Massage!

I had a massage today. Oh, Lordy me, put a dollar in the bucket, doesn't it feel wonderful?!

For thousands of years, men and women have suffered pain and discomfort related to anything from overexertion (chasing mastodons or racing marathons) to bad eating habits (grub worms & gruel or double whoppers & ding dongs). Add the stress of day-to-day living, (and certain T.V. shows) and one is left miserably plagued by sore muscles, fatigue, and general malaise.

For years, medical experts from Hippocrates to modern day physicians have used therapeutic massage to relieve those aches and pains. And with good reason: IT FEELS AWESOME!!

I needed to loosen up the mire that collects after months of walking long distances. Not all at once, of course, that would lead me somewhere near Fargo, and I know no one there. Walking is the major exercise I do anymore. I used to dance, skate and bike ride to the point where I panted heavily and collapsed in a dizzying, sweaty, but gleeful pile of endorphins. I can’t do that any more. Instead, I can dance, skate and bike ride to the point of, “Oh, that’s nice, let’s go see grandma.” 

I miss that endorphin load. 

My massage therapist, let’s call her Vladimir (sorry, J, artistic license-you know I think you’re magical and quite lovely), sends me traveling along Gothic byways and steamy beaches, jogging with Arabians (the horses, I’m thinking, but who knows?), howling at the moon, lightly stepping across a pebbly stream….

And cringing in barely-contained agony. 

Vladimir works on my knotted muscles like she’s trying to mold Mount Rainier to fit in a matchbox.

So, I’m lying there, dimly-lit room, comfy massage table, dainty trickling music—-with an open-mouthed silent scream, as if surrendering to the entire crush of mankind.

But, oh, does it ever feel good. It is good.

Afterward, I’m bounding out of there, 15 years younger. 

Endorphins! I can’t wait to go back.

I'll take those egg yolks, please

Yesterday, hubby and I walked (4,890 steps, thank you very much) to Panera for breakfast, and I noticed on the menu that they still offered an egg-white sandwich. For heaven's sake, isn't that craze over? Hasn't the pendulum swung way over to the side of reasonableness where egg yolks, butter and dairy products are again acceptable? Yessiree, I believe it has.

 In the meantime, what happened to all those egg yolks? I've never seen a food establishment offer an all-egg-yolk anything. 

Isn't the yolk really the only part of the egg that's yummy? Who looks at that glutinous, snotty glob of white and think, "Drool city, I'm gonna dive right into that ASAP?"  It's only the yolk that makes the white palatable. You don't dip a piece of toast into egg white. You don't make deviled eggs with egg white. And Hollandaise with egg white?  You'd end up with something better suited for, uh, the boudoir.

That got me thinking about all of the various food dictates over the years. Once, I calculated that if one ate all of the daily magic food recommendations: blueberries, miso, fava beans, quinoa, goji berries, chia seeds, steel cut oats, sprouted grain bread, avocado, nuts, kefir, yams, coconut oil, etc., etc., one would consume approximately10,000 calories a day. 

A walk of 4,890 steps, even round trip, wouldn't touch that caloric hippo. 

So, at Panera yesterday, hubby had a toasted sesame bagel with peanut butter and I had the egg and cheese breakfast sandwich.  

And we shared a muffie.  

If you feel uncomfortable, it's someone's fault

Political correctness is stretching into higher and higher levels of absurdity. The latest big bad wolf to dare chomp on the precious consciousness of mankind (and womankind) is . . . college reading material.  

"Trigger warnings" are now issued before assigning such radical books as The Great Gatsby (drinking and caterwauling make non-drinkers and non-caterwaulers feel inadequate); Catch 22 (soldiers portrayed as depressed and non-heroic undermine the very sanctity of society),  and Dr. Susan Love's Bre__st Book. (For obvious reasons, ooh).

This bothers me. I suppose not to the level of pointing fingers or losing sleep or giving me nightmares or being lawsuit material. It makes me feel like we’re headed toward a reverse Darwinism. Let the weakest, dumbest, most sensitive, least capable humans run the world. (I know some would say that’s already happening.)

Others defend the practice saying that if we’re always attentively attuned to the slightest possibility of offense to anyone at all times, we will become a kinder, gentler nation. Looks pretty good on paper, doesn’t it?

I don’t think so. 

There will always be someone willing to push the limit. There will always be someone who, if their current anxiety is acknowledged and stroked and dutifully tsk’ed tsk’ed, will find something even more ludicrous to declare to be offended by. If they’re shredded by hearing a swear word or by reading about a bitchy woman, their next step will be cowering at a walk light that suddenly turns. “I was all ready to go, and BOOM, the light changed. I am so upset and discombobulated and insecure and I’m afraid to take ANOTHER STEP. EVER. What other changes will confront me?!! I shouldn’t have to suffer so.”

I don’t think “trigger warnings” do anything to promote strength, confidence and well-adjustment. If we’re not trying to encourage those fine attributes, what exactly are we encouraging? 

The One Major Barrier to Winning the Presidency

As everyone knows, your average joe-in-the-bowling-alley is not apt to make it to the Presidency. First, he's likely too smart to want the job, but also he's not keen on anything cutting into his lengthy bowling schedule.

On the other hand, if he truly dreamed, craved, and worked hard for the job, he has a shot.

Unless he has a young son, then he can just forget it.

Having a boy child is the number one impediment to winning the Presidency. Think about it. In my lifetime, there has never been a President who had a young son living at the White House. JFK was there for a tiny period before he was eliminated, but maybe (and I've always wanted to use this in a sentence that made sense) he's the exception that proves the rule.

So, I've wondered Why? What is it about young sons that precludes an otherwise completely qualified person from winning the Presidency? I've come up with a few theories:

1.  Maybe the man, and so far it's only been men, who has daughters feels incomplete as a man, and that inadequacy drives him even more fiercely toward the Highest Job in the Land. Where you live real close to that tall, majestic, pointy, white thing.  I'll call that the Freudian reason.

2.  Maybe the man with daughters and a wife, being surrounded by so much female awesome-ness, naturally and easily rides the wave of that support, brilliance and nurturing straight into the Great Beach House. Let's call that the Friedan reason.

3.  Maybe it's because boys are just such little doofuses. (O.K., I'm speaking generally, am not talking about your precious son, g-son, nephew, neighbor, boyfriend, etc.) A little American boy tends to be harder to control, more likely to be caught sticking a french fry up his nose, re-arranging his crotch, looking stupid when he should be angelic, and so forth. The candidate "arrangers", and later, the White House "arrangers" have a hard enough time keeping tabs on the President, let alone a pre- or post-hormonal boy. This is, of course, the French Fry reason.

4.  Maybe it's because, well, just because. The Fickle Hand of Fate reason.

If anyone has any other theories on this apparent phenomenon, I'd love to hear it!

It's tough to be perfect in a world of A-Holes

I'm sure all my FB friends can relate; we're all perfect in our own inimitable ways, aren't we? :)

I've been busy spending the past few months immersed in domestic husbandry of various sorts.  But an event happened this evening that compelled me to break my silence.

Hubby and I were walking home from a great (and cheap) local happy hour. It was raining and we had no umbrellas but were mostly afraid of getting our library books wet. I know, sounds like I'm piling it on, but this is really our life. (I've got to hurry this along so we don't miss Jeopardy). 

There's always a long line of traffic along Sunset in Issaquah, every evening, no fail. Hundreds of cars, just moseying along, hoping to be among the 7 or so cars that make it through the next green-light cycle. I have to believe that the drivers subject themselves to this torture every evening, because maybe it's the only time they have to themselves. I don't know. 

As we walked past this line of cars, suddenly one pick-up truck, one hopped-up, morbidly obese, bottom-dwelling, black behemoth revved his engine, spewing out a black cloud of fetid smoke. He moved maybe 10 feet, spewed out another cloud. An identical white truck behind him, then did the exact thing. Hubby walked over to white truck and just shook his head, white behemoth opened the passenger window and cackled at him.  

We both wondered, why would anyone do such a thing? In my infinite wisdom, I came up with 3 possible theories:

1. Of course the obvious: "My penis is only 2 inches but when I'm smokin' I feel like John Holmes." 

2.  "Who needs a high school diploma or heaven forbid a degree when I can spew black smoke from my bottom-dwelling truck?"

