protecting those you love

In the fall of 1999, three things happened. My mom and I went on a retreat to the Poconos. The day we returned, Hurricane Floyd swept up the East Coast. I reveled in the magnificence of the wind before the storm, and mom spent her time unpacking, cleaning, and doing laundry, just in case the electricity went out. Then the third thing happened. My grandfather had a heart attack that resulted in a bypass surgery and ten years of complications. My mom wasn't home at the time, she was helping a neighbor fight the flooding effects of Floyd. My dad took the call, told us, and swore us to secrecy so he could tell Mom properly. The electricity went out, so we went to Pop's Grill for dinner, and that was how mom found out her dad might die.

Dad had to sit on the news and not say anything until the proper time.

In another instance, a friend of mine was out with her boyfriend. Her mother called asking to speak to the boyfriend, and he immediately took her home, but wouldn't share with her what was said on the phone. When she got home, she received the news of a death in the family.

In yet another instance, another friend of mine knew something was going on because the phones had been ringing. She asked her father what was wrong, he looked at her and silently headed out to his car in the middle of the night. She did not learn the news of a friend's death until the proper time.

These and countless other stories make me wonder. What is it about the human nature that makes us hold bad news inside to protect the ones we love? Instead of telling them so they will help lighten our load, we instead hold it in (even if they ASK) so that they do not experience the pain we are going through by our knowledge.

Is this a noble human trait? Or is it a flaw that causes us unneeded pain? Is our pain somehow made lighter by knowing that our loved one is not hurting too?

exercise

They say that when you start working in the student clinic giving 4 or 5 one-hour-long massages a night, you burn a lot of calories and lose weight. The most petite girl in my class piped up with "Damn, I'm going to die." We joked about having to feed her intravenously while she gave massages, so that she would have enough energy to keep her alive. Clinic has been ok for me; I haven't lost weight yet.

I did begin some exercise videos though, because I haven't been on the jujitsu mat since October and I thought I ought to do something that bends my legs and elevates my heart rate every once in a while. My body is really messed up. A lot of people exercise, and feel good about the exercise, so they try to eat lots of healthy foods to keep their diet in line with their exercise routine. I, on the other hand, finish a yoga workout and crave candy bars I don't even like. I wonder if all the massage I've been doing lately has kept my metabolism active enough that now that I am exercising again, my body is craving pure fats and sugars to replenish.

Or is it just a mental thing?

A better rant.

http://www.xanga.com/ordinarybutloud/693450779/i-hope-obama-can-do-something-about-my-weight-problem/

I have something to say to the above blogger.

Obama is not God. He cannot make you health conscious. He cannot make you thin because he does not have a magic wand. He cannot make you intelligent.

That comes from YOU.

1. Don't eat hot dogs for lunch. Don't eat veggie dogs for lunch. If you want to be healthy, don't eat anything processed whether its soy or real meat.
2. Don't eat Fritos for lunch.
3. Do more than walking for exercise.
4. The government can't help you lose weight. They can pay for your liposuction if you convince them to. But I watched a cadaver video today and I learned exactly what liposuction does. It is NOT the answer. It messes your body up.
5. Fake butter is just as bad as real butter. If you want it to taste good, use herbs to season it. They count as leafy greens.
6. Don't eat bagels. One bagel has the carb count of 9 slices of bread.
7. Don't drink diet soda. Studies have shown that in the long run, fake sugar makes you think its ok to eat bad food at other times of the day, and increases your hunger in general.
8. Don't drink soda. You don't need it. Water down some fruit juice.
9. Don't drink alcohol. Limit yourself to a glass of wine a day. No beer, you will get a gut.
10. Dark chocolate, the way that you eat it, is not good for you. The bar of dark chocolate that is sitting in front of me contains 22 grams of fat, 68% of your recommended intake for saturated fat, and 16 grams of sugar, because lets face it, even the dark chocolate has to taste good or else it won't sell. If you somehow got your hands on a bag of raw, unprocessed cacao beans, you would have a wonderful supply of antioxidants and magnesium. Unfortunately, it would also have 12 grams of fat per ounce; 7 of those would be saturated fat. I know this because there's a bag of raw unprocessed cacao beans sitting in front of me.
11. "I probably eat more calories than I burn on a regular basis" Thats another problem.
12. "but it is impossible for me to do anything else because the past few administrations have conspired against me... high-calorie, cheap food, a crazed, busy lifestyle with no time to exercise, and all those pesky viruses the kids bring home." The government MAKES you buy Doritos and takes away all your time to exercise AND infects your kids with viruses on purpose???
13. "We face more problems with obesity every day, and yet the Bush Administration did NOTHING for eight long years to help us lose weight and look better." Bush cared about your fat asses enough to send my brothers to Afghanistan so you could continue to sit in your lazy chair getting fatter instead of getting bombed by someone who hates the fact that you are allowed to live in a capitalist society and buy all the junk food you want whenever you want, and wear tight shirts and shorts that ride up your crack even though it makes some people puke a little in the backs of their throats just to look at you.

Bottom line, if you don't want to be fat, work for it. Limit your portions, exercise, don't eat junk, and educate yourself on proper diet and exercise. Many people get fat because they don't know the effect their "diet plan" will have on their body.

Valentine/Birthday

I mentioned to a few of you that I had some plans with Steve for his birthday and Valentine's Day. You all asked me how they went, so here's the story:

On Valentine's Day, Steve and I both worked. Well, he worked. I worked and shopped for the perfect gift for him, which I had in my mind but couldn't find anywhere. I spent 3 hours Friday searching for it, and finally on Saturday I was directed to an Asian market that might have it, "because Asians have that kind of thing." Wow, did the lady on the phone really just say that? Yes, she did, but she was right. The Asians DID have it.

Sunday morning I went to the early service late, because I thought my church's early service started at 9:30 when actually they start at 9. Now I know. I think I did know that already I just got mixed up.

Anyway then I went down to New Brunswick for an Asian-themed birthday party, complete with Philippino pork rolls, miso soup, and home-made sushi rolls. Sushi rice takes FOREVER to make. First, it can't be any old rice. You have to get sushi rice. Then, you have to wash it 300 times. Then you let it dry for a half hour, then you let it soak for a half hour. Then you cook it like normal rice (40 minutes or so) and then you put sushi vinegar (not just any old vinegar) on it and stir it in front of a fan so it will cool rapidly. Then it is done, and stickier than peanut brittle in Florida.

Of course, we cannot forget the balut. Sheelah brought another Asian delicacy known as balut. It is basically, a fertilized, hard boiled duck egg.

There is a "right" way to crack the egg open.


Sheelah had to do it for him.


Once open, there is a broth inside that you sip. It tastes like omelette and chicken broth. I know because we passed it around and tried some. The adventurous ones anyway.


The interesting/scary thing about balut is that you don't know how developed the duck fetus will be. Some people get little ones, and some people open it up and discover fully developed feathers. We were lucky and didn't get feathers.


After Steve and Stu ate the fetus (birthday boy and birthday boy's brother) of which I have omitted pictures - thank me later- we passed around the yolk which was basically like a meaty version of a standard hard boiled egg yolk. Anissa was thoroughly disgusted.


James is not impressed either.


On to happier things, like the birthday cake. I made a green tea cake. I found the recipe on a website I love and thought, "How unique, I'll try that." So I made green tea cake with green tea frosting, and everyone seemed to like it.


I liked decorating it until I got out the green gel frosting. I was squeezing the tube with all my might, shaking a blob of green out, and then grabbing a toothpick to shape it into the script lettering I wanted. It was a pain.


At "Happy" I decided its just going to be a Happy cake and nothing else. But there was all this empty space so I hunkered down and finished it.


Oh well. Its one less letter I had to do. Happy Birthay Steve.


He didn't seem to mind. Plum wine and sake make every birthay greeting enjoyable.


After the guests left, I sent Steve and James to bed (Andrew had already retired for the night) and I stayed up and did dishes and cleaned the tables. Why? So I could set out some Valentine/birthday gifts for my salamander. Yes, that little lucky bamboo sculpted heart is the item I was looking for and found at the Asian market.


Sunday night was the birthday party, Monday night was the Valentine's date. We got dressed up and headed to a nice restaurant I knew of about a half hour from New Brunswick. We arrived in the parking lot and immediately wondered why there were no cars. As it turns out, they are closed Mondays. So quickly, it was Tom-tom to the rescue, where one can search nearby points of interest by category. Conveniently, local restaurants in the GPS have phone numbers listed. So we quickly called them all to determine which was take-out and which was a sit-in. We found a nice place called the Cranbury Inn and headed there. It was only 3 miles away.

We walked in and found a fancy, dress-uppy kind of place, that wasn't stuffy in its fanciness, but had a sort of quaint feeling to it. As it turns out, the place was established in 1780, and has been in operation ever since. Click here if you are interested in browsing the website. Although we didn't take any pictures, the food was arranged beautifully on the plates and tasted as great as it looked.

Afterwards, due to a slightly sticky part of the meal, we both went to the bathroom to wash the honey off our hands (since our pre-teen waiter kinda didn't notice anything was amiss). When I came out of the bathroom, Steve was there talking to the owner, who was so proud of the place I thought he was going to burst at the seams (that and the hearty food of the inn- there was more than pride filling his waistline). He gave us a grand tour of their new addition- a banquet hall, where they host over 50 weddings a year. You can view it here, if you didn't already stumble on it.

At the end of the night, our bellies were full and our hearts were happy for having discovered an ancient gem of a restaurant- one that may have hosted countless forefathers during its long lifetime.

It was a good Sunday and Monday.

achy

My rhomboid major is screwed up. I know this because when I attempt lateral rotation of my scapula, it hurts. Its is probably an adhesion which is entrapping a nerve because when my mom pressed on it, I could feel referred pain in my tailbone.

I know too much about muscles. By the time I graduate, I have a feeling I am going to be completely vegan.

unrest

I've been thinking about blogging... I just don't know what to say... or how to verbalize what's going on with me.

Talking with someone on aim, I managed to let them know, and so I've copied and pasted so I can let you all know.

I experienced something today which my anatomy book describes as a sympathetic nervous system reaction. I know this because that's what chapter 4 is all about, and I had a test on chapter 4 today. There were a few things causing it, however, when the causes were removed, the sympathetic nervous system did not shut down, nor did the parasympathetic kick in.

The result is that I suddenly had an irrational fear settle in the pit of my stomach and I had to take precautions to prevent myself from acting upon the fears. The kind person who let me spill my guts on aim described it as "comfortable and uncomfortable in your skin all at the same time."

Its a sudden feeling and it makes your stomach feel tight and you get hungry and also sick to your stomach at the same time so you want to eat and you can't, and you want to jump out of your skin because it feels too normal and familiar.

I would not say that it was a panic attack, however, I also would not say that I was 100% sane today. I did not eat, but in a strange twist of fate, I knew that it was not simply that I did not feel hungry. It was that breakfast had not digested because when one's body is operating under the grip of the sympathetic nervous system, digestion slows or stops as the body prepares to move into the fight-or-flight response. Yes, oddly enough, I had the presence of mind to analyze myself medically, but I did not have the presence of mind to say get over it this is stupid.

In the end though, as my friend said, "you know, you're gonna be ok :-)" either after a relaxing shower, or a good shot of liquor.

ROFL

1: Did you get my message?
2: No, I didn't check my messages yet.
1: Oh. I said Happy Valentine's Day, and that I love you.
2: Awww.
1: I only said that because its Valentine's Day though.

i am not making this up.

I swear to you that by the end of this you will think that my imagination has run away with me, but I promise all of this actually did happen, and it actually did happen between the hours of 9 and 5 today.

I opened up the store today, as usual. The credit card machine yesterday and Tuesday was having some problems, but I was still able to ring up transactions. It just took some time and an extra little song and dance. What bugged me was that I was the only one on the schedule until 4:00. Tom expects less customers and thus cuts hours so he's not paying two people to sit there and twiddle their thumbs. Its a reasonable idea. However, when you put sale signs on the windows, people go crazy and become needy and need to know the price of this and how steep is the discount and if its $9.99 and 50% off how much is that? So you need two people there to answer the questions and ring up all the transactions. I was a little grumbly that I was the only one there.

Then the credit card machine stopped connecting to the internet again. Hector, the maintenance man from the church next door came in to say he called Verizon, and the problem is with them, not with the modem or network or anything.

