Happy Thanksgiving 2022

My wife and I are empty nesters here in New England.  Meanwhile our daughter is in the process of moving to Houston, so we’re spending Thanksgiving alone.

The plan was to eat at a restaurant.  The two places we went to before were not open, so we ended up making reservations at a “last resort” expensive steak house.  I wasn’t thrilled with the menu.

This morning my wife asked me if I really wanted to go.  I sensed her desire to stay home all day and sleep.  She’d been experiencing a great deal of anxiety.  I said we should stay home, and we canceled the reservation.

And right now, believe it or not, I’m fasting!  I do plan to have a salad soon and then make something in a fry pan with the Beyond Beef chop “meat” that’s been in the freezer for months.

I am a bit disappointed – I was looking forward to turkey and mashed turnips.  But the restaurant was serving only the traditional mashed potatoes and stuffing (which do not combine well with turkey and is just filler) plus green beans, one of my lesser liked vegetables.

I’m sure I can find turkey thighs, parsnips and turnips tomorrow and then make a better dinner for one-fifth the price.

Anyway, enough about me; what are you doing today?

Smart Dog

My wife and I were making the grocery list.

“We need more canned salmon.  I’ve been eating it, lately,” said my wife.

“Oh, do you make it like tuna salad?”

“No, I just eat it out of the can.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised.  “But it has bones in it!  Do you eat the bones?”

“Yes, I just mash them up, first.”

“Good.  They’re a good source of calcium,” I stated.

Suddenly our dog excitedly ran into the kitchen.  “What’s up with him?” asked my wife.

I smiled when I realized.  He heard us talking about bones.

Smart dog.

#NaBloPoMo2019

Depression Follow Up

I actually saw the doctor about my depression.  I use "actually" because I almost never go to the doctor, at least not for an ailment.  Usually the long wait time to see a doctor exceeds the duration of any medical condition that sidelines me.

The appointment didn't go the way I'd hoped.  That's probably because my wife was there with me.

My idea was that the doctor might recommend light therapy (due to the seasonal aspect of my condition) plus exercise and perhaps meditation.  And he did mention light therapy.  But my wife's agenda was that I'd leave the office with a prescription for an SSRI-type anti-depressant.  So that's the direction we took.

It amazes me that despite all the medical screw-ups my wife has experienced, she still puts so much faith in doctors and prescription medication.

In fact, my wife interrupted our non-medication discussions a few times with increasing urgency, insisting that my condition was dire.  I thought she was going to erupt in tears at one point.

So the plan is that I'll take the medicine to make my wife feel better.  As if I already don't do enough shit for her.

Now I really feel depressed.  But I'm hoping the doctor prescribed a placebo.  Do they even do that?

Here's a little SSRI humor for you.  I can't seem to embed it, so I hope you'll make the effort to click on it and watch.: http://jonesnco.com/junk/proloxil.swf

My Personal Assistant

Today's NaBloPoMo writing prompt is "If you had a personal assistant who would do your most dreaded tasks, which items from your to-do list would you assign out?"

Here's that list:

1. Feed all four cats at 5:30am and refresh their water.
2. Feed the dog and play fetch with him.
3. Prepare for my daughter: breakfast by 6:15am; a bagged lunch by 6:45am.
4. Put out my wife's medications for the day.
5. Scoop the litterboxes.
6. Prepare a bagged lunch for me.  (I'll take care of my own breakfast.)
7. Change the dressing on my wife's wound.
8. Make and receive all phone calls.
9. Pick up my daughter from school at 5:45pm.
10. Take my wife and daughter to all their appointments / functions.
11. Teach my daughter to drive.
12. Load the dishwasher properly.

I chose these tasks mostly because they either take place in the morning and require that I get up earlier than I'd like in order to do them myself, or they require being somewhere at a particular time or getting something done by a particular time.

My life would be so much better if I could get out of bed after dawn.  I'm sure I'd have more energy and effortlessly lose weight as a result.

I designed my career so that I could have a lifestyle in which I could ignore the clock.  I chose a lower-paying job in research, in which I could work odd hours, rather than in service, in which you'd tell someone what time you'd arrive and then actually arrive at that time^*.  I never went on vacations because I hate to fly and that's because you have to follow an airline schedule.  Likewise, I never went to the movies.

