Cool Couple Enjoys Hot Times In Palm Beach

At last Barbie and Ken can enjoy their golden years in Palm Beach.  In her flowing caftan with blue, green and lavender swirls or a hot pink number with a pale shell-pink cover-up in a coral design, Barbie and her dashing companion Ken, attired in crisp white slacks and light pink polo shirt under a green and white jacquard-patterned jacket, enjoy an afternoon of cocktails and cards with their crowd, or mojitos and a sultry samba on a moonlit night.

Wildlife As Pets?

Zuni Wolf Spirit Fetish

Please take the time to look at the following articles if you think wildlife make good pets:

Wildlife As Pets http://www.geocities.com/CrawdadCreekRehab/Pets.html

Raising Wildlife And Wildlife As Pets http://redcreekwildlifecenter.com/blog/?p=43

Wildlife Pets Create Ethical, Practical Challenges For Veterinarians http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/jul04/040715d.asp

Keeping Wildlife As Pets Definitely Not A Good Idea http://www.outdoorcentral.com/mc/pr/04/02/23a5.asp

Should Wildlife Be Kept As Pets?http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/issues_facing_wildlife/should_wild_animals_be_kept_as_pets/

Wildlife, Exotic Pets And Emerging Zoonoses http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/13/1/6.htm

"Rivers belong where they can ramble, Eagles belong where they can fly. I've got to be where my spirit can run free, Got to find my corner of the sky." (From the musical, Pippin)

Share The Care - Preventing Caregiver Burnout

Anyone coping with the care of a chronically ill or terminally ill relative or friend knows what an overwhelming responsibility this is. As in the myth of Sisyphus, the caregiver can feel like they are rolling a huge boulder up a hill each day just to have it roll back down toward them. 

In "Share The Care" (2004) by Cappy Capossela and Sheila Warnock a system is put into place to divide the many caregiving duties among several individuals so no one person becomes completely overwhelmed. The authors guide you through putting together a committed team in an organized, documented fashion.

There are also many helpful sections with sample documents for organizing such items as medicines taken, dosage schedules to ensure medication is given in doses and at times prescribed, setting up insurance claim files and some tips on dealing with insurance companies, and schedules for organizing the team.

A slim notebook with all medications listed, times and amounts given, what the patient has been eating daily, along with other important patient observations and emergency contact information for relatives can be placed for quick access on top of the refrigerator so each caregiver has access to what has been done already and in case of an emergency the EMTs can grab the notebook (which contains the list of medications and recent times and amounts taken) and rush off to the hospital. 

For more information on how this system works and to order the book, here is the website: http://www.sharethecare.org/index.html

Don't Make Me Release The Flying Monkeys!

Vote for (Fiy) Ero, one Wicked Good Dog! And I won’t release the flying monkeys!

Madame Alexander Winged Monkey, 8", Wizard of Oz Collection Doll

http://www.cutestdogcompetition.com/vote.cfm?h=89C85FEC894CC2B3E48955A56699C231 

Help for Dyslexic Reader?

A friend of mine has recently learned that her seven year old is having problems learning to read, specifically understanding the concept of combining individual letters to form words. He's in an IEP program at school and she's pretty sure he has dyslexia. I had dyslexia at the same age and had to be heavily tutored to learn to read, but it was over forty years ago and I do not recall what the techniques were used to help me overcome the problem, plus I would hope that best practices have changed a lot since then. 

Any suggestions on tackling this problem and knowledge of available resources would be helpful. We live in San Jose, about an hour and a half south of San Francisco, CA.

Thanks :)

Go Speed Racer

My nine year old nephew, a whiz on the Wii, beat the pants off my sister in a game of Mario Kart.  My sister with an average driving speed of 90 mph is no slug and she grew up in Boston where the perfect taunt to “wicked retahded” driving was “You get your license out of a Cracka Jack box?” 

My niece quipped “How did you ever get your license?”

I don’t recall the fire pit and the abyss on the driving test in Boston.

Hot Links 1.0

So let me see if I have this straight. In the Beginning, God makes a human being. Then instead of making another human being, He violates U.S. law by taking genetic material from the first human being creating the first clone (sorry, Dolly). So one plus one does not equal two. One minus a rib does. And Eve was a derivative work.

Hot Links?

I came across this term in association with some permission-granted free clip art on an undisclosed website and now I am confused and concerned.

Once upon a time (i.e. college) it was acceptable to "borrow" a quote or short (very) piece from another source as long as that source was properly referenced. Perhaps this is no longer the case.

So here is my first attempt at absolutely original stuff...from scratch. If perchance, I happen to mention some website with some really cool ideas, pictures or other fun stuff, incidentally and unintentionally, you'll bloody well have to find it yourself. You're not getting the link from me. 

