Crazy. There's a word we throw around with casual abandon. Not really thinking too deeply into it's meaning or the real connotation behind it. "She's cra-a-zy as hell!" or "That's some crazy stuff goin' on there!" and "Crazy is as crazy does."
But what, pray tell, is crazy?
This far into history it can mean a lot of things. It is both an adjective and a noun. Meaning ranges from senseless to intensely enthusiastic to bizarre and unusual; there's also the nonconformist, having the jitters, performing an action with great speed or recklessness.
However, with a word origin dating back to between 1570 and 1580, crazy has its roots in the descriptive form concerning mentally deranged, demented, insane. Those are big words. Those are darkly powerful words. They are words denoting a range of brain chemistry which a great many people never fully understand or never have need to investigate.
I am not one of a great many people. What I am is one of eight siblings. My youngest sister is in a state mental hospital in Colorado after drowning her children in the grips of a post-partum psychotic state. My youngest brother was recently admitted to the Napa branch of the California State Hospital system after spending most of his adult life -- 18 out of 35 years -- in either jail or prison for drug-related offenses which stemmed from a long undiagnosed personality disorder.
This is not the time for discussion of my sister. I love her. I miss the kids and miss the innocent days for all of us that were ours before their deaths. This is all about my brother who could aptly be described by any of the above definitions of crazy. And, yet they would define only the hull of who he is.
Being the 'bridge' sibling, and the eldest of the second round of four in my mother's two sets of children, I am emotionally close to both of them. Though not always in the best of form, I've stuck it all out with each of them, even when I, myself, felt as if I might 'go crazy' and join them at some point. Besides the obvious family connection, I look at them in their situations and think I would never want to be abandoned and forgotten. To an extent, our childhood left me knowing what it is to be on the outside, the fringe, existing as apart from the whole and afraid the black inky void would swallow me up and no one would ever remember I existed.
For the last two nights, I've listened as my brother decompressed. Though I try to convince him otherwise, he feels he exists in that inky darkness where all is isolation and invisibility and the forgotten. My words are meaningless from my vantage point. They might uplift a girlfriend or encourage a child or amuse a neighbor, they are impotent to a man of his station. We are joined by love and bound by duty, as trite as that sounds, but our circumstances are not shared. I can only listen and allow his painful words to march in one ear, across my brain where they burn an afterimage, and fall out the other side as they make way for the torrent of more and more. The tide can not be stemmed.
He rails over the Godly people who seem to be so busy "goin' to church and praisin' God but they ain't got time for me [or people like me]." He misses the whole life he never had. Never even been on one date. Never attended a concert. Never had roots and ties to one place and a passel of people. There's the brother whose bed he shared as children who now forgets all about him. "I would never leave him rotting up in some cell forever the way he left me. I can't change it but it hurts. I don't have a brother now." He wants to shore up inner walls and trim some of the shit out of his life, "I can't be lettin' people a little bit in and gettin' hopeful." Just accept it and let it go -- marriage, family, feeling settled and safe, loved ones. The rantings of a man fully enveloped in the depressing mantle of fear over a future he cannot yet see.
These calls are an exercise in extreme patience and faith for me. I don't say this lightly. I fight my own darkness in these moments. Anger wells up and threatens to spill over. Helplessness knocks me flat. Despair over the improbability of his ever actually gaining his equilibrium and self-confidence washes over me in a hurricane gale. But, eventually that very small, very still voice pierces the heaviness and speaks to me of prayer. It reminds me of the miracle of years which has brought my brother, Gary, and me, to this point. It asks me to believe for him. It challenges me to pray for the very things neither of us has the present ability to see. And then I do as the Spirit moves me. No mean feat as my journey with Christ yet extends in an endless vista before me.
I believe Gary's second life is just getting started. I believe he will jettison bitterness, self-pity, and anxiety for the better side of that coin. I believe he does yet have a brother and their relationship will be restored once both men have gained enough self-healing to close the gap between their hearts and their minds. I believe there is a good woman out there who will see into the depths of my brother's soul and pull out the goodness at his core and help it into the light of day. I believe his future has been written in the Book of Life, and when he lets it all go, it will return to him in the same generous measure by which Job was restored to his own existence.
