Geezer-Chick

Botanic Cleansing

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:09:00 +0000

When I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it was bad enough that the girls had to deal with an alcoholic father, but when they finally got a tree – it was a stinkweed!

I have been on a war against stink weeds for most of my life. My husband, the alien, calls my crusade: Botanic Cleansing. I’ve pulled as many as a hundred on a single walk around the neighborhood.

My husband uses his trash-picker to collect potato bags and beer bottles (not all of which are empty, or even open). I pull up stink weeds.

I was clearly propagandized by this song and story:
http://www.kiddierecords.com/week_30/Rose-Norman_The-Carrot-Seed.mp3

I like to get them while they are young and easy to uproot. I don’t wait until they’re lifting up sidewalks and destroying front steps. They are all guilty of future evil. And, if they are allowed to live, they’ll make seeds, and the seeds will grow into even more giant stinkweeds. They may look like cute green trees – but I know better.

Touch them and your hands will stink – a stink that mere soap will not wash off. Buildings downtown have needed major repair because a stinkweed rooted itself between stones, or in a crevice beside a window.

Zagar's Gardens

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:51:00 +0000

“Every tile is the right tile. Every place is the right place.”

Isaiah Zagar has created murals from tiles, mirrors, pottery, bottles, bicycle wheels, and other bought, made, and found items on over 100 walls in Philadelphia. He also built a mini-labyrinth in a former vacant lot, which he calls “Magic Garden.”

His work is controversial. The mayor gave him a citation for creating one of Philadelphia’s most loved artworks. Angry neighbors come up to tour groups and tell them they’re wasting their time looking at junk. Some are on homes where people have asked Zagar to design murals for specific themes. Others seem more to show inspiration of the moment.

Some are playful. Others reverent. Still others seem to be designed from personal images.

Zagar only works near his home on South Street. His students work all over town.

Most of the works have messages worked into the designs.

This is the front door of his home.

This is a nearby door stoop.

Below are some murals.

Age is NOT Just a Number

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Thu, 30 May 2013 21:43:00 +0000

I was sitting in the waiting room at my chiropractor’s office, commiserating with another geezer about how aging is a bad design. It starts out fine. You get taller and stronger. Then it starts going the other way.

The receptionist interrupted our conversation to say, “Age is just a number.”

I totally disagree. So, I told her, “Age is cancer and hip replacements and broken teeth.”

She looked at me in disbelief. “Have you had any of these things?”

I’ve discussed my hip replacement and mastectomy with her, so I thought she knew. But, maybe she listens about as well as the neighborhood barber, who is just making conversation.

I simply said, “Yes.”

She said she knew one other person who had a hip replacement.

My grandparents made very clear that aging was no fun. They were weaker and slower than my parents and my friends’ parents, who in turn had less energy than we children.

Some things have happened to make aging more comfortable than it was for my grandparents. When my grandfather broke a tooth, he had to have it pulled. I was able to get an onlay and keep the tooth. When my grandmother got a hip replacement, she spent the rest of her life sitting around playing cards. The new model hip replacement I got lets me climb stairs, do yoga, and ride my bike.

But the treatment for breast cancer is still the same as it was when my aunt had it. Mastectomy. I had the modern option of reconstruction, but I didn’t want it. I wanted a magic treatment that would simply make the cancer disappear. No knives involved. (I did try lumpectomy, but that didn’t get it all, and what with the radiation required afterwards, I’m just as glad to have had the mastectomy.)

Even though I have a better hip replacement and better dental care than my grandparents, I’m still aging (read degenerating with age). Age is not just a number. Aging means changing how I live, adapting to arthritis and dealing with health problems that come with my body getting older.

And apparently, aging means having to do what my grandparents did and inform the young’uns that getting older requires care and patience, not just from us geezers, but also from friends and family. They won’t believe it, but maybe I’ll try telling them that today’s young’un is tomorrow’s geezer. And I hope medical care improves, so their aging is more pleasant than mine. I doubt that age will ever be just a number.

Doing Research After the Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:25:00 +0000

One of the lazy things I like to do is listen to storytellers, rather than do the research. So, I listened to the story of how Heinrich Schliemann, a rich businessman, became an archeologist (a new profession) and discovered and dug up Troy. Our guide did make clear that Heinrich Schliemann was no angel. He had promised to share the value of any riches uncovered with his crew, but the day he found some gold, he sent the crew home early (with pay) and dug up all the gold himself and never shared it.

But our guide did not tell us that Heinrich Schliemann didn’t really discover Troy at all. I don’t know why, but I was suspicious, so I did the research on the web. I keep remembering the hours digging around in the library hunting for information. Research is no longer a lot of heavy lifting. It only took a few minutes to find that Frank Calvert, a British archeologist, was the true finder of Troy. After the British Museum turned him down, Calvert went to Heinrich Schliemann for the money. Calvert deserves the credit for discovering the true location of Troy.

The Troy of the Trojan Horse story was the 6th Troy. There were 9 cities built in that location. The location was finally abandoned when Turkey rose enough that Troy was no longer on the sea, and a new city with a port had to be built. In our explorations of Troy we found sea shells, but oddly no potsherds.

The city is marked with a wooden horse, large enough for a small army to hide in. But this horse has windows and a little room at the top. I find those additions unlikely for a sneak attack.

Still, I enjoyed walking the remains of this historical city, seeing walls that had been built and rebuilt with pieces of previous walls, and pedestals where statues had been (but are now in museums.) And I was very pleased with my artificial hip. Several members of our tour group relied on canes. I was able to climb stairs over a foot high, without banisters. The wonders of modern medicine combined with a superb physical therapy program! Most of what I want to do is only accessible with a healthy body. I’m so glad to live in a century where replacement parts make it possible. And I’m glad that research has become easier, too.