As a bachelor, I hardly ever needed to pay attention to the time.  Getting married, then, was a terrible mistake for someone like me.  My wife used something called an "alarm clock" that would suddenly make a loud noise at the same very early time each morning.  This was because she'd have to drive to her work place and arrive by 8am.  She'd also need me to tell her what time I'd get home from work and then get upset when I gave my usual answer ("I dunno") or failed to show up at whatever time I guessed I could make it home by.  Then there was the insistence that we go to Church, which meant paying attention to a clock on a Sunday!

Despite this wifely imposition of time, I did pretty well.  It wasn't until the Pregnancy that things got much more difficult.  There were more doctor visits for us during those nine months than I had my whole life.  And then after the birth, we were ruled by a living, screaming, excreting life form that you wouldn't dare ignore even if you were so sick that even your eyes hurt.  This is the same life form that, 17 years later, sends you racing to a place to pick her up or drop her off at a Certain Time, lest she show up embarrassingly late for a presentation, or be tempted to walk home alone in the dark in the sleeting rain wearing flip-flops.  That's way more responsibility than I ought to have.

I'm dreaming of my old life.  My daughter will have moved out.  My wife would be dead or living in Florida with her best friend.  If I was curious enough, the alarm clock could show me the time, but it certainly wouldn't make a sound ever again.  I'd probably not bother to switch between Standard Time and Daylight Savings Time.

---

^* This is a quaint notion. Nowadays, someone in service will give you what's called a "window" which is essentially a free pass to show up at any time on a given day and still be considered punctual.

Welcome to USA Pope Francis

Pope Francis will be visiting the USA from today until Friday, so I'd like to extend a warm welcome to him.

It seems a fitting time to give readers a condensed timeline of my religious background, especially since it all started with Catholicism.

I was born in the early1960s to Roman Catholic parents and baptized into the Church, in which I had my first Communion and Confirmation.

Both G-d and Santa Claus were used as threats in order to temper my behavior.  G-d would punish me while Santa would grant or deny presents.  Actually, I never believed in Santa; I knew my parents and other relatives provided the presents.  Rather than write a letter to Santa for presents, I would simply pray for them.  And I'd write a list for my mom.

Being musically inclined, I was involved in the Folk Group as a teen.  We played during the Saturday evening Mass.  Then I turned 18 and graduated high school, and I left the group and stopped attending Mass altogether.

In my mid twenties, I went on a binge of reading about Christian Mysticism, as described here.

That changed after I proposed to my fiance and we became engaged.  She was Roman Catholic, too.  One of her first actions was to pin down a wedding date, select a Church and have us start attending Mass together.  Since we both viewed Catholicism as more punitive than nurturing, we "shopped" all the local Christian congregations until we settled on a modest Lutheran church in our town.  I joined their choir to sing bass, and we were married there several months later.

Our daughter was born a few years later.  We continued to attend services weekly.  Six months later, our daughter was baptized.  We would keep our tiny daughter with us in the pew among the other choir members and walk out with her if she acted up, which she rarely did.

After our daughter became a toddler, we decided to leave her in the daycare that was provided.  At this point she could become upset and quickly react with a meltdown under certain conditions, including being left alone in a room.  We called that separation anxiety.  So on that first day in the nursery we made sure she was comfortable and occupied, and we reassured her that we'd be back.  She seemed fine.  About twenty minutes later, the daycare provider was trying to comfort our screaming daughter, who was writhing and arching her back as if the woman was torturing her.  The woman was aghast and asked if our daughter were sick (or abnormal, perhaps).  We drove home right away -- we needed the entire 10 minute car ride to calm her down, and we kept our daughter with us in the pew among the other choir members for a few more years.

Eventually our daughter would be diagnosed with Mild Autism, and she was enrolled in the public school's preschool for children with developmental disorders.  Sunday school was difficult -- the church had no professionals to provide therapy or support.  The teachers were mostly parents or grandparents of "normal" children.  So my wife and I would attend the earlier grades of Sunday school with our daughter until she settled down.  But she never really "took" to it -- she formed no connections with the other children.  This continued into her teenage years and the Youth Group.

What she did connect with was the choir.  Unfortunately there was no children's choir at the time.  It wasn't formed until after our daughter was a bit older and after the idea about singing in a choir was no longer fresh and interesting.  Still, she gave it a go.  But with her extremely well-tuned ear for pitch and her sensitivity to tonal quality, she was disappointed with the other children and lost interest.

In the Lutheran Church, children wait until they enter grade 5 to receive their First Holy Communion.  And then they get confirmed even later.  I sincerely thought she'd drop out before getting confirmed.  The more she "learned" about Christianity, the less sense it made to her.  Fortunately the assistant Pastor made some accommodation for her, and she squeaked by.  And then she announced that she was Pagan and left.

I continued to attend the services as a choir member.  But it bothered my wife.  She didn't want to sit in the back with me and the other choir members, and she didn't want to sit alone in the regular seats.  So I stopped wearing the choir robe and sat with her in the regular seats, joining the choir only when necessary.

After eight years was getting tired of the weekly rehearsals and the getting up early on Sunday.  I had planned to announce my retirement from the group.  But the choir director beat me to the punch -- one evening she announced her retirement.  So I remained quiet about my own desire to leave.  It took one full season for the church to find a replacement, so I stayed on in support of the interim choir director.  I was the strongest bass we had.  I wasn't necessarily the best singer, but I could sight-singing and learned the parts quickly, even the tenor and alto lines, too, to help folks with their parts.

When the cat died, the emotional impact of singing was nearly too great for me.  Leaving my sad wife and daughter at home twice each week was an additional burden.  Plus my wife had been hospitalized two years earlier for four weeks and left with chronic pain and fatigue.  I stuck it out for another three months and then abruptly failed to show up for the first rehearsal of the next season.  When they called, my wife said simply, "He quit."  I stopped going to church for several weeks and didn't even speak with anyone until a couple of months later when I'd accidentally bump into a choir member.

We would attend some services, such as Good Friday (my wife's favorite) and Christmas Eve.  These days, getting out of the house by 9:30am five day each week in time for work is challenging for me.  It takes me four hours every morning to get myself ready, feed the four cats and dog, get my daughter ready for school, attend to my wife's needs.  So I like having the weekend with no morning obligations, church included.  And frankly, I've always considered prayer a solitary endeavor, so I never feel the need to be a part of a congregation.

Recently my wife became reacquainted with her Reiki instructor.  It turned out that the instructor was a practicing Buddhist.  We were invited to attend some meetings / sessions / whatevers.  So my wife decided to join them.  She and my daughter are now official Buddhists.

And me?  I really don't know.  I need to strip away all the brainwashing that I received and then figure out what make sense to me.  Most followers of the major religions in our world could be considered psychotic.  Do you think not?  Then read this: "I believe if I say certain words at a certain time each week, that life will be easier for me and my loved ones, and it will bring about World Peace.  And best of all, when I die, I won't actually die -- I'll go to a special, wonderful place."  That's some really crazy sheet.

Sorry about all that content, Pope Francis.  I do hope you enjoy your stay here.

Quirky in the Bedroom

Whoa, did I just title this "Quirky in the Bedroom?"  What was I thinking?

But it's true that my biggest quirk happens in the bedroom.  Umm, let me rephrase that.  My quirkiest behavior... -- no that's not gonna come out right, either.

Well, it has to do with the way I sleep.  Yes, sleep, or were you thinking of something else?

I already wrote about my "Hernia Rock" several days ago.  This is a warm stone I place on myself before I go to sleep.  But I do an even quirkier thing than that.

Here it is: I cover myself completely, from head to toe, when I lie down to sleep.  The sheet and comforter cover me from the foot end of the bed all the way up to my neck.  But I also cover my face with a black T-shirt.  I do this to block out all light from landing on my body.

You might wonder two things.  First you might wonder "Why can't you just turn off the lights -- isn't that dark enough?"  No it is not dark enough.  One of the windows is a large bow window.  Getting a room-darkening shade for that window is very impractical.  On nights when the moon is anywhere near to full, the room can be too bright.  Besides, skin can react to even tiny amounts of light.