I then proceeded to get yelled at by a customer who didn't like having to pay in cash. (This particular customer, I might add, was also picking up something that she ordered and paid for September 1, 2007.) If she knew of any way to get the credit card machine to connect to the internet, she was perfectly welcome to fix it and pay in whatever manner she liked. I actually ignored her. If someone has a problem, usually I'll at least be somewhat sympathetic. This woman, nope. No eye contact, no "I'm sorry," nothing. I took her money and rang it through and handed her the bag, and that was it. If you don't like it, don't shop here. Its that simple.

As I was dealing with another line of customers, a man came up to the counter. "Someone used the bathroom and didn't flush." Oh, ok. "So I went and then flushed and it overflowed." What the heck is wrong with you? Why would you try to flush a toilet that is obviously not working? Why would you use it, knowing it probably won't go down??

I didn't have time to run to the bathroom to clean because once again I remind you all that I was the only employee in the store, and I had a line of customers who can't do math. So I finally got a moment where there were no customers in the store. I opened the door to the hallway leading to the bathroom and there was a puddle out into the hallway. There was enough of a spill that it covered the formica floor and pooled on the hallway carpeting. Yay.

I opened the utility closet door to grab a mop, discovered we don't have one, and grabbed the next best thing. A squeegee on a long pole with a sponge on one side. So there I am, squeegeeing a puddle and sopping it up and squishing it against a bucket so the water will come out, and starting the process over. And as I was working, the door to the utility closet slammed shut.

I went back into the store and looked around. Still empty. I looked to the parking lot to see if any other employee cars were there to see if they were playing tricks on me. No one. I felt the air for wind. Nothing. This bathroom is on a cement floor (no creaky shifting floor boards or door frames that could cause it) and its an inner hallway away from windows. I had left the door open too far for it to be a sudden shift in barometric pressure due to the wind. I have no idea why that door slammed shut, but I propped something in front of it and cleaned the bathroom as quickly as I could.

Realizing we had no plunger, I went up to the church office to borrow one. After finally getting the toilet to flush on the first try, I went back to check on the customers (none) and looked down at my shirt. Toilet water splashed on my shirt, and the back of my leg from where I walked into the squeegee at some point or other. Great, and I have to go to class like this?

A customer came in and I started to ring up the transaction. She wanted to pay by credit card, it wouldn't go through. So I told her I would have to call the credit company for a voice authorization code which I could enter into the computer to make the sale. As I was on the phone (it took a while because the "1" button doesn't work on our phones) there was suddenly a change in the amount of light. I wasn't sure if I was seeing things or what. Then the lights went out, and with them, the phone went dead.

The computers were on still, with the battery power supply beeping an alarm at me. I called Tom, who told me I have ten minutes to shut the computers off before the power supply runs out of juice. After calling Tom, I called Katie and left a message saying, "If at all possible, please come in early, I'm having a DAY. Oh and the electricity and phones are out so don't call the store, call my phone."

Customers kept walking in saying, "Are you guys open?" "Yeah we are, we just can't sell you anything because the power is out." Apparently, according to one of my customers, all of Rt 23 from Wayne to Riverdale lost power.

So, finally, the lights came back on, Katie came in, and I told her my story. I ended with, "so I'm going home early so I can change out of my toilet water clothes before class."

On the drive home, the road to my house was blocked off by flashing lights, so I couldn't even get home to get out of my toilet clothes. In the end, I went the long way around and made it home, where I discovered that the cans and bottles garbage can had blown over in the wind. I think we had a tornado while I was gone. There were GLASS bottles strewn all over the yard. I can understand plastic because they are light. No, there were GLASS bottles unbroken blowing in the wind.

After picking all that up I went inside and discovered our power was out. So I couldn't make myself dinner before class. In the end I made some soup on the stove since gas stoves still work in power outages. Fortunately I did not burn the house down.

The redemption of the day came in the form of a long slender box on the doorstep:









And all that before 5:00! Luckily I still did well on my anatomy exam at class and gave my oral presentation and am happy with what I did.

confessions

I was trying to remember, when was the last time I cried? I am not sure. It must have been a while ago.

I used to cry at least once a week.

Medical Massage 2

Second day of the weekend class. I got up when my alarm went off, but somehow, I still didn't leave the house until 10 minutes before I am supposed to be at class. I don't know how that happened. Maybe my inner ear was not working hard enough to keep me in the correct place in time. I got almost to class and decided to buy a muffin and a roll for breakfast and lunch at stop and shop, then since I was already late I sat in the car for a little longer trying to wake up and get my brain in order.

