Just passing this on

                                        Beautifully said!

Let's hear it for long lives!

The other day I saw a TV news story about a 90-year-old woman who had accomplished the last item on her "bucket list". She went sky diving.

But, what was remarkable to me was that the jovial lady in question was overweight! For decades I've been told that if you're fat you'll die at a younger age. I was a fat child and I often wondered if I would survive until I turned 60 in the distant future year of 2000. Of course, I did and it was actually the best year of my life for a number of reasons.

I retired from my job in 2005 in part because I felt like I didn't have many years left to live and I wanted to enjoy them. I have been enjoying retirement a lot! So, I revised my life expectation upward to 76--that's the age at which each of my parents died. Since I'm going to be 72 in less that two months, that would have moved up my demise to within four years or so.

However, now that I know we plus-size gals can hang in there for much longer, I'm revising my life expectancy upward again! Hell, I might even make it to 80 or 85!

I should mention that I am working at being healthy and I've taken off some weight just to give it my best shot. All things considered, I just might pull it off!

So, now I should probably start a new Bucket List!

 

Puddling up at my 60th Birthday Party in 2000 when my kids gave me a group picture

Hoping for a little lace, a bit of magnificence

This is a poem by the brilliant poet Wendy Brown-Baez. I've had the good fortune to take several classes from her. I wish I had a fraction of her talent. Here is a poem she posted on Facebook.

Wendy Brown-BaezMississippi Crow Magazine

Arthritis

Truly I am worn about the edges
but maybe you see lace.
My bones ache but I hope you see the graceful
mudras made by my hands,
signs in the air.
The wrinkles are deepening.
The song is strengthening. I cradle myself.
Everything is fine. Everything.

I don’t know how to give up the freedom
I had to go wherever I wanted.
Once when I was a waitress
I was asked if I was a dancer.
Little did they know:

Nights I hit the floor
with the opening bars of flamenco music and the
crowd breaking into applause
or leaping at the wedding, two people
I didn’t know, friends of my friend
and an excuse to fly.

The disco’s vast smoothness
before anyone else showed,
spins and spirals in cut-offs and
t-shirt, going home so I could
reappear in slinky slacks and
silver platforms.

My ego wants to win this battle.
I can’t get stranded,
dependent on my own feet
to steer me home,
the delicious adventure
is postponed forever.

Illusions prevent me from expressing the
Magnificence I know I am, precious
vehicle for spirit’s work.
But I am determined to throttle
them to death.

--Wendy Brown-Baez

(Wendy and I have both had hip surgeries in the past and walk with a limp.)

The Seven Challenge

On May 10th, BLissed Out Grandma posted a list of seven Historical or Literary characters she'd like to meet and why. I've been thinking about it ever since and could not think of a single character from literature I'd like to meet, but I have my list of seven historical figures:

L. Ron Hubbard--"What were you thinking when you dreamed up the Scientology religion? It was a huge joke that got out of hand, right?

Nostrodamus--"When you were writing your prognostications, were you really seeing future world events or just basing your predictions on the past? Do you think you accomplished anything good with your writings?

Queen Elizabeth I--"Didn't you despise your father for cutting off your mother's head? What was it like to be around him? What was it like to be Bloody Mary's little sister?

Isaac Asimov--"You were such a great thinker, brilliant scientist, prolific writer and jovial personality. Is there some way you could transfer some of that talent to me?"

Jane Goodall--"To me, you are a saint for protecting wildlife and the environment. May you live to be 100!"

Johanna Lee and Martha Just (my two grandmothers)--"You both died when I was young and I never got to know your stories. What was it like to emigrate to America? What did you do to survive in a foreign land when you didn't speak the language? I am in awe of you and I dearly wish I could have known you both."

Now, who are your Seven?

I'm thankful for student loans

I am so thankful for the student loan and grant programs! If they didn't exist, I could never have gotten a degree or paid for my four kids to get post-secondary education. (My second-oldest daughter and I graduated from college just one week apart.)

Imagine where our country would be if only those students with wealthy parents could get a college education. We'd be living in an elitist society where blue-blood idiots would be making the decisions how our society should be run.

Thankfully, democracy reigns and we can all be as educated or as ignorant as we want to be! Now that's what I call Freedom!

The Pride of Minnesota

These are the celebrated Coen brothers from the Twin Cities suburb of St Louis Park MN. They have written, produced and directed a lot of really good movies. (One of my favorites is Fargo. Some folks thought it ridiculed the way Minnesotans talk and act, but the fact of the matter is--some of us do.) Their new movie, A Serious Man is being released this week.

Anyway, they also have done such other films as: Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Burn After Reading, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, and Intolerable Cruelty (among a bunch of others). The Walker Museum of Modern Art recently ran a retrospective of their films.

The suburb of St Louis Park also produced such other illustrious folks as Senator Al Franken (a former writer and performer on Saturday Night Live) and Thomas Friedman, columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author.

Minnesota is justifiably proud of these native sons. But there is a dirty little secret behind the reason all these men came from one suburb--they are all Jewish. The "Minnesota Nice" Gentiles back in the 50's had restricted Jews from many suburbs. St Louis Park was not restricted, so the Jewish families settled there.

I have a friend by the name of Chaiya (Hiya) who grew up in St Louis Park. She said when she was born her parents also gave her the Gentile name of "Wendy" because so many people were prejudiced against Jews. All through her school years she went by Wendy, but after that, she embraced her Jewish name and has gone by Chaiya ever since.

There are a lot of good people in Minnesota. I hope that this lesson on bigotry has not been wasted on us. None of those suburbs that smugly discriminated against the Jews back in the 50's have anything to brag about today--either in producing successful progeny or in taking the high moral ground.

Here--Hear!

In today's morning newspaper, there is a feature story on football fanatics who are into extreme decorating. This picture was shown on the front page of the Variety Section to illustrate the story.

I have no problem with going overboard for the home team--I'm sure it's loads of fun. However,I have a big problem with misspelled words or incorrect grammar on signs etc. So, when I saw the poster bordering the room with the Vikings fight song (Skol Vikings), the line, "you'll here us yell" leapt right out at me.

How embarrassing for those folks! The error has been publicized and distributed all over the state of Minnesota. They will surely take a lot of ribbing over that.

OK, but it doesn't rank with a legislator publicly yelling "You lie!" at the President.

It doesn't rank with a tennis player yelling obscenities and threats at an official.

And it doesn't rank with an entertainer rushing the winner of an award, grabbing the microphone from her and yelling that someone else should have won.

(And how about all the town hall meetings where elected officials have been verbally assaulted by hordes of yelling protesters and nothing was accomplished?)

Every one of these incidents have been in the news recently. Where has common decency gone? It seems to me that "If you have to yell it, you probably shouldn't say it!"

Ms Sparrow grows a little wiser

I've been getting really lazy lately. I haven't posted since Sunday and I feel sheepish about it. I aspire to being one of those reliable bloggers who post every day but I just can't manage to pull it off. This does not speak well of my commitment.

I've actually been trying to sort through old file folders and reduce the clutter in my little corner. What throws me off is that I have to read everything before I can decide whether to keep it or not. Add to that my chronic indecisiveness and you have the "perfect storm" of inertia. My desk is piled high with old humorous emails that I have preserved for posterity. Such as:

Hello, welcome to the psychiatric hotline.

• If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
• If your are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
• If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 and 6.
• If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want, to just stay on the line while we trace your call.
• If you're schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
• If you're manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press, no one will answer.

I just realized that in the 15 years or so since I received this, I have become more sensitive about the issue of mental illness. It's not nearly as funny as it used to be.

And so, into the recycling it goes. One down, several hundred to go...

