Writing Nerdy-About a Little Bug

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Monster 6 I can’t resist this guy or girl, so whimsical. This is a prompt from Nerd in the Brain. Where does he/she come from? What is his/her world like? What happened to cause him/her to have that look on his/her face? What was for dinner last night? Just what is he/she up to, eh?

Ode to the Flu Bug

I am qualmish,

Not so hot,

Under the weather,

Indisposed,

Rocky,

Out of sorts,

Out of action,

Something is amiss,

I think I have been invaded by this little bug.

This is how I would feel if I caught something that looked like this guy/girl. I did feel like this a few weeks ago.

The little bug says in reply:

The Flu Bug’s Refrain

I have a crazy life,

Floating around from here to there,

Ejected forcefully from someone’s nose,

I am just trying to find a nice host,

A warm, cozy place,

To live out my short life,

Is that too much to ask?

Give me a break.

Writer’s Quote Wednesday

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“I used to think that eighty was a very old age. Now I am ninety. I do not think this any more. As long as you are able to admire and to love, you are young.”
― Pablo Casals

Pablo Casals was a world famous cellist and composer. I like this quote because I think it is true that our perception of age changes as we get older. I once had a patient I visited when I worked as a Home Health Nurse. She was 97 years old at the time. She was living in a Nursing Home and one time she said to me about her fellow residents, ” They think they’re old, but they are young. When I was their age I could do a lot of things.” The other residents were in their 80s. How do you think about age and aging?

Pablo Casals via Ishaia Gonzalez You Tube:

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|Silver Threading Writer’s Quote Wednesday|

Soapbox Sound Off-Are Frankenfoods Safe for Consumption?

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Introducing Soapbox Sound Off. I want to make this a bi-monthly feature of my blog. To air some issues that are important to me. I would love to have readers chime in with comments, additions to my topic, and disagreements, but all in a polite way. I will present an issue and some added information for further reading if I have it. Readers are welcome to add to the information. I did start already with a post on Social Media last week. I plan to do this type of blog post bi-monthly on Wednesday.

Soap Box Sound Off: Are Frankenfoods Safe for Consumption?

I know my title is redundant and a no brainer, right? Something called “frankenfood” does not sound safe or healthy. I consider GMO foods and foods with a lot of chemical additives frankenfoods. Like Frankenstein’s monster they are something created by man that is turning out to be a monster. I receive various newsletters in my email. One is from the Organic Consumers Association. Many times I can not read all of their articles because I get overwhelmed with all the alarming news. I wanted to share the latest one I read. I have been concerned about GMOs for quite a while. GMO is an acronym for Genetically Modified Organisms or foods. I intuitively felt that eating something that was genetically tampered with may not be a good idea.

The link I am providing is to an article about genetically inserting pesticides into seeds. So when we eat the food it has some pesticide right inside of it. This article points out that the pesticide sprays being used now can not be washed off the food either. I did not realize that. I now want so much to eat as much organic as possible. The article mentions ways to fight against GMO and pesticides as consumers and talks about how the FDA has often abdicated its consumer protection role. There are so many GMOs, pesticides and other additives, that we are not told about, in our food now.

It is important that we all give some thought to this issue. It is a health issue for us, our families and the planet.

Here is the link to the article about GMOs and pesticides:

Consumer Self-Defense: 12 Ways to Drive GMOs and Roundup off the Market.

What do you think of GMOs and pesticide use in agriculture? Do you think GMOs and pesticides can have a harmful effect on humans and other species that share our planet?

One Liner Wednesday-Funny Lady

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“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.”–Phyllis Diller

Early in her career Phyllis Diller did stand up comedy in San Francisco at a club called The Purple Onion in 1955. I never saw her there. I would have been too young at that time. I did go to The Purple Onion on a prom date several years later.

Phyllis Diller was one of the first female stand up comedians. She always made me laugh. Especially when she did skits that included her husband Fang.

|OneLinerWednesday|

Carmen Herrera Artist at 99

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I love reading a blog I subscribe to and get in my Email. It is from EngAGE. It is an organization based in Southern California that has created housing for older adults and runs all kinds of enrichment classes at their complexes. At their North Hollywood complex they have a full theatre available for the residents who can get involved in producing their own plays. In addition they have this uplifting blog to combat ageism. It features older adults doing all kinds of creative things. Senior Planet.org is another organization I love. They often feature similar articles as EngAGE and they discuss issues that impact older adults.

There are so many inspiring stories. One that was sent to me recently from EngAGE was about Carmen Herrera. She is an artist who was “discovered” at age 89 and now at age 99 her work is being featured at a famous museum and gallery. She is still working at age 99. I am sharing this information from the EngAGE blog and other articles about her. Here is one from the Guardian and another one here. Her art is now to be shown at The Whitney Museum Of American Art and the Lisson Gallery.

When I first read about Carmen Herrera I said fantastic! Here is an artist who is still creating. I love these stories about older people and their spirit to continue to create. Artists, writers, musicians often can all continue practicing their craft as long as they want. This inspires me and I envy them in that they have this wonderful work.

An alarming bit of information came up about women artists. I also get a newsletter from Hyperallergic.com which is about art. I read an essay “The Problem of the Overlooked Female Artist” by Ashton Cooper talking about how women and minority artists for many years were held back by a white male dominated art world. Or at least an art world that only respected white male artists. This is so disheartening to me. I did not realize this was again another field where this discrimination was going full force. Carmen Herrera mentions it in the interview above. How she was denied a show in a gallery because she was a woman. I don’t know how these artists did not completely despair. The essay from Hyperallergic links to several other articles on this topic of “overlooked” women artists. The author suggests the story of these artists lives should be explored in more depth to shine a light on what it was like to face this discrimination and how they coped with it all through the years before they were finally recognized. Some died before being recognized.

Carmen Herrera via Frederico Seve Gallery:

And from The Smithsonian:

|JusJoJan|

Moonstruck

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“Mentally deranged by the influence of the moon…dreamily romantic or bemused.”–Dictionary.com

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I. (Rodgers & Hart)

When he talks he is seeking
Words to get off his chest.
Horizontally speaking
He’s at his very best.

I love the film Moonstruck starring Nicolas Cage, Cher, and Olympia Dukakis and written by John Patrick Shanley. It is a romantic comedy where the main character Loretta ,(Cher), is afraid to get involved with Ronnie, (Nick Cage) ,the brother of her fiancé, because it goes against the rules. When she married her first husband she felt she did not follow the expectations of society and waited to have a baby. When her husband was killed she felt it was because she broke the rules. So Ronnie says to her in response:

” Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either, but love don’t make things nice-it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die! The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!”

” We aren’t here to make things perfect…we are here to ruin ourselves and break our hearts and love the wrong people and die!” I love that quote.

In the movie Loretta goes through a physical transformation from a dowdy looking woman to glamorous as she readies herself to meet Ronnie at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for a performance of La Boheme. A beautiful opera by Puccini.

I don’t think we are here to make things perfect either or to be perfect. We struggle and suffer and flail about a lot and try to do our best many times but we are not perfect.

This is for Stream of Consciousness Saturday with the prompt “sick”. It made me feel a little qualmish to write about “sick” so I decided to pick a synonym.

Kat Got Your Tongue Challenge-Sleep

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“Also, I could finally sleep. And this was the real gift, because when you cannot sleep, you cannot get yourself out of the ditch–there’s not a chance.” –Elizabeth Gilbert

The Greek god of sleep is Hypnos. It was said that near his cave were poppies and other hypnotic plants. His mother was Nyx the goddess of the night. Do you remember in the Wizard of Oz when the wicked witch put Dorothy and her friends to sleep with a field of poppies? Opium is a narcotic made from the Opium poppy.

I am a “light” sleeper and I am easily disturbed by my husband if he has a restless night or is stressed over something and not sleeping well. When my children were little I slept with my senses on alert to any disturbance coming from their rooms. I wake up if there is an earthquake. My husband, once he was asleep, could sleep through the kids crying and earthquakes.

Menopause made me more sensitive to stress and insomnia. For many years I think I had a sleep disorder and seldom got a good night’s sleep. There were periods where I would go through cycles of insomnia with a few nights of normal in between.

Thankfully, I have been improving in this area lately. I attribute it to the fact that my hormones are stable and I am no longer under a lot of stress with my work or life. My children are grown and out of the house. I am sleeping better.

I have not gotten to the stage of taking my improved sleeping pattern for granted. I can still feel gratitude for sleeping well.

It can be a vicious cycle if I have poor quality sleep. It leads to decreased ability to cope with stress. Then the increase stress leads to another night of poor sleep. I have read that not getting adequate sleep can cause us to have trouble maintaining a healthy weight. It can lead to obesity. I have had trouble with losing weight as well.

So I will have to see if this theory holds true. If I continue to sleep well and lose weight that would be great.

Now when I occasionally have difficulty staying asleep I do not fight it but get up or turn on a light and read for a while. Eventually I become drowsy again and can get back to sleep.

Do you have a remedy for insomnia? What do you do if you have trouble sleeping?

|KatGotYourTongue|

One Liner Wednesday

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“When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.”

—John Muir

I love John Muir. He was a wonderful naturalist who co-founded the Sierra Club in California and influenced congress to pass a bill making Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. He is called the father of the National Park Service.

Here is a bit via PBS on you tube:

And a biography of John Muir by the National Park Service via America Sings:

|LindaGHill|

Making Connections with Social Media

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Are we more connected with social media? Facebook is great at reminding me of people’s birthdays and I get to be a voyeur into their lives when they share photos of their latest activities, partners, children, grandchildren or pets. Really I do appreciate being reminded of someone’s birthday because I am very bad at remembering other than my immediate family. At least I can see that people are still alive when I see their photos. I can wish them Happy Birthday on the right day. I like congratulating them on their achievements if they choose to share. I can click on “like” or make a comment. But do I feel closer to them? Not really. It is a pseudo closeness.

I resisted Email at first because I felt that it was not a good substitute for letters or phone calls. Then I succumbed to using it because it was a practical way to keep in touch with a distant family member and my daughter when she was in college.

Now the latest form of communication I have adopted is texting. I can see the practicality of texting when I am running around doing a lot and need to quickly remind someone to pick something up at the market or that I am running late. But as an exclusive form of communication, or to check in and say hello, texting is not the best. It is better than nothing and I can use it to make dates to really get together in person or have a phone talk. If it is just having a conversation in abbreviations, I find I can not really get much of a sense of the person I am texting with. With blogging, texting, tweeting or posting on Facebook we do not get the total picture of the person even if we get a photo. What I mean by this is we do not get the body language and facial expression or tone of voice that communicates so much about what is really going on with someone else. We get a few sentences and maybe some emoticons.

We really need to slow down and talk with each other don’t we in order to maintain any real relationship? Do you feel Facebook and texting or tweeting helps to maintain your relationships? Or are you wanting something more? Do you find it distracting and superficial? Like making electronic small talk?

The need to be texting or reading our Facebook page or checking out what is posted on WordPress is a way to entertain ourselves and keep from being bored or lonely but at what cost? It has an addictive quality like playing a video game. It is momentarily distracting and entertaining. It does not make a demand on us to think about much but the most superficial things. Besides affecting the quality of our relationships I would say it eats up a lot of time we could be using for something more meaningful.

If we let ourselves be controlled by social media it will impact the quality of our lives and what kind of society we live in. If we let ourselves be constantly seduced and distracted by social media it could keep us from fully living our lives. Do you try to balance the time you spend on social media with other activities? Do you make a special effort to un-plug? Do you think it is a good idea to make certain times off-limits to social media or texting like during dinner with your family/kids?

Here is an interesting TED talk on this issue:

Sherry Turkle TED talk Alone Together

Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Creativity

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“Creativeness often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were thought up only a little more than a century ago? ”

–Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

Being creative is taking materials already available and putting them together in a new way. What do you think?

Bernice Fitz-Gibbon (1894-1982) was a retail advertising executive for stores like Marshall Field and Macys. She eventually had her own agency and was named to the Advertising Hall of Fame. She was very forward thinking for her era.

|Writer’s Quote Wednesday|

Notes Tied On The Sagebrush

Writing About Life