Confused

There are some days I am just plain confused! Mostly I am confused by people and I want to say, "WHY?" Today I had one of those moments. I was walking in a public corridor, I will not disclose the location when I came across a person that I could not quite determine the sex of. "Pat" was an understatement. I thought perhaps it was an older women who has seen better days. Yet, she still wanted to feel youthful by putting her hair up in a side ponytail! You heard me a side ponytail! The closer I looked I thought, Noooo, I think that is a man wearing a side ponytail. Maybe it wasn't really a side ponytail just a bed head ponytail that migrated to the side of his head! So I took some of my co-workers along for a walk past this person to help me figure this one out. The consensus is ....drum roll, it is a man! WHY?

Is that a skunk I smell?

One would think, with as much problem I have with my nose and sinuses that I would not be able to smell things. On the contrary, I have a great sense of smell. One time I was used to trace down a sewer gas leak! I was at a friend's office and she said "I do not know where this smell is coming from?" So, I got down on my hands and knees like a bloodhound and sniffed my way to her front door. I told her, "I think you have a sewer leak right outside your front door. She called the city and lo and behold I was right! I love smelling and sniffing things. My husband cannot smell many things and I could not imagine having his sense of smell, how depressing! Now if you know me you know there must be something weird in this story. Well here it is, I love driving down the road and getting a whiff of a skunk roadkill I like the smell of clean slightly sweaty arm pits. Mary Kathrine Gallagher, you go girl!! I also like the smell of diesel fuel, it was a sad day when buses could not spew out all of their exhaust into my waiting nostrils!! Hmm ...maybe this explains some of my issues!

Now, what do i do?

I was driving into work this morning listening to NPR that would be "National Public Radio" for my readers that live under a rock. Anyway, they were doing a piece on how the Internet and e-mail is used more often by people seeking answers to their medical questions. You can now e-mail your doctor or visit certain websites and ask questions thus eliminating a visit to the doctor. As you might know I have spent quite a bit of time in doctor's office lately trying to address my sleep and nose issues. I am all for not spend the time sitting for eternity in an office full of sick people spewing and coughing germs all over. They should issue you gloves and a mask before you enter the office! Once you are in hell, you have to pick a seat; do you want to sit next to the woman who is shaking uncontrollably, or dear god the boy with the pus-like stuff oozing his eyes?? Just a reminder, never touch the magazines in a doctor's office EW! Who in their right mind would touch one of those snot covered, drool soaked, germ infested things, just so you can be bored and look like an idiot sitting there pretending to read "Tennis" magazine! Now you wait and wait and wait ... You have no idea when you will be called. I swear at least four people who came in well after I did got called in by the nurse before I did. And at least one of them came back out and left the office before I ever had my name called. When you finally get called you are moved to the examination room to wait some MORE!! By the way, does anyone else look in the drawers when you are left in the examine room? When the doctor DOES come in, it's a real event. It's like the sighting of a rare species thought to be extinct, or meeting royalty. They poke and prod and pretend to listen to what you have to say, write out a prescription and leave before you're even done rattling off your symptoms. Or they look at you and say the dreaded " well it just needs time to heal!" I walked through the fires of hell to hear that!! Damnations!! Okay, enough of my rant on doctor's offices, what I found amazing was the last part of the NPR piece. They actually said "e-mail medical advice should not be used for certain things like "uncontrollable bleeding!" Hello!! You mean if I accidental cut my arm off with a chain saw I should not go into the house and drop an e-mail to my doctor? Now what do I do!!!

Terra Mater

She was beautiful beyond belief wearing Azure Blue,
Carmine Red and Viridian Green providing and caring for all

Man came and claimed her for his own stripping her
of her majesty leaving her barren, scarred, and wearied

Yet, she stood silent against his assaults hoping
one day he would understand her importance and restore her to her
throne ...if it is not too late

Sleeping Rituals

If you do not suffer from insomnia, OCD or some other mental illness you might not understand this post. Since as long as I can remember I have dealt with sleep issues, I have been to a sleep clinic, tried several medications and have even had sinus surgery all in my search for that illusive night of perfect sleep. So, here I am now 45 and I have amassed an amazing amount of rituals that I do every night.