Learning Turkish

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:57:00 +0000

Before my husband, the alien, and I travel, we briefly study the language of the country we’ll visit. By briefly, I mean we take the 16 lesson Pimsleur course. I prefer Pimsleur because it is geared to tourist needs. Directions. Culture. Money. Time.

In Greece, for example, we learned how to ask “where is the toilet?” and we were told that in the country people might not know what we mean, so we should ask for “the place.” Since we were driving ourselves around, we NEEDED to know this.

We’ve studied quite a few languages with the Pimsleur system. Turkish was the first set of CDs that I thought had useless information. For example, when it taught how to ask for coffee or Ayran (a yogurt drink) at a restaurant, it explained that we would get one of two answers. Coffee exists, or Coffee does not exist. Why would a restaurant be out of coffee? But frequently when my husband asked for coffee, he received Coffee yok (does not exist.) And my requests for Ayran also met with Ayran yok.

If the lessons had only included “Where is the toilet,” I’d have been totally pleased with them. We also bought “Teach Yourself Turkish” which had the toilet question and phrases that came in handy like “Shame on you” which we used when people butt in line in front of us.

The phrase in the Pimsleur lessons that I thought was the most useless was “I am a Turk.” I could not imagine any situation when I would want to say that. We took a few days off from our tour group to explore on our own. Aggressive salespeople approach tourists to offer directions and then try to steer them into their shops en route.

Our tour guide told us never to follow anyone into a building. One of our group members told us he had no idea how he suddenly found himself on the 4th floor of a shop trying on a leather motorcycle jacket. Since he didn’t own a motorbike, he wasn’t tempted.

When we were walking towards the underground cistern in Istanbul, salesperson came up to us and said, “You look like tourists.” I started laughing, but my husband remembered the lesson. He answered, “Turkum.” (I am a Turk.) The man left us alone.

Next time I start to think a phrase in a lesson will be unnecessary, I’ll be open to the possibilities.

Gift from Out of the Blue

noreply@blogger.com (jean) — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:36:00 +0000

This is a guest blog by Jean Lorrah

We love our pets, so we give them our hearts. And then they break those hearts by growing old and dying far too soon.

Over the years I have learned to adopt a young dog when my current dog shows signs of age. There are two benefits from this practice: the old dog seems to perk up from the presence of a young companion, and later, when the old dog inevitably crosses the rainbow bridge, the young dog is already part of the family and a comfort to me and the other pets.

My old dog, Kadi, is only 14, but the Humane Society helped me rescue her from an abusive situation when she was about a year old. I'm used to my dogs living to 16 or more, as I have been fortunate not to have one with health problems before. So I didn't think about adopting a younger dog until I suddenly realized that the poor girl is failing. Her reactions when I first got her showed that she had been hit on the head, and within a year or two she started having seizures. My vet put her on Phenobarbitol, and once we got the dosage right it has kept her seizure free ever since.

I will never know if Kadi's neurological problems would have occurred anyway, or if they came from abuse, but she has had a good life in spite of them. Now, though, she is growing weak, and I have come to the realization that I am going to lose her sooner than I expected. Therefore about a month ago I decided I needed to start looking for a young dog.

I'm not a breeder, nor do I plan to enter my animals in dog shows. Therefore all my pets are rescues. It's good to know I'm saving lives, and these animals, whether they are purebreds or mixed breeds, make wonderful pets. I urge anyone simply looking for a family pet to start at their local Humane Society rather than at a breeder's kennel. If you are looking for a specific type of dog, even the most surprising and exotic breeds often turn up there--as I was recently reminded to my delight.

I am a volunteer for the Humane Society, doing pet therapy with my cats, Dudley and Splotch, so I asked the director to start looking for a small dog for me. I have reached the age myself now at which I can no longer handle a large dog, not just for training (I've always been successful at teaching my pets good manners, but they don't generally come that way), but for manhandling an unconscious or seizing pet into the car for an emergency trip to the vet. So I asked her to be on the lookout for a small dog that wouldn't be more than 15 pounds as an adult.

I was amazed to be offered the little white dog you see at the top of the page: a purebred Maltese! Incredibly, someone abandoned her in an area of town where many small dogs are found abandoned. Where they are coming from is a mystery the Humane Society has not yet been able to solve. Still, they treated this little girl as lost, advertised her, but no one claimed her, so she went into the adoption pool just when I started looking for a new companion.

I didn't know much about the breed except that they are reputed to be very loyal and easy to train, but require a tremendous amount of grooming. So before meeting the dog I did some homework on Google, and found that they are also a very healthy breed, and that Maltese not used as show dogs (or kept by movie stars) are kept in what is called a "puppy cut" their whole lives.

The Maltese, it turns out, is one of the oldest breeds, and can be traced back 2800 years. The "little white dogs of Malta" were great favorites of the Greeks and especially the Romans, who called them "comfort dogs." Surprisingly, the breed survived the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages because they were traded all around the Mediterranean as currency!

So I just had to meet this little girl, and of course she immediately stole my heart. They were calling her Marnie, but I have renamed her Bianca because she is white, her heritage is Roman, and she is a little urchin who needs to be reminded that she is supposed to be an elegant lady!

This is how the poor little thing looked when she was found running free and trying to survive. The groomer was able to salvage some of the hair on her head, but her body hair was so badly matted that they had to shave it. That's why at the moment her head looks too big for her body--when her hair grows out to about an inch long all over she should look in proportion, and that's how I plan to keep her. If I have her professionally groomed every couple of months, she should stay cute as the proverbial button.

