Category: 2017

I just bought a pair of tickets to this really cool Japanese drumming show in Santa Fe next April! http://www.drum-tao.com/main/english

Problem is, when I went to put it in the calendar, I saw that I had already bought two tickets to that same show! Back in July! Ugh, how was I supposed to know that? What was I doing buying tickets back in July, for an April, 2018 show?

Watch – I’ll forget again and buy two more in March. It’s a good show! Every time I see it advertised, I want to go! Give me a couple more months and I might have 4 extra tickets. Or six!

At the moment I have two extra tickets. They are in the front row of the Mezzanine, about 6 seats away from my first pair of tickets. I am at least  consistent in my madness.

I want to talk about allergies. Just your regular hay fever and sneezing-at-a-cat type of allergies, not the epi-pen type. But first, I need to talk a little bit about migraines. In generally I’ve been doing very well and have not had very many migraines lately. That may come as a surprise, because obviously I’ve been very stressed and very busy recently. But for me there’s not really any correlation between stress and migraines. I’ve had a lot of stressful and busy times in my life, and luckily, my migraines don’t get worse during those times.

I think the misnomer about stress and migraines develops because some of the most common types of headaches, such as tension headaches, are caused or worsened by stress. But migraines aren’t like those kinds of headaches. Migraines originate in the brain stem and are similar to seizures. They aren’t caused by muscular tension.

Everyone thinks of migraines as a bad headache, because the head pain can be severe. But actually, it’s fairly common to have a migraine without any head pain. Adding to the confusion, a lot of migraines without head pain aren’t correctly diagnosed as migraines. So a lot of people don’t realize that the headache part of the migraine is just one of many symptoms, and sometimes it’s not even a symptom at all.

It’s true that one of the things I do to help relieve secondary migraine symptoms is a type of face exercise. But I’m not actually decreasing the number of migraines, because migraines start in the brain stem. I’m just managing symptoms. There is a fair amount of swelling and inflammation during a migraine, and that inflammation puts pressure on a nerve behind my sinuses, which can worsen the pain. My face exercises lift and spread some of the underlying facial muscles, relieving some of the pressure due to inflammation.

My migraines are usually caused by my immune system kicking into gear. I’ll get them if I’m fighting off a cold, or if people around me have colds even if I don’t end up showing symptoms. Airplane travel and public events will trigger an immune reaction because of all the contagions floating around.

I’ll also get migraines if I have an allergy to something, because allergies trigger the immune system. For example, there is a pesticide or herbicide that I’m sensitive to (or a set of them), but I don’t know which one(s). Whatever it is, my immune system doesn’t like it and swings into gear, so I definitely do better when I eat organic food. Luckily, I know a lot about keeping the immune system calm, because we have autoimmune disease in the family. So there’s a lot of lifestyle and dietary things that I know how to do.

Now here’s the problem. It’s something I’ve suspected for awhile, but our recent living arrangements have confirmed it. I’m allergic to my dogs. I’m not extremely allergic to them. But I’m definitely sort of allergic.

I’m reluctant to admit that because in our household, I’m the one who always wants more pets. And John’s the one trying to keep the number down to something reasonable. So the last thing I need to do is give him ammunition to keep me from ever getting another dog again!

It’s discouraging. I spend so much effort with special diets and other difficult compromises in my life. I forgo so many things in order to stay healthy. And now I’m having to admit that my favorite, wonderful dogs are likely part of the problem. When I’m around my dogs, first I get acne, then I feel under the weather, and then I get migraines.

As with most things that excite the immune system, this is just one of many factors. We’re exposed all day long to things that get the immune system ramped up. What can I do? I’m not going to live my life in a bubble. If I didn’t have dogs, my immune system would just get spun up about something else. So I’m not going to worry about it. The dogs and I are moving into the new Santa Fe house soon! I miss them.

I quit reading the regular news because it’s so sensationalized. My preference would be long, in-depth, balanced and carefully researched, informative articles. What I’ve ended up reading lately has about 4 of those 5 characteristics. Everything except for balanced. I’ve been reading long exposés. I’ve found a number of magazines that have at least one long article per issue.

I’ve read about Monsanto’s criminal cover-up of the results of studies showing adverse health effects of Roundup (glyphosate). I’ve read about people being brainwashed into admitting to committing murders they never had any connection to. I read about how we will soon be falling in love with robots who look and act like humans.

I recently read a very detailed article blaming the opioid epidemic on one particular family-owned company, and by the way, the statistics in this article about the extent of the opioid epidemic are stunning.  (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain)

But the article that moved me to sit down and blog is this one:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

This is simply horrifying. People in the guardianship business can target total strangers (whom they think have money) and get cooperative doctors and judges to grant them guardianship, even when their families are actively caring for them. And this is done in secret, without the elders or their families knowing about it. Their rights are completely stolen; they are literally kidnapped.

It’s a one-sided article, granted. But even if it were only 20% true, this is really, really not ok. The part that horrified me is that this could happen to people like us. I know that sounds self-oriented, but that’s the reality. As astounding horrific as the opioid epidemic is – I’m not actually expecting it to directly impact my family. (Except that it’s going to bankrupt our country and destroy huge numbers of lives.) This guardianship thing though – it sounds like something that could happen to us.

In the lead example of the story, the elderly couple were healthy, and their house was clean, and they were showing up to appointments, and getting their groceries, and handling life fine, and their daughter was visiting them DAILY. And they were simply taken from their house one day, with no warning, and their house and all their possessions were seized and sold, and their daughter couldn’t do anything about it. It took her two days of searching to even find where her parents had been taken. No one knew it was coming. I can’t even wrap my brain around the fact that that this could happen.

