NEWS HEADACHE? TAKE A PILL.

I'm a little addicted to watching a few of the "talking heads" explain the latest political intrigues to me.  Around dinner time I switch on the TV and catch the nightly Rachel Maddow Show, sometimes with a bit of the shows on either side of hers.  I realize these are considered "left-leaning" and that's OK with me because they also include guests who are Conservatives, or experts in their fields, or other journalists.  I think Rachel's logic and mine are akin and I admire her curiosity and determination to "get to the bottom of this" -- whatever the topic.  She's been doing some very insightful commentary and airing some very intriguing investigative journalism lately.

Still, politics these days gives me a headache.  And a heartache.  I can easily tip into a state of overwhelm, dismay, disgust, and dis-ease about what is happening to our great Republic.  Nothing looks promising right now and I still don't understand those who support this Administration nor why.  It makes no sense to me at all.  And I've been trying; I really have.  Just don't get it.  Wired differently, I guess.

So, when I'm watching sometimes I start to feel a little woozy; a little itchy; a little nauseated.  Then  I realized it might not be the content of the program, but the ads.

In just a little over an hour, I saw a plethora of commercials for treatment of these ailments:  nerve

pain, diarrhea, psoriasis, Alzheimers, Hep C, constipation, dark spots, cold sores, dry skin, nasal congestion, arthritis, heartburn, chemotherapy side-effects, erectile dysfunction, incontinence, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, over-active bladder, insomnia.  I listened to the symptoms which defined each of these, how they impacted the lives of those suffering these ailments, and then listened to how a pill or medication or treatment would relieve this suffering, then to the side-effects of the medication which were far worse than the original ailment.  A steady diet of these ads and soon my health anxiety is through the roof (but not to worry, there is a pill for that.)

I've taken to recording the shows, so I can zip through the commercials because I will not be convinced to turn off the TV.  I am "old-school" that way (and judging by the ads, anyone watching is considered in the "older" demographic anyway, so I'm right where I should be) and I like switching on the "nightly news".

Plus, anyone who says (among other despicable things) that the media/press is the 'enemy of the people' is permanently on my shit list.  I have a lifelong, unyielding trust in the "mainstream media" -- those news outlets that I believe are dedicated to finding the truth, to reporting with integrity, to informing the public in a nonpartisan, non-biased manner.  I trust long-standing publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the network newscasters, the unbiased cable outlets, NPR, PBS, BBC, political magazines of long-standing, and even some newer online journals and outlets. It's easy to tell which are biased and which way.  I read the Leftist ones with as much skepticism as those on the Right.  What's suddenly wrong with being "mainstream"?  What's wrong with looking at an issue and seeing both sides and coming to an informed conclusion based on facts?  When did that become something to deride?

Maybe it's a medication side-effect.

At least, that's the view from here...©

TREADMILLS AND TV

I just got home from yoga class.  It's Saturday and I hadn't gone all week.   I almost didn't go again today.  I stared at the kitchen clock, as I sipped my coffee, until the last possible minute before I had to leave to get there on time, trying to  convince myself it was fine to just be "in the moment",  "just breathe", overcome the "worthless energy expended on feeling guilty"...

Then I got my butt in gear and went.  Glad I did, of course.  Lovely, slow asana today with lots of attention to stretching for the low back and sciatic nerve.

I guess the reason I was feeling I could take a "pass" on class today was because I'd already done an early morning 50 minute stint on the treadmill  -- enough time to watch 2 episodes of the recently released Season 2 of "Catastrophe" on Amazon Prime -- a raucously irreverent Amazon Original comedy series about a couple who hook up, get pregnant, get married, have a kid... Now in Season 2 it's like 2-1/2 years later... I won't go on in case you check it out, but I was home alone walking the treadmill with earbuds in, laughing out loud...often!  You may hate the show and judge me for my twisted sense of humor (lots of sex -- sometimes a little too much and over the top even for me -- and swearing and life situations that are hilarious), but so be it.  I am looking for things that make me laugh out loud these days.  Politics isn't doing it for me.

But anyway, the treadmill thing is yet another attempt to discipline myself to get more aerobic movement (I won't say the "E" word) in my day.  My Fitbit dutifully records my steps, but really doesn't care if I'm running up hill or shuffling around the house in my slippers.  Hub got up this morning declaring that he needs to be more physically active (this as he was hustling about to go snowboarding) and has set himself the ungodly goal of a 5-mile brisk walk every day.    I know that is not completely realistic, but I know him too, and if he says it he will to it every day, I know he'll do it most days.

I added up the time it would take me to walk 5 miles.  I walk at a less than "brisk" 20 minutes per mile pace; I could push it, but then I'd hate every minute of it and that would defeat me in short order.  So, we are looking at an hour and 40 minutes to get my 5 miles in.  On yoga days, I'm already committed to a 90 minute yoga class with a 40 minute round trip drive to get there and back.  Pad that with another few minutes on either end for parking, set up, clean up, etc. and Yoga is a 2-1/2 hour commitment that I make most weeks at least twice, ideally three times.  Yoga and a 5 mile walk = almost 4 hours.  I read I'm also supposed to lift weights for 30 minutes three times a week, which I have whittled down to 10 minutes about every three months, but I could kick that up a notch, I suppose.  So if I added in some weight lifting I'm up to 4-1/2 hours, plus meditation of course, for brain and spirit health (let's say 30 minutes) and that's 5+ hours just for exercise and meditation in a day.  (You can check my math on that; I am deficient in that area and had to actually draw little clock faces and pretend my pencil was the hour hand -- I blame 1950's public education system for my woeful arithmetic skills and the humiliation of making me solve problems at the blackboard as part of a competitive team for which I was always the last chosen and the sole reason for many teams losing.  I digress.)

Now subtract 3 days a week care for  a one year old who is not on board with ANY of this personal improvement stuff,  meaning it would have to happen after 5:30 in the evening after a full day of childcare.  Also there is that twice/month volunteer commitment to my old social service agency.   Plus I have an active social life (instrumental for mental health, all the articles say) which gets me out to various breakfast, lunch, and/or coffee dates each week with my gal-pals.   And Hub and I are currently undertaking a big kitchen update project with requires meeting with contractors and shopping for granite and sinks and faucets and appliances, etc, etc. on the days we don't have the grandbaby.

The point is, it's very hard to do all this walking, lifting, yoga-ing, meditating, teeth flossing, bill paying, vacuuming, shopping, cooking, gardening, reading, talking, socializing, traveling, Facebooking, blogging, and sleeping in a time frame that makes any sense at all.  No wonder I get overwhelmed and occasionally (often) just grab a book or a magazine and read about what I should be doing instead of actually doing it.  Oh, and I'm also a sedentary person by nature.

Hub really will go for his long walks because he actually enjoys it.  I enjoy the occasional long walk outdoors, but I'm more content on the treadmill where I can read or watch TV to distract me from the effort of what I am doing.  I do fret occasionally that the incline feature on my treadmill is broken, so I can only walk on "flat ground", but then I remind myself that I have a skewed vision of altitude challenges.  People who don't live in Western Washington have flat-land as their natural terrain.  I should know; I grew up in Northern Illinois where a big hill was a topographical anomaly.  At my house now there is nowhere I can venture outside my front door that is flat.  It's all up and down -- either hard on the knees or or the calves and takes me to an anaerobic state just to get gratefully home again.  But if I don't struggle, I feel like I'm cheating.  May need to work on that with my therapist.

I know I need to step up my game to ensure a healthy longer life and I've been meaning to do that for about 30 years.  It's starting to be (ok, past) time to get serious.   So I'm beginning (again) with baby steps into this thing.  I will never, ever be able to keep up with Hub.  It takes most of my energy just to get my ugly walking shoes on, so 5 miles is out of my range and beyond my attention span.

I'm gonna do it by TV episodes.  Starting out with two episodes of Catastrophe most days of the week until I get through Season 2.  Then on to Transparent, which I only managed to see for half of the first season.  I also have Mozart in the Jungle on my "to watch" list. (UPDATE:  Its' GREAT!).  Outlander, Season 2 starts tonight and I will do a bit of weight lifting, sort of like a drinking game, every time Jamie says "aye" in that sexy Scottish brogue.  See?  All of these TV shows actually make me want to get moving!

Whatever works.

At least, that's the view from here...©

TECHNO-NERD Q&A

Dear Genius Bar Boys & Girls,
I just finished trying to "clean up" my mess of a MacBook Pro desktop, which was just as cluttered as my physical world oak desk in my home office.  I moved a bunch of folders and files into my "documents" only to find duplicates and various drafts of poems and essays and a ton of old, obsolete junk already in there to drag to the trash.  It took forever.  And I haven't even started on emails.  Question: Should I delete emails or just leave thousands of them just sitting there?  Are they taking up valuable space or are they a benign mass of electronic data?

I also haven't started cleaning things up on my iMac Desktop computer, upon which desktop and documents storage I will find yet more duplicates of those items on the laptop.  The Cloud is supposed to fix all of this, but my Cloud now has it's own set of duplicate crap at this point.  Plus, my annoyance about the Cloud is that if I am without WiFi, I can't access the document!  So I keep moving things out to the desktop or making duplicates and there you have it….  The genesis of an ongoing mess!  What gives???

Also, is OS X Mavericks as awful as the "just folks" reviews make it sound?  I'm a hold out.  Get it right.

Signed,
Not as easy and time-saving as promised.

P.S.  I just downloaded the iOS 7.1 to my iPhone and have to AGAIN adjust to a few new "upgrades" in user-interfacing.  Thank you for keeping my brain active.  Who needs Lumosity when we have you Apple Nerds devilishly thinking up ways to challenge us?

*****************************************

Dear Little Blue Bird,
I just signed up for a Twitter account.  I love to say the word "Tweet" and I think you are cute.  I just have no idea what to do with you.  I heeded some of your suggestions for who to "follow", but now I am inundated with 'tweets' that seem to come every 20 seconds about not much at all, and even if I cared, my life would become nothing more than reading these 140 character messages and clicking on #relatedstories that would keep me from living any semblance of a life in the real world.  I have discovered a few friends are on Twitter and we have vowed to "follow" each other, but most of our Tweets consist of exchanging puzzled queries as to why we are doing this and what is the point?    Please enlighten.

Signed,
#youjustpoopedonmyshoulderthanksalot

*****************************************
Dear Comcast,
Son-One is thrilled with his new job with your little start-up company (thanks for hiring him!) and is all aglow about your new X1 interactive TV platform.  To hear him describe it, one will never need to leave their home for any reason whatsoever, ever again.  Well, unless one wants to step away from a TV screen.  But if that's your thing, Comcast X1 is your God.  I actually love TV and I am ready to ditch DISH, which took me about a year to learn to use and I still don't quite get it, over 3 years later.  (Not user friendly, DISH!)  But X-1 is supposed to be dummy proof, so I'm your gal.  Plus, I will be able to search with ease and record up to 5 programs while watching a 6th!  Perfection!  However exciting this sounds at first blush, I do expect it to be rather more confusing than anticipated.  Things like this always are.  (Like love affairs, or new babies, I suppose.)   Still, since you are now an almost official monopoly, I feel I should just submit and learn your ways.  Right?

Signed,
Looking forward to your introductory offer, then doing a re-fi on my home once hooked.

*******************************************

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,
Maybe it was the movie, and my affection for that cutie-nerd Jesse Eisnenberg who played you, but I want to believe you are good guy.  I know you are regularly accused of all manner of evil, but I do love your Facebook invention.  Yes, all of us seniors are now taking over and it's no longer cool at all to be on it, but wow, quite the cultural revolution, huh?  One question:  WHY do you keep changing the look of my news feed?   Now it seems all the posts sort of run together and my eyesight is not so far gone that the photos have to be that big.  Just sayin'.  Other than that, keep up the good work.

Signed,
Loves Kittens

******************************************
I went to a lecture yesterday on "How Technology Changed Our Culture".  The average age was about 70.  (It was a class for "over 50's").  The instructor's first slide was of a test pattern.  Everyone chuckled in recognition.  We know a frozen screen when we see one.

At least, that's the view from here…. ©

RATINGS AND RANTINGS

I'm not a big fan of Katie Couric, except the time she took Sarah Palin to task (although I wanted her to push much, much harder).  
So, today when I read her mea culpa about airing a diatribe about the dangers of the HPV vaccine on a recent episode of her TV program, I felt both pleased (thanks for the apology) and disgusted (what were you thinking in the first place?!)

Her show, an afternoon talk-fest much like all the rest, is on at "prime time" for daytime TV watchers.  Sexist as it sounds, that audience is mostly women.  I think there are more guys home during the day than there used to be, but my guess is they are not tuned in to Katie.

Katie said she regrets not presenting a more balanced view and admitted that her own daughters have received the vaccine.  But in my mind the damage was done.  All the afternoon viewers already watched a grieving mother blame the vaccine for her daughter's death; another blame it for her daughter's ongoing, intractable health challenges.  How many took these emotional stories, designed to scare, to heart?  Where was the science?  Where were the stories of lives saved?

What was up, surely, is it must have been ratings month.  I noticed a strong uptick, as always, in advertising for local news broadcast "Undercover Stories" as the month of November unfolded.  I don't really follow the TV industry and their seasonal push for ratings too much, but I know there are still monitors and measures by which advertisers decide which shows to throw money behind.  And traditionally November is a "ratings" month.

So all the salacious stories are trotted out:  child prostitution, identify theft, secret lives of Happy Hooker wives; bullying unto death,  airbag asphyxiation, cell phones causing brain cancer…all of it.  Apparently the very worst of humanity's foibles, and all of our worst fears, are fodder for ratings.

The thing is, even when I turn off the tube, I'm still bombarded by fear and destruction.  Facebook, a place where I find much that is fun and good, a place where I stay in touch and exchange good wishes and condolences and clever repartee with my friends,  is also a forum for some for near constant barrages of "doom and gloom".  I'm very, very tired of finding posts of warning about all sundry of personal, political, and global maladies.  I KNOW IT!  I KNOW EVERYTHING SUCKS!  Like most people I am doing what I can, when I can, how I can, to make my little bitty corner of this big awful world better.  That's my response, offered with some defensiveness, I know.  But damn it, if I wanted to feel guilty all the time I'd go back to being a Lutheran.  (Sorry to all the nice Christians I know.  But really, there is that thing about us all being sinners that's a little hard to feel good about.)

But I guess I am guilty too of posting on my own pet issues.  My "thing" is gun control and I occasionally post about that.  My "thing" is being a liberal Democrat outraged at times by the craziness that is the Tea Party.  But do I really think I am changing any minds with my posts?  No, I'm just preaching to the choir, and folks, so are you.  This choir member would like to take a time out.

Yes, I'm feeling grumpy today and it's not fun, really, in this season of merry and bright.  I just wanna know, can we please take a break from scaring, berating, and shaming?  Can we just stop hating the Right or the Left or The Man or whoever is the 'bad guy' du jour?  I would like that.

At least, that's the view from here….

YA SPOT IT, YA GOT IT

Hub told me my last post, about the cruise ship crowd, was a bit "snarky".  Pshaw.  I wasn't even close to as snarky as I could have been.  Plus, we all know humor (or an attempt at it) is really ultimately at our own expense.  Ya spot it, ya got it...as in the points I made in that other post:  I am not so spry nor am I super thin; I used to both drink and smoke; I burn easily in the sun; I wear dorky clothes sometimes and I am among the least well-traveled people I know, hence "foreign" really is foreign to me.   Are we all  happy now?

So, let's try this -- a snarky post about me.

I suck at hiking.  I wrote about this last year in Kaua'i, too, so I won't go into detail.  Suffice to say, there may be beauty all around me, but I mostly stare at the ground when I'm moving, willing the death march to be over.  Yesterday, though, I was on one of my fave Kaua'i hikes (the one I like) and I wish I'd switched on my I-Phone video so I could post for you the Jurassic Park jungle beauty around me and the brilliant, varied, and beautiful birdsong that was the soundtrack.  Pretty amazing.

I also suck at water sports, except for my favorite, which is sitting at water's edge in the sand for a few minutes, until the sun becomes too intense and I scurry for the shade of a palm tree.  I have friends at home who are strongly encouraging me to try snorkeling.  They are full of gentle urging and handy tips -- float with a floaty Noodle under my chest; practice in the pool; get a tight-fitting mask...  Putting my face in the water on purpose feels like anti-survival.  I did not evolve with gills.  But I did work up the courage to stick my face in the water in the pool today and blow bubbles through my nose.  I held Hub's hand the whole time (5 seconds) and he cheered enthusiastically and offered "Good job!" congratulations.  I  am now on par with all the three-year-olds in my class.

I do not like to "party all night long".  It is our habit to leave our lounge chairs at around 5:00 and head for our unit.  I shower, throw on a loose fitting sundress, pour a Club Soda and watch the waves from our deck until Hub is ready to grill some fish for dinner.  He takes off to do that, while I prepare a salad (open the Costco container) and set the table.  Soon he is back with tales of grilling adventures from the courtyard, where he meets and talks to strangers.  We eat; I clean up; we each grab a book and lie back to read until we fall asleep.  Or, we might turn on the TV.  There are limited channels here, but we do get Comedy Central so our beloved Daily Show and Colbert Report are available.  We also brought some Netflix discs of Homeland with us, but dispensed with those within the first few days of our vacation.  Hub forgot to pack Game of Thrones, so we are currently at a DVD-watching handicap.

So, you see, one could make a snarky comment about how absolutely NO FUN I am.  But that depends on your perspective, right?  I make terrific fodder for writing snarky blog posts, which is EXTREME fun!

At least, that's the view from here....©

RESTING INTO AWAKENING

I have been crocheting for the past two hours, sitting on the sofa, in front of the TV, scrolling through my DVR recordings and getting caught up on shows I watch when I have nothing else going on.  Tonight I have nothing else going on, and I am content.  In fact, more often than not over the past year I've been damn near giddy to realize on many days I don't have anything going on in the evenings.  I planned it that way, having done a self-intervention awhile back about my over-scheduled life; still, it always surprises and delights me that I have actually stuck to it.  I feel happy about it.  And maybe a little concerned....

When I was a teenager, there were uncharitable times when I thought my parents were lazy and boring.  My dad worked 9 hours a day in a textile factory and my mom stood on her feet in her home beauty shop for about the same number of hours 4 days a week, while she also kept up with the housekeeping, cooking, laundry, we children, her own mother living with us, etc., etc.  So when they plopped in front of the TV every evening, my dad with the newspaper in front of his face and my mom knitting or crocheting, I could only think...."Wow! Why don't they do something fun and interesting??? How can they just sit there???"  I vowed that when I had my own children they would see me engaged in worldly pursuits and stimulating activities.  And they did.  I was on zillions of committees and belonged to a number of worthy cause type organizations and attended numerous personal growth groups.  I was out there!  I was making a difference! My life had meaning!  I was having a good time!  I was exhausted!!!

So, now, when I pine for and luxuriate in long quiet evenings of my own making, even when they consist of mindless pursuits like old episodes of Grey's Anatomy or The Office, I both love it and worry about it. I question whether I've succumbed to the dreaded "old person" scourge of hibernation and lack of motivation to engage in the world.  Am I lazy?  Is my brain atrophying?  Is my body weakening?  Do I still have any friends?  Does my family remember me?

I know these are unwarranted fears....not one of them is true, especially that I've somehow dropped out of engagement with life, but such is the tug of needing to feel I'm "active" that any vegging-out time I take, especially when I take lots of it, feels like the kind of dropping out that could easily lead down the slippery slope of "just killing time", a phrase my dad used often in his later years when I would inquire what he was up to.  He'd say, "Oh, not much.  Just killing time."  That seemed so sad to me, to be merely existing.  But who knows?  Maybe it was finally a time for him to think, feel, observe, and just be.  Time was passing for sure, but who am I to say it wasn't the quality time he needed after a long life of hardship and hard work?  Maybe, for him, this time of not keeping time, not being run ragged by responsibilities, obligations, and schedules was the ultimate luxury.

I notice now that evenings at home with Hub, my books, my writing, my crocheting, and my TV shows, feels like a slower life for sure, quieter, much less stressful, and also like a gift....a gift I would enjoy a lot more if I wasn't troubling myself all the time by questioning some deeper, nefarious meaning behind it.  Letting go of old tapes, old judgments, and old fears is another form of the ultimate letting go that is the work of these Eldering years.  I realize maybe I am not "asleep" after all, but awakening to a different way of being.

At least, that's the view from here...©