In the meantime, we hold on by fingertips and count down the 60 days Gary must spend in the intake ward. And, the 30 days in the next ward before he is finally placed and begins his program of counseling, work, exercise, and acclimation.
I'm right there with him. As I have been since day one. That's a crazy story.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Mr. S
The retired man next door, Mr. S (rhymes with 'slinky' which cracks-up my kids), he does this thing for us. Or, more specifically, he does this thing for our dog. You see, Mr. S is a warm-season griller of thick delectable cuts of meat. Pork and beef are his top performers. The heralding of this heart-clogging habit is known not by the scent of seasoned slabs of seared perfection wafting over the fence from his yard but by the ringing of our doorbell. And there he is. Tanned. Stocky with a rounded but solid belly. Neat goatee and short hair white as Santa's self same. A few tasteful pieces of real gold jewelry in place. Oft times, the subtle (okay maybe not always so subtle) odor of a whiskey sour or two emanating from his pores. Always a smile in place as he proffers the plastic baggie or foil-wrapped package of sizeable bones still warm, red and brown ragged pieces of flesh yet clinging to the inner curve and outside edges.
"For your dog! Tell her to enjoy!" he booms in his deep resonant tone of neighborly friendliness. We always accept with many a thank-you for his thoughtfulness. He's a huge fan of our masculine orange kitty, Fabio, and it's not unusual for him to launch into a short soliloquy on the subject. I listen and smile. Amused at his interpretation of our cat's name -- FLAVIO. Besides the fact that Mr. S's heart has been the topic, either directly or indirectly, of a surgery or two, he's losing his hearing but is not ready to surrender to the fact. So, one day he thought he heard Flavio instead of Fabio. No amount of convincing by his wife could change his stance on that. Thus, my feline is the recipient of two names. I'm certain that when said cat enters Mr. S's house at his behest, a tasty tidbit if set before him, too.
I drink herbal tea and don't golf; he's got a standing weekly tee-time. I rarely have an opening to swim in the pool which has been put at our disposal by Mr. S and his very kind wife. He drives a big shiny gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade; I bemoan the fact that I must mug around town behind the wheel of that GMC Yukon mentioned in a previous blog entry. But for whatever reason, this sixty-something robust retiree next door to me has engaged in the act of neighboring via my pets. We don't rub elbows anywhere except where our side yards reluctantly converge: his lawn is weed-free and professionally serviced with an impressive array of chemicals while my mixed-green expanse is busy hosting a national dandelion convention this Spring.
We aren't very close.
I'm great friends with the neighbors to the north of us. My kids babysit their kids. I walk with the wife, and we play Bunco on a monthly basis. There are dinners for the couples and BBQ's and parties in the summer. A sack of sugar, an extra egg or dozen, a bit of basil -- dried and straight from the garden . . . yeah, that idyllic back-and-forth happens ALL the time. And, I dig it.
But what about my southside giver of gristle, fat, and marrow? I don't question it. I like it. He worries when my familiar presence is missing from the yard for too long. He once told me that I reminded him of his wife's older daughter. An educated professional woman of high standards and spotless work ethic. A psychiatrist who adopted several troubled children from Guatemala. Probably the longest conversation we've held save for the time he related how he lost his cat and later found him in the upstairs closet. He bolsters the security I feel in my neighborhood. He is typecast as the generally strong and silent type with a heart of gold. Or, at least a chunky pinky ring of gold
In fact, he was here tonight. He told my son to let our dog know the season was upon us. Our carnivorous harbinger of Spring. The bone still held a substantial amount of nibble meat. I confess to being THIS CLOSE to sampling just a wee bit -- my mouth actually watered as I handed it off to our eager canine. Our Mr. S.
You really ought to get you one. But not ours . . . back off . . . he's taken!