On the way in I spilled my tea twice, and when I walked in the door, the teacher told me I had to do 50 pushups later. I guess a lot of people came in late. I sort of just ignored him, I think that I am at the point now where he's not quite sure what to think of me. He's got the rest of my classmates figured out but the ones who ignore you or don't talk to you or respond to you are the ones that could surprise you with anything at any given moment, and this morning, that was definitely me.

Then we did postural analysis which is basically learning on each other how to assess movement and posture so we know what muscles to work on, on a client. As it turns out, when I stand, I stand as if I'm a skiier that's just gone off a jump (back straight as a board, but leaning over my toes). Apparently it was one of the more pronounced skiier stances in the class because all my classmates were going, "Oh my gooooooodddddd." Which of course improves my mood.

A. asked the teacher, "What could cause something like that?" and Jim said something about how it probably started in my hip or feet, more than my back or anything. That made sense since I had a hip injury which caused me to be over-protective in such a way that I compromised my toe and most likely fractured it, which resulted in swelling all the way into my ankle, which made me walk crooked, which further agitated my hip... although I didn't say that much. I just said, "Yeah I had a hip and ankle injury." But it annoyed me because I thought that hip-ankle stuff was mostly behind me except for the ankle-swelling-in-bad-weather part. Apparently I never really got over it.

Then we learned specific techniques for creating "good pain" in a muscle. Jim walked up to show my partner, A. how to find it and he just reached up and grabbed my SCM (neck muscle) until I felt like there was a needle in the top of my ear. He was just winning points with me right and left all day. Then A. couldn't find the right trigger points on my back so I ended up having four people poking and prodding my back (including Jim again- this time the needle-like pain radiated into my elbow). After class we filled out evaluations and for the question "Where did we goof?" I wrote that it really irritated me that ten times in this course I will have to skip church on a Sunday for a class that is really too long to begin with. I didn't curse them out and I wasn't mean about it, I was just more firm than I normally am. I think having everybody touch me at once really threw me over the edge and also messed with my moods somehow. I was jumpy driving home too and I pretty much wanted to pull over and make my passenger drive me home, except that I couldn't because I didn't have a passenger.

I am hoping that a nap will settle me a little so I can go to church tonight. Lets hope I wake up in time.

Medical Massage

In class today, we talked briefly about how the inner ear helps to maintain equilibrium, and how even if you are not moving but your head remains tilted for a long period of time, you could still experience vertigo because the tilt of your head will mess things up. My teacher said, "So, the inner ear helps you maintain and monitor your proper location in space and time."

I mentioned this to my brother and his response was... "That inner ear is wonderful. For those times when all of my atoms suddenly slip into another dimension, I'm always able to find my way back. Gotta watch out though... inner ear infections can be annoying."

not hoarding the quotes.

me: i learned a dance tonight called the tush push lol
him: sounds like a stupid name for sex

random thoughts

I was once reprimanded for using the phrase "holy cow" to mean, "oooh wow." My instructor reasoned that in India, cows are holy and worshiped. A good Christian girl like me should not align myself with "pagan" religions of India. People could get the wrong idea.

All these years, it has made sense. Then I really started thinking about it. I don't look remotely Indian. It would take a lot more than two words to align myself with a foreign religion. I would have to be in India, or in the presence of someone who considers cows holy (cause lets face it, a lot of Americans know nothing about the religious practices of other cultures). Then they would have to get the wrong idea (and say what? "You worship cows too? How great to find a fellow believer in this pagan America!"). And if they did think that I was using the phrase seriously, wouldn't that be something akin to taking God's name in vain? If I saw a gorgeous Mustang on the road and said, "Holy cow! Look at that Mustang!" I'm not actually speaking to the cow... I'm taking its name in vain. How can one say that the phrase aligns me with a deity when that same phrase is being used by me irreverently?

Which takes me a step further because now I'm wondering if the God of the Christians and Jews is the only god that doesn't like his name being used in vain. Do other religions teach not to use the name of a deity lightly? Is Saturn shaking his fist in anger now that these silly Americans have made his name commonplace in the form of a car?