Treehugger time

I read a wide variety of other people's blogs. Several of them lean toward environmental issues, one of my main interests. I was catching up on reading other blogs when I came across this great line in one of them:

"Live more gently

on the earth."

This what we need to do! We need to pressure stores to stock more paper products that use recycled materials and stop buying toilet tissue that is 100% newly-cut trees. According to The Equalizer blog at http://theequalizerfcw.blogspot.com/ Kimberly Clark has announced that they will begin to use 100% environmentally responsible sources for their products by 2011. This puts pressure on other companies to follow suit.

The US Postal Service is down-sizing again due to the reduced volume of mail. We're talking a huge amount of paper being saved by people using other sources of communication. Despite the tragic loss of jobs, this is good news for saving trees! Save the trees--save the planet!

It's Flag Day

Some interesting facts about our flag:

* It's the most complicated of all flags requiring 64 separate pieces to construct.

* President Harry Truman declared Flag Day in 1949, however, it is not a federal holiday.

* It is not illegal to put a US flag across your butt--it's considered freedom of speech.

* The emails circulating that President Obama refuses to wear a flag pin or salute the flag are Hoaxes.

* Ours is the prettiest and best flag in the world!

You're a Grand Old Flag by George M. Cohan

You're a grand old flag, You're a high-flying flag,
And forever in peace may you wave.
You're the emblem of the land I love
And home of the free and the brave,
Every heart beats true 'neath the red, white and blue
Where there's never a boast or a brag.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
Keep your eye on the Grand Old Flag.

The millionth word

A small notice in the StarTribune today stated, "U.S. company Global Language Monitor estimates that the millionth word will be added to the English language in mid-June".
Add to that the fact a lot of words have multiple meanings and we're talking millions of words!

It is mind-boggling that we have that many words at our disposal and still can't communicate very well with each other.

I depend on my thesaurus to find a word with the right shade of meaning. I often have to settle for another word that doesn't quite express what I mean. It seems we will never have enough words to convey the exact thing we want to say.

It is time we start to work on becoming telepathic! Not so much to exchange facts, but to have empathy for each other. Wouldn't this make for a more compassionate, peaceful world?

Now, who do we go to with this great idea?

Anybody... ?

Yoohoo.....

Rationalizing on Earth Day

Tomorrow is Earth Day and Friday is Arbor Day.

I drive a car I've had for 10 years and it gets about 20 miles to the gallon. This is not good. However, even if I could afford a newer, eco-friendly car, my old Impala would still exist. Someone else would be driving it and getting 20 miles to the gallon. So, I may as well keep driving it.

After going to bed each night, at least a dozen small lights still remain on all over the house. There are power strips behind or under furniture, there are LED's on various electronics, the stove and microwave plus a few night lights. I'm told that we could reduce our energy consumption by as much as 10% if we turned them all off. But, who is going to crawl around every night turning off all the energy "vampires"? Really!!

We could also reduce our energy costs by replacing all of our windows with expensive new onesand replacing our appliances with more energy efficient ones. Oh, if only...

So, I do what little I can and urge others to do the same. That's called rationalizing.

Confessions of a tree hugger

I love trees. I have been brought to tears at seeing trees cut down. I have often thought that if I could have a super-power, I would want the ability to create big beautiful trees in a blink. On long car trips, I often spend hours willing trees into existence--some willows around a small lake, rows of majestic elms lining barren streets, spruce trees in wide medians, groves of oak trees covering hills and roadsides. If I had my way, Minnesota would be sheltered under a blanket of oxygen-producing trees!

Therefore, it was with some alarm that I recently read in the Star Tribune that my choice of toilet paper was contributing to the loss of old growth forests. In an article reprinted from the NY Times, Leslie Kaufman stated that the Ultra-soft brands of tissue can't be produced using recycled paper. The fluffy paper we all prefer comes from millions of trees harvested in North and South America.

The average American uses 24 rolls of paper annually. That amounts to a whopping lot of trees flushed down the toilet.

So now I have to decide whether to give up my Quilted Northern and buy the recyled brands of paper products. The recycled brands are never on sale like the specials they run on the fluffy tissue. I'm going to do my environmental best to find the alternative that saves trees. I hope you will do that too.

First Wednesday

Today is the first Wednesday of the month. In the Twin Cities that means that the Emergency Sirens are tested at 1:00 pm throughout the metro area. The system is for warning residents of severe weather, tornadoes or even civil defense threats (since 9/11). I would barely notice the tests if it weren't for my friend, Margareth.

She is the leader of one of my writing groups and frequently reads memoirs of her life as a child in London during WWII. She tells about the terror of running to shelters from the German bombs at night. She still suffers PTSD from those dreadful times. So the first Wednesday of every month when the sirens sound, Margareth has to shake off the terror yet once again.

The sirens that make Minnesotans feel safe and secure do the opposite to those who have survived living in war-torn areas.

Let us count our blessings.

Does heaven want us to take in stray cats?

At the risk of being typecast as a boring "cat lady" I'm doing an update on Gracie, our new kitty. We took her to the vet yesterday for a checkup. We put her in the cat carrier and when we took her out into the cold she squeezed as far back in the corner as she could. It seemed she was scared that she was going to be turned out in the cold again.

At the vet's office they did a blood test for FIV-FIP which was negative (thank goodness). We learned that Gracie is spayed, has no earmites, is healthy, approximately two years old and weighs a little over 8 pounds. They also checked to make sure she didn't have a microchip--she didn't. She does have a few fleas and parasites, so she got de-wormer and flea killer.


We are now the proud owners of a $175.00 stray cat (ouch!).

But, I wonder...is it altruistic or self-indulgent to take in stray cats?

It's not that we help cats to the exclusion of people. I regularly contribute to the Second Harvest Food Shelf and we often help out a single-mom neighbor with two kids.

When Christ said, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me" was he excluding the animals? I have always felt he wasn't, besides, it's my nature to help out any creature that is suffering.

But then again, it seems Christ was only joking when he said, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth". So, how far can you actually take belief?

Monday is my favorite day of the week

I'm back in business! Ordinary Jo in North Dakota told me what I did wrong.

So, here's a picture of Melissa Leo. She didn't win an Oscar for Frozen River last
night, but it's a good film about a desperate woman who gets into smuggling illegal aliens across the Canadian border. It illustrates how blatantly Native Americans are discriminated against. My heart goes out to the Native peoples for the despicable damage our
ancestors did to them and for the ongoing racism we inflict on them.

If you get a chance, rent Frozen River.

No Meat For You!

I talked to my daughter, Paula in Sauk Centre last night (she actually lives on the Main Street of Sinclair Lewis fame). We were discussing the menu for our family Christmas dinner. I told her that we were planning on Swedish Meatballs and gravy, adding that my local daughter, Brenda was bringing "meatless meatballs".

I was surprised when Paula announced, "That's what I'll be having." Yet another of my kin has converted to Vegetarianism! My son, Mark, has been avoiding meat for many years. My sister, Karen, no longer eats any meat, as well as her daughter, Julie and family. Brenda has stopped eating meat since her bout with breast cancer 5 years ago. And, now Paula has joined their ranks.

What's the matter with me!? I am totally sympathetic to the ideal of not eating animals. A friend from one of my writer's groups is an avid activist against the inhumane treatment of farm animals. Indeed, I stopped eating pork for some months after she read a piece on the suffering of a dying sow at the stockyards in St Paul.

But then, a little bit of bacon slipped back into my diet, and then a pork sausage and before you know it, I was eating ham and pork chops again!

And, much as I try to fight it, I still crave a burger now and then.

Save the beasts of the farm and field! Now, there is another New Year's resolution that I have to contemplate.