The Dinosaur Formerly Known As Brontosaurus

ABC

When the niece was three she had a school project to complete. Each kid was given a paper bag to take home to fill with assorted items that begin with the letter "A".  

Dad double-checked the "A" bag and everything was good except there was a small plastic dinosaur in it.  He said to little niece, "Are you sure this belongs in your "A" bag?"

She thought for awhile then replied "Yes, daddy, it's "Apatosaurus" not "Hapatosaurus".

The Dark Side of Droop

A Scary Science Post

One of hubby's professional mags arrives and I usually toss them onto his desk.

On the front page of this one, however was a terror-inducing article with the title "The LED's Dark Side" followed by a paragraph no hypochondriac ever wants to read:

"A mysterious malady called 'droop' is dimming the prospects for light-emitting diodes as the ultimate illuminators.  

Droop? Is that some kind of palsy? How far away from these new LED lights do I need to be to avoid this?

So I turn to the article itself to find out how to protect myself from the malady called droop and find several sentences like this one: "The substrate for red, orange,and yellow LEDs is gallium arsenide, which works wonderfully because its atoms are spaced out identically to those of the layers on top of it". Every other sentence in the article is like that one, the damn thing is written in Vulcan. 

As for me, I am sticking to my man, Stephen King, and leaving other people's mail alone.

(Note: The LED's Dark Secret is an article by Richard Stevenson included in the August 2009 issue of IEEE Spectrum).

Insomnia, yup, I've got Insomnia

Usually I go to bed at 9:00 (p.m.) Yeah, my life is that exciting, except for the time I was downtown at The Usual watching The Royal Crown Revue and drinking Vietnamese Coffee (favorite of airline pilots everywhere). So I found this little slideshow on the web on how to avoid insomnia and I gotta tell you now, number 8/13 ain't gonna happen.

Good thing there are a lot of good blog posts out there.

You've got to ask yourself one question...

What is the square footage of my house? I was out for a walk one day when one of these Marmaduke size monsters came running up, stood on his hind legs, put both paws on my shoulders and proceeded to kiss my face. I thought Oh my God, they've finally been able to cross a horse with a dog but his owner assured me that he was actually a shepard, an Anatolian Shepard. The breed hails from Turkey where they guard sheep. This is not a good dog for short people.

Have You Checked the Children?

You won't have to if you have a Rhodesian Ridgeback. The breed hails from Africa where they are family and livestock guard dogs. Fiercely loyal family dogs they'll do everything but diaper the kids for you. Ridgies are not for everyone, they require a lot of training while they're young to ensure a well-behaved dog.  

Spumone or Spinone?

You are all thinking this, yes? Put down the spoons! When in Italy try not to order a dog for dessert. Here is the scrumptious Spinone Italiano.

Finding Divine Sparks

For most of my life I have struggled with reconciling the seemingly opposing concepts of an all-powerful God and a benevolent one. Even when you take the absolutely horrific acts of way too many human beings out of the equation you are still left with suffering in the forms of natural disasters, predation and pain. 

I came across an enticing way of thinking about the nature of good and evil in a book by Annie Dillard, "For the Time Being".

The concept comes from a 16th century rabbi's (Isaac Luria) creation myth that God had poured his divine light into vessels at the time of the creation of the world but that the Holy light was too powerful for the vessels and they broke, scattering shards of divine light everywhere, imprisoned within the broken shards of the vessels. 

"So God is hidden, exiled, in the sparks of divine light the shells entrap".

The symbolism is wonderful on at least two levels, that of the macrocosm or the entrapment of divine goodness in the world and of the microcosm, that each of us is a broken vessel enclosing a divine spark.

New Article

Over the Line?

Fans of TNT's "The Closer" what did you think of our favorite Deputy Chief's sneaky tactics in using her niece to get the real story out of the boy in the ICU? Was it necessary and justified or over the line?

My Cup Runneth Over

Oenology 101

I cannot neglect the Food and Wine section, mostly because I love a challenge. An important point to keep in mind is which glass to use with red wine and which glass to use with white.

I couldn't find the one for White Zinfandel but my husband assures me it is a styrofoam cup.

Why Do You Write?

What compels you to write? How do some of your ideas originate? Do you plan your writing or just react to an event, article or something someone said? How did you come to be on PNN and what do you hope to accomplish? I'd love to hear about bloggers' need to write and the process they go through from stimulus to initial concept to fleshing out an idea to reworking it to the final post. I know some, like myself, will be new to writing/blogging, while others may have a well-developed process, voice and audience.