Bianca has already cheered Kadi up, reawakening her love of taking walks. She's good for me, too, because she needs a long walk every day in addition to the short one we take with Kadi. Dudley, my Zen cat, has already made friends, and Bianca is slowly working her wiles on Splotch, who at first resented her, and slapped her every time she came near him. Splotch is twice Bianca's size, but he can't make her back off. He has made Dobermans back off.

Bianca is a fiesty little thing--probably the reason she survived in the wild with the handicaps of her size (seven pounds) and that long coat. She is an accomplished thief, probably another survival trait, and has already claimed all the cats' toys as her own.

Bianca is also an escape artist. Because of her penchant for chewing up virtually anything (including one of the cat beds), I am crate training her to keep her safe and out of mischief when I'm out of the house. The third day I had her, I came home from errands to have her meet me at the door! When I put her back in her crate, she immediately demonstrated how she had figured out how to push the double latches up, and then shake the door till it opened for her! I now use the clip of her leash to hold the door shut. Bianca hasn't figured out how to open that yet.

As I write this, Bianca is snuggled up next to me, sound asleep, a little white cherub. But I know that as soon as I move she will be up and bouncing again, looking for new mischief. Therefore I plan to enroll her in the Humane Society Obedience Class in June, with an eye toward making her another therapy pet. I'm quite sure she will make a wonderful "comfort dog."

Relay for Life

noreply@blogger.com (jean) — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:51:00 +0000

This is a guest blog by Jean Lorrah

In the town where I live, Relay for Life is tomorrow night at the stadium of the local university.

Relay for Life is a nationwide fundraising effort for the American Cancer Society. Businesses, clubs, organizations--all put together relay teams who raise money for cancer research, and then once a year (usually in May or June) meet to honor local survivors and remember those who have lost the fight with cancer. Survivors are given medals, and then they make the first lap around the track. On the second lap their caregivers join them, and after that the track is left to the relay teams. Every team keeps someone on the track throughout the night, while there is music, food, games, and celebration of life all around the stadium.

In the luminaria ceremony, people dedicate luminaria to friends and family who have either survived or succumbed to cancer, and each name is read out while the luminaria are the only lights available. When the ceremony opens, some of those lights are arranged to spell out HOPE, but by the time it is over they have been rearranged to spell out CURE. It is a lovely, moving ceremony, for practically everyone there will have dedicated luminaria to friends and relatives who have been through cancer. Relay is a celebration of life--don't go expecting something sad. Rather, it is uplifting and filled with hope.

If you've never been to a Relay for Life, watch for one in or near your town--they are just starting now. Ours is one of the first, because we rely on students from the university to make up many of the teams. They will soon go home for the summer.

My team, though, is unique in our relay: we are the 8th Wonders, every one of us a breast cancer survivor. Our name comes from the fact that one out of every eight women will have breast cancer in her lifetime. I myself have had two different kinds of cancer--breast and endometrial--and survived both. My survival, and that of all cancer survivors, is due to medical science.

The American Cancer Society is 100 years old this year. During that century, cancer survival has gone from one in three to two in three--pretty good, but we want to make it three in three! If you would like to contribute to the research leading to that goal, you can attend a Relay for Life--perhaps even join a relay team. But if that's not possible for you, you can donate online.

If you would like to support me and my team of survivors, go here:

http://dld.bz/cpMzC

Thank you for reading this. If you have not yet been touched by cancer, you will be. Someone among your friends and family will have it. There's even a good chance you will have it. Then you will be grateful for the treatments we now have that save most cancer patients to live long, healthy lives. The research that brought about those treatments came from donations, many of them through Relay for Life.

A Doctor Who Trusts Me - sort-of

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:11:00 +0000

Ever since I got hit by that car, I’ve been seeing far too many doctors. Collar bone repair, and check-ups. Hip replacement. And check-ups. Cancer testing and surgeries. And check-ups.

At the one-year point, my collar bone was declared healed. My hip replacement is an experimental model so I have to go back every year for 7 years. It is healed. They’re just concerned about possible problems.

When my mastectomy reached the one-year point, I expected to be set free. But NO! The surgeon wanted me to come in every 6 months for the next 5 years. Why? I asked. He told me that GPs and Gyns don’t do good breast exams. So, I asked, What can you do that I don’t do? I found the lump.

He was in a hurry. I’d already waited an hour to see him and he had a waiting room full. Finally, he said, I won’t be insulted if you don’t come back. I have plenty of patients. Then he offered to be my second opinion if I find something I want checked by professional hands. Hurray!

Just to prove he is a standard doctor (after making this non-standard offer) he bugged me again about getting reconstruction. I find the idea of more surgery repulsive and the prospect of a bag of salt water under my chest muscles is disgusting. And he tried to push tamoxifen or aromitase inhibitors. I reminded him that there is no longevity advantage and they only reduce my chance of getting cancer again in the other breast by 1.5%. He tried saying these drugs are recommended and well-tolerated. I told him I don’t think very many women would take them if they knew how tiny the benefit is and how horrible the common side-effects are. He gave up. Hurray again!

I think there is something wrong with our medical system if doctors are pushing drugs without giving out the information I found on the web. It is up to each person to decide which drugs s/he wants to take. I think doctors should give out the information that I found on the web – not just recommend a drug because it is “recommended.”

Legalize Drugs

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:29:00 +0000

Last night, I attended a meeting of the Human Relations Council of Philadelphia.

The meeting was held in my neighborhood in response to an article about my neighborhood in Philadelphia Magazine called, “Being White in Philly.” http://www.phillymag.com/articles/white-philly/2/

The point of view of the article is in general that being white can be a disadvantage.

I agree with that in many ways.

I’m an eco-freak, but I’ve had 3 trash cans stolen, so I now use garbage bags. Yes, I get the ones made of recycled plastic, but still, they are an eco crime.

There are places where I’m not welcome because of the color of my skin. When I went to juvenile court to prosecute one of my muggers who had been caught by the police, I was the only white person in the room. I had arrived early and was sitting in a chair. Two African American women, one sitting on my left, the other standing on my right, started having a conversation across me. I asked if the standing woman would like my chair. She replied, “I want you out of my face.” It was obvious that I was there as a victim, not a family member of an accused.

When I attended this meeting, the vast majority in attendance were African- American.
I signed up to speak. I listened to African-Americans tell sad stories about Philadelphia that had not been in the magazine. Since 1970, the prison population in Philadelphia has increased by 800%. The average African-American wage in Philadelphia is $26,000. The average white wage is $42,000. Poverty is not because people don’t work. It’s because they aren’t paid enough.
African-Americans also said there weren’t good ways to meet their white neighbors. Even block parties seem to be segregated.

One white man said when he moved to Philadelphia 45 years ago, the city owned houses in many neighborhoods and purposely rented them to low-income folks of different races from the surrounding homes, in order to let people meet folks of other races. That program has ended. Now, the city builds low-income housing and creates segregated neighborhoods.

When I got up to speak, I began with my experience at jury duty. I had to fill out a form that asked if I or a member of my family had been a victim of a violent crime. I have been mugged at gunpoint, shoved to the sidewalk and handled roughly while my assailants searched my body for stealable stuff. I’d call that violent, so I marked yes. I asked one of the courtroom staffers if this disqualified me. She said, “No. Every family in Philadelphia has somebody who has been mugged.” We have a problem here.

When I went to court for the trial of my adult muggers (I must look tough if it takes 3 young men with 2 guns to mug me) I saw that most of the crime and most of the victims of crime in Philadelphia are African-American. And I heard that most of the crime is drug-related.

Note: this wasn’t just one day – possibly a fluke. I had to go to court 14 times to get my muggers tried because of assorted errors.

So, my suggestion to make Philadelphia a more pleasant place for everybody to live: Legalize drugs. If people who use drugs could get that at a drug store, for the price of a pack of cigarettes, they wouldn’t be out mugging little old ladies for pocket change.

Our courtrooms and jails would not be bursting with convicted drug users and dealers. We could even collect taxes on the sales of drugs. This is a win-win solution. We’d save the costs of trials and jails. We’d save folks from being mugged. We’d save our youth from becoming convicted criminals who then have trouble finding jobs.

I’ll say it again: Legalize Drugs!

More Doodling

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:32:00 +0000

Doodling fascinates me. I’ve invested in a set of colored markers. Free plug: Staples has a pack of 24 Sharpies for $10.

I’m amazed that the simple act of committing myself to doodling for 10 or 15 minutes is relaxing, much like meditation. And when I’m done, I have something to show for it. Something I like looking at.

I’ve been playing around with Zentangle techniques. http://www.youtube.com/user/Zentangle

In short, the steps are:
Draw a box in which you want to doodle.

Make a squiggle or two inside that box, which divides the box into areas.

Decide what you’d like to draw in each area.
The Zentangle folks have over 100 fill patterns. Plus most cultures have fill patterns that aren’t copyrighted. Or create an original design.

Then when you’re done doodling, you can color it in, or shade it with a soft pencil. I even learned a color combining trick that works with colored markers. You need a piece of flat plastic, like a pin box. Color an area about an inch square on the flat plastic with a dark marker, say red. Then take a light marker, such as yellow, and wipe it across the dark patch on the plastic. When you start to color with the marker, it starts out red, goes through shades of orange and ends up yellow.

Bottom line: I enjoy it.

EcoFreak at the Mammogram Shop

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:54:00 +0000

I am an eco-freak. I bring my own bags to the grocery. I bring my own boxes to restaurants in case I have left-overs. And I wore my own blouse to the mammogram shop.

I have to wash what I wear at the end of the day anyway. So, on days when I have to expose my breast (used to be breasts), I wear a front-closing blouse.

The mammogram shop was running late. I had to wait 90 minutes before they called me back to the changing room. I told the woman who escorted me that I would not be changing. I’d remove my bra and put my own blouse back on. She showed me the silly costumes on the shelf, as if seeing the patterns on them would change my mind. When I refused a 2nd time, she let me use a changing room to remove my bra and prosthetic.

When I came out, she showed me how to use the lockers so I could lock up my bra, and bike helmet and bide saddle bag, and jacket. She seemed to want to check on me that I really had removed my bra and didn’t have it anywhere near, where I could sneak it back on again.

Then she showed me to a 2nd waiting room. I told her I had an appointment with a doctor one floor up 5 minutes ago. She agreed to call him and ask if I should come right up or reschedule. The doctor wanted the mammogram results, so I sat there.

While I sat, 3 staff-women asked me, “Don’t you want to change?” I assured each of them that my bra was off, my blouse opens down the front, just like the costumes and NO, I do NOT want to wear a costume and create more laundry. I will wash my own blouse when I do my laundry. I will wear my own blouse for the rest of the day. I am an eco-freak.

When I was finally called for the mammogram, I didn’t give the technician a chance to ask about my blouse. I told her I’m an eco-freak, and I’m wearing my own blouse. She didn’t blink. She just asked me to remove my blouse. I presume she had the other women remove their costumes. She smashed me in the machine, and led me to yet another waiting room, where they would come get me if I needed more x-rays or a sonogram, or to let me know everything was okay.

At about the 2 hour point, they gave the All Clear and let me go up stairs to my doctor’s appointment where I had to wait another 90 minutes. And again explain why I wasn't going to wear their costume.

Where Have all the Liberals Gone?

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:32:00 +0000

What has happened to politics?

When I got started in politics, in the 60's, the groups I joined existed to change the world for the better. Get out of Vietnam and Cambodia, Civil Rights for All, Consumer Safety, Legalize Abortion. The issues haven’t changed much. Different wars. Different needs for civil rights. Different needs for consumer safety. And Keep Abortion Legal.

But last night I went to a meeting of my local Democratic activist group: Organizing for America (formerly Obama for America – we got to keep the same initials). Nobody was happy with the political situation, particularly the gun safety issue, and the lack of a public option in Obamacare. But nobody talked about fighting for causes. The only cause was Elect Democrats. Even Democrats in Name Only (DINO). Just to get the scary Republicans out of office.

I went home questioning my involvement in politics. I hate opening my door to strangers who want to sell me a political or religious cause. But during the last election I knocked on doors – asking if people needed a ride to the polls, or needed an absentee ballot. I did something to others that I don’t want others to do to me.

And now, since that technique worked – Obama was re-elected – OFA expects me to continue knocking on doors. Yes, I get it – Obama can do more of what I want if we give him a congress of Democrats. I want progressive and liberal Democrats. There seems to be a shortage of my kind of candidate, of people who support my issues, even at the neighborhood level.

What happened? Are the Republicans so scary in their extreme views that my side has forgotten what matters? Or put another way – have we forgotten our extreme views. Because, yes, the Republicans are terrified of our views. Raise the minimum wage. Health care for all. Women should make their own health decisions. Automatic weapons do not belong in private hands. People who love each other should be allowed to marry.

It looks as if the Republican Party has a very successful tactic. They threaten to take away rights we already have, and we stop fighting for more freedom. It’s as if you could stop people from reading by raising library fines. It shouldn’t work.

I learned a long time ago that there is no reason to give in to a child when s/he has a temper tantrum in public. Don’t buy a child something to silence the screaming. Don’t indulge a child’s superstitions. It’s okay to step on cracks in the sidewalk. Politics is an adult activity. Let’s act like adults and fight for what we believe in.

Another Rant

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:46:00 +0000

It’s my blog, and I’ll rant if I want to.

Here’s how I want to be treated when I go for a medical appointment. I’ll state up front, that it takes more time to do medicine my way, but I think it’s worth it.

If a doctor wants to do a test, I want to know the reasons. How likely is it that the test will find anything, given my general health? Will it hurt? Are there risks? The choice is mine – not the doctor’s. When I went for a stress test, the young doc who ran it wanted to run a camera inside my heart. I’m in better shape than he is. I’m more than twice his age, and I’m sure I could beat him in a bike or swimming race. Some random anomaly is no reason to run invasive tests.

If a doctor wants to prescribe a pill, I want to know about the side effects. I want to know about the success rate. It’s my choice if the possible benefits outweigh the risks. My cancer surgeon wanted me to take aromatase inhibitors for 5 years. She said they reduce the chance of getting cancer in my other breast by 50%. She didn’t tell me that the chance of getting cancer in my other breast during a 5 year period is 3% and the pill cuts it to 1.5%. I do not consider that to be a significant advantage. She said the pill is well tolerated. According to what I read on the web, side effects are common and so horrific that many women quit the pill long before the 5 years. The side effects include hot spells worse than menopause, short term memory loss, painful joints, brittle bones, and migraine headaches. In my opinion, for my health care, the benefits alone aren’t worth taking a pill, even if there were no side effects. The bottom line is that getting cancer in one breast does not make me more likely to get cancer in the other one than someone who has never had cancer. And taking the pill has no effect on my anticipated longevity. This is the type of information I want my doctor to tell me.

If a doctor wants to recommend surgery, I want to know the details. My breast surgeon wanted to do reconstruction. She recommended inserting a bag of salt water. She said it was just one more surgery after the mastectomy. That’s simply not true. The bag must be replaced every 10 years. So, given my longevity expectations, that means 4 more surgeries. I looked for consumer satisfaction reports on the web. Nobody who has posted seems happy with the feel of a bag of salt water under her skin. I don’t like the idea of something artificial under my skin. I agreed to the hip replacement because I couldn’t ride my bike with the worn-out one. I can’t think of a single thing I could do with a bag of salt water. Plus, reports say that the plastic insert that stretches the chest muscles to make room for it hurts. And this kind of reconstruction interferes with doing yoga. I love doing yoga. That seals it. No insert for me. My doctor didn’t mention any of this.

If a doctor wants to recommend stretches or exercises, I want these stretches or exercises demonstrated. I want lessons in how to do them. If appropriate, I want a physical therapist to work with me. “You need to stretch,” doesn’t mean anything to me. I probably stretch more than anybody else I know. But if there is a specific stretch that would help, I’ll add it to my regimen. I just need the details.

Finally, I don’t see any reason to see specialists if I don’t need special services. I see no reason to visit a surgeon to get my remaining breast checked every year. As I said, I’m no more likely to get cancer in that breast than a woman who still has two breasts. And if a general practitioner can detect cancer in a woman with two breasts s/he could detect it in my one. Specialists are harder to schedule. They cost more. And they don’t have time to talk to me.

If doctors don’t have time to talk to me, then set up a system of nurse practitioners who do. I’m not a car. I have pain sensors and decision making abilities. I want to be treated as a whole person.

