Monthly Archives: June 2012

You. Have. Got. To. Read. This.

  By Julia Barrett | June 30, 2012 - 10:00 pm | , , , ,
22 Comments

Before I post a link to this article I have two stories. After you read the article you can draw your own conclusions.

I’ll mention one name: Ponce de Leon.

3. Two true stories - The first: My sister took care of a friend who died of stomach cancer. It was very sad. The woman was estranged from her mother and sister, had no other family, so my sister took her into her home and she died there, in the guest bedroom. When she was diagnosed with cancer, her response was- “That’s impossible. I’m a vegan. Vegans don’t get cancer.” She died proclaiming until the end that “vegans don’t die of cancer.”

Second- My parents helped a woman, a very strange woman who had stalked my father, when she got cancer. I was opposed because I thought she was a major freak, but my parents felt sorry for her. And yes, she took advantage of them like you wouldn’t believe. On my father’s advice, this woman called me one day to ask about death and dying because I am a hospice nurse. I was very opposed to this phone call but I made an attempt to reason with her. I may have discussed this phone call in a previous post. She said- “I can’t believe I’m going to die. Why would this happen to me? This should happen to someone else.” Me, “Like who? Who should this happen to?” Her, “Your father. He eats sugar and red meat and he doesn’t believe in god and he’s never even meditated. I’m a Buddhist adept. We don’t die.”

Me- “Everybody dies. Nobody gets out of this world alive.”

Her- “Well maybe everybody else dies but not me.”

Guess what? She died.

The article:

‘Biohackers’ mining their own bodies’ data

I think I’d rather do this: Three Ingredient Pulled Pork

 

From my Scottish friend Nigel.

  By Julia Barrett | June 28, 2012 - 10:00 pm | , ,
21 Comments

The Real Laws

1. Law of Mechanical Repair - After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.

2. Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

3. Law of Probability - The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

4. Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

6. Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

7. Law of the Bath - When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

8. Law of Close Encounters - The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

9. Law of the Result - When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, it will.

10 Law of Biomechanics - The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

11. Law of the Theater & Sports Arena - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

12. The Coffee Law - As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

13. Murphy’s Law of Lockers - If there are only 2 people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

14. Law of Physical Surfaces - The chances of an open-faced jam sandwich landing face down on a floor, are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

15. Law of Logical Argument - Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about.

16. Brown’s Law of Physical Appearance - If the clothes fit, they’re ugly.

17. Oliver’s Law of Public Speaking - A closed mouth gathers no feet.

18. Wilson ‘s Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy - As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

19. Doctors’ Law - If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you’ll feel better. But don’t make an appointment, and you’ll stay sick.

 

The Get A Better Hobby Syndrome.

  By Julia Barrett | June 27, 2012 - 11:00 pm | , ,
17 Comments

I called it the Demi Moore Syndrome, but author Jaye Manus nailed it - The Get A Better Hobby Syndrome.

She’s so right! Note the exclamation point for emphasis. I can think of lots better hobbies than looking in the mirror.

There’s so much pressure on us to remain frozen in time, say… somewhere between 25-35 years old in appearance and party-tude, i.e. party-attitude, not that I go to parties. I am notoriously anti-social. But if we do attend social events we risk catching the Joan Rivers Mask-like Plastic Surgery Syndrome. I recently saw the photo of an author I adore. I shrieked in horror at the sight of her new face. Think Jim Carey in The Mask. Wearing the mask. Sigh. I blame Luis Lumiere for inventing the motion picture. He’s got a great name, don’t you think?

My grandmothers never wrestled with the fact of aging. They had so many other things to do and think about- but then they weren’t constantly bombarded by images of women in their 40′s, 50′s and 60′s - images that have been digitally and surgically manipulated - and told by the popular media that we should look the same which, I’m sorry, isn’t possible. Well, it is possible if we’re willing to… and even then it’s not possible. HD doesn’t do us any favors.

Wow. Seems like all that bra burning and fussing about equal opportunity didn’t even scratch the surface of our insecurities.

I guess what we really need (and secretly want) is a man to take charge, give us a good spanking (see Jennifer Armintrout’s take on Fifty Shades), a starvation diet, and a major body overhaul.

Here’s a woman I admire, a woman who seems to have her head screwed on straight. She’s so beautiful- Patti Hansen (Richards). I think she’s just fabulous.

 

 

 

 

This video is worth watching. From The Early Show on CBS:

Fiddling.

  By Julia Barrett | June 26, 2012 - 9:12 pm | , , , ,
24 Comments

Aren’t we all guilty? I do hate it when I go to a ballgame and the fellow next to me spends the entire game texting and looking at his/her Pinterest Page or FB. Why spend that kind of money to be at an actual real live game when all you really want to do is spend time in your virtual world?

Here’s a quote from Bruce Jenkins (at Wimbledon), columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle: On the Eve of Wimbledon, English Soccer Despair.

“Not far away, I spotted a fellow American journalist doing a very American thing: fiddling. He rarely looked up from his phone, on which he engaged in texts, e-mails, checks of the Internet, whatever. All of this, apparently, was more important than the event at hand. So it goes with the fiddlers’ generation: not watching, not experiencing, not living. Fiddling.”

As this commercial likes to remind us, in a very nice, understated, humorous way, we are victims of our virtual success- I ignore the marketing aspect: