No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on October 23, 2016

When we hit the months that ratings seem to mean more than they do the rest of the year, we get a lot of sound bites about things that sound either really neat or really horrible and we have to see the newscast to find out more.

Since we now have digital cable boxes what we watch as any given minute is known to someone. The ability to figure out what America is watching is so much easier than it was even 10 minutes ago. But the Neilsen Ratings are still considered the gold standard for some strange reason. Interestingly enough if you go to their website, you can learn all kinds of things about what is trending in America. Like Coke made almost a million more than Pepsi in the same time period. Folgers seems to be America’s coffee of choice not Starbucks. Bud Light is the most popular beer. Huggies and Gerber have a lock on the American Baby dollar.

Recently there have been a series of articles about Multivitamins and whether they are worth the money that we plunk down on them. And if you actually read some of the research it is a big helping of Yes and No. Apparently the older you get, the more a multi can help you seems to be the current belief. You are not doing yourself harm by taking them and there still may be some benefits that will be revealed after more study. Personally I plan on continuing to take mine.

The science seems to be in agreement that exercise is good for you at any age. Moving helps the body in so many ways so even a little can help. However there are so many machines and gimmicks out there along with a lot of information about how to just get the fat off your abs, which is insane and impossible. When fat comes off, you cannot pick which part of the body it comes off of. It is sort of an all or nothing. Sit-ups cost you nothing except the expense of energy and still work.

Eggs keep going in and out of the good food category that I have seriously lost where we are in that. For a while it seemed that the yokes were little ticking time bombs that you ate but now apparently there are good things about the yokes so people are eating them again.

The fiber debate seems to be heating up again. Apparently we have been wasting our money buying whole wheat bread because it doesn’t do what they said it did or does it much less because of the amount of processing done to the bread. Personally by this point, I prefer the taste so I am not going to change my bread buying habits.

I am not sure about these cars that have alerts and take over driving if you are distracted. I am happy that this may very well save life and limb but my bigger concern is that the drivers of these cars are going to assume that the car will take care of them and be even more distracted while they drive. Interestingly enough driverless cars are not very popular with the very people that it might help.

Now I do believe strongly in the mind/body connection. That the mind and the body are not two pieces but one that work together to keep us moving. And they are discovering more and more how this works which is fascinating to me. We talk about bio-feed back and meditation and the like. But recently there have been some very interesting developments for paraplegics who have been using some robot legs that were developed by NASA and a virtual reality headset to relearn how to walk with the robot legs. The side effect was that signals started to return to their legs and, in many cases, they could move limbs that they hadn’t been able to move because the spinal cord was shut off for whatever reason. They aren’t able to walk on their own but a significant number have regained bladder control, which is a big issue for them.

We had a fine example of how hackers can invade your life (another soundbite I heard the other day) this past Friday when a set of servers were attacked and Twitter, Tumblr, Netflix, and number of professional job sites when down while the owners tried to deal with the attack. Also there was the fact that the RF chip in your bank and credit cards can allow hackers to skim your data so much easier than the magnetic strip ever did. This is not just something I heard on the TV either, I have had at least five friends get screwed over this way. And for two it was really bad before the banks agreed that it was not them spending their money. The faster they move to protect, the faster the hackers work to see how they can break the system.

If the news is to be believed then we should be in a steady state of panic all the time. Except when they do the feel good animal or people stories, which are suppose to make us feel better about ourselves and our world.

Personally, I am going to continue to eat and drink what I like in moderation. I plan to continue to exercise and do things that I believe will help my over all health. I will continue to take my multivitamins and a few supplements that have proven to help me and work with my body chemistry. I will continue to be mindful of my body and what I am doing to it both physically and mentally. And I am going to mute those soundbites when I see them on TV. Reduce the signal to noise ratio and give myself more peace of mind.

I am grateful for science as a whole.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 22, 2016

In the Catholic Church there are a number of ceremonies that are considered milestones in a person’s life. For children and teens they are baptism, first communion, and confirmation. Caroline is confirming that she wanted to be baptized. We spoke for her on that day and today she speaks for herself.

(for the VI: This is a photo of Caroline to the right in a red robe, Bishop Andrzejin red holding his miter, Caroline’s sponsor Meg the only one not all in Red)

She chose the name Dymphna after the Irish saint with a rather colorful story with, of course, a sad ending. Dymphna is the patron saint of those afflicted with mental or emotional illness or neurological disorders also for psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists. According to the head of the religious school, she had never heard of a child taking Dymphna as their confirmation name until this year when Caroline and another girl chose it.

The ceremony was very nice and the Bishop got the teens to laugh at some of the things he said but he also got his message across to the people in the church. His congregation must get great homilies when he is speaking.

I took Caroline and Meg out to lunch afterward where we talked about our confirmations and the like. It was nice.

Tomorrow Caroline is helping out with a Breast Cancer Walk and she has a meeting of her Lego Robot team. She is a very busy and social conscious girl.

I am very proud of her.

I am grateful for Bishops who know how to talk to their audience rather than at their audience.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 21, 2016

Friday we have Girl Scouts and Show Choir. Saturday is Caroline’s confirmation and family activities. Sunday is a cancer walk and Robot club. At Caroline’s insistence, Peter is fulfilling an obligation to a convention this weekend.

I have to finished picking up and cleaning the living room for today.

I hope later to get back to some puppet stuff and Caroline’s Halloween costume.

I will continue on Drawlloween and posting that on Tuesday.

But this might get a little quiet for a bit or I might go on a blog tear.

I am grateful for everyone who has helped with Caroline getting to Confirmation.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 20, 2016

Today is their 54th wedding anniversary. I will assume that they have some plan for a really good meal at one of their favorite restaurants or Mom is going to make them something that they both adore but don’t have too often.

My parents were my example on how a marriage should work and they are still teaching me. I learned a lot of my parenting skills from them as well.

They are a shining example to me of how the American Dream is suppose to work. They both came from families that didn’t have much and through education and hard work became college professors in their fields of study. And it was a lot of hard work to get to where they are. They are both very smart and they used that to their advantage.

Now they are retired and able to do things that they want to do rather than what they have to do.

They are very proud, and have every right to be, of the gardens that they have created over the years. They have pulled ivy and moved plants and hauled recycled water to the plants during drought conditions and water shortages. They have had their gardens on the Druids Hills home and gardens tour. Mom is a certified Master Gardener.

They made a good home for their children. They let us be ourselves and figure out who we were. They didn’t dissuade me from going into theater as a career and supported me while I went to graduate school. They allowed me my dreams and hopes and let me figure out on my own what I could and couldn’t do. I knew early that being an astronaut was out because of my problem with heights. I am who I am today because of their love and support.

Now they have three granddaughters who love and adore them. And they are enjoying watching them grow up. Their four children have found our various places in the world and are happy. And they have each other for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Hope the day is a good one.

I am grateful for my parents being MY parents.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 19, 2016

Parenting is one of those adventures where you learn a lot along the way. What works for one child does not work for all children even within a family. Children are not clones of each other. I knew that even before I became a stepmother. My parents were the ones who taught me that by their actions although I did get verbal confirmation later.

I know my daughter. I know her likes and dislikes pretty well. I know what she is scared of and what she loves. I also know her level of maturity and what topics are not appropriate for her at this time. I know what she is passionate about and what she could really care less about. I listen to her and learn about her.

I know she does not care for zombies at all. Hasn’t her entire life starting with her really not liking the game Plants vs. Zombies and, to this day, having no interest in the Walking Dead or any other zombie related entertainment.

I know she loves Steven Universe with a fiery passion that has not dimmer since she first saw it. She loves the characters and the concept. She and her friends discuss endlessly what they think is going to happen next to which is their favorite Gem or Gem fusion to who would win in a fight. At San Diego Comic Con, she got to meet Rebecca Sugar who created the show and tell her how much the show meant to her. She also got to tell the cast and crew about it. And they were very interested in what she had to say since she was their demographic to a “t”.

I know she loves to read all kinds of things. This morning she was reading her way through Time magazine and the Week. She took the Time with her to finish an article she was reading. She loves comic books and manga too. She loved books. I can usual find her with some form of reading material in her hand.

She loves to draw and be creative. For her it is like breathing and I can so understand that. I have watched her focus when she is working on something and it is intense.

She doesn’t care for make-up or the in clothing. She would rather be comfortable than fashionable. That I think she gets from me since I don’t really care for make-up unless I am doing theatrical make-up. She does like dresses and skirts which I still have never understood the purpose of. She has her own sense of fashion and she wears it proudly.

I know what I will let her watch and what I won’t and it doesn’t always match up with others in her peer group. But they are not my children, she is and I am looking out for her. I ask parents about films that she wants to watch with her friends to make sure that their parents are all right with what their children are seeing. Same with books that she wants to lend out or even graphic novels.

I may not understand the reasoning of other parents, but I respect their wishes regarding their children and I hope that they respect mine.

I know my child and, I think, I know what is best for her, which is probably not what other parents think is the best for their child and that is fine. We have different experiences and social mores that shape us as parents which in turn shapes our children.

I am grateful that Caroline will talk to me about her life.

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