A Year Ago I Had Cancer

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:50:00 +0000

A year ago, I had cancer.
The big scary word.
A small lump in my breast.
Mammogram.
Sonogram.
Needle biopsy.
Blood tests.
MRI
PET scan.
After all those tests, my surgeon recommended lumpectomy.
Lumpectomy didn’t get it all.
Mastectomy.
It’s out-patient surgery.
The lab report says this time they did get it all. Yay!
From the time I found the lump, my immediate thought was get this out of me!
I cannot understand my friend who put off surgery for years until it was too late. What was she thinking?
Arguments with the surgeon – No I don’t want reconstruction surgery.
I can’t think of a single thing I could do with a bag of salt water stuffed under my chest muscles. It would just get in the way of my yoga.
No, I don’t want to take pills that will give me painful joints, brittle bones and short term memory loss – all for a 1.5% reduction in my chance of getting cancer in the other breast, an no increase in longevity likelihood.
Getting cancer in one breast doesn’t make me any more likely to get cancer in the other one than someone who has never had cancer.
The health system now treats me like I’m high risk, but I’m not.
Medicare will now buy 4 bras a year for me with pockets for my prosthetic.
They will buy a silicone prosthetic every 2 years. I prefer the knitted ones from eBay.
A year ago cancer was a scary word.
Now, I know it’s a whole range of words. Cancer means different things at different times in different people. Cancer can getting a part chopped off. “If thine eye offend thee...” Cancer can mean you’re dying, like my friend the chiropractor. Cancer can mean you need many rounds of chemo and surgery every few years (a search-and-destroy-mission lifestyle). Most of all cancer means choices – choices that must be made in a hurry – and doctors don’t have the time to give all the advice needed – so it’s off to the internet! Hurray for the internet!!!!!
I was lucky. I didn’t need radiation or chemo. They got it all with the mastectomy. I’ve got my life back, minus one breast. Cancer can change lives. I just have extra exercises and stretches for the chest area.
Some people get great ephemeral insights and discover new meaning in their lives. I got left out on that one – unless the new meaning is that no matter how well I take care of myself, I can still be zapped by the randomness of the universe – but it doesn’t really matter – life goes on.
I had to change my self-image – I was a lucky person who doesn’t even catch the flu. Now I’m a lucky person who had cancer and it’s gone.

Quitting Sugar

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:43:00 +0000

All my life, I’ve known people who quit sugar – not forever, in most cases, but they were going to try. They wanted to lose weight. They wanted to get rid of pimples. But I didn’t want to lose weight and I didn’t care about my pimples. I thought I had a free pass on sugar. I could have dessert any night I wanted. I could make cookies whenever I wanted.

About 4 years ago, I noticed my knuckles bulging. But they didn’t hurt. They just looked funny. I didn’t think it mattered. About 4 months ago, they started hurting. I bought cat’s claw and drank some every morning. And again during the day if my knuckles stabbed me.

About 1 month ago, I read my AARP email newsletter. In it an article said that most of arthritis pain is from sugar inflammation. The article said it would take 6 weeks of no sugar to notice an effect. I immediately quit sugar, honey, agave, anything except fresh fruit that tasted at all sweet. Within 2 weeks, I was in less pain. At 3 weeks my hands felt almost normal. I was still taking one dose of cat’s claw every morning, but never during the day or evening.

A few days ago, I didn’t read the label. I used an old jar of pad thai sauce. Pad Thai doesn’t taste sweet to me. I didn’t think it could have sugar in it. Within 2 hours, my hands were in pain. I drank a glass of water with 18 drops cat’s claw extract. My hands calmed down. The label said this sauce was 38% sugar. Yipes! I only put a few spoonfuls of the sauce into the pad thai. I had made enough for 4 people. So half a spoonful of a sauce that is 38% sugar is enough to cause pain.

Years ago, I went through all my cookie recipes and removed 1/3 of the sugar. My husband wanted some gingerbread cookies. I cut the sugar in half again, and substituted honey for the sugar. Honey is not sucrose. It’s a combination of glucose and fructose. I used my small cookie cutters. I ate one cookie. The pain was minor. Honey is not sugar. I used to eat two cookies. I used to use the big cookie cutters – the mermaid, the two-headed gingerbread man, the big rabbit. Now one small cookie with 1/3 the original amount of sweetening is pushing my limits. It’s not something I’d eat every day, or even every week.

But I have discovered that fruit smoothies fill my urge for something sweet. I make those every day. I don’t crave cookies or other desserts. They are no longer part of my regular diet. My husband, the alien, has taken to buying extra candy bars for himself. I can look at them in the fridge and not want even a nibble. It’s not the fear of pain – it’s that they truly don’t appeal to me any more.

I thought quitting sugar would be hard. Thanks to fruit smoothies, it feels like I’m eating what I crave. Yay for my blender!

Reading History

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:45:00 +0000

My grand daughters have been reading fiction for years. They have just started reading history books. They have learned not to spoil a book for each other by talking about the characters and their problems at the dinner table. They want to preserve the mystery.

Last week, one grand daughter started talking about Aaron Burr at the dinner table. Her sister piped up, “Don’t ruin it!”

I’d never thought about history as a plot to be protected by book covers, only to be discovered anew by each diligent reader. History was a subject of debate at my childhood and parenthood dinner tables. What was Aaron Burr thinking? Why did he think his actions were for the good of himself and / or the country? And what was Alexander Hamilton thinking when he wrote those angry newspaper articles about Burr? And why did either man think a duel was the way to solve their problems?

And did they know that hundreds of years later, my grand daughters would nearly come to a duel when one tried to talk about their story before the other one had read it?

doodling

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:19:00 +0000

I’ve just picked up a new hobby. Doodling. I never doodled in the margins. I don’t get images in my head of things to sketch – not things that can be represented quickly and simply. I read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Those drawings take hours, and while they look like serious art, they aren’t fun to do. I wanted something in between.

My Cancer Survivors network sent out an email. They were going to have a class in Zentangle. I looked it up on the web. Youtube has plenty of zentangle videos. Rather than take a one hour each way bus ride in order to attend the one hour class, I opted for Youtube.

