No doubt I am happy about it, but it is not that much fun. The other night I came home from my meeting and wanting to celebrate by eating something! How twisted is that. See, food has always been my life. Good times and bad. Granted, I feel fantastic eating all these servings of fruit and vegetables and the like, but I do miss....cookies, candy..... I do buy some of the WW goodies. They are the only thing that help me keep on track. Wine is always a downfall. So, to allow myself more treats I have to workout more. Another activity that I have never been too fond of, especially running. I have been walking/jogging twice a week for 3 miles. Yuck! A girl that I work with wants me to run in a min-marathon with her in March. I don't run for fun or anything that resembles fun. I do it because it is easy and does not require a gym membership or fancy equipment. This week I also got my dusty stability ball out of the basement and 5 pound hand weights. If I can keep it up I will hit my 10% of my body weight loss. That is a milestone. Then you move on to another or into a new era or something like that. Sigh, I guess it is a life long thing.

Well, we do what we have to do, don't we.

Catchy, Fun & Different

What's playing in the car these days? Hey, Esteban, if you are still reading you might also want to check out these three bands, if you do not already know them. I know that you like some alternative. These three bands are all total fun. I have them all on one fun filled cd. Common Rider, Streetlight Manifesto and Catch 22. Very fast paced with some awesome horns. The lyrics are often smart and hilarious. They make you want to be out on an open highway going somewhere for a very long drive. Download, burn, insert....enjoy!

Lucky Zen

Today's Quotation: I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it. Everyone has bad breaks, but everyone also has opportunities. People who can smile at their breaks and grab their chances get on. Samuel Goldwyn

Today's Meditation: I don't believe in luck. Those people who have succeeded in life usually have done so as the result of hard work, of being able to see opportunities when they've come up, or a combination of the two. Those people who win tons of money in lotteries or inherit vast fortunes aren't necessarily lucky--many people who have come into money that way have become quite miserable, very unhappy with their "new" lives. My biggest problems in life have come when I haven't recognized opportunities. Because I haven't seen them until too late so often, I haven't been able to take advantage of them. I suppose many people would say that I've had bad luck, but I don't see it that way at all. I see it as having missed opportunities, and I don't get down on myself for having missed them. After all, there was no one around when I was growing up to teach me to recognize and take advantage of opportunities. Most of us are in that same boat--we haven't been taught how to recognize the opportunities that come our way as opportunities, so we squander chance after chance to make more of ourselves or improve our lives or lifestyles. That's okay, because that's how life is--what's not okay is to recognize the problem and not do anything about it. Now that I know how many opportunities I've let go by, it's up to me to teach myself how to recognize them and take advantage of them. And the burden isn't completely on me--there are plenty of books and tape programs out there that can help us to learn to do these things. This is material that should be taught in schools, but it isn't, so we have to find other teachers outside of the classroom who have focused on this sort of thing as their own area of expertise. Bad luck? Sorry, but there's no such thing. The universe functions too well for that to be true. Sometimes it's true that things are completely out of our control, but even if something negative happens to us, there will be something important for us to learn in it. If we can smile at our bad breaks and move on with our lives, learning in the process, life becomes much brighter. Bad luck tends to be an excuse for not wanting to look deeper.

Under the Weather

I don't think that there is anything less fun than having to work when you have a cold. With the possible exception of a colonoscopy. So, I have a cold. I had hoped to avoid it. Everyone that I work with went through a variety of forms of this bug and I seem to be about the last to get it. I had thought it was just allergies, but yesterday it really began to kick my butt. I had the day off, but spent it taking drugs, buying Puffs with lotion, eating chicken soup and napping, with the dogs, on the couch .

With so many cable channels who knew there was so much nothing on during the day? I put my earplugs in and turned on the Weather Channel. Got a good 8 hours last night and hope, through the grace of chemistry that I will be able to make it through till my shift ends at 4:30 today. Speaking of chemistry, I want to thank all the idiots out there that make drugs who have made it so difficult and time consuming to purchase cold medications!! Just when I felt the worst I had to stand in line at the pharmacy counter just so I could show my ID ,get looked up , and sign to say that I am purchasing these pills under legit circumstances!! Did they get a good look at how crappy I looked? They were fortunate that I brushed my teeth before I went it, it was the least I could do.

Now, armed with tissues and drugs in hand, I am off to serve hot java to the masses!