The second thing you might wonder is, "How do you manage to breathe?"  That's good question.  But long-time readers will know (or may recall) that I have sleep apnea, so I wear a CPAP mask when I sleep.  This machine ensures that I have access to air, and the mask itself keeps the T-shirt from lying directly on my face.

This quirk, of course, creeps out my wife.  It makes her feel like she's sleeping next to a corpse.  It doesn't help that I have poor circulation in my extremities, so I'm cold to the touch.

Still want more quirks?  This is one of the better ones.  But I'll add a few others before Dec 1.

The High Cost of Vegan Cheese

My daughter has been vegan for about four years.  Vegans follow an even more limited diet than vegetarians.  The most devout ones don't eat anything produced by an animal or from an animal.  That includes eggs, all dairy, and even honey.

My daughter is devout.  But rather than give up mayonnaise, butter and cheese, she eats vegan-friendly versions instead.

My wife complains about the high cost of these vegan-friendly substitutes almost every week.  And she goes over-budget buying them.  But I tell my wife that if our daughter craves cheese and butter so much, it means her body is crying out for real, honest-to-goodness dairy.  As I wrote earlier, I don't fully endorse our daughter being vegan.

I say that we should buy absolutely no substitutes.  Instead we can buy eggs and dairy from producers that treat their livestock with care and respect, a major concern of vegans.  And I suspect that dairy produced the old-fashioned way is friendlier for the environment than the spreads made from vegetable oils or the cheeses made from cashews.  I believe that such substitutes require much more energy to produce because their raw ingredients are so thoroughly processed as to make them unrecognizable.

Some vegans will argue that there's a health issue with dairy.  They complain that it's loaded with saturated fat, which is bad.  I reject that entirely.  Saturated fat has been unfairly demonized.  The fat from pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle has a ratio of Omega3 to Omega6 that's comparable salmon, plus CLA (conjugated linoleic acids) and butyrates, both of which are important for good gut health.  The heart and brain both use saturated fat as fuel.

It's true that some people just can't tolerate dairy.  It can promote inflammation and mucus production.  Some people are lactose intolerant.  Others must avoid casein.  It's the casein in dairy that can mimic opioids in the brain in individuals with leaky gut syndrome.  So these intolerances are really the only good reasons to avoid dairy.

Well, even if our daughter agreed to eat real butter and cheese, our cost would still be fairly high.  Organic dairy from humanely-treated, grass-fed cows is not inexpensive.  But at least it's real and wholesome.

What do you think?

Halloween 2014

We enjoyed Halloween at work as we usually do.  The company allows for a costume parade.  Those who wish to participate can dress up.  Then the rest of the employees vote on the costumes.  Prizes are given for scariest, most original and most creative.  (Don't ask what the difference is between "original" and "creative".)

My plan this year was to dress up as a beach bum with dreadlocks.  But yesterday morning's sudden chill dissuaded me from putting on the swim trunks and tank top, so I dressed up like a stoner with dreadlocks.  Notice the focus on dreadlocks, here.  That was what we prepared for -- dreadlocks as the centerpiece of the costume.

My daughter and I fashioned the dreadlocks from an abundance of cat fur, which we rolled into many thick strands and stapled to the lining of an old baseball cap.  It looked really cool, but judge for yourself.

My wife encouraged me to get into my costume before leaving for work.  When she saw me she said, "Oh you look like such a dirtbag!  What a loser!!"  I sense that she's been wanting to get that off her chest for several years.

I got favorable reactions from the guys, especially the retired Jamaican janitor.  The reactions from the few females that didn't totally ignore me ranged from disgust to revulsion.  I thought one woman was going to vomit, that's how green her face became.

Halloween can give us a chance to experience society from others' perspectives.

How was your Halloween?

Wednesday Weigh-In 20141022

Last week my wife called out to me frantically from the bathroom. When I got to her, I saw her standing in a small pool of her own blood. We called 911 for an ambulance (first time ever). She was taken away to the ER.

A varicose vein had ruptured. There was so much pressure that it sprayed sideways from her leg and onto a wall that was about 18 inches away.

It has nothing to do with weight loss, but I thought you might be interested!

Waist = 40.5"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Tanita Scale with Body Fat monitor
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

How I've Lived With Skin Picking Disorder

I've lived with Skin Picking Disorder probably for about 45 years.  It started when I was a young boy.

It would start out as a callous on the knuckle of the index finger of my left hand.  This callous would develop from a soft toy doll that I'd sleep with.  Even though the doll was soft, it had a dense seam that I enjoyed grinding my knuckle into.  Then I'd pick at and bite the callous.  Or I'd stick a pencil, pin or nail into it.  It would hurt.  It would bleed.  But I liked doing it.

Back then I was very ashamed of letting anyone see the knuckle, especially my mother.  I made sure to keep it hidden.  If I had to point, I'd use my right hand, or I point with my pinky while I kept the knuckle tucked under my thumb.

I don't have the doll anymore, but I still go through spells in which I form the callous using the inside seam of blue jeans as I sit at my computer.  I am no longer ashamed, though.  First, no one but my daughter calls attention to it.  Second, it's just what I call "Nerves," or a manifestation of anxiety from having a partly disabled wife; a gifted, eccentric daughter with massive inferiority beliefs; and a dwindling bank account due to expenses that exceed my income.

Eventually, I'll wrap a bandage around it to prevent myself from picking and biting, and it will look normal.

Here is "Nerves" for you to see:

Skin Picking Disorder -- Left Index Finger

Reactions to a Mystery Gift

Cranky Fibro Girl related a funny story regarding her parents' reaction to a surprise gift that she sent to them through Amazon.  She described the conversation that took place between them, which you can read here.

If my wife and were to get a surprise gift in a similar manner, here's how our hypothetical conversation would play out:

Wife (calling me at work): The package you ordered arrived.

Me: What package?

Wife: I don't know.  It's from Amazon.com.

Me: I didn't order anything from Amazon.com.

Wife: Well you must have ordered and forgot about it.  You want me to open it?

Me: No. I didn't order anything.   We won't be able to send it back if it's opened.

Wife: Are you sure you didn't order something and then forgot about it?  You know how forgetful you are.

Me: I'm not the one who's forgetful!  You're the one who's always forgetting things.

Wife: Well, whatever, it's here.  I can open it if you want.

Me: No, I need to check my account and my charge card first.

Later...

Me: Well, I didn't order anything, and there's no charge on my credit card.  It might be a gift.  You can open it if you want.  [Then, thinking it might from one of my very weird Internet friends...]  Hmmm, maybe don't open it.  It could be hoax or a bomb.


How would you react to an unexpected package?

The Ideal Protein Diet

The Ideal Protein diet is a low carb and low fat diet that relies heavily on protein supplementation.  The protein is designed to be easily assimilated to ensure as little muscle loss as possible.  The dieter makes the transition from burning carbohydrates to burning fat, a metabolic state called ketosis.

My wife started the diet on Thursday under the weekly care of a multi-specialist clinic that includes a nutritionist/cardiologist.  She's been having the diet drinks for breakfast and lunch, diet snacks plus a meat and vegetable dinner, which she prepares herself.  The meat portion is 8 ounces, and the vegetable portion is 2 cups cooked, plus some raw.  She must also drink 8 glasses of water each day, and she eat or drink anything else that's 0 calorie, such as tea, coffee, diet soda.  She's allowed to have skim milk.

How's it going?  She feels like shit.  Totally.  I've never seen her so inflamed.  We don't know whether the inflammation is due to the diet or from the undiagnosed MS-Sjogrens-Fibromyalgia-Lupus that has been torturing her since Fall of 2006.  The primary care doctor recently stopped prescribing the $3 prednisone, which allowed her to function well.  Instead, he wants her to undergo the $35-copay physical therapy and work with a $35-copay rheumatologist.  The most intense pain appears to be from flare up of sacrolitis.

Anyway, and inflammation aside, this diet seems to be a good fit for my wife because:

1. You pay a shitload of money upfront.  Anything that's expensive must work.
2. All literature and products feature a special logo and graphic layout with pleasing colors that must've allowed an advertising agency to buy its own tropical island.
3. The diet tells you exactly what to eat.  You don't need to think about it or know anything about the relationship between various foods and their impact on your weight and health.
4. You need to buy most of the stuff that you eat and drink.
5. You need to check in every week for evaluation.

The above list of reasons are the reasons it wouldn't work me.  Besides, the food they give you is highly processed.  The sweet desserts and snacks certainly use some artificial sweetener that will probably give you cancer or seizures eventually.

But if I had to choose between the Ideal Protein diet and, say, bariatric surgery, I'd pick the diet without hesitation.

Who Does "Pinball Wizard?"

My wife and I were both at the kitchen table yesterday morning when the classic rock song "Pinball Wizard" started to play on the radio.

All I did was think to ask my wife, "Who does this song?" and I started laughing.

Naturally, she looked at me as if I were a moron and asked, "What's so funny?"

After another fit of laughter, I managed to say, "I was just thinking how funny it would be if I asked you, 'Who does this song?'"

"The Who does this song."

"No, no, you're supposed to say 'Yes.'"

"But Yes didn't do the song.  It was The Who," she said, earnestly.

The hilarity of the situation was more than I could bear.  Tears were forming in my eyes.  I couldn't speak, she was so stiflingly serious.

Annoyed she stated, "Well, I'm glad I don't have to occupy myself trying to keep you amused.  One less thing for me to worry about."

"But it's a joke!" I tried to explain, between gasps for air.

"It must be that anti-biotic you're taking.  Mental changes."

More laughter.

Eventually I managed to dry my eyes and leave for work.

You get it, don't you?

Like a Hoo Ha on my Face

"All I have left to do is shave," I announced, crossing the penultimate item off my Thanksgiving to-do list.

"Dad, you should totally grow your beard," my teenage daughter impored, not for the first time.

"Not today.  But I'll let it grow on my week off between Christmas and New Years."

"Don't do that.  It looks disgusting," my wife chimed in, with a little too much emphasis on "disgusting."

"Dad, men with beards look totally sexy," my daughter insisted.

I sighed and tried a different way of explaining to her why a beard isn't good for me.  "Did you ever look at your Hoo Ha in the mirror?" I asked her.

"Dad, use the proper term."

"Va-J-J," my wife corrected me.

"Okay.  Pubic hair.  That's what my beard looks like.  It's like I have a Hoo Ha on my face.  It's just not good."

"I don't know why you guys can't use the proper words for things.  You say 'pee-pee' and 'Va-J-J' and 'Hoo Ha.'  That's not what they're called.  They're called Penis and Va..."

"Because we don't like the proper names.  They're disgusting," my wife interrupted firmly, while I wondered whether there's a test they could give our daughter for Tourette's.

"Well, I'm off to shave!"  I announced cheerily.  I hurried off to the bathroom to shave in peace, thankful for a valid excuse to escape.

---

Thanks to Ron Mattocks, blogger at Clark Kent's Lunchbox for his inspiring "Hoo Ha" story.

Sign From the Angels

Caller ID showed that the new call was from my wife's cell phone.  I answered quickly, a little alarmed.  She usually uses that phone only for emergencies, like when the car battery died several weeks ago.

"Hello?"  (If I answer "Hi Honey," she gets confused -- she's still not accustomed to caller ID.)

"Hi Square.  Are you busy?"

I can usually tell what kind of call it's going to be right after "Hi Square."  But  this was a New Call.  It wasn't the call in which "The car's running really rough and the check engine light is flashing;" or, "Where are all the peppers I bought?  Don't tell me you ate them all!  [You idiot!]  I was going to make PEPPERS AND ONIONS TONIGHT!" or, "Simba knocked your favorite plant over and then he crapped in the dirt.  And then dog came over and ate all the dirt & cat poop and then he threw up in the middle of the living room carpet!"

No, this sounded like it was going to be an Exciting Discovery, a winning lottery ticket, perhaps.  Not a measly five dollar teaser, either.  Here's what she said.

"You're not going to believe this, but I was at the store and then I came out to put the groceries in the trunk.  When I opened the trunk, I found two boxes of Angel Hair pasta!"

"What, you mean 'pasta?'  Tinkyada rice pasta?"  We don't buy wheat pasta because of the gluten.

"No, this is regular Prince Angel Hair pasta in the blue box!  How did this get here?  Did someone think this was their car and put it in?  Do you think this is a sign from an angel?  It's Angel Hair pasta!"
"Maybe you had a bag of food to donate and it spilled out?"

"Square, I know my trunk.  There's no way this Angel Hair pasta should be here!  Could this really be a sign from an angel?"

"Wow, yes, it sure sounds like it!

"Oooohhh, wait a minute.  I know where this is from!  I gave the twins a ride to school this morning, and they were talking about a non-perishable food drive.  It must've fallen out of their bags.  Ooooohhhh!"

"Well, it's still a Sign from the Angels, though."

Right?

Have you had any Signs from the Angels, lately?

Cat Number Four

My Mother-in-Law had been feeding the cats in her backyard for several months. One of her customers took residence under her porch and produced two kittens. The little Tom was killed when he tried the cross the busy road. So my mother-in-law allowed the little Queen to live inside her enclosed porch. But the porch is unheated, and she couldn't keep the kitten in the main part of the house. So she implored her daughter and granddaughter to adopt her.

My wife drove the cat home three weeks ago. By now we have an established procedure for adopting a new cat. (You can't just let loose a new cat into a home with an established cat population. The existing cat will threaten and possibly attack the newcomer.) We placed the new cat in the laundry room with her own food and water bowls and litterbox. It's not a large area, but it turned out to have a few great spots for hiding. My wife repeatedly asked me to "find" the cat because she (my wife) worried that the cat disappeared. So twice I dragged the cat from remote corners of the laundry room.

Then my wife decided to let the cat into a more comfortable area -- the carpeted part of the basement. Overnight, the cat again "disappeared," but there was a clue as to where she went -- the broken overhead light diffuser indicated that she had gotten into the drop ceiling where she spent the entire next day.

When I got home that night, both my wife and daughter were peering into the drop ceiling trying to locate the cat. They finally lured it out into an open area of the ceiling, so that I was able to remove tiles one-by-one to try to catch it. Eventually the only remaining tile was the one she was sitting on, but she managed to scoot away. At least my daughter saw the direction that the cat took off in, and I located the hiding spot. Finally, I grabbed the cat and dragged it from its spot.

I was very impressed by the cat's good behavior. No, not the shyness and aversion to us moving, living, breathing animals. But it tolerated all my somewhat manly handling without much protest, even though it was clearly terrified.

The cat is now upstairs with us in the Master bedroom and hides under the bed or in the closet. But it does sleep on a small afghan on the floor when we're not around and even cavorts playfully after we go to bed. She will not go on the bed unless my wife picks her up and places her there. Then she will stay for as long as she's being petted or brushed, and then toddles off to her hiding spot.

I don't like to use the flash when photographing cats, but I did in this case. Here she is, peering out at me from under the bed, more fur than flesh:

Prayer for Lost Items

While reading Doreen Virtue's Archangels and Ascended Masters, my wife came across several interesting prayers.

"Did you know there's a prayer for lost items?" she asked.

"That's nice," I responded with disinterest.

Undeterred she asked, "Did you ever lose anything?"

"Yeah, my brains."

Guide to Safe RF

Our daughter must receive a cell phone for Christmas this year. Otherwise, disaster will befall the entire world, and perhaps several neighboring ones, as well.

I really don't like the idea of cell phones. Why?

• Because we got along fine without them twenty years ago, and now we've been brainwashed into thinking they're a necessity.
• Because a cell phone is yet another thing to carry around; like an umbrella, a pair of gloves and sunglasses, it's something to leave behind or lose.
• Because it's something else that will become obsolete and require an upgrade.
• Because the service is another drain on our family's fiances.
• Because it needs recharging.
• Because it emits powerful RF energy.
  

It's this last item that bothers me. No one really knows what the long-term effect is of being exposed to all the Radio Frequency (RF) energy that a cell phone emits. When I said this to my wife and daughter, my wife responded with, "I carried one in my pocket for work for years and nothing happened to me." Of course we both realized immediately how poor that argument was -- my wife's strange bouts with inflammation started not long after we got the second cell phone.

Anyway, if you're concerned about cell phone safety, here's an article that you can read. It's called Is Your Health on the Line?

And Now Fibromyalagia

This November posting frenzy would not be complete without an update on my wife.