Here is sampling of what I do every night just to ready myself to chase the dragon called sleep:

1. Make sure all exterior doors and windows are locked.
2. Make sure there are no knives laying out on the counters (why would anyone ever use a knife block!)
3. close the blinds in the living room
4. close the blinds in my room, close the drapes, and pin the drapes shut with a cloth pin.
5. Make sure the black underwear are still covering the LED clock numbers (Why black underwear you ask? They were handy and dark enough to drown out the light.)
   
6. fill my water bottle up and sit it on my dresser
7. turn on the humidifier or ceiling fan or both
   
8. close the two doors that lead into my room
   
9. Make sure there are NO wrinkles on my side of the bed or anything else that might drive me nuts (Did you ever read "Princess and the Pea"?)
10. make sure I have no razor stubble on my legs, if I do shave them
    
11. place two pillows on the edge of the bed and one at top for my head
12. spray my pillow with Lavender spray
13. put chamomile essential oil on pillow ( I think I will stop this it stinks!)
    
14. rub calming oil on my feet
    
15. put 5 drops of Bach Flower sleep remedy under my tongue
16. Rub Icy hot or Ben-Gay on my knees unless I just shaved them (learned from experience!)
    
17. lay down and read for awhile
18. turn off the lights
    
19. stick one leg out from under the covers but make sure the rest of my body is covered up to my ears
    
20. take several deep relaxation breaths
21. Say my prayers
    

Then I lay in my bed and hope I will fall asleep on my own with out taking meds. Last night I listened to my husband do this snore-poof thing. He would snore than blow out his mouth with a "poof" sound. I started laughing and woke him up. I wonder if he would like to use my calming oils?

Bologna Wonder Food

My Mom wasn't very adventurous in her cooking (or very good at it either!) and had a repertoire of maybe ten dishes that we consumed ad nauseum. If I lost the calendar I could tell you the day of the week. On Fridays we had Pizza or McDonald's, On Sunday it was some type of roast, On Saturday it some type of Swanson's TV Dinner the latest and greatest culinary invention. During the rest of the week it was some type of casserole or my mom's idea of a nutritious meal: meat, canned vegetables and instant potatoes. One of my mom's favorite meats to serve was Bologna.

I swear my mother thought Bologna was food from the heavens. Somewhere in her kitchen must had been a book titled "1001 Ways to Serve Bologna". I guess Bologna was cheap and a fast meal. We ate it fried, cut up into chunks and sauted with tomato sauce and green peppers, served as hors D'oeuvres: bologna, cheese and crackers, ground into "ground bologna salad" and of course served on wonder bread with mayo and crushed potato chips, we even had a song to sing while eating it!

My bologna has a first name, its O S C A R. My bologna has a second name it s M A Y E R. Oh I love to eat it every day and if you ask me why I’ll say: cause Oscar Mayer has a way with B O L O G N A.

The weird thing is as much as I dislike bologna every once in awhile I have this nostalgic desire to eat it. Last week I was in the meat market and I saw 100 % Beef Bologna and I though about the times I helped my mom grind the Bologna for ground bologna salad and decided I had to have it! I asked them can you please grind it for me and the women said, "yes how much would you like," and I said, "I will take that chunk right there." What I did not realize was it was a three pound chunk! Do you know how much ground Bologna salad you can make with three pounds? Oh, about the size of a small mixing bowl! I ate this stuff all week long and I think I have now fulfilled my desire to ever want to eat this stuff again for the rest of my life!

What is with the Pajama Bottoms!

So, last week I was in our neighborhood grocery store and I noticed that more and more adults seem to think it is acceptable to go out in public in pajama bottoms. What the heck is up with this?
They look like vagrants that have escaped from the local hospital. When young girls wore pajamas in the public, I though it was a bit strange but cute. Now it is a plain scary seeing a grown man walking around in his "jammies," in the produce section. Just who do they think they are? Hugh Hefner! Put some clothes on!

***UPDATE***I decided to try this out. I went to Kroger's in my pajamas and I noticed no one seem to pay attention except my exchange student. As I was walking from my car into the store she said, "oh you have your pajamas on, are you going in?" I said, "yes." She said "in Korea we think only crazy people walk around with their pajamas on." She then told me that when she went back over the summer she went out with her friends wearing pajama bottoms and they though she she had lost her mind." When she explained that teens do this in the United Sates they thought it was a bit cool! Just think next year our biggest export to the fashion world could be going out in public in your pajamas. The French give the world Haute Couture, the USA give back pj's.