Following up on the bra...

This is why I love my doctor -- when I went to him just to check on the condition of my rib injury (heretofore to be known as The Great Victoria's Secret Debacle of 2008), in the short time that I was in his office, we talked more about his ailments than mine. I found out that he has tendinitis in his foot, and the odd thing about that is that he can run without pain, but he can't walk. This amuses him greatly, and he's started referring to himself as Forrest Gump. I also found out that he still has trouble with the tendinitis in his elbow that he had last summer, had to go to physical therapy for it, and is also annoyed because he was having a slow afternoon because he didn't expect the installation of his new computer system to go as quickly as it did.

Somewhere in there, he poked about my rib cage, said that I had a bruised rib, ran through the range of painkillers that could be available to me, and told me when it came to my usual exercise routine, that if it hurts, don't do it. For this, he went to medical school.

No, I'm just kidding. I've been going to him for about 17 years, and these are the traits that make him more endearing. He's the kind of guy you want to take home and make soup for.

I opted for the Tylenol with codeine, (turned out to be a mistake; it kept me awake all night) and he made a promise not to drive after I took it. If I'd only known what my reaction would be, I could have, say, taken third shift at a nuclear power plant.

But I got thinking about his "if it hurts, don't do it" comment. And it makes me feel like I'm being tested. Like something up there or out there in the universe, the thing that's bigger than all of us that we all tap into now and again, wants to see how badly I want to write.

First, like the doctor, I get tendinitis in both elbows last summer, which necessitated my changing the way I write on the computer. While I was in the acute phase, I started using voice-activated software. I got better and could type a little, and then I got sore again. Back to the VAS, and doesn't iti figure that The Great Victoria's Secret Debacle is causing me pain when I talk.

So there you go. I'm going to have to have some scientists devise a way for me to write by using my eyelashes or following the movements of my pupils.

Because nothing is going to stop me. Not a little pain in my elbows, and certainly not an underwire bra.

Bras Are Bad for Your Health

(Or, never wear an underwire bra to the chiropractor)

As I wrote my last blog, I've only been seeing this new chiropractor for a few visits, and from past experience I know that it takes a while to develop a working relationship with the body care worker. Especially a chiropractor, because you spend such a small amount of time with him or her at each visit. Snap, snap, and you're done.

The first couple of visits he did gentle, manual manipulation. But I've been curious about this machine that he uses called a ProAdjuster. When it's used on you, it looks like you're sitting in a typical massage chair, and the chiropractor uses an implement that looks like a large tuning fork, and using computerized models, he adjusts your back with a series of pulses coming from the tines of the fork, and supposedly, this works to put the spine back into alignment without upsetting the surrounding musculature. My father goes to this chiropractor, and uses this machine and finds it very helpful.

So after my first couple of visits, to "get my feet wet" so to speak, I wanted to try sitting in the chair.

The first visit was odd. When you're outside of the treatment room (the treatment rooms are closed off only by hospital type curtains, so you hear everything) and someone is being adjusted, it sounds like either very loud manual typewriting, or the rapid fire of a nail gun. Being under this gun, I felt like I was being gently jackhammered. But I believe in giving any kind of treatment at least a couple of tries (my PT always says to try things three times, but I have less patience), as sometimes it gets better, and I don't want to give up on anything that might offer long-term benefits just because of a bad first experience.

But the second time I felt like I was being less-gently jackhammered, and I was good and sore for about five days afterward.

It was back to manual treatments for me.

And that's how we proceeded. The first one back on the table went smoothly. The second, I came in feeling like my sacrum was all jammed up and twisted, and I knew that I needed an adjustment. After his usual stretching me around, it was clear to him to that we had to be a more aggressive this time, and he positioned me on my side in order to do a "standard" adjustment. This was not his bread-and-butter preference for treatment for me, as he didn't like to do this kind of twisting adjustment on people who've had disk problems (although my physical therapist contends that this is perfectly safe), and he said he would do it "once in a blue moon" when it was clear that I needed it.

So anyway, back to me on my side on his table. He positioned my legs around and got me ready and started to push on my hips to do the adjustment. When he hit with enough force to get the release, I felt this wonking pain in my ribs, and realized that my elbow had been pinned beneath my rib cage, and between my elbow and my rib cage was the underwire of my bra. I think I laughed and groaned at the same time, because of the pain, and because it was such a ridiculous "side-effect".

He asked me if I was all right and that the time I thought I was. But he was very quick to tell me that we got a really great release just at the point where I needed it. Which I apparently failed to notice, being distracted by my underwire's attempt to become a part of my rib cage.

Three days later, I'm still having pain. I've talked to a couple of people who have had broken ribs, and from what they said, if I had one, I would know it. This one only hurts when I cough or sneeze or laugh too loud, or when I turn over onto my side. Unfortunately, I'm in the midst of my allergy season, and on Saturday, I would alternate sneezing and swearing.

Hopefully, this is only some kind of muscle or bone bruise and will get better on its own. But let this be a warning to you ladies: take care where you wear your underwire.