In this particular situation, the “guardian” was indicted, but mainly because she grossly inaccurately stated the situation. The process of “guardians” who are in this business for a living and have a network of doctors and judges who go along with them, taking vulnerable elderly strangers as “wards” and liquifying their assets, is actually legal if done properly.

“…private guardians appear to gravitate toward patients who had considerable assets…April Parks (a private guardian), after receiving a tip from a social worker, began cold-calling rehabilitation centers, searching for a seventy-nine-year-old woman…who had seven hundred thousand dollars and no children. Parks finally found her, but her physician wouldn’t sign a certificate of incapacity, “The doctor is not playing ball,” Parks wrote to her lawyer. She quickly found a different doctor to sign the certificate…” And a judge signed off on it.

It’s apparently a big problem in areas that attract retirees, such as Las Vegas, Palm Beach, Sarasota, Naples, San Antonio, and our own Albuquerque. There’s more info here, http://aaapg.net/, including recent cases and news on a state-by-state basis. And glancing at the New Mexico articles, it doesn’t appear to be only cases with “considerable assets” unless you define “considerable” way lower than I would.

I need my parents, and Monica and John, and Emily and Steven to read this (I’m only leaving out Mark because I don’t think reads this blog). If that link doesn’t work for you, let me know and I’ll send you a photocopied version.

GO BACK AND CLICK ON THE LINK

Ok, I know you don’t have time right now. Put it on your calendar for when you do. Thanks 🙂

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

Dragging one’s ass out of bed in the morning is a challenge for many people, because who gets enough sleep with everything we want to get done during waking hours? The daily routine of repeatedly hitting the snooze button and groping for coffee is a basis for a lot of humor in our culture, because who can’t relate to that?

Except those who don’t. There’s a reasonable number of people who wake up automatically, shortly before the alarm would have gone off – if they had even bothered to set one. Those lucky dogs, right? Or maybe not always. Those lucky dogs are probably the ones that rarely go out at night because they’re going to snore through the concert, or stand like zombies at the party when everyone else is just getting going.

A week and a half ago we had a time change. Much of the population rejoiced, “An extra hour of sleep!” Yeah. Maybe. For some people. For one day. Whoo-hoo.

But think for a moment about the impact on the “I don’t need an alarm” segment of the population. The fall time change is brutal! It’s been a week and a half, and they are all still waking up the same time as ever. Except now it’s an hour too early. That’s an hour of lost sleep every night – for weeks!

I will probably not manage to reset my clock until Thanksgiving or Christmas break, when I can sleep in far enough, for enough consecutive days, to manage to completely override my internal clock. But for now – I get done coaching at 8:00 or 8:30 and I’m going straight to bed. Don’t bother trying to call me. Call me in the morning. Anytime after about 4:40 AM.

Actually I should title this, “a little bit about knives” because otherwise it would have to be a book, and I’m not really all that into it.

I decided to buy a good set of knives for the townhome, so John and I have been doing research. Here’s a photo of Global knives, which is a Japanese brand that sells well in the US.

Basically, your options are German knives or Japanese knives. In general, the German knives are heftier and withstand more abuse. They are a slightly softer alloy, which means they are less brittle and less likely to chip or break. They also get duller faster. Two big names in German knives are Wüsthof and Henckels, with Henckels being more affordable and probably the better value.

There are also differences with the angle and shape of the blade. I believe that some traditional Japanese knives only bevel one side, but I don’t have a picture example of that. What I do have is a photo of the difference between a Global bevel and what would be a typical German bevel on the right:

I went with the Global knives (in the top photo), even though that is clearly going to be a more delicate blade. I’ll need to put up a sign in my kitchen, “Do not twist or pry with my knives!! Do not slam blade against a hard surface!!”

The other issue with Global is they will rust, and they will rust quickly, and I don’t think there’s much you can do about it once they have rusted. Here’s a photo off the internet of what happened to someone’s Global when they tossed it in the kitchen sink for a few hours. Oops! And it goes without saying that these are not dishwasher safe.

So I’ll need another sign that says, “Hand wash and dry knives thoroughly, IMMEDIATELY!” And pretty soon my kitchen won’t be a homey, warm and welcoming place, it will be full of threatening signs about keeping your paws off my knives.

But in reality, we don’t do much entertaining, and if we did, we’d probably do it at the house in Placitas (if the remodel gets finished in our lifetime). So it’s just a few family members I’ll have to train. They’re up for it, right guys?

Here is my boss, Carina, isn’t she beautiful? (and even more so in real life, without the inked eyebrow.)

Can you guess who she is dressed up as?  A lot of people knew who she was, because the culture here is so closely tied to Mexico. I’m embarrassed to say, I did not catch the reference myself. She is dressed as Freda Kahlo.

Here she is with her little pumpkin! His name is Santiago.

Rebecca is Suzie Wong of Hong Kong. I didn’t catch that reference either. I just thought she was a geisha.

I’m generally not very good at guessing who people are, because I don’t watch TV or movies or read about celebrities on the internet or anything like that.

A witch – I figured that one out. Love the shoes!

And batman. This is Kyle, the other new employee on our team. Once Carina is gone there will only be 3 of us, and Kyle and I are both brand-new. Luckily he’s really smart and patient with everything.

I don’t know what the purple goggle thing is. I believe it’s a well-known TV/movie cartoon character. You will probably recognize it. Anyway, this is Kristina, and she’s head of the admin staff, and she’s excellent. She’s the one who helped me with the phone fiasco, and she kept a great sense of humor about it all.

I did understand the redacted costume, lol. Course it says “redacted” right on the costume. Now if everyone would just label their costumes, I’d be in better shape!