3.  "I wish they'd bring back the draft, so I could learn to be a humble, life-fearing, respectful human being and learn some perspective about important things instead of just being an a-hole."

OK, that third one is just pie-in-the-sky. (But makes you think, don't it? [Mmmm, donuts. But I digress])

When we got home, hubby googled it and by gonads it's an actual phenomenon. Apparently it's called something like "Rolling Coal" and it's supposed to be the ultimate expression of displeasure with all things Obama and liberal. Wow, blow me over with a feather. How could I not have immediately associated such an action with its intended, uh, intention? Such power, such masculinity, such sweaty-hold-me-down 'til I scream virility. How could I have missed that?! 

I guess when you have nothing but black smoke going for you, you have to use it to your best advantage. 

Appreciation, a lost art

I came across an article I saved from 2013, about how Civil War benefits are still being paid out to a couple of people, two children of Civil War veterans. Of course, they are "children" now in purely the semantic sense, they are elderly, in their 80s.  The benefit amount is about $876 per year, which is approximately $45 in 1872 money.  

It made me think of all the lost pensions of those who worked for companies that took a dive in the past few decades.  Or all the companies that mismanaged/merged/acquired/re-located themselves out of any financial responsibility toward so many who worked for them loyally for so long.  

Like sheep, we've come to accept that treatment as part of doing business with business.  We really have no other choice. No one protects our interests in this.

Those who are government-haters and corporate-lovers should take heed.  

Wouldn't it be wonderful to live in a world where businesses and corporations would show the same sense of respect and duty that our government does toward those who work for it? Toward those who deserve it? And to keep paying for over 100 years to survivors?  

I know that $876 per year is not a living wage. But it represents an acknowledgment of a promise. One that will be kept as long as necessary.  What business these days can provide the same?

If Affluenza, why not Ebpoora?

OK, you'll have to bear with me--lots of thoughts going down here, but I do have a point. 

Following a more-than-lovely Thanksgiving holiday, shared with my family, for the first time in our home, lots of disturbing news events reared their heads to squelch the warm fuzzies.

I'll recap a bit, although no one likes to focus on this stuff:

•     A local woman, poor and ill, was refused entry in a motel, despite pre-payment for same by a third party. No, not her pimp.  

•     A hit-and-run driver killed a local elderly janitor pedestrian, who was on his way to work downtown.    

•     A woman was stabbed in the back while she was scraping ice off her windshield.

•     Another woman was stabbed in the back in broad daylight near the Cinerama.         

•     Several high-profile killings of black men, for no apparent reason, other than lack of a better idea.   

And on and on. The inequity of some of these incidents pains me. I mean, if certain rich, white kids are caught driving drunk and killing people, for instance, a phrase is coined to excuse their behavior:  Affluenza. And everyone nods and smiles and says, "Well, then, that's completely understandable."

Why can't they equally coin a phrase such as Ebpoora? It seems to me that lifelong, gut-wrenching, brain-deadening poverty should be a more justifiable excuse for some folks' behavior. Instead, poverty is an excuse to be mistreated or killed.  

When constant depressing news has me stumped for writing ideas, or rather, not stumped for ideas, but preferring not to rage on and on about injustice and stupidity, etc., as I'm wont to do, I turn to my trusty DARE (Dictionary of American Regional English). I only have only one volume, D-H, but it provides a wealth of ideas. (Volume I, "Intro - C" is on my wish list).

As if channelling the rank thoughts in my brain, devilry, if you will, the first selections that caught my eye were was in the "devil" category. Pages and pages of devil-this and devil-that.  Devil in the bush. Devil's Bit. Devil's Claw. Devil's Guts. Devil's Snuffbox. Devil's Shoestring. And they're nearly all plants.  Who would have thought that mere plants could inspire such perfidy? I guess they're named for such characteristics as being sticky, stinky, poisonous, or deadly. 

Which links perfectly with what's going on in the news.  I think society has been eternally dabbed with the Devil's Paintbrush.