"For your dog! Tell her to enjoy!" he booms in his deep resonant tone of neighborly friendliness. We always accept with many a thank-you for his thoughtfulness. He's a huge fan of our masculine orange kitty, Fabio, and it's not unusual for him to launch into a short soliloquy on the subject. I listen and smile. Amused at his interpretation of our cat's name -- FLAVIO. Besides the fact that Mr. S's heart has been the topic, either directly or indirectly, of a surgery or two, he's losing his hearing but is not ready to surrender to the fact. So, one day he thought he heard Flavio instead of Fabio. No amount of convincing by his wife could change his stance on that. Thus, my feline is the recipient of two names. I'm certain that when said cat enters Mr. S's house at his behest, a tasty tidbit if set before him, too.
I drink herbal tea and don't golf; he's got a standing weekly tee-time. I rarely have an opening to swim in the pool which has been put at our disposal by Mr. S and his very kind wife. He drives a big shiny gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade; I bemoan the fact that I must mug around town behind the wheel of that GMC Yukon mentioned in a previous blog entry. But for whatever reason, this sixty-something robust retiree next door to me has engaged in the act of neighboring via my pets. We don't rub elbows anywhere except where our side yards reluctantly converge: his lawn is weed-free and professionally serviced with an impressive array of chemicals while my mixed-green expanse is busy hosting a national dandelion convention this Spring.
We aren't very close.
I'm great friends with the neighbors to the north of us. My kids babysit their kids. I walk with the wife, and we play Bunco on a monthly basis. There are dinners for the couples and BBQ's and parties in the summer. A sack of sugar, an extra egg or dozen, a bit of basil -- dried and straight from the garden . . . yeah, that idyllic back-and-forth happens ALL the time. And, I dig it.
But what about my southside giver of gristle, fat, and marrow? I don't question it. I like it. He worries when my familiar presence is missing from the yard for too long. He once told me that I reminded him of his wife's older daughter. An educated professional woman of high standards and spotless work ethic. A psychiatrist who adopted several troubled children from Guatemala. Probably the longest conversation we've held save for the time he related how he lost his cat and later found him in the upstairs closet. He bolsters the security I feel in my neighborhood. He is typecast as the generally strong and silent type with a heart of gold. Or, at least a chunky pinky ring of gold
In fact, he was here tonight. He told my son to let our dog know the season was upon us. Our carnivorous harbinger of Spring. The bone still held a substantial amount of nibble meat. I confess to being THIS CLOSE to sampling just a wee bit -- my mouth actually watered as I handed it off to our eager canine. Our Mr. S.
You really ought to get you one. But not ours . . . back off . . . he's taken!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Blown Away and Back Again
Yesterday was April 10th of 2010. Unless you were in the vicinity of Murfreesboro, Tennessee last year on the same date, it most likely means nothing to you. It was around noon on Good Friday. Rough weather had set in. Warnings of rotational conditions were promising a stressful afternoon of radio and TV monitoring for my eldest daughter, Ashley, who was a few miles away at work. My son and I had walked to the Great Harvest bakery around 10AM to bypass the inclement conditions; on our way back, I allowed him to stay behind at a friend's house just a few blocks away.
Once home, I clicked on the news and commenced to emptying our small pantry on the off chance we were forced to hide ourselves and our pets in its confined space. My middle daughter arrived home with a friend of hers; we joked about cramming his 6 foot+ frame in there with the rest of us. Channel 4 was broadcasting a good bit of red areas onscreen but for whatever reason, my attention was directed in other areas. The back door opened to reveal Zachary who had been dropped off by the neighbor because the weather had intensified. What he neglected to tell me until much after the fact was the sound of sirens serenading him in the distance directly before he popped in on us.
"Uh, mom? A tornado was spotted at the airport," there was the faintest hint of anxiety in Sarah's voice.
I replied, "Our airport? Here in Murfreesboro?" She nodded her head. I looked at the TV and found nothing to directly alarm me, "I think you saw wrong!" But, I did decide to rearrange the cars to downplay any possible hail damage. I pulled the Silverado into the garage and tried to squeeze past the full lawn-waste bags along its side. "What's that noise? Is your car . . . " My words froze in my throat as I stared at Sarah's friend who had parked his car along the edge of our garage. I'd heard descriptions of the sound. How very accurate -- the freight train was a-comin'!
