Looking On The Bright Side

Charles Schultz Philosophy 1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world. 2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. 3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant. 4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. 5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress 6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.. How did you do? The point is , none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies... Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.. Now try this.. 1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school. 2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time. 3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile. 4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!! 5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with. Easier? The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials.. the most money...or the most awards. They simply are the ones who care the most. 'Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia !'

just some stuff

Ugh.
I'm glad that February is nearly over.
I wish I was one of those real chilled out people that roll through life un- traumatized by the goings on in their world.
I apparently wasn't built that way. I take a troubling thought and roll it over and over in my mind as if to polish it to gleaming perfection.
I drive myself nuts!
Anyway, went to the Doc, got some meds for the new ulcer I've developed. Some chill pills to help me keep from dumping fresh acid in on my gut and some pain pills to keep me from ever reaching for ibuprofen again. Ever!

I have this friend , Theresa. ( a different Theresa from the one I've mentioned before)
I wish I could learn to be more like her.
She's the quintessential hippie. Completely relaxed and peaceful absolutely all the time.
(Well, except when she was married to her ex., but that doesn't count.There's a good reason he's an ex..)
She and her son Phil are moving to Arizona. Just pulling up and going. She says that everything she needs will fit in her car. Oh yeah, she has a set of four year old twins too! She had twins when she was 45 years old! Gawd! She's still mellow.. anyway, Phil is a junior in high school and wants to go to some college in Arizona, so they're moving to establish residency so tuition will be more reasonable.
I so wish I could just pull up and leave here. I don't know if I could find a mellower me somewhere else. Probably I'd need to make a mellower me before I left, cuz like Richard says, "wherever you go, there you are." Still, it might be easier..
I'm making that my retirement from the Post Office goal. I want to retire from there early and go somewhere else and work doing something different. I would transfer with the PO, but they aren't allowing transfers anymore.
So anyway, I've rattled on and on here plenty enough. Working on mellowing out and planning a move in several years.
It's a goal..


oh and ps. Richard is totally OK w/moving. Especially if he gets an ocean out of the deal..

Had An REM-fest....ended up posting a Troggs cover!

I posted this song because usually Michael Stipe gets all the hoop-lah when you talk about REM. Personally, I think that with out Mike Mills' vocals , REM wouldn't exist as we know it.
AND! you and your friends can gather round the computer and do some Karaoke! The words are right there for you! Yay!

8 Mile ( not really.. really it's 8 days, but 8 Mile is a famous title and I wanted to use it)

I am, in approx. 24 hours, retiring from Facebook.

I don't fit in at all. But unlike my younger years when I desperately wanted to fit in.

This time I'm kinda glad that I don't.
That may be the true mark of age.

It's a bit too "Seinfeld-y" ADD-ish for me.

just slapdashes of info about folks.
I did enjoy the "25 things about me" lists that Mandi and Cristie posted.
That was fun and interesting.
And I played (and won) a swell game of Scrabble with Brett from Mississauga.
( I think he may have let me win..)
It took 8 days.
Hence the title. The miles are actually more like 1100. Oh well.

Also, my son uses the "f" word at a really alarming pace. ( once or twice is way too much for Mom) and a couple of his friends , I think , belong in Reform School.

Just too many decisions required.
Do I yell at him for staying up all night at Wes'?
For swearing ?

I think I'll stick to parenting in the real life realm. That's plenty of responsibility for me.

So, ciao Facebook! I hardly knew thee!

She's Got (skinny) Legs

You know, for the past three semesters of Rick's high school career, I have been noticing this certain phenomenon. Fully 85% of the girls in his school have skinny legs.
I got the figure mathematically you know. The number of mini vans in the drop off Que divided by the total weight of all the girls at TWHS x 16 ( average age).
These little sparrow legged girls clamber out of their Mom's SUVs with book bags twice their weight , puffy,quilted ski-like jackets that come to a very abrupt stop at the tiny little waists, followed by a gap covered with t-shirt material ( the total weight of which is approximately .003 oz) and following that , these itty-bitty blue jeans that closely represent a second skin.
Really tight.
The overall appearance is of a puffy little robin teetering about on it's spindly little legs. The robin's knees are backwards though, which somehow makes him appear sturdier than these tiny high school girls.
I think the total yardage of denim involved could be laid flat and make a couple of nice pot holders.

Don't get me wrong here. The girls are really cute. I'm just making an observation.

Comfort Food...

Lately I've been seeking out comfort food for nearly every dinner I make.
Maybe it's a winter thing. February sometimes drags on and on for me.
Not my favorite month for sure.
Anyway, I had this beautiful photograph of a meal that I prepared and was going to post the pic and the recipe, but.. somehow, in my distractedness, I deleted the photo from my computer and had not backed it up on disk. Argh!
Anyway, I decided to share the recipe anyway, it's so yummy and so easy.
I actually found it in a box of Reynolds Oven Bags. Normally I just toss those kinds if things, but this one looked good enough to try. I'm glad I did.
Here goes..


Orange Teriyaki Beef Roast


1 Reynolds Oven Bag, large size
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 cloves garlic.minced
! teaspoon grated orange peel
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2 pound beef top round roast (at least one inch thick)
Hot cooked rice
1/4 cup sliced green onions


Shake flour in Reynolds oven bag; place in 13x9x2 inch baking pan.
Add orange juice, teriyaki sauce, brown sugar , garlic, orange peel and crushed red pepper to oven bag. Squeeze bag to blend in the flour.
Add beef to bag. Turn bag to coat beef with sauce.
Close oven bag with nylon tie. Marinate beef in the refrigerator 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Cut six 1/2 inch slits in top of bag. Tuck ends of bag in pan.
Bake 35-45 minutes or until meat thermometer reads 145 F ( do not overcook)
Thinly slice beef. Stir sauce; serve with rice. Sprinkle with chopped green onions.
Makes 8 (3oz) servings.


Yum! so easy too.
I used top sirloin instead of Round cuz I like the flavor better and I also sprinkled sesame seeds on it before serving. It's a pretty dish.

Next time I make it, I'm going to increase the orange juice by 1/4 cup maybe and at least twice as much orange zest. I thnk it could use a little more of the pop that the orange flavor brings.

So there ya go, one of my comfort food dishes this month!

pain

I have been thinking a lot about pain lately. For a number of reasons actually. I have chronic pain
I was talking to Mandi about pain, I visited my Dr. recently and we discussed pain.
But here's what really put me in overdrive .
I'm reading this book ( a novel) about a neurosurgeon that specializes in research. He's talking about phantom pain, you know,when people lose a limb or something and suffer from pain in the lost limb. Anyway he comments that the pain is just in their head.
"Well, no kidding" I thought . ALL pain is in your head .
(turns out that was exactly his point)
Anyway, that's what got me started. Now I don't have much understanding of the brain. Just your basic left hemisphere/ right hemisphere, frontal lobe, etc. terminology that I understand, and maybe a little more from all the reading I did after my Mom had a burst aneurysm, but I'm no genius.



this is a partial article I read on Wikipedia

Nociception (synonym: nocioception or nociperception) is defined as "the neural processes of encoding and processing noxious stimuli." It is the afferent activity produced in the peripheral and central nervous system by stimuli that have the potential to damage tissue. This activity is initiated by nociceptors, (also called pain receptors), that can detect mechanical, thermal or chemical changes, above a set threshold. Once stimulated, a nociceptor transmits a signal along the spinal cord, to the brain. Nociception triggers a variety of autonomic responses and may also result in the experience of pain in sentient beings.


The neurological basis and mechanisms for phantom limb pain are all derived from experimental theories and observations. Little is known about the true mechanism causing phantom pains, and many theories highly overlap. Historically, phantom pains were thought to originate from neuromas located at the stump tip. Traumatic neuromas, or non-tumor nerve injuries, often arise from surgeries and result from the abnormal growth of injured nerve fibers. Although stump neuromas contribute to phantom pains, they are not the sole cause. This is because patients with congenital limb deficiency can sometimes, although rare, experience phantom pains. This suggests that there is a central representation of the limb responsible for painful sensations (Ramachandran and Herstein, 1998). Currently, theories are based on altered neurological pathways and cortical reorganization. Although they are highly intertwined, mechanisms are often separated into peripheral, spinal, and central mechanisms.

hah.. they really don't know do they?

Everyone has their brain wired their way. Whatever their norm is.
For instance, some people see numbers as colors. ie. 1=red 2=yellow etc.
(synesthesia)
here's a link to a simple article describing this phenomenon

and I know what red looks like to me, but how do you perceive red? or yellow? etc..

OK, I know, I probably sound like a troglodyte. This is stuff we all think about in elementary school. I just got to thinking about it as applied to pain.
What is my perception of pain? Others? and how can a doctor diagnose and treat it?
You can't pull out the brain like a mother board in a computer or something and say "Aha! I can see why you suffer so much. This little do-hicky has come unhitched on one end. (or something)
or maybe they can . I don't really know what a Pet Scan or an MRI reveals. I seriously doubt it explains pain in any real way.

For instance, two years ago I had a tooth pulled. No real big deal. Got some pain meds, went home, recovered. Sort of. There was a piece of tooth left behind in my gum that flipped up and began to wear a little hole in my cheek, it wasn't really all that painful, mostly just annoying and I was concerned about long term effects. So.. back to the oral surgeon , she whacked the piece of tooth off with what looked exactly like wire cutters (ew!) and sent me on my way assuring me that the pain would be no where near as intense as when the tooth was actually pulled.
(in other words, no Rx for pain)
To her maybe! In her brain wiring, this was no big deal. For me it was excruciating. I soldiered on, because I'm always afraid to ask for pain medication, but truly, it was pretty awful.
For me.

Anyway, I could go on and on if anyone was bored enough to listen to me postulate and theorize about pain perception. I'm sure that volumes have been written on the topic, and I intend to read some.

Hah! What's your reality!!

another television commercial.. blast from the past!

Just think, most of us could purchase several Sesame Street albums just from the change in the console of our cars!

Many say that you can tell a lot about a person from the car they drive,
or by nosing through their medicine cabinet,
or maybe the books they read..or the artwork in their home.

I believe that a person's refrigerator magnets and the things on display under those magnets, speaks volumes about the individuals that live in that home at eat from that fridge..

Think of it..in fact, go look at your fridge. I'll wait.

See what I mean?
If your household has small children, you probably have wonderful artwork created from crayons and markers, maybe even construction paper and paste on display.

Older children? maybe a schedule of ball games, or concerts and music lessons.

Single? Perhaps schedules of meetings you plan to attend, or stock quotes, or maybe something from a book or the newspaper that inspires you..

Older people? A list of medications you take and the times of day to take them maybe. Or you children's phone numbers and maybe photographs of your grandchildren.

It can be anything, but I'll bet it's all you.
Whatever it is.

I too have things on my fridge that speak about me.
On the front, I have four magnets that tell a lot about my philosophy.
and it's not just the magnets, but who gave them to me that make them my favorites.

Mandi, who was influenced a lot in her childhood by older people( we had many friends that were her grandparents age or older and she called all of them "Grandma"
I imagine she really thought they were her grandma too!)
She gave me the Gertrude Stein magnet..

Rachael, who has come to the realization that no matter how odd our family may seem... we're certainly no stranger than most and even less weird than many..
She gave me the Joe Ancis magnet.

My sister Judy (BooBoo), who has a passion for all dogs everywhere. She taught me to find solace in the love of a dog more than any other person.
She gave me the Dog magnet.

And lastly, my friend Theresa, who knows me pretty damn well and still likes me, knows that if push comes to shove... no, I really don't give a s@$t what people think of me.
She gave me the magnet with the naughty word on it.

so that's my fridge..
what does yours say about you?