This stuff is fun! It creates attractive designs without much planning. The technique is not time consuming. It puts my mind in a light meditative state. It’s a good quick break from concentrating on something difficult.

But like all hobbies – it starts out with stuff around the house – pens and paper. But now I’m craving colored marking pens. Thick ones and thin ones. And maybe a book, so I can learn more about this style of doodling. Nothing is ever truly simple.

He's Dead: Joel

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:22:00 +0000

My chiropractor Joel is dead. He had throat cancer that spread to his lungs and his brain. He spent years on chemo and even went to Mexico for an experimental program. He tried everything he could find. Homeopathy. Anti-cancer diets.

Joel did everything full-tilt. His chiropractor’s office had a massage chair, a sonic pulse machine, an adjustment table that gave stretching rides.

Joel wanted everybody to know how he got this cancer. We don’t think of cancer as a contagious disease. But cervical cancer is an STD. There are vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix which can be given to boys and girls as early as age 9, through age 26. Joel had oral sex with his partner. She had cervical cancer. The viruses that cause cervical cancer infected his throat, and eventually killed him.

He called radio talk shows. He persisted even though DJs and other callers laughed at him.

A chiropractic adjustment doesn’t last. Education does. Spreading the word is Joel’s legacy.

Green Smoothies

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:39:00 +0000

I like to ignore trends. It’s a combination of laziness and ego. First of all it means I don’t have to learn something that will probably be of only temporary use. And secondly, I like to think my values don’t require me to follow fashion.

But my mother called. She had just seen an ad for a blender. In the ad, the blender made green smoothies. I’ve heard about them for years, but never tasted one. They reminded me of juicers. I inherited a juicer from my mother-in-law. I used it once and after laboriously cleaning it, I gave it away. The recipient told me these things cost hundreds of dollars. I got it for free and I wasn’t going to use it – she may as well have it for free.

My mother assured me that green smoothies use the pulp. There’s nothing to clean up, other than the blender jar and blades, and any accidental spills. She wasn’t just sold on green smoothies – she was sold on the blender in the ad. There was urgency in her voice: where could she buy one locally, today? Good old internet to the rescue. I found the blender. It has decent ratings on review sites. And they were in stock at a store near her home, for which she had a discount coupon. The store was even in the same street mall as a grocery store so she could pick up the veggies on the same trip.

She called later. She loves green smoothies.

I had to try them. All you do is cut up any fruits or veggies you have in the house – no need to peel or core them. Okay, I cut off the thorns from the outside of the pineapple – I’m a wimp. But I didn’t peel my orange or pit my apples. Add a couple handfuls of kale or parsley or cilantro or lettuce or other green leaves. Pour on about a cup and half of water, put the lid on the blender jar and whirrr.

Then my older daughter had to try them. Her daughters didn’t like the seeds from the raspberries. She had to have a stronger blender.

I think there’s a trend going on with stronger blenders because I was out walking my dog and somebody had put a perfectly operational blender with all its parts out on the sidewalk. I picked it up, took it home, tested it, and gave it to my niece – who is now also hooked on green smoothies.

Who knew? The power of advertising! I wonder if this is how most people feel when they try the latest trends or if this one time, the trend was tasty.

It's All Random

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:35:00 +0000

After I woke up from a concussion 3 years ago, my friend Jean kept worrying that I might have a personality change. Not that she’s uncritical of my personality – I think she just didn’t want to have to get used to somebody new. After a few weeks, she reported that she couldn’t detect any changes.

But there has been one change that I’ve noticed. I’ve developed a voice in my head that interrupts my thoughts with the statement, “that’s random.”

I can be enjoying a fresh peach and the voice will tell me “it’s random to like fresh peaches.” I can be walking down a grocery aisle and find my self hurrying away from the perfumed soaps. The voice will tell me, “It’s random that you don’t like that smell.” It’s random that I like cuddles. It’s random that I like to write. It’s random that I dislike crowds and noisy places.

Okay – my life is random.

Recently, my Toastmasters board meeting was scheduled to be held outdoors. Our President was concerned about the weather. I promised him that it wouldn’t rain. I’m a weather witch. I can make such promises. We met outdoors. We heard thunder. We saw dark clouds. We even felt a few sprinkled drops. But it didn’t rain. I biked there and I biked back without problems. Sometimes people believe me. Sometimes they don’t. That is random.

Today I got a rave review of one of my screenplays that I wrote with Jean. The reviewer said, “This has clearly been written by a couple of professionals who know exactly what they are doing. The structure, the plot, the introduction of new ideas, it’s all been executed almost perfectly. Nothing, of course, is ever perfect, but this comes pretty damned close.” But it didn’t win. That, too is random.

I mentioned this voice that says, “that’s random” to my husband, the alien. He agreed that everything is indeed random. He’s so used to the concept that he doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning. So, it’s even random if people notice that everything is random.

Children Say the Funniest Things

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:01:00 +0000

Children say the funniest things. Even children in their 40's.

My Republican son-in-law had bet several friends $100 each that Romney would win by a landslide.

When he had to pay up, he paid in $1 dollar bills, and he brought puzzles for his friends’ children. He told his friends that after their children solved the puzzles, they had to say, “You didn’t build that.”

It was hard to not to giggle. He seemed so serious, so proud of himself.

I said, “They didn’t build that all by themselves.”

My son-in-law looked at me as if he was working very hard to remain polite. So, I pressed my advantage.

I said, “Somebody designed that puzzle. Somebody manufactured it. Somebody sold it. You bought it. You brought it to the children. They were part of the process – they solved the puzzle. It took a lot of people to make that possible.”

I’ll give my son-in-law credit. He dropped the argument and changed the subject.