The medical weirdness started when she was pregnant with a severe rash that covered her entire body but not her face. She described it as intensely itchy. To me, it looked like an episode of Star Trek when one of the "Away Team" contracts an alien virus and morphs into another humanoid species. There was no clear definitive diagnosis on that -- just some sort of vague reference to "pregnancy rash" and that it only happens once. It reoccurred four months later, although not a severe.

The next episode happened in 2006. Both parotid glands swelled. Again the medical community was stumped. One doctor even suggested that it was a stone, forgetting (or ignoring) the fact that both sides of her face were affected. Antibiotics were prescribed and taken with no improvement. Then it was determined to be viral, so treatment involved alleviating the pain. Then when she complained of dry mouth, a doctor suspected Sjögren’s Syndrome and prescribed prednisone. The symptoms went away but came back. The test for Sjögren’s Syndrome was negative.

We're still dealing with the after effects of the next event, the attack of Transverse Myelitis. It started when she woke me up to tell me that she couldn't pee. She was released from hospital four weeks later barely able to walk and with severe pain.

Fed up with allopathic medicine, we consulted with a Naturopathic Doctor who made a diagnosis of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Although he couldn't treat her pain, he suggested a variety of supplements, two of which were NatureThroid, non-synthetic thyroid extract, and Isocort, a non-synthetic adrenal extract. The supplements had a terrific effect on her mood.

Still, we needed pain relief so we stuck with the neurologist at the hospital that she was initially treated in. Concerned about leg weakness, they mentioned spinal stenosis and MS.


Well, I'm getting angry and upset again. Suffice it to say, some more bumbling doctors made some more diagnoses. And the latest of these is fibromyalgia. This diagnosis was based on tenderness of all the pressure points and a negative test result for anything else. (Thank goodness that she never got a false positive for Lyme disease as I did. Otherwise, she'd get a two-week course of antibiotics and a pronouncement of being cured.)

I think her fibromyalgia is due to improperly managed pain. She was given too few quick-acting opioid pills and then left with no coverage at night. Thus she has been suffering from insufficient sleep for several months.

In his 2004 book, "Arthritis: Fight it with The Blood Type Diet Dr. Peter D'Adamo writes about people with type A blood, such as my wife,

One of the effects of high cortisol is a disruption of the sleep cycle, which, in turn, places extra stress on the body. Studies show that many people with arthritic conditions such as fibromyalgia experience a type of sleep disturbance called alpha delta sleep disorder. People with alpha delta sleep disorder experience a disruption in sleep patterns. They don't obtain enough deep sleep -- the phase in which muscles are repaired.

Anyway, even though this is yet another incurable disease that no one understands, maybe it will at least allow my wife to get better pain management.

Weighing on my Mind

Anxiety returned suddenly.

The big event occurred on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. It was windy, and a large branch broke off the smallest of our pine trees. As it landed, it broke off a branch from a nearby maple tree, but it did not reach the house, and it just missed the little Star Magnolia that we planted when our daughter was about four years old. So there was little damage, and a neighbor cut up the trunk with his chain saw while I cleared the brush.


It's clear that the tree is in a weakened state and should be taken down. I called the electric company because the tree is only a few feet away from their lines. Their general policy is to remove trees that are damaged or weak if they are near power lines. So I was confident that they would get to work on this, and I was guardedly hopeful that they'd recognize that the other trees pose a similar threat. Unfortunately, the arborist that showed up said that they wouldn't bother with it as there are many trees all over our state that are 10 times worse. If it falls and takes out the power lines, they'll just come and put the lines back up.

This episode caused the acute flare up of anxiety. But it's been building due to other issues, such as:

• My wife's under-treated chronic pain.
• The pain doctor's insistence on charging two co-pays for each visit (never mind that he under treats the pain).
• My daughter's inability to fall asleep at night and her tiredness during the day.
• My daughter's apparent depression on the day after Thanksgiving after our family friend left for the airport.
• The dog's tumor.
• The rise in health insurance premiums and co-pay amounts.
• Other rising costs and stagnant income.
• Maintenance work needed on the cars.
  

The stress itself tires me out. Add to that the need to play Mr. Mom when my wife is out of commission. The result is a need to collapse into bed right after supper and stay in bed until just before the cats decide to test whether human tastes better than Tuna Fish.