I screamed at everyone to get in the pantry. NOW! The power had gone out in an instant. The garage door was stuck in the open position. I had visions of me being sucked out and up into the unseen vortex on the other side of the wall. This stupid huge truck! These stupid bags! Breaking free, I lunged for the open door, slamming it shut on the other side. By now, a palsy of fear shook me from head to toe. After making sure the kids were properly stowed away, I felt compelled to grab the camcorder I'd set on the dining room table to return to our neighbors after borrowing it for my anniversary trip to New York City. The window in front of me displayed an unbelievable scene. I was rooted to the spot. I could not look away. An undulating wall of air and, and, confused blackbirds? moved in and out and up and down over and to the right of my view. The dark objects appeared to dance in the pulsating grip of air currents. My God! My God!
I tore my gaze away and hightailed it for the pantry with its canned goods, pillows, flashlights, three frightened children, and one terrified Husky-mix dog. Fabio the cat, in his feline arrogance, refused to join us. The mingled sounds of our breathing mixed with the quick words of my pleading prayer to the Lord as we waited for the mighty noise to overpower our sounds and tear our world to pieces. I'd seen the falling hail and witnessed my carefully planted trees whipping in the abusive winds right before the pantry doorknob clicked into place. Even my imaginative brain could not conjure up images of something infinitely more powerful leaving us whole and safe in the next few minutes. I berated myself for paying such lax attention. How could I put that kid into harm's way over a car!? But, I really hadn't known. From Omaha, Nebraska to Lamar, Colorado to right here and right now, we'd experienced multiple episodes of such weather and always emerged on the other side, unscathed, and without the beneit of an actual sighting.
*************
We did survive to emerge from hiding. Unscathed. A miracle as I recall what I saw through our dining room window. What I witnessed as my kids and I followed the path of debris with camcorder in hand. Roof tiles, first individual, then in sections, giving way to entire rooms-worth of carpet from homes unknown. An Eeyore stuffed animal on a neighbor's lawn. Twisted pieces of metal siding in the middle of the roads. 2x4's treated like jagged spears as they jutted from trees, homes, lawns. Nails tossed about by a giant's careless hand. Power lines downed. Fences demolished. Substantial brick homes scattered like the pieces of a child's building set. Once magnificent trees sheared clean off; their stumps resembling broken teeth against the skyline and the earth.
Lost animals, wide-eyed homeowners, road-clogging cars -- everywhere. The telltale scent which signaled a broken gas line somewhere close. The scream of emergency vehicles. Static-filled voices calling out to all trucks and cars in the area of here and there, hither and yon! The frantic hustle of men and women, uniformed and civilian, searching with desperate energy through piles of rubble for a mother and her baby said to have been sucked from their house located kitty-corner to the yard they were now thought to be in. My borrowed video equipment became the record keeper of that moving rescue though Kori, 30, and Olivia, 9-weeks old, would become the only deaths of this immense tragedy.
The days and weeks to follow held far more power for me than the EF4 tornado and its partners which ripped through our fair city. By the time state and national officials arrived to survey the damage, huge portions of the clean-up efforts had already been completed by neighbors and locals who simply stepped in as needed. Power tools, trucks, food and water -- all seemed to appear as if on cue at all points mired by the devastation. The efforts of Murfreesboro and its peoples in the face of this unexpected challenge only reinforced the beliefs which led me to move to this area. Regular everyday people giving of their time and themselves for the sake of others.
Emotionally, the damage would linger, healing arriving in measured increments, for me, for John Bryant, who was left behind in the wake of his wife's and child's death, and the many others who were directly hit, losing their homes and cherished belongings. Physically, the scars created by the paths of the tornadoes are still evident but they have been softened by nature's restorative properties and man's ability to get things done. But yesterday, as I stood near the Stones River across from the Riverview neighborhood which was hit quite hard, leaning forward to hear every word spoken in a commemorative ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Good Friday Tornadoes, I felt the loop close. It was a full-circle moment. We really were getting better. Moving forward.
There at the Thompson Lane Greenway Trailhead, with seedlings and saplings of replacement trees soaking up the perfect Springtime sunshine, I experienced that most elusive of goals in the face of life-changing events: closure. Our mayor gave a brief but touching speech. I listened to the jogging pastor who'd clung to a tall oak near the water as the eye of the storm passed over him. I finally saw, in person, up close and personal, the man whose wife and baby I had seen through the lens of that camcorder during those awful moments when hope and desperation stood hand-in-hand. The storm took from him, violently and without permission. The storm tossed him like a rag doll as he hunched over his family, protecting them to the best of his ability. The storm literally broke his back. But, it did not break him. John Bryant's spirit was intact. Everyone in the small crowd gathered at the edge of the path sensed it.
And, I felt at peace.
Once home, I clicked on the news and commenced to emptying our small pantry on the off chance we were forced to hide ourselves and our pets in its confined space. My middle daughter arrived home with a friend of hers; we joked about cramming his 6 foot+ frame in there with the rest of us. Channel 4 was broadcasting a good bit of red areas onscreen but for whatever reason, my attention was directed in other areas. The back door opened to reveal Zachary who had been dropped off by the neighbor because the weather had intensified. What he neglected to tell me until much after the fact was the sound of sirens serenading him in the distance directly before he popped in on us.
"Uh, mom? A tornado was spotted at the airport," there was the faintest hint of anxiety in Sarah's voice.
I replied, "Our airport? Here in Murfreesboro?" She nodded her head. I looked at the TV and found nothing to directly alarm me, "I think you saw wrong!" But, I did decide to rearrange the cars to downplay any possible hail damage. I pulled the Silverado into the garage and tried to squeeze past the full lawn-waste bags along its side. "What's that noise? Is your car . . . " My words froze in my throat as I stared at Sarah's friend who had parked his car along the edge of our garage. I'd heard descriptions of the sound. How very accurate -- the freight train was a-comin'!
I screamed at everyone to get in the pantry. NOW! The power had gone out in an instant. The garage door was stuck in the open position. I had visions of me being sucked out and up into the unseen vortex on the other side of the wall. This stupid huge truck! These stupid bags! Breaking free, I lunged for the open door, slamming it shut on the other side. By now, a palsy of fear shook me from head to toe. After making sure the kids were properly stowed away, I felt compelled to grab the camcorder I'd set on the dining room table to return to our neighbors after borrowing it for my anniversary trip to New York City. The window in front of me displayed an unbelievable scene. I was rooted to the spot. I could not look away. An undulating wall of air and, and, confused blackbirds? moved in and out and up and down over and to the right of my view. The dark objects appeared to dance in the pulsating grip of air currents. My God! My God!
I tore my gaze away and hightailed it for the pantry with its canned goods, pillows, flashlights, three frightened children, and one terrified Husky-mix dog. Fabio the cat, in his feline arrogance, refused to join us. The mingled sounds of our breathing mixed with the quick words of my pleading prayer to the Lord as we waited for the mighty noise to overpower our sounds and tear our world to pieces. I'd seen the falling hail and witnessed my carefully planted trees whipping in the abusive winds right before the pantry doorknob clicked into place. Even my imaginative brain could not conjure up images of something infinitely more powerful leaving us whole and safe in the next few minutes. I berated myself for paying such lax attention. How could I put that kid into harm's way over a car!? But, I really hadn't known. From Omaha, Nebraska to Lamar, Colorado to right here and right now, we'd experienced multiple episodes of such weather and always emerged on the other side, unscathed, and without the beneit of an actual sighting.
*************
We did survive to emerge from hiding. Unscathed. A miracle as I recall what I saw through our dining room window. What I witnessed as my kids and I followed the path of debris with camcorder in hand. Roof tiles, first individual, then in sections, giving way to entire rooms-worth of carpet from homes unknown. An Eeyore stuffed animal on a neighbor's lawn. Twisted pieces of metal siding in the middle of the roads. 2x4's treated like jagged spears as they jutted from trees, homes, lawns. Nails tossed about by a giant's careless hand. Power lines downed. Fences demolished. Substantial brick homes scattered like the pieces of a child's building set. Once magnificent trees sheared clean off; their stumps resembling broken teeth against the skyline and the earth.
Lost animals, wide-eyed homeowners, road-clogging cars -- everywhere. The telltale scent which signaled a broken gas line somewhere close. The scream of emergency vehicles. Static-filled voices calling out to all trucks and cars in the area of here and there, hither and yon! The frantic hustle of men and women, uniformed and civilian, searching with desperate energy through piles of rubble for a mother and her baby said to have been sucked from their house located kitty-corner to the yard they were now thought to be in. My borrowed video equipment became the record keeper of that moving rescue though Kori, 30, and Olivia, 9-weeks old, would become the only deaths of this immense tragedy.
The days and weeks to follow held far more power for me than the EF4 tornado and its partners which ripped through our fair city. By the time state and national officials arrived to survey the damage, huge portions of the clean-up efforts had already been completed by neighbors and locals who simply stepped in as needed. Power tools, trucks, food and water -- all seemed to appear as if on cue at all points mired by the devastation. The efforts of Murfreesboro and its peoples in the face of this unexpected challenge only reinforced the beliefs which led me to move to this area. Regular everyday people giving of their time and themselves for the sake of others.
Emotionally, the damage would linger, healing arriving in measured increments, for me, for John Bryant, who was left behind in the wake of his wife's and child's death, and the many others who were directly hit, losing their homes and cherished belongings. Physically, the scars created by the paths of the tornadoes are still evident but they have been softened by nature's restorative properties and man's ability to get things done. But yesterday, as I stood near the Stones River across from the Riverview neighborhood which was hit quite hard, leaning forward to hear every word spoken in a commemorative ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Good Friday Tornadoes, I felt the loop close. It was a full-circle moment. We really were getting better. Moving forward.
There at the Thompson Lane Greenway Trailhead, with seedlings and saplings of replacement trees soaking up the perfect Springtime sunshine, I experienced that most elusive of goals in the face of life-changing events: closure. Our mayor gave a brief but touching speech. I listened to the jogging pastor who'd clung to a tall oak near the water as the eye of the storm passed over him. I finally saw, in person, up close and personal, the man whose wife and baby I had seen through the lens of that camcorder during those awful moments when hope and desperation stood hand-in-hand. The storm took from him, violently and without permission. The storm tossed him like a rag doll as he hunched over his family, protecting them to the best of his ability. The storm literally broke his back. But, it did not break him. John Bryant's spirit was intact. Everyone in the small crowd gathered at the edge of the path sensed it.
And, I felt at peace.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Pod Schooled
I'm continuing my education. I've got the podcast list to prove it. The professor for the course is 'Girlfriend' -- she looks and acts suspiciously like a well-kept iPhone. She dresses in Otterbox white, and dirt refuses to cling to her shell. Shhh. My reputation is shot if people catch on that I've gone high-tech iTech. Aww, who am I trying to fool? Everyone worth a darn in my life KNOWS that is the pit into which I've fallen since my 40th birthday hit hard and generously just last winter.
I should probably come clean and admit to surfing the net, blogging, and checking e-mail on my pretty-in-pink Dell laptop while updating my status ('stati' for multiple tweakings?) on Facebook using Girlfriend, all simultaneously. With that revelation, I either instantly jumped ahead on both your popularity list AND your friend list or sank to the bottom of the ocean floor, never to be admired or revered in your gray matter again. Should I mention I text and Facebook my daughters, son, and husband when the mood hits even when we are PRESENT at the SAME time in the SAME house? Nawww.
So, back to podcasts. The term has existed on the peripheral of my awareness for some time now. NPR (National Public Radio for those of you not in the know) reminds its listeners to check their prodigious offerings in between music and shows. My iTunes menu has a podcast selection in the list to the left of the main screen -- I just never knew what to do with it. It all sounded a bit outer spacey to me. Remember those enormous stone pods covered in oceanic plantlife in the classic movie, "Cocoon?" They end up in the swimming pool of an abandoned mansion, lending their life force to the old folks who discover their age-related ailments clear up after a dip with the dino eggs? THAT'S what came to my mind.
The real thing, an actual podcast, is a revelation in free, and often enlightened and most definitely entertaining, information. It's all there for the taking on any number of subjects in varying lengths and degrees of professional production. Faith, science, comedy, language, exercise, YOU name it. Brilliant, I tell you. Brilliant! Where have they been all my iPod-inculcated life? Let me interrupt to say I love me a whole slough of audio books downloaded to my iPhone; they are perfect company on my daily walks, house cleaning, gardening. I remain loyal to them and will access the online R.E.A.D.S. program via my local library, scouring for titles to accompany down one street and up another from spring to winter and back again, for as long as they'll have me.
But the day I ventured forth, tapping the iPod icon on my touchscreen menu, and accessing the vast array of podcast titles, and encountered a vista of companions for my constitutional outings, I swear my life changed. (Yet again, courtesy of Girlfriend.) Where else could I hear QuackCast in which an infectious disease doc systematically attacks and debunks the doctrine of quack medicines with tongue-in-cheek humor and barely contained disdain? I'm not quitting probiotics despite his well-researched rant, but I sure will read the labels and check the origins carefully! Oh, and New York Times Book Review where inspiring authors are interviewed and their works compared to established writers, and new titles judged worthy or not so much with intelligence and just the right amount of verve. I imagine myself there one day in the not too distant future.
My favorite podcast of the moment appears once a week on Mondays -- I await each update with baited breath, eager to catch wind of the subject matter -- and comes courtesy of Chicago Public Radio, This American Life. In-depth stories ripped from the broad headlines and brought micro, ranging from the collapse of the housing market as it affected a condo building of desperate owners in the big city desiring to hang on despite being ripped off by the builder who left them with myriad construction crises; to the imminent closing of NUMMI (an auto plant jointly opened by GM and Toyota back in the early 80's which could have saved GM had the spirit of this particular plant caught on industry-wide).
And, how could I forget this week's story on 'Enemy Camp 2010?' One whole segment was dedicated to a guy whose allergies and asthma drove him to research cultures where residents did not commonly suffer such things. His studies led him to West Africa where he toured 38 villages in two weeks to walk barefoot in their communal potty pits, hoping to contract a handy case of hookworm. Upon attaining his goal and experiencing a marked reduction in his seasonal sufferings, he marketed his hiney-hosting denizens to fellow sufferers via an online business before fleeing to Mexico after being shut down by the concerned folks at the FDA. My husband, who is miserable year-in and year-out with sinus headaches and the full-on attack of histamines, is so-o-o-o lucky that guy no longer ships to America! One worm or two, honey? (We Googled him. For $3,900 he can help you conquer wheezing, sniffles, itching, and even alleviate Crohn's Disease and other maladies. There is actual science to back this up though HE is neither a doctor or a scientist. Check it out! http://www.asthmahookworm.com/)
I find myself wondering if I, too, should enter the fray and start my own podcast? Off the top of my head, a short topic list might include a reading of letters from the edge of sanity per my brother's writings; adventures in flax, yogurt, and brooding bowels; what to do when the garden throws you Bermuda grass, blue lizards, and black widows; the profound wisdom of the American teen at the expense of mine own wisdom; and how to create usable topographical maps by connecting the stretch marks and spider veins present on my body and yours. Would YOU listen?
I should probably come clean and admit to surfing the net, blogging, and checking e-mail on my pretty-in-pink Dell laptop while updating my status ('stati' for multiple tweakings?) on Facebook using Girlfriend, all simultaneously. With that revelation, I either instantly jumped ahead on both your popularity list AND your friend list or sank to the bottom of the ocean floor, never to be admired or revered in your gray matter again. Should I mention I text and Facebook my daughters, son, and husband when the mood hits even when we are PRESENT at the SAME time in the SAME house? Nawww.
So, back to podcasts. The term has existed on the peripheral of my awareness for some time now. NPR (National Public Radio for those of you not in the know) reminds its listeners to check their prodigious offerings in between music and shows. My iTunes menu has a podcast selection in the list to the left of the main screen -- I just never knew what to do with it. It all sounded a bit outer spacey to me. Remember those enormous stone pods covered in oceanic plantlife in the classic movie, "Cocoon?" They end up in the swimming pool of an abandoned mansion, lending their life force to the old folks who discover their age-related ailments clear up after a dip with the dino eggs? THAT'S what came to my mind.
The real thing, an actual podcast, is a revelation in free, and often enlightened and most definitely entertaining, information. It's all there for the taking on any number of subjects in varying lengths and degrees of professional production. Faith, science, comedy, language, exercise, YOU name it. Brilliant, I tell you. Brilliant! Where have they been all my iPod-inculcated life? Let me interrupt to say I love me a whole slough of audio books downloaded to my iPhone; they are perfect company on my daily walks, house cleaning, gardening. I remain loyal to them and will access the online R.E.A.D.S. program via my local library, scouring for titles to accompany down one street and up another from spring to winter and back again, for as long as they'll have me.
But the day I ventured forth, tapping the iPod icon on my touchscreen menu, and accessing the vast array of podcast titles, and encountered a vista of companions for my constitutional outings, I swear my life changed. (Yet again, courtesy of Girlfriend.) Where else could I hear QuackCast in which an infectious disease doc systematically attacks and debunks the doctrine of quack medicines with tongue-in-cheek humor and barely contained disdain? I'm not quitting probiotics despite his well-researched rant, but I sure will read the labels and check the origins carefully! Oh, and New York Times Book Review where inspiring authors are interviewed and their works compared to established writers, and new titles judged worthy or not so much with intelligence and just the right amount of verve. I imagine myself there one day in the not too distant future.
My favorite podcast of the moment appears once a week on Mondays -- I await each update with baited breath, eager to catch wind of the subject matter -- and comes courtesy of Chicago Public Radio, This American Life. In-depth stories ripped from the broad headlines and brought micro, ranging from the collapse of the housing market as it affected a condo building of desperate owners in the big city desiring to hang on despite being ripped off by the builder who left them with myriad construction crises; to the imminent closing of NUMMI (an auto plant jointly opened by GM and Toyota back in the early 80's which could have saved GM had the spirit of this particular plant caught on industry-wide).
And, how could I forget this week's story on 'Enemy Camp 2010?' One whole segment was dedicated to a guy whose allergies and asthma drove him to research cultures where residents did not commonly suffer such things. His studies led him to West Africa where he toured 38 villages in two weeks to walk barefoot in their communal potty pits, hoping to contract a handy case of hookworm. Upon attaining his goal and experiencing a marked reduction in his seasonal sufferings, he marketed his hiney-hosting denizens to fellow sufferers via an online business before fleeing to Mexico after being shut down by the concerned folks at the FDA. My husband, who is miserable year-in and year-out with sinus headaches and the full-on attack of histamines, is so-o-o-o lucky that guy no longer ships to America! One worm or two, honey? (We Googled him. For $3,900 he can help you conquer wheezing, sniffles, itching, and even alleviate Crohn's Disease and other maladies. There is actual science to back this up though HE is neither a doctor or a scientist. Check it out! http://www.asthmahookworm.com/)
I find myself wondering if I, too, should enter the fray and start my own podcast? Off the top of my head, a short topic list might include a reading of letters from the edge of sanity per my brother's writings; adventures in flax, yogurt, and brooding bowels; what to do when the garden throws you Bermuda grass, blue lizards, and black widows; the profound wisdom of the American teen at the expense of mine own wisdom; and how to create usable topographical maps by connecting the stretch marks and spider veins present on my body and yours. Would YOU listen?
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