It could be dangerous.

There Ought to Be a Protocol for This

Since last fall, I've been seeing a massage therapist who specializes in myofascial release and realignment, particularly a type called structural integration (which always sounded to me like he was in the business of building bridges). The fascia is the bag of membranes that holds our muscles, ligaments and tendons together, and through accidents, poor posture and other trauma can become twisted and knotted, resulting in chronic pain and limited range of motion. Our aim was to go past what I was doing in physical therapy and make me more flexible, and integrate the use of my muscles against gravity (the technical explanation), or, basically, get me to the point where I could bend down and pick things up and get back to where I was before my back injury.

He is a soft-spoken man, very professional, very focused, and very good. I've seen so many body care workers that I can almost tell immediately, just from the touch of their hands on my body, if I can trust them or not. Marilyn, my late former massage therapist, was like this. As was my physical therapist. And so was this guy. His office space is clean, and open, and sparse. The treatment room consists of a sheet-covered rigid massage table, a bench, and a hook on the wall. A fan spirals overhead, into a white skylight. His personal self is just as minimalist - a white oxford shirt left untucked over jeans, clean-shaven, slender, hair cut close to his scalp.

He didn't like to say much during our sessions -- said he didn't like extraneous conversation -- so I kept my usual chatter to myself, and reserved any speech for technical questions and anatomy lessons (which he was very eager to give, like he'd been waiting for someone to ask.). When he gave me explanations about anatomy -- many of them involving how intricate the human body is and how everything is connected to everything else -- he tended to keep it in medical terms, speaking quickly in that soft voice of his, and often I had to ask him to repeat himself. I would nod along as he spoke, understanding bits and pieces and then more bits and pieces and then almost all of it. I tried to be in the moment during all of our sessions, absorbing what he was doing, and at times, just watching him work, with complete focus. At one point he apologized for talking in such a technical manner, but then I told him that I actually did understand everything he was saying. And this got me one of the few smiles that I ever saw on his face. And I'm all about trying to make people smile. I have to deal with enough serious crap in my life, so it's important to me that my medical team have a sense of humor. It's kind of been my test for everybody that I ever met. If I could make them laugh, then I'd know if they were human, and if any kind of relationship we had would go any further. Getting my physical therapist to laugh is easy. Getting this guy to laugh felt like one of my greatest achievements. I mean, during the course of our professional encounters, as part of the way he had to do the massage on me, we must've looked like some kind of combination of limbs or a clothed Kama Sutra position or like we were playing some bizarre game of Twister. Yes, it was all above board and professional and clinical, but come on. It's so ridiculous you just have to laugh, somewhere, sometime.

I went to him for a good few months, once a week, for hour and a half sessions. And during this time, while he had his hands, knuckles and elbows all over me (some releases need greater leverage), we knew virtually nothing about each other as people. I mean, guys who've gotten not nearly as far have had to buy me dinner first. It just seems so bizarre.

Anyhow, the sort of therapy that he did with me was never designed to be something that you do forever. An offshoot of Rolfing, it was designed to be done in a series of 10-15 weekly sessions, then stopped, and followed up on six months later.

That's for the average person, and because my body is a virtual cash cow for any kind of physical therapist, I had to go to him a little longer. But the time did come for us to have "the discussion." I expected this, and we both kind of came to it at the same time. We worked out a plan where we'd stretch the visits out to two weeks, then three weeks, then once a month, then whenever I needed him.

But a few weeks ago, we reached a wall. I was doing all of the movement exercises that he asked of me, working on my flexibility, working on integrating my muscles together, but even with all that, fibromyalgia at times speaks with its own voice, its own demands. It can grab onto a group of muscles and not let go. I would go to him one week with the same pain in my butt -- for lack of a more descriptive word -- and he would work on loosening all the fascia all around it and it would feel better for a little while, but then the next visit, it was still there.

We were going in circles. At that point -- I always seem to recognize that point, when what I'm doing isn't working, when I keep doing the same thing and expecting different results -- I decided to give chiropractic a try. After all, if one muscle is always annoyed, there could be some kind of nerve impingement involved, or a trigger point, or something that might benefit from having one bone moved away from another.

I told him about all this at our next visit. And he nodded, and said in that quiet voice that he didn't want to muddy the waters, that I was already spending enough money , and perhaps he should just back away for a while so I can see if this protocol would work. And I got this twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I was back in high school and he was breaking up with me. I was already having an emotional kind of day -- with my raging hormones this happens fairly frequently -- and now I had to fight the urge to cry. He wrote a name down on the back of his business card and pushed it across his minimalist glass desk. It was the name of a guy in Manhattan he rarely referred anyone to except for special cases (meaning, I gathered, people he couldn't help any longer). He did the same thing that this guy did, except this one was more of an osteopath, and he said that he might be able to fix what I had with only one visit (which I sincerely doubted). Not only was he breaking up with me, but he was pimping me over to someone else. At least that's what it felt like to me.

I left his office, walked down the long flight of stairs to the street, and exited into blaring sunshine which made me feel a little queasy, and off-center. I felt rootless, homeless, cast adrift. Dammit, I thought, why do I let myself get so attached to these people?

Later on, when I shook some sense back into my head and put this back into perspective, I puzzled over why I have such abandonment issues. Seeing a body worker means putting yourself into a professional relationship. Unless it's something ongoing, like your doctor, your dentist, or your hair stylist, the relationship is going to end at some point. And that's a good thing, because either it means that you're better, or you realize that this person can't help you and you're moving on to someone who might be able to.

About a week passed, and it didn't bother me as much. I was getting chiropractic treatments, and the two of us were starting to feel each other out, so to speak.

Then I ran into my minimalist structural integrationist in the health food store. He was in the vitamin aisle, balancing a baby on his hip. She was dressed in a yellow checkered sunsuit with a matching bonnet.

I didn't even know that he had a baby. In fact, I sort of had the feeling that he was gay. Nothing specific that I could point to, just a sort of feeling. (Not that there's anything wrong with that). And hey, just because you're holding onto a baby doesn't mean you're heterosexual.

I said hello, and he said hello, and I said some other innocuous greeting-type-thing that people say, then the professional veil went over his face and he moved on. I would never know if this was his baby. He could've said, "Oh, hi, this is April, and we're just out getting a few things. Boy, it's hard to find anything in this aisle." Or something like that. And I continued on my way, and he continued on his, and we passed each other again in the produce aisle, and he said, "well, have a nice day," and left. End of conversation.

And I just stood there, staring after him. It didn't seem right. This man had had his hands all over my body. We'd been twisted up together like pretzels, so close that I could, during several sessions, smell the tobacco on a shirt (the only clue I had that he was a smoker) Yes, it was all professional and clinical. I know that we'd only entered into a professional relationship and outside of the office, he only owed me so much, actually, technically, nothing at all. But still. I felt like he owned me a few more words.

Even if it was only introduced me to his child. I would've liked to know her name.

Going Green or Going Crazy?

I've been spending the last week or so doing research for a web article about toxic chemicals in cosmetics. We've already heard about the prescription drugs in the water, the plastics leaching from baby bottles, and this is going to be the next new thing. Apparently there's a lot of buzzing about it in some of the minor press avenues, but it hasn't really hit the mainstream yet.

The big deal is that from cradle to grave, everything that you slather on your body is chock full of chemicals that the FDA does not have to approve as safe. What they basically do, as with tainted meat, poisoned gluten in dog food, and "questionable" medications coming from other countries, is either wait until people get sick or even die to issue a recall and a warning. And still, the recalls can only be voluntary.

The main chemicals that I'm researching are parabens, which are used as preservatives, and phthalates (pronouced "thalates"), a plastic-derived ingredient which can hide in cosmetics as "fragrance."

A small study was done a few years back that showed that parabens have been found in breast tissue. Unfortunately, the study was not large enough or comprehensive enough to show a strong link between parabens and breast cancer, but women who are survivors have been encouraged to use products that do not contain parabens. And some savvy cosmetics manufacturers, sniffing this trend in the wind, have removed parabens from the products altogether, so they can print in large letters on their packaging that they are "paraben free," and look like they are some kind of green heroes, even though those products came in plastic bottles, and probably have all kinds of other chemicals in them that nobody knows about yet.

The phthalates are more insidious. Like the BPAs, the chemicals that are in the news because they are leaching out of baby bottles and are being banned in Canada, phthalates are used to make plastics more flexible. They are also used to make fragrances linger longer, (hence the FDA's allowing them to hide phthalates under the word "fragrance") and they are also used in lipsticks. Several studies have shown that phthalates mess with your hormonal system, especially when used on children and when they are passed on to developing fetuses. Male fetuses can be feminized, and many tests have highlighted the anatomical differences showing up in babies who have had this exposure. And these babies grow up to make more babies. Tests have also shown that babies upon whom certain lotions and creams have been used have tested positive for phthalates in their urine.

The powers that be (for example, the manufacturers of these products, the FDA, and the American Chemical Association) claim that these products are used in such minute amounts that they can be called "safe." But the problem is not single exposure. The problem is that the average woman uses about 16 different products on her body every day, totaling an average of 168 different chemicals, some of which do not have to be named. It's this lifetime of exposure that we don't know about.

And might not know about until people start getting sick.

After all, people once used to think that cigarettes were safe, too.

If you want more information, check out the Environmental Working Group . Or check the safety of your cosmetics at a database they've set up.

Just having that kind of day...

"Take my kibble! Take my catnip!" Just LEAVE ME ALONE!!"

Something to sharpen your creative edge

I found this in Writers Digests' "101 Best Websites for Writers." Give it a try... what you come up with may surprise you.

let me know if you come up with any good ones. My favorite was "Middle children slept beneath the radar."

Weekend fun...

I couldn't resist pointing you toward this. Enjoy. But don't put anyone's eye out...

I Am A Gray American

I remember exactly when I found my first gray hair. Actually, my roommate found it for me. I was twenty-five, and we shared an apartment that spanned the warped second floor of a pre-Victorian house near Boston College. I was coming out of my bedroom as she was coming out of hers, and she looked at me, and grinned. Brooklyn born and bred through and through, she said, pointing at my temple, "There's a gray one. And it's really shiny, too."

Trying to seem non-chalant, I shrugged. Then, when she plopped herself on the couch to watch television, I high-tailed it to the bathroom mirror.

I shouldn't have been surprised. My mother went gray early - she found her first at twenty-one, which I was more than happy to point out coincided with the birth of my older brother. I beat her by four years, but it didn't seem possible for me to be going gray. I felt...so young. When my mother was twenty-five, she had a husband and a house and a mortgage and a car and three children. I had...well, none of that. I even worked for myself, and was doing well enough at it so I only had to work three weeks out of the month.

It just didn't seem fair.

When the grays started asserting themselves into my otherwise lovely auburn locks, I went into deep denial. I covered them with cellophanes, a temporary process that, while it stained my scalp for a few shampoos, did the trick. When I reached the magic percentage of gray that cellophanes would no longer mask, my stylist laid out the awful truth: I had to go permanent.

I didn't like the process. It made my scalp sting and smelled horrific. But the results were...well, damn. I was one hot, twenty-five-looking mama, if I did say so myself.

This went on for years, changing my shade for the season (darker for winter, lighter for summer), until the late nineties or so, when news articles began to appear linking permanent hair dyes with cancer.

I stopped for a time, cut it short so I'd avoid the dreaded two-toned look, then grew it long again.

Then I got tired of being called "ma'am." I was also approaching my fortieth birthday and had made a bargain with myself: I would not hit that dreaded age looking like a "ma'am." I'd lose the twenty-odd pounds I'd let accumulate on my bod, and I'd absolutely nix the gray. (by that time hair dyes had been exonerated and the food-and-cosmetic police moved on to something else)

My stylist was pleased. Husband was pleased. But I looked in the mirror the next morning and nearly cried. It looked so...fake. I'd gotten so used to the "real" me that now I looked like I was sporting a wig.

But I got used to it.

I've been (more or less) keeping up with the "process" ever since.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

The dreaded roots had been growing in (because of various problems I'd had to cancel my regular appointment several times) and they were at least an inch long.

And they were kind of growing on me. I liked the shine of them. I liked the softness of them as I touched the new hair growing in at my part.

And I started thinking: what law says I have to look like I'm twenty-five? Why can't I age gracefully? Husband had gray hair coming in. Nearly every guy around my age I know is going gray. Many of the women, too.

Why not me?

I floated the trial balloon at Husband, and he had no reaction.

So as we drove to the stylist, I told him again (just in case he'd not been paying full attention the last time).

He turned to look at me. "You're really going to not dye your hair? You'll look like some kind of redneck!"

Rednecks of the world, I apologize on his behalf.

But I wasn't deterred. Even when my stylist didn't seem happy with the idea. She laid out the plan, how it would be done over a series of eight-week haircuts. "But you're going to be surprised at how much this will age you," she said, perusing my scalp with her fingers. "You're a good seventy-percent gray now, girl."

Just to hasten it along, I asked her to cut it extra-short.

We'll see how I feel as it grows out. I still have the option of running to her, in tears, and begging for my 7A auburn back.

But maybe I'm really ready not to be twenty-five any more.

Is it me or what?

Here is a photo of Eliot Spitzer and his wife as he first announces his "private matter."















Here is one of New Jersey's Governor Jim McGreevy as he resigns his office for his own extracurricular activity:



Do you get some kind of memo when you enter politics, that when the you-know-what hits the fan that there is a dress code? The wife in "true blue" as she stands by her man, and said man in a power suit with the red striped tie to show his own contrition? Somebody get this memo to W...

Client Number Nine

A Man Named Spitzer (sung to the "Brady Bunch" them song):

Here's the story
Of a girl named Ashley
Who was looking for a way to pay the rent.
Then she found a way to work
And not pay taxes
All she had to do was service wealthy gents.

Here's the story
Of a man named Spitzer
Who was also known as client number nine.

He put a lot of folks in jail
For prostitution
And white-collar crime.

'Til the one day when he transferred too much money
And those he'd once wronged pounced on him with glee
Now this man might have to go to prison
Where he'll do lots of servicing for free...in Cell Block D...
That's the way he destroyed his legacy...


----------------------------------------------

Yes, by now you probably heard the news - Geraldine Ferraro quit the Clinton campaign - no, I mean the sad fate of the governor of New York. Those of you who have read my blog know that I am of a libertarian slant and think that prostitution should be legalized. Still, I think the crime here is not sex for money but of sanctimony, hypocrisy, arrogance, and many other adjectives that all the New York area newspapers have already used so I won't repeat them here.

This leaves me puzzled about two main things. One, how could someone who has put himself up on a pedestal as the crusader against financial crime and prostitution think himself so above the law that he can see prostitutes for nearly a freakin' decade and get a way with it, yet!

Plus, I wonder what the heck do you get for five thousand dollars an hour? I can't even imagine the kind of "services" that one might purchase for this kind of coin. Perhaps the act itself is only a couple hundred, and the rest goes to the fee for the hotel room and hush money.

Apparently, the hush money part didn't work out so well. Probably because while he was attorney general and during his stint as governor he made few political friends, and more than one of his enemies probably rubbed his hands together with glee when he started putting the pieces together - the cash transfers, the out of town visits (when he told the state police to take a powder), and various other shenanigans.

I'm just glad that he decided to resign instead of digging in his heels and making the state go through an impeachment procedure. The only positive than that I can say about Spitzer now is that we don't have to be put through another round of parsing out the meaning of sex and the definition of the word "is."

Now let us all bow our heads and say thanks, and hope that his lawyer wife won't bounce his ass back to the stone age, and let us all simply move on.

"Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln..."

I fear that this blog lately is becoming the obituary column.

But I just found out today that someone that I knew for very long time passed away back in October. Her name was Marilyn, and she was my massage therapist for almost fifteen years before she developed ovarian cancer and had to stop her practice. When someone has their hands on you for that long, you can't help but grow close, and very often we'd wind up gabbing all the way through our session and for while afterward, in her sunny, cheerful, but wonderfully humanly messy kitchen.

And these humanly messy qualities were among the things that were so wonderful about her. She loved to laugh and dance and cook and have fun, and as she was Cajun, she had spent her vacations in New Orleans visiting relatives where she probably laughed and danced.

Her love for life was dimmed only briefly by her chemotherapy and radiation, and after the surgery and first round, she gained enough strength to see some of her clients, usually only one per day. And when I hurt my back and couldn't come to her, she offered to come to me. That never worked out though, as each day that our appointment came turned out to be a bad day for her and she eventually told me that I should look for someone else, "so I won't keep pissing you off."

It was a struggle to find someone to replace her. I knew I could never replace "her," but after a period of trial and error (mostly error...I mean, how do you replace a professional who knows what's wrong with your body just by watching you come through the door?) , I did find a new massage therapist, in fact, I often gravitate among two or three of them depending on what I need. And even after I stopped seeing her professionally, we got together once a month or so for lunch, and she always offer me an ear - when she had the strength to listen - during that awful period of my life when everything seem to be hitting me at once.

I don't remember the last time I saw her. Probably it was at one of those lunches, at the Joyous Cafe on Broadway, where we'd compare aches and pains and she told me what this or that massage therapist should be doing for me, and things I could do myself, and we'd laugh, and laugh.

That's what I'll remember most. Hands as well as a heart that always seemed to know what I needed. And this - at one of those lunches, after she updated me on the status of her blood count and the new chemo she was about to try, she floated this idea at me. "Do you think it would be too weird to throw myself a funeral?"

I thought a moment. I don't believe anyone in the whole of my life had ever asked me such a question.

"I mean," she said, "People say all the good stuff about you after you die. I want to be around to hear it."

I believe I said that I thought it would be a great thing to do.

And, sure enough, a month or so later I got an invitation in the mail. Husband thought it was horrifically morbid, and refused to go. But I still liked the idea. And admired her for doing it. I even RSVP'd.

But come the night of the service, I chickened out. I got dressed, I put on my jacket, and then just started to cry. And cry, and cry, and cry.

She forgave me for not coming. "Not everyone can handle it," she said, and just continued our conversation.

And even though she told me about, oh, eight or so months ago that she might be too tired to talk, it would be OK if I left messages or sent emails. Every time I thought of her I'd call and leave a message, or if I found a card I thought she'd find funny I sent it.

It's a kind of disembodying experience to find out that someone you thought so close to you had died five months after the fact. And in the most random of ways. I happened to pick up an oncology group newsletter while I was waiting to have my yearly mammogram, and there was a box headed "In Loving Memory" with her name listed below. But I can hardly blame her husband. Having just been through the same experience, I know that he probably had enough to handle without having to call all of her ex-customers.

I just hope that she went out of this life the way she lived it: brave, laughing, and definitely out loud.

100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year

If you're sick of politics, here are a bunch of trivial items to amuse, confuse and annoy you...

I absolutely don't know why it's best to harvest rhubarb by candlelight, but I'm sure someone spent a lot of money on a study to find out.

The Period At The End Of The Sentence

I had no idea how many little details are involved in the ending of someone's life. I don't mean the actual death, the trips to the hospital, the phone calls we made (and forgot to make) letting everyone know. I mean the small, stupid stuff. Like what to do with the person's things. Did they have a preference for how they may be disposed of? That dress that you always thought was so hideous, was that the one that she wanted so and so to have, or thought too good to stuff in the bag for the Salvation Army?

And in the end, no pun intended, we just throw up our hands and hope for the best, And as I left my former mother-in-law's former apartment for the last time this afternoon, I apologized to her for anything that we might have done with her earthly belongings that was not in accordance to her wishes, but telling her that we did the best we could, having no direction whatsoever.

But I also mean the really stupid things. For instance, I took on the task of canceling her utilities and accounts and taking care of her taxes. The different ways in which utilities, credit cards, health insurance plans have for putting that period on the end of the sentence vary greatly and are sometimes amusing, although they probably did not intend this to be so.

For instance, after I canceled her Netscape account, I got a very polite letter from customer service, addressed to her name, which invited her, should her circumstances change in the future, to reinstate her account. Although I think that where she is now, she can do lot better than communicating through Netscape. Now that would make seances much more definitive. "I'm getting something..." the astrologer would say. "I'm getting something and...YOU'VE GOT MAIL!"

I also made a polite suggestion to the telephone company to change the name of the department which handles such things from "terminations" to something a little less dramatic, and, well, horrific, like "disconnections." Yes I know it's just semantics, but when you are dealing with a recently bereaved family member, sometimes the little things matter.

Apparently, our county legislator believes so, too. Shortly after Social Security was notified of her passing, we got a very polite letter with his condolences on our recent loss.

Just when you want to really hate politicians, they go and do something all warm and fuzzy.

But now we go forward. Having gotten all her things out of her abode, they are now mostly in ours. If you're into romance novels, have we got a bodice-ripping bonanaza here for you! Seriously, I mean it. Take a book. Please.

As I look forward to the sorting, the giving away, the throwing out (mostly looking forward to this so we can return our home to its normal state of messiness and not this mother-in-law-of-all-garage-sales that it has become), I think about the things themselves. Things have energy. And these things, they're buzzing with it. I wonder, if someone is really intuitive, if they can chart a kind of map as to where they've been. Who has touched them. The story behind that knife, that vase, that framed print that no one seemed to particularly like but kept passing from person to person because of some sentimental value.

Seems as though I have a lot of stories to write. I've been dithering about starting to write again, but maybe it starts with this. A dog-eared romance novel. A scarf. A plate.

I can't wait to begin.

Ashes to ashes...

This Sunday will mark two weeks since my mother in law passed away. For those if you who did not know, after a three-week stay in the critical care unit, after three weeks of agonizing pain and suffering while rapidly metastasizing breast cancer filled and re-filled her lungs with fluid, Husband and his sister made some difficult decisions to let nature take its course, and we watched her gradually slip into a calm and peaceful death.

And this is about the hardest thing that I've ever had to write, but since she always loved my writing and always read this blog, I couldn't let any more time pass without acknowledging her and thanking her for her unflagging support, and, as always, for giving birth to my husband.

Yes, we're all exhausted and very sad, and it will take some time to work through our grief, but I want to take a break from that and share a story from a happier time. She always loved our house - in fact, Husband often says that she liked it more than we did - and one thing that we both liked was when she came over and showed me how to cook some of her famous recipes. For years, we'd go to her house, and she would make us all those wonderful dishes that Husband loved so much - chicken soup, lasagne, pot roast. I wanted to make them for him, and I asked her for recipes, and she'd say, "What recipes? I don't write these things down. One day, I'll show you."

So she'd come over. Rolling her eyes at my soup pots that were inadequate ("So we'll make less, but you guys need a bigger pot!" she'd say.), her own spices in tow (even though I had my own). She'd park her pocketbook on the table and get to work. In went the chicken I'd purchased - with her very clear direction on exactly what kind to get ("Fryers, you gotta get fryers."). In went the water, the parsnips (the shopping for which was a comedy of errors that became a scene in one of my novels, as Husband couldn't tell a parsnip from a parsec), the carrots, the dill. Lots and lots of dill.

Then you simply cook until done. Oh, and while it's simmering, you have to skim the fat off the top. I skimmed, while she went out for a smoke.

When I'm up to making soup again, I'll think of her. And now, when I walk into the house and see her pocketbook on the shelf, below the green marble urn that holds her ashes, (yes, after a week of sitting mental shiva for her I was finally able to joke that I was certain she'd be living with us one day) part of me simply thinks she's out for a smoke, and she'll be back in a minute.

She quit smoking years ago, when she was first diagnosed. But I'll still see her bitty body on our deck, leaning up against a railing, letting the ashes fly into the wind.

Just call me Earl Grey

"You never know how strong a woman is until you put her in hot water."

I wish I knew who to attribute this quote to, but I don't remember. I don't remember a lot of things lately. I look at the calendar and marvel at how time passes. And I know it does; I have signs. The gas tank empties and I fill it, my prescription bottles and the cupboards empty and I refill them, It doesn't seem real that just over two weeks ago, we were embroiled in this primary or that caucus, flipping back and forth between campaign poll results and football games. And now the insignificance of it all makes me laugh, except I don't have the energy to laugh, and it all comes out as this tiny, bird-like sigh.

Husband's mother is still in the hospital, still in Intensive Care, still on the ventilator. The fluid that keeps filling her lungs (technically pneumonia but really from the cancer) prevents her from breathing on her own without a choking gasp. She's being weaned off of the apparatus, slowly, to avoid too much distress, to avoid damage to her vocal cords. She's still in there, she wants to talk, she tries to spell words with her fingers, but she's so doped up it's hard to understand her. "Are you in pain?" we ask, and she shakes her head. "Are you just plain frustrated?" we ask, and she nods, her eyes open wide.

It's surreal. Someone who was once so chatty now reduced to sign language. Anyone in the same situation would be frustrated. Nurses in your face day and night, sticking your finger to check your blood sugar, pumping you full of yet another drug, talking about you like you're no longer in the room.

And that's where I've been, faithful readers who've probably gone on to other, more regularly published blogs. No secret mission this time. Still on deadline but in between interviews and Google searches and first and second drafts, I've been running to and from the hospital (fortunately only ten or so minutes away), packing healthy snacks, making sure we have enough food for when we come home, exhausted, to forage for dinner and give family members the daily update then collapse into the couch staring blankly at the television screen without really seeing. It's an odd kind of exhaustion. How much energy spent by a body for merely sitting in a chair! Or holding a hand, or massaging a foot, or fetching a nurse for a mug of hot water - to warm my chills away, to dip my psychic tea bag for yet another cup.

The Level Playing Field

First of all, it’s good to be back. I was hard at work on my first big freelance assignment since hanging out my shingle. It was for a web magazine, and my task was to motivate readers to improve their health so they won’t have to pay for higher health insurance premiums when the consequences of their bad habits catch up with them. Among others, I interviewed lots of consultants, an adventure in itself, and I’ll tell you more in detail what I learned later on.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

I was momentarily shocked (or maybe I wasn’t) when I heard the list of alleged steroid users in baseball, among them some of my favorite players. (Johnny, how could you?) Putting aside the argument for the moment that HGH (human growth hormone) is given to help heal injuries faster and in some drug trials, has been used as a treatment for fibromyalgia, this issue, I think, is more about the entertainment factor in baseball rather than sport.

I mean, didn’t all this business start after the strike in the mid 90s? Owners wanted butts in the seats, and what better way than to give them hard-hitting home run sluggers? So have we then crossed the line even farther into entertainment?

Steroid use is called cheating by some, but in the entertainment field, things like this are done all time under the guise of getting more work and getting more butts in the seats. Actresses get their faces done, even some actors, and the breast implant and liposuction businesses are booming. Do we call these men and women cheaters, and deny them their Oscars and their stars on the walk of fame, and put an asterisk next to their names in the record books? No. The world lined up to see Angelina Jolie’s breasts star in “Tomb Raider”, and many, many actresses are still getting work as romantic leads into their 40s, 50s, and 60s, looking like women half their age thanks to Botox and other "injectibles."

I’m not saying this is right either. I just think we shouldn’t judge baseball players so harshly. Yes, they make a boatload of money, but so does Pamela Anderson.

Secret Agent Penguin

Op is off on assignment... will be back soon...

Hell In The Name Of Health

It’s been a while since I gave you an update on the various procedures I’ve been plunging into all in the name of improving my health, so here goes:

I’d been feeling kind of crappy for a while, with various digestive complaints, headaches, and a general uptick in the number of fibro flares I had been experiencing. So while I was at the swanky spa, I took the opportunity to have some blood tests done. Among other things, they revealed that I have a systemic yeast overgrowth. This is when the normally present candida takes over your system, crowding out the other good bacteria and causing all kinds of havoc, including digestive problems, skin problems, sinus infections, allergies of all stripes, and general annoyance. Also, it estimated that up to 90 percent of people with fibromyalgia have a yeast imbalance. It can be exacerbated by stress, antibiotic use, and steroid use, among other things. (hopefully this is not too much information for you guys, in fact, you guys can get this as well).

Treatment began with a regimen of various herbal concoctions and probiotics, which I was to stay on for four weeks and then report back to the doctor. I followed this down to the last crossed T and dotted I, e-mailed the results back to the doctor (which, I’m sorry to say, were little to none) and then I didn’t hear from him for three weeks. Finally as a result of my patented abilities to nag, I got his reply.

Now, in this interim period, I’d been doing some research, and learned through a variety of books (one recommended by Husband’s sister, thank you so much), web sites, and other doctors, that there is a special diet that I should have been following as well as taking the herbs.

Yes, the spa doctor told me, I should have been following this diet (which he failed to tell me about) and included it with his return e-mail.

On the web, and in the books, I’d seen some diets that were fairly…well, Spartan would be a generous term. All of them involved eliminating sugar in all forms, alcohol, fruit juices, and several other things, but none of them were as restrictive as this one. I thought I was eating healthfully before: no sugar, caffeine, fruit juice, alcohol, etc. I had brown rice, and organic cereal, and rice milk instead of dairy. That, I thought, (plus my daily dose of an apple or a few blueberries) would be enough.

But no.

The doctor’s diet consisted basically of vegetables and meat. I’m serious. For four weeks, I am encouraged to eat nothing but lean cuts of meat, eggs, non-starchy vegetables, a variety of nuts and seeds, and for fun, a daily cup of nonfat plain yogurt and a cup of beans of any kind, plus a spritz of lemon juice just to spice things up. Yippee!! I used to make fun of people who were on the South Beach and Atkins diets (you know who you are) but now I was developing a new sympathy with them. And how did you make that mashed cauliflower stuff that was supposed to taste like mashed potatoes? Oh, right. It was made with apples. Which I can’t have.

I’ve been at this for two days now, and it hasn’t been as much of the challenge as I thought (the promised cravings haven’t taken place yet; or perhaps I’m still in shock). It has, however, challenged what I’ve grown to think of as meals. For example, this morning I looked down at my breakfast plate and saw the following: two hard-boiled eggs and a stalk of celery stuffed with almond butter. And I thought, this is not breakfast. This is the money shot for “Snax: Erotica For Anorexic Celebrities.”

Fortunately, the sadists (I mean, people) who devised this minimalist diet also were kind enough to give me a few pages of recipes, including something called “Tofu Mash,” which I’m just dying to try (not).

The doctor also still wants me to take the same herbal concoctions as before, but with a twist. He suggested I take something called grapefruit seed extract. Just to throw a hand grenade at the little beasties, in case the bunker buster failed to work. Luckily, the friendly folks of my local health food are used to me asking for all kinds of bizarre things). I was supposed to take fifteen drops in 6 ounces of warm water twice a day between meals.

Now, I am used to swallowing all kinds of nasty substances (no off-color comments please), but this one… this one could take rust off a bicycle. It could peel paint from the hull of a ship. It could take the makeup off Hillary Clinton’s face. After I downed the first glass, I thought I could feel my teeth dissolving, and ran to brush my teeth to get that godawful taste out of my mouth.

But hey, maybe the diet will actually work. I’ll wrestle those little yeast beasts to the ground, and lose those last few pounds.

And the very least, I’ll have very clean teeth.

Hey, It Could Be True...

The heck with the writers' strike! You can find all your fake TV news items right here...

Televangelist Performs Miracle.
When Rev. Pat Robertson gave his endorsement to Rudy Giuliani instead of a pro-life Republican, John McCain said he was “speechless.” It was reportedly the first time in recorded history that a politician had made that claim. The Vatican is investigating.

Drugs, Not Hugs:
Now that hugging other children is illegal in Alabama schools, teachers will be giving them Ritalin so they will focus on their work and keep their hands to themselves. If successful, Hillary Clinton will administer the drug to her husband.

Brewery’s Plan To “Go Green” Is Thwarted:
“If Nancy Pelosi can pollute with her private jet and get out of it by purchasing those energy credits,” a rep from Anheiser-Busch said, “why can’t we?” Al Gore called a press conference to clarify that he meant “carbon credits,” not “carbonated credits.”

Priest Was Only Trying To Be A Scab:
A Boston priest, arrested for stalking Conan O’Brien, claims he was only trying to give the late-night talk show host his writing samples, should he need extra staff during the strike. Conan said the jokes weren’t bad, except too many of them began, “A priest and a rabbi went into a bar…”

Hollywood Writers Strike!
When asked for his take on the situation, one of the writers on the picket line said, “________________”

VP Shoots Man:
During a hunting trip, an Iowa man was shot by his dog. The “dog” turned out to be Dick Cheney, who had forgotten to remove his Halloween costume while stumping for John McCain.

"Oh, Brave New World..."

Just for fun, I've been rereading the classics that I was made to study in school. Hopefully now, without having to write essays about metaphors and such, I can simply sit back and enjoy them.

First up is "Brave New World." And it is sending chills up my spine. Almost seventy years later, the book not only still holds up, but is creepily prescient. The world that Huxley imagined is upon us. The cult of the automobile. Promiscuity. In-vitro fertilization. Genetic Engineering. Aromatherapy. There is even a drug named "Soma," (which muffles signals from the central nervous system) but it might as well have been reality shows. Or Starbucks. Or all the ways that society has engineered to keep us distracted and happy.

It's a vision of the future that, while arguably has come as true as 1984, is a little more spot on.

I'll let you know what's on the table next.

While not a classic, I just finished reading a little book titled "Conservatize Me," By John Moe. It's a bit of a spoof on the documentary from a few years ago, "Super Size Me," but in this version, Mr. Moe crafts his 30-day experiment as follows: a self-described liberal democrat who works for a public radio station in Seattle immerses himself into the "conservative" world, to see if he can make himself become conservative by osmosis. It's a bit stereotypical - meaning that in choosing his influences he shops at Wal-Mart, listens to Country/Western music, learns to shoot a gun, and changes his brand of beer, just for starters.

If you care to read it, I won't spoil the ending. But as he went upon his journey, actually talking to conservatives, reading their books, and living (his version) of their lives, he actually ended up in a less stereotypical place then I thought he would.

Overall, this was an amusing journey.