Squeaking Around

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:19:00 +0000

Before I got my new ceramic hip, the surgeon warned me that sometimes the hips squeak. There are plenty of videos on youtube if you want to know what this sounds like.

I figured squeaking was better than losing my mobility. I’ve had this hip for a year and a half now. On a rainy day last weak, I was out walking my dog, and it squeeeeeeaked. First, it felt like my hip wasn’t going to move, and then when it did move: squEEEEEK. SqueEEEEEK.

The hip hadn’t squeaked before. It hadn’t squeaked in the house. It only squeaked when I was outside in the cold winter rain, walking my dog. It stopped squeaking when I was inside again.

I looked up ceramic hip squeaking on the web. It is most common in people with small bones –me. And in people who take long strides – me when I’m walking my dog. I just got this young healthy dog last August. He rushes me to the Art Museum where we dash up the steps like Rocky three or four times a week. My stride has been getting longer.

But I suspected there was more to it.

For the evening dog walking adventure, I put my microwaveable hip heating pad in the microwave for 2 minutes and then strapped it on. Same dog. Same cold rainy weather – perhaps colder. But I only had 3 mild squeaks during the whole walk.

The next day I was meeting a friend to walk dogs together. We started at 6:30 in the morning. I put on the heating pad – it stays warm for about an hour. I had a couple of very mild squeaks. Then the heating pad cooled off, and I got more squeaks. So, temperature has something to do with how the hip pieces fit together.

Then I went to yoga class, where we worked on tree pose. The teacher talked us through using inner and outer leg muscles on both legs, no matter which one we were standing on.

http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/496

She had us lift up out of the hip socket. This was easy on my leg with my natural hip and a nest of weak muscles in my leg with the new hip.

I practiced standing in front of a mirror, using the weak muscles in my left leg. My whole body made a subtle shift to the right. I looked like I was standing up straighter.

So, now I have two things I can do to minimize squeaking – a heating pad, and exercise. I think I’m the first person to record these experiments – nobody else who has written about squeaking hips has mentioned ways to make it stop.

My Knit-Tit is NOT a Bunny

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:39:00 +0000

This is a bunny.

This is a Knit-Tit

This is Roar

This is what Roar does to bunnies

A friend was curious about my mastectomy and the prosthesis I wear, rather than having reconstruction surgery. I was wearing a turtleneck, and didn’t feel like trying to reach down my shirt and pull my knit-tit out of the pocket in my bra, so I went to my bedroom and brought back a spare knit-tit to show her. She played with it briefly and put it down on the coffee table.

Roar had recently pulled the both the squeaker and the stuffing out of his last intact bunny. He saw my knit-tit and leaped. He was sure this was his new bunny. He sank his fangs in and dashed madly. The last bunny made it for 5 months. I didn’t give my knit-tit 5 minutes, and it doesn’t even have a squeaker.

Roar dashed around the room. Then he brought his new bunny to me, hoping for a game of tug of war. Instead I cuddled him. He squirmed. My friend and I laughed. I held him while my friend gently pried the knit-tit out of his jaws.

Then I threw a worse-for-wear bunny across the room. He leapt out of my lap and dashed madly. I ran to my bedroom and hid my knit-tit safely in a drawer.

I thought about writing the bunny company. Bunnies cost about $6. Knit-tits cost $12, and they don’t even have squeakers. Maybe the bunny company could have a side-line. A double-duty product. Prosthetics that double as dog-playthings. But dogs really love squeakers, and I don’t want to squeak whenever I hug someone.

Images in the Night

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 02:06:00 +0000

Last week, I woke up with a totally inappropriate image in my mind.
I’m Jewish by birth and by culture. I do not practice any religion. I frequently attend Quaker Meeting because it’s a chance to meditate with a group for an hour. No sermons, no songs. Just meditating and the occasional spoken insight by a meditator.

Then I woke up with this:

http://www.cafepress.com/WithHim

I have had experiences that felt like communion with the Creator. And when I’ve heard a voice (which happens rarely) it has been a male voice. The image seemed like it belongs on a t-shirt. But it is not a t-shirt I would wear. I tried sending the design to a Christian t-shirt company, but they didn’t get back with me.

I sent the image to a friend. She suggested that I should do the equal opportunity t-shirt.

http://www.cafepress.com/WithHer

So, I built WithHim and WithHer shops, both at CafePress and Zazzle. I thought the arrows should be on the back of the shirts so, they wouldn’t appear to point at the face of the wearer. My husband thought the symbol was phallic and definitely should be on the back. Zazzle doesn’t offer that option. I prefer the textures of the shirts at Zazzle, but the lack of a print-on-back option is a drawback. Nevertheless, both shirts are available at both shops.

Then my husband suggested I was missing out on the humor market, so I created this t-shirt. Since I’d already used the name WithHim, this one is called WithSatan.

http://www.cafepress.com/WithSatan

This design does belong on the front of the shirt. It’s silly, so it may as well be phallic, too.

Now comes the next problem – how do I reach the audience who might buy these t-shirts? I don’t hang out with the personalities who would wear any of them.

I've never questioned the story ideas that come to me -- I enjoy writing the stories. It was fun to create these graphics -- but I have no idea why this image came to me.

Signs in China Town

noreply@blogger.com (Lois Wickstrom) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:12:00 +0000

San Francisco’s China Town always feels as if it is a magic portal. The amazingly low veggie prices, the unusual children’s toys, the savory food with unrecognizable spices. And the signs that probably don’t mean what they say.

Signs from San Francisco’s China town:

Science fiction stories have made a cliche of the ordinary seeming shop that really sells magic.
This seems to be one of them – masquerading as a simple travel agency for geezers.

And this appears to be the sign for a true planned parenthood or baby programming facility – masquerading as a tutoring agency.

Finally, this sign may be for real: