Thursday Thirteen

I'm the type of person who . . .

1. . . . writes down what she wants to say before she says it.

2. . . . reads everything she sees, even the labels on food, books she doesn't particularly care for, and articles that state the opinions of "the other side," whatever that may be.



My nails don't look quite this bad today.

3. . . . bites her nails when she is bored, tired, or frustrated (and one of my most-viewed pages on my blog is this one, with pictures of my chewed-up nails, though my nails don't look that bad now).


4. . . . loves to live in the country, where the air is sweeter and the sounds are clearer.


5. . . . thinks Halloween is the best holiday ever, because free candy is definitely worth putting on a costume and ringing a bell for.



6. . . . needs to be hugged a lot, and thinks that if more people hugged and said, "I like you," the world would be a much better place.

7. . . .  believes in a safety net, because most people do work hard and want to work, but sometimes bad stuff happens and it's nobody's fault.

8. . . . makes people laugh without actually meaning to by offering wry, witty running commentary on the many facets of life (too bad it doesn't come through in my writing very often).

9. . . .  enjoys her friends and family and is often puzzled as to their actions and reactions about this and that and the other things.

Hollins University, a bastion
of the liberal arts.

10. . . . enjoys history, architecture, geology, psychology, and literature; you know, the liberal arts, those things about half the country believe have no value.


11. . . . wears conservative, nice Alfred Dunner clothing when she really wants to wear cottony bohemian tie-dye and look like this; I need to lose a lot more weight first.

Two of my clocks.

12. . . . collects postcards, Dept. 56 village houses, and clocks.

13. . . . drives too fast, walks too slow, listens well, and loves ferociously.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 214th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Oh Deer! Up Close & Personal

Sometimes I am amazed at what I see out the front door! Check out the close-ups in this video. Have you ever felt so close to a deer?

Our House is a Very Fine House

I don't often post exterior images of our house, mostly because there isn't a very good place to take a decent photo of it. The front yard slopes down a lot and that makes it difficult to take a pretty picture.

However, my house is in the picture. It is not the white one. It is way in the distance. It is directly under the white cloud over the mountain, not quite a third of the way from the left.

Maybe this is better? See, there it is! Our little ranch, hidden on the hill.

And this would be the best I can do from the other side of the farm. The house is hardly visible from the road; most people don't know it is there. We built it ourselves, with our own two hands in 1987.

On a Clear Day

I think it is impossible to take a bad photo on a day like today.

The pollen count is less than 1.

The sky is a pale, lovely blue.

The trees wear their finest colors.

So I went up to the highest point on the farm, and shot a few pictures. I took these with my Canon.

This is the view from the backside of the farm, and it is not one many people get to see. There is only one spot on the place with this scenery; generally it is all wooded and so the forest is all we see. But in one place there is a little opening, and this is the view. The house is as huge as it looks: it belongs to some specialist doctor.



This is the backside of my mother-in-law's house. She has a lovely view of those mountains, doesn't she?

Just a shot of pretty trees.

These homes are on the farm, too, but they are not family. The home on the far left is my husband's old home place; it is where he was raised until my in-laws built the current house. The home on the right was built around 2005; some of the farmland had to be sold after Grandma passed away to satisfy the contents of her will.

The chicken coops, outbuildings, and the first pond. The chicken coops no longer hold chickens; they hold hay. Grandma's house is beside the pond in the midst of those trees. The house was built about 1816.

Godwin Cemetery, Fincastle, Autumn 2011

The top of the hill at Godwin Cemetery, which is in Fincastle near the rear of the town, is one of my favorite spots to take photos. This morning I ventured out to the library and then ran up the hill. It was a chilly but lovely day, with a crisp, clear sky and the remnants of the change of leaves still speckling the mountains.

I used a filter on a few of these photos.

The steeple belongs to the Fincastle Presbyterian Church.

This is pretty much my eternal view, as we've spots in the Firebaugh section awaiting us. Of course my perspective will probably be a little lower. Six feet under instead of five feet above.

Fincastle Methodist Church in the foreground and the Botetourt County Courthouse in the rear. The children's playground equipment, while not new, is an interesting juxtaposition to the tombstones, don't you think?

I love this shot. You can see Fincastle Methodist Church, the Botetourt County Courthouse, and the Fincastle Presbyterian Church.

Fincastle Presbyterian Church. This is one of my favorite scenes, the church steeple with the mountain behind.

The county courthouse on the right and the Presbyterian Church on the left.

The steeples, from left, are the Fincastle Methodist Church, then St. Mark's Episcopal Church, and then the Botetourt County Courthouse in the far right. There's also a cell tower on the left on top of the hill. I can remember when that wasn't there.

The small steeple in the middle of this picture belongs to the old Fincastle Baptist Church building. It is now a private home.

Autumn Colors Have Arrived

Autumn's here! All dressed up and ready for the party!

Thursday Thirteen

Apparently I am brain dead, so today these are things that start with the letter "B."

1. Bitch. This word can be a noun or a verb. It is frequently used as a pejorative word to describe women and men who are perceived as acting as women. It is also the name of a female dog and when used as a verb, it is the act of complaining. The fact that this is the first word that came to my mind for the letter B is somewhat troubling.

2. Bastard. This would be the male version of the above word, used as a noun to describe an illegitimate child and as a verb to describe a mean, despicable person, usually a man. I am also troubled that this is the second word that came to mind this morning. Perhaps my day is starting out rough?

3. B-Complex Vitamin. This is a vitamin that encompasses many of the category of vitamins known as "B" vitamins. "B" vitamins are important in cell metabolism. They are good for healthy skin and hair and help the immune system and the nervous system. They are also supposed to help ward off pancreatic cancer. The B vitamins are Vitamin B1 (thiamine), Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), Vitamin B3 (niacin or niacinamide), Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid), Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine, pyridoxal, or pyridoxamine, or pyridoxine hydrochloride), Vitamin B7 (biotin), Vitamin B9 (folic acid), and Vitamin B12 (various cobalamins; commonly cyanocobalamin in vitamin supplements).

4. Baggins. Bilbo and Frodo Baggins are the two most famous hobbits from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Bilbo found the ring in The Hobbit (soon to be a major motion picture) and Frodo carried the ring to Mount Doom to destroy it in Lord of the Rings.

5. Bacchanalia. This is a wild gathering or party that involves a lot of drinking and promiscuity. In ancient Greece, wild and crazy boys and girls held such events to honor the god Bacchus (Dionysus). I think I attended a few of these when I was in high school, but my life has been pretty quiet since then.

6. Bag lady. These are those sad looking homeless women who carry their belongings in shopping carts or bags. A 2006 study showed that almost half of all women fear ending up as a bag lady. Ninety percent of women in that study felt financially insecure. What does this say about our society?

7. Barn. This is a place where farmers put things and where animals might live. A barn can hold machinery, hay, cows, chickens, horses, etc., and sometimes people if they have nowhere else to go. Some are red, some are white, some burn down in the dark of night.

8. Bear. Bears are great big carnivorous mammals that we sometimes see on the farm. A bear can also be the state of the stock market (a pessimistic market), something you have or hold, as in to bear a scar or to bear arms, or to hold something up, as in to bear weight, among other things. The bear on the left was in our alfalfa field in 2009.

9. Bewitch. When you bewitch someone, you put a spell or a hex on them, or maybe you magnetize them with your charm. In the late 1960s and early 70s there was a show on called Bewitched that starred Elizabeth Montgomery. She crinkled her nose to cast a spell.



10. Bird. Our warm-blooded feathered friends come in many shapes and sizes. Some can't even fly while others zip around the big blue sky like little mosquitoes. We have many birds around our house, including finches, blue jays, cardinals, robins, and wild turkeys. The picture on the right was shot with a trail camera.

11. Black Death. This was the name given to a period of time in the Middle Ages during which a lot of people died from bubonic plague in Europe. It killed somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of the population. It was thought to have originated in China and then traveled from there along the Silk Road. It took Europe 150 years to recover from this one event.

12. Bleak. How you feel when you have little hope, or maybe how you look if you've been sick for a while. It also is a description for a barren place with little shelter.

13. Bones. Those things that hold up your skin. It is also a color and used as a verb it means to take the bones from, as in boning a fish. Walking bones are called skeletons and you see them a lot around this time as we gear up for Halloween. In Appalachia, you can also play the bones, which is an interesting thing to see and hear.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 213th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Cows

Turkeys!

Turkeys from the trail camera. I enlarged the last shot just to get a better look. I think these are all turkey hens as they do not have a beard.

On the Cusp of Change

The peak time for tree color here on the farm will probably be the middle of this week. It's already peaking on the mountains.

Lovely yellows on the trees.

A little bit of red!

A blushing crimson.

A squirrel on the fence!

Birds of a feather.

Running!

Yesterday in the little town of Fincastle, the Bank of Fincastle 5K and 10K runs took place.

About 900 people were signed up to run. One of them was my nephew, who, unfortunately, is not in this picture. I don't know any of these people. For some reason my camera wasn't working well (or maybe it was operator error) and few of my shots turned out. Oh well.

Anyway, this event is in its 25th year. It is quite popular. The county schools, from elementary school up, usually send teams, so you have some very young children learning the value of exercise on a cool October morning.  Many parents also sign up and walk along (or run) with their offspring.

The first 600 runners to register are guaranteed a T-shirt. The bank has a new design created every year. This year it was a turkey in autumn.

Winners receive medals and/or trophies.

Locals know that this course is very hilly, with steep inclines and descents in places. It is not a trek for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

I stood on the sideline and cheered and clapped for the multitude of runners. Some folks I knew, others I didn't.

Maybe when I've lost my weight and gotten my asthma controlled, I will give the 5K a try. Maybe even next year?

Thursday Thirteen

Here you go, 13 quotes about writing.

1. I'm just another writer, still trapped within my truth . . . Sometimes When We Touch, Written by Dan Hill and sung by Barry Manilow, among others.

2. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. - Ernest Hemingway

3. Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down - Robert Frost

4. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.  - Anais Nin

5. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those who move easiest have learned to dance. - Alexander Pope

6. Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. - Sylvia Plath

7. I will carry on writing, to be sure. But I don't know if I would want to publish again after Harry Potter. - J K Rowling

8. I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.  - Keith Richards

9. The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen. - Lee Iacocca

10. It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it. - W. H. Auden

11. Writing is the supreme solace. - W. Somerset Maugham

12. Writing is hard work and bad for the health. - E. B. White

13. Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. - Jorge Luis Borges

These came from this website: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/writing_5.html

I have had this song on my mind for two days.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 212th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Let's Learn Something

Last night I watched a little bit of Oprah's new show on her channel, OWN.

Her new show is called Oprah's Lifeclass. Essentially she has set out to teach the world how to be better. How to be a better you, a better friend, a better everything. And I don't mean better in a bad way, as in, there is something wrong now, but better in the way that everyone has faults and issues. We can all stand a little self-exploration every now and again.

I really admire her efforts to bring light and focus to television. She is attempting something very positive here. She is trying to turn the idiot box into a teaching tool.

She's doing this by going back into the vast archives of her TV show and bringing forth things that could assist someone with personal growth.

Last night's show focused on ego. Where does your ego get in the way?

In the example I saw, she said her ego focused on her weight issue. She wanted to lose weight for her ego, not for the right reasons.

In conjunction with the TV show, she has set up a life classroom of sorts at her website, oprah.com. Over 1.1 million people have signed up for it, including me. She gave the first one million a free journal. I did not sign up quickly enough to qualify for that, but oh well.

I signed up even though I knew I wouldn't do the exercises or be able to watch all of the TV show, because of my class schedule. I expect most people are not able to devote an hour every night to this, but perhaps the online initiative will make it work. But I thought it might be an interesting and worthwhile exercise when I had a spare moment. I am always trying to do better and be a better person.

The series runs for five weeks, five nights a week.

http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-1-The-False-Power-of-Ego_1

My Niece Does Her Dance Thing!

This is my niece, Zoe, doing her dance routine at the Vinton Festival on Saturday. Isn't she great?

Is There a Doctor in the House?

I do not like to go to the doctor.

Yet I spend a significant amount of time seeing doctors. I have a lot of health issues.
These issues include:

• obesity
• thyroid problems
• high blood pressure
• high cholesterol
• high triglycerides
• asthma

I am working diligently on the first item in hopes of alleviating some of the others (I'm down 18 pounds!). And yet I keep running into walls.

My general practitioner harps on cholesterol-lowering medicines even though I have told her repeatedly I am not going to take them. Yes, the numbers are high but not, to my mind, significantly so. A decade ago, before they decided they wanted to sell more drugs, I would have been borderline high. I am already taking blood pressure and thyroid medicines. I am not adding another.

You see, I don't trust the health care we have now. It's all about money, not healing. Let's face it. The pharmaceutical industry makes its money masking symptoms, not affecting cures. Do you really think there will be a cure for cancer so long as there is money to be made off of it? Not in my life time. As long as my health is a commodity that someone can constantly try to use to bilk money off of me, I will not ever trust a health care provider. And that includes "alternative care" providers, many of whom I am sure are genuinely interested in caring for me, provided I have the money to pay them.

Yes, I know, they have bills to pay, too. But personally I think $100 for an hour's worth of whatever, be that an acupuncture sticking, a Reiki healing session, or a massage, is a bit much. You can offer the care without gouging people. I guess it costs what it costs, though.

Anyway, the asthma is a new issue for me. I went in July to see if I had a fish allergy and came out with a serious asthma diagnosis and two steroid inhalers, a steroid nasal inhaler, and a nasal antihistamine. I remember walking out there thinking, what just happened here?

Oh, it was obvious from the tests that I had a problem. The breathing tests were quite conclusive. I don't breathe well. That chest pain I keep experiencing is actually asthma - why wasn't I using my rescue inhaler? the doctor wanted to know.

Nobody ever told me when to use it.

That's right. About 20 years a doctor said, "You have asthma," and told me to carry around Primatene Mist, which was available over the counter. I dutifully bought some, but I didn't know when I was supposed to use it.

"When you can't breathe," someone said.

Well, that was pretty much all the time for me, and I was so used to it I didn't realize it was an issue. Those coughing spasms? Asthma. Tight chest and nearly choking after crying? Asthma. Coughing after laughter? Asthma. Really bad chest pains that sent me to hospital thinking I was having a heart attack? Asthma.

And I didn't know.

I'm 48 years old. I have seen a potful of doctors. I have seen general practitioners and specialists, and emergency room doctors.

Why didn't somebody say something?

Every time I have switched general practitioners or gone to a specialist, I have listed an emergency inhaler as one of my medications. For 20 years! "But I don't use it," I would say. And they never commented. They just gave me a prescription for another one.

When I went to the ER in 2009 with chest pains and difficulty breathing, why didn't somebody test me for asthma then? Suggest I use my emergency inhaler? Because they earned more money running me on the treadmill and through their little stress test, that's why.

I thought this way of breathing, this frustrating and unhealthy feeling, was normal. It was normal, for me. You might be wondering why I didn't look it up. Well, because nobody mentioned it as a possible source of some of my problems. Never.

This pretty much proves something I've been saying for a few years now.

This is the Roanoke area. Small city. Small potatoes. Do you really think that the "A" list doctors are going to come to a city of 100,000 to practice medicine? No. We get those physicians who pass by the seat of their pants. The ones who graduate from some medical college in Aruba that exists in a rundown motel room. The ones who speak English with accents so heavy that I can't understand a thing they say. This is second-rate health care here. There are no "A" list doctors in Roanoke. There probably aren't even any in Virginia. Well, maybe at UVA.

According to a headline about an athlete with asthma in today's paper, 1 out of every 12 people has asthma. You'd think someone would think to mention it to me, and suggest I see a specialist.

So anyway, in July, I came home with asthma controller medications.

And I used them.

Six weeks later, in mid-August, I tested great at the asthma doctor's office. Nearly 100 percent lung capacity. I was feeling pretty good, too. Things that used to bother me and make me gasp for air were more tolerable (sensitivities is a big thing for asthma sufferers and I didn't know that, either). I was walking on the treadmill more.

And then I started having side affects. Really bad, life-altering, possibly life-threatening, side affects.

The asthma doctor, of course, said the medications couldn't be causing the symptoms I was experiencing. These aren't normal side effects for this medication.

Nevertheless, he cut back on my asthma medication, just a tiny bit, and sent me home with other medication for the side effects.

And after a week on the side-effect medication, I felt a little better, for about three days.

Then the side affects overrode the helpful medication and I was right back where I started. I went back to the doctor Thursday and basically he threw up his hands. He patted me on the head and said he was sorry, but he didn't know what else he could do for me. He didn't change my asthma medication anymore, either.

I knew what to do.

I stopped taking my asthma medication. I didn't ask the doctor because what was the point? He would say I should take it.

That was 48 hours ago. The side affects are getting better. I feel more hopeful about that than I have in two weeks.

However, my breathing quickly deteriorated. It has moved back to where it was before the steroid asthma inhalers, back to a tightness in the chest. It should be okay, it is what I lived with for many years.

But I have felt what it feels like to feel better.

I wish I didn't know.

Thursday Thirteen

It's the first Thursday of the month, and for me, that means it is time to remember the wonderful things I did last month. So here, in no particular order, are the good things about September 2011.


1. Well, the best thing that happened to me is I didn't get sicker than I could have. I had a really bad infection at the end of the month that I am just getting over. If I hadn't gone to the doctor when I did, I'd have ended up in the hospital. So I am really grateful for that.

2. I had a long talk with one of my undergraduate professors at Hollins University, about writing in general and my thesis in particular, even though she isn't my thesis advisor. It was a helpful discussion.

3. My thesis advisor and I also had a long talk about my thesis, and hopefully something is happening there (as in, I am working on the thing) that will lead to the ultimate goal of graduation in May. Thumbs up!

4. The new TV season started. So far all I've watched are Survivor and the new Charlie's Angels. I think I am the only person watching the new Charlie's Angels. If there are new shows I should be watching, feel free to leave me the titles. I don't watch a lot of TV but I am in the mood to find something I can sink my teeth into for a while.

5. My husband bought a little toy that I can also play with. It's called a Kawasaki Mule and it's a utility terrain vehicle. It is quite fun to drive. I named it Sheba De Mu'le'.

6. We took in a couple of exhibits at the Taubman Art Museum in downtown Roanoke. We went especially to see the photography exhibit from The Roanoke Times, a celebration of the newspaper's 125 years of publication.

7. I bought a Stevie Nicks CD, her latest release, called In Your Dreams, mostly because it has a song on it called Annabel Lee and because I like Stevie Nicks.

8. I went to an author's signing for a book by Amanda Cockrell called What We Keep is not Always What Will Stay. She is a member of the Hollins faculty and my thesis advisor. I am yearning to read the book but unfortunately I have a lot of reading to do for my Detectives in Literature class and I simply haven't had time to get to it.

9. I had lunch and dinner with an old high school friend. It was fun to get together and catch up and reminisce about those days 30 years ago when we were raising hell and misbehaving.

10. The tomato plants continued to spit out tomatoes even as September ended in a chilly spell, with rain and cold. We also picked cucumbers and a green pepper. The garden was good to us this year.

11. I lost four pounds in the month of September (I'm now down 17 pounds since the end of May).

12. The built-in reclining chairs in the sofa broke, but we were able to find the parts on eBay and fix it ourselves for a minimal amount of money. I was quite glad I did not have to spend thousands on a new sectional sofa.

13. I was able to clear out my closet and put away some clothes that are now too big for me. I can't tell you how freeing that felt!



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 211th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: The Writing Diet

The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size
by Julia Cameron
Copyright 2008
234 pages

Julia Cameron is most famous as the author of The Artist's Way, a terrific book about creativity and listening to your inner voice.

She also, apparently, has a little problem with her weight.

Interestingly enough, I picked this book up at the Green Valley Book Fair back in May, just before I started on Weight Watchers. I was with a friend and I had been talking to her on the drive up about how I needed some kind of replacement activity for eating, preferably something to do with writing. When I ran across this book, it seemed like an answer to a prayer and of course I bought it. I put the book in my "to read" pile and it stayed there until after I finished the summer semester at Hollins.

I read it all except the last few chapters, then a client gave me some work and then school started again. I ran across it while I was cleaning my office yesterday and I plopped down and finished it so I could move it to my "done" pile.

Cameron writes that she noticed that many of her students grew slimmer throughout the weeks they worked with her, writing in their journals and working on their creative projects. She determined that this might be a way for some folks to lose weight.

Her system boils down to seven things:

1) Write three "morning pages" every morning. If you're familiar with The Artist's Way, you know what those are. Here is a little video about on Cameron's website, if you're interested.

2) Journal every day. This is different from the morning pages, though they could be combined, I suppose. Essentially, you're writing in a journal twice a day. Whether or not you use different notebooks or platforms is up to you.

3) Walk every day. These can be short walks, or long, but walk. Outdoor walks are preferable.

4) Before you eat something, ask yourself these four questions when you have the munchies: Am I hungry? Is this what I feel like eating? Is this what I feel like eating NOW? Is there something else I could eat instead?

5) Make a food date with yourself. That is, give yourself permission one day a month to visit your favorite restaurant, or to go somewhere new. Give yourself some kind of culinary treat.

6) HALT: Don't get to Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. The book was worth its price just for this acronym.

7) Have a body buddy, someone you can call and discuss your weight loss regimen with on a weekly basis.

She advocates a system of what she calls "clean eating," that is, your basic meats and veggies without added sugar and few processed foods. You know, the healthy stuff we're supposed to be doing anyway.

I think it's a great idea. However, I have never been successful with the "morning pages." I have tried them many times before. I can do them for a little while but I quickly forget the first time I oversleep and have to bound from the bed and head out. And once I skip, I'm done, because I haven't stuck with it long enough to be a habit. I guess I need to just keep trying until it really is a habit.

Journaling used to be something I did every day, but I stopped, and I am finding that it is difficult to get back in the habit. To be honest, I think the computer zaps so much out of me that it is part of the problem. Too much Facebook and email. I am sure social networking is the biggest creativity killer out there.

Anyway, I recommend this book if you're a writer and you're weight conscious. Or if you're weight conscious and are just looking for another way to think about it. I think you will come away with some valuable thoughts.

The Beat Goes On

I have never been to a protest.

Occasionally, when I was working as a news reporter, I covered small political rallies, but they were not protests.

As a child in the 1960s, I saw students marching in protest against the Vietnam War on the nightly news.

I saw civil rights protests and marches, but I was too young to understand them.

Kent State and the massacre that took place there in 1970 seemed like something that happened in a far-off country. Certainly it happened in a world quite different from mine, country girl of seven years that I was. Living isolated on a farm with only one TV station and my parent's radio always tuned to country music, I was definitely not mainstream.

By the time I was old enough to drive, the Vietnam War was over. The late 1970s was the "me" generation, all about me me me. I remember no one marching for much of anything.

To be sure, I don't recall too many protests in this country between 1980 and 2000.

There were riots over the Rodney King verdict, but I am not sure that is a protest. I guess it is in a more violent sort of way.

I don't know of any protests up until 2001, when people began protesting the United States' war efforts in the Middle East. Which isn't to say there aren't any, as I am sure there are. They just didn't stick with me, whatever they may have been.

Interestingly, this Wiki page here lists 59 protests that have occurred in the U.S. Out of that number, four begin with "tea party."

I could not have been a tea party protester because they were not protesting for much that I believed in. Their protests seemed to me to be along the lines of "I've got mine, screw you and go away because you're not getting it." I am not a subscriber to that kind of thinking. I have a thing about generousity and taking care of my fellow human being. I try not to look down on anyone and I work hard at being accepting of people, even if I don't understand them. I wish no one harm.

But those protests apparently are so last decade.  Now we have the folks who are occupying Wall Street. Here's a CNN story if you're interested in reading more.

These folks are more in line with my kind of thinking. They're calling this a "leaderless resistance" - a true people's movement. Disenfranchised Americans taking a stand against greed.

So what are they protesting? They're protesting things like banks, which are hanging onto money instead of fronting businesses and development. They're protesting Wall Street, where insiders get rich because hard-working Americans want to save their money in an IRA. They're drawing attention to the rest of us, to you and me, those of us who work every day to earn a paycheck. We're having a harder and harder time because prices of everything are rising, but our earnings are stagnant. They're protesting a system that rewards theivery and kills honesty.

They want leaders who can lead, not adults who throw childish temper tantrums. They want to be heard. They want jobs, a house, a future.

They want a strong middle class.

It is fitting that it began in New York City. It had to start there. Do you honestly think such a movement would gain momentum if it started in Roanoke? or even Richmond? No, such a protest required the great city as its birth place.

But it is spreading, I hear. Protests are popping up all over. Maybe one day there will be one close by.

Go people! I hope your voices are heard from sea to shining sea.

Books: Portrait of a Killer

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed
By Patricia Cornwell
Copyright 2002
522 VERY LONG pages

For my Detectives in Film and Literature class we are reading detective books, of course.

This is one of those books.

I hated it.

Patricia Cornwell is a good writer, don't get me wrong. But I am not a fan of the content of her novels. I don't like blood and gore. I like my entrails inside the body, and I'm not keen on reading about the mutilation of women's genital areas.

And that's just the first few pages of this particular book.

I will have nightmares for weeks.

Anyway, Patricia Cornwell "applied the rigorous discipline of twenty-first-century police investigation" to all the material she could find about Jack the Ripper. She offers up a zillion reasons why she thinks a man named Walter Sickert was the psychopathic nut who went around cutting women's throats and mutilating their bodies in the last decades of the 19th century in London, England.

I know there are people who enjoy this type of thing, and if you are one of them, then I highly recommend this book to you.

If instead, you prefer a lot less blood and gore, then this is not the book for you.

For those who don't know, Jack the Ripper is the name given to the unidentified person who killed these unfortunate women way back when. The criminal was never caught.

Many other books offer up theories as to the identity of Jack the Ripper. Those theories include medical students, mentally ill persons, and a member of the royal family.

Walter Sickert was a London artist of some note at the turn of the century.

Did Cornwell prove her case? I don't know. She had a lot of circumstantial evidence, some DNA stuff, and much speculation. Does the fact that someone painted a picture of a murdered person make him a murderer?

She did prove to me that Sickert was most likely mentally ill and that he could have been Jack the Ripper.

Somebody give me a handi-wipe for my poor brain. It will never be the same.

A Word on Weight Loss

So in late May I joined Weight Watchers online in hopes of getting some control over my big ol' body.

My weigh-in day is Sunday, and as of today I have lost 16.9 pounds. I jumped up over the 15 pound mark, which was a short-term goal. I am pleased.

The WW program is called "pointsplus" and I don't think you can do it without being in their program. I have yet to figure out how they compute the points. But then, I am not the best with math.

Anyway, the way this works is you have a certain number of points of food you can eat, depending upon your weight and how fast you lose. The least number of points you can get is 29 and I suspect that is what most folks end up with.

Some foods are free, like broccoli and green beans. You can have all of those you want.

Fruit is also a free food, for the most part. So you can have all the bananas, apples, and oranges you want. If you have a sweet tooth this is a good thing.

Meat has more points that I would have thought. White rice is one point fewer than brown rice, and I always thought brown rice was better for you. So I don't know why this is.

An egg is 2 points.  Tea is 0 points, unless you put in a spoon of sugar, then it's 1 point.

The SmartOnes meals are anywhere from 5 to 8 points. Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice meals zoom on up to 10+ points.

If you want, you can put in your recipes and it will tell you how many points it is. The problem there is defining a "serving." That can be somewhat arbitrary.

The plan manager program also tracks your activity. If you earn activity points, you can eat more if you want, though so far I have not done that. The points rack up throughout the week, but everything reverts to zero on your weigh-in day.

For example, it gave me 18 activity points for spending 5 hours doing "light housework." Who knew vacuuming could burn so many calories? I only get 1 point for every 10 minutes of walking on the treadmill!

You also get a number of points that you can use throughout the week over and above your daily points. So if your daily target is 30 points, and you eat a 7 point piece of cake, you are okay. In fact, you get enough points so that you could eat a 7-point piece of cake every day if you want, but I don't do that either. I have occasionally dipped into this little pile of points but not by much.

I feel sure if I used up all the points allotted, I wouldn't lose a thing. I might not be gaining weight but I don't think I would be losing.

The weight loss is slow on this diet. I am averaging a half-pound a week.  Everyone says that is the best way to lose it, that it will stay off better.

I sure hope so.

The other part of this puzzle is my overall health. In July I learned I had uncontrolled asthma and the doctor indicated that was a big reason for my inability to get healthy. I couldn't exercise long because I grew winded and had to stop.

The asthma inhalers have allowed me to increase my walking time on the treadmill significantly. I am sure this has been a help.

I have my fingers crossed that I can get all of this under control. I would like to be healthier in the next decades of my life than I have been in the previous ones.

We'll see.