Signs of Aging

The signs of aging are creeping up on me, quietly, but surely. A few wrinkles here, a few gray hairs there. The gray hairs are more translucent then gray. Some hearing loss, which, as I learned from an article on MSNBC, is related to my brain as much as my ears.

I discovered yet another sign of aging unexpectedly this afternoon. I took Daughter to her eye exam and as the appointment was coming to an end, I asked the optometrist if he had seen any increase in eye problems due to excessive computer use. He said that he hadn’t seen an increase in things like nearsightedness or astigmatism, but had gotten more complaints about eyestrain. I said that when I’ve spend some time on the computer and then look up, it’s hard for me to focus on things further away for a few minutes. He asked how old I was – and then said I didn’t have to answer that. I did anyway – I’m 41 – and he said that this trouble with focusing was an early sign of eventually needing bifocals. My age is within the typical range for starting to have this focusing problem. Lovely.

I think I’m resigned to all of this.

Simple Pleasures

I got a gift card and some money for Christmas (among other things) and the items I was thrilled to be able to purchase for myself were what I’d call simple pleasures.

Slippers

Which I’m wearing right now.

Robe

I had a fuzzy robe and slippers as a kid, but then went decades without either.

Union suit pajamas

I’ve never owned a union suit, but have always wanted one. Comfy & warm. Mmm. The older I get, the more I appreciate comfy and warm.

Calendars & Goals

Over this past weekend I had occasion to do a couple of related tasks. For one, I sat down with my writing notebooks and sifted through them to review ideas. While I was going through them, I happened along a list of goals for 2008. Here’s my list:

Work on publishing Greenville

Write 3 new short stories

Finish editing interviews

Buy a new laptop

Create a book list

I managed all but the second item on the list. I started work on two short stories, but haven’t finished them. While I haven’t yet uploaded Greenville so that it can be purchased in book form, I’m almost there. The book list is a list of books I want to read and the GoodReads website allowed me an easy way to do that.

I figured I should set some writing goals for 2009. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Upload Greenville to Cafe Press; work on marketing & distribution

Create merchandise to go with book

Make website live

Write 3 short stories

Edit Family Enchantment

Do research for a larger story

Go through past novel ideas – decide to revisit or abandon

Keep blogging & tweeting

Decide whether to turn a short story into a book

My non-writing related goal is to stay active. It’s too easy to become a slug while sitting in front of my computer.

The second related task was filling out the yearly calendar – well, three calendars, actually. We keep a family calendar with birthdays, special events and appointments. Now that Eldest Son is living away, I figured he should have his own calendar to help him keep track of those important family dates. Plus, I bought my new journal notebook for the year, so wanted to enter everything there, as well. It took me over an hour, but going through the process helped me to focus on the upcoming year – just as setting yearly goals did.

How do you get ready for the upcoming year? Any special plans or goals for 2009?

A Load of Snow

Woke this morning, got ready for work, and then looked outside to see a mountain of snow on each car and giant snowflakes falling from the sky. Work was closed due to the snow, so I got busy shoveling. And shoveling. And shoveling. I took a few pictures to show you what we were up against in central Minnesota.

One of the cars, buried

Measure of snow at 9:15 a.m.

This was the measure of new snow on the sidewalk at 9:15 a.m. I measured again at 11:25 a.m. and it was 11 inches deep. We got at least another inch on top of that (maybe more) by the time the snow had stopped.

Snow storm, central Minnesota, December 30, 2008

Check out the snow clinging to the trees. By mid-afternoon, a slight wind was blowing these great clumps out of the trees. It was like getting pelted by snowballs from above.

Hubby & I are utterly exhausted from clearing snow. The boys helped by raking snow off the roof of the house. When we get this kind of volume, some of it has to be removed from the roof because the weight isn’t good for the structure. We haven’t seen snow like this in years and years.

In the middle of all this, I had to take Daughter for her first eye appointment. She’s had excellent eyesight until just recently. Now, she needs glasses.

The Tiny Writer Inside

When you’ve come to the point where you think of yourself as a writer, what you’ll eventually observe is that some small part of you is always writing. It’s as though a tiny writer has taken up residence inside your brain and s/he watches everything you do with the express purpose of turning your experiences into words. You can be in the throes of an exalted, fireworks-inducing happily memorable event or sobbing buckets while suffering through a heart-rending situation and the writer-in-residence tucked inside your mind is saying, “How can I work this experience into my writing?”

When the tiny writer inside won’t shut up long enough to let you exalt or suffer in peace, then you know for sure that you are a writer.

Frittering

With the holidays, I’ve been a frittering. Frittering my time away by sleeping in, reading books, tweeting, eating, napping, and casting about online, sampling random articles. Not enough physical movement in my frittering. Although Hubby and I went grocery shopping today, which got us outside in the fresh air and moving around. A much needed excursion.

During the holidays, we had great conversations with family and a high school friend, who stopped by today. I discussed writing with my brother-in-law at some length yesterday. He wants to get started in non-work related writing, but never finds the time. Not unusual for someone at the beginning of becoming a writer. It’s too daunting to go from non-writer to writer in one fell swoop. My experience has taught me that starting small, committing to writing just a little each day, was the way to work into it. This is what I suggested to my brother-in-law. Going from not writing to writing a novel or memoir is like crossing a wide, deep crevasse without a bridge. A rare few will make it, but most of us don’t have the ability to leap that far.

I have a couple more days off before returning to work. I’d like to use the time to steer my frittering toward going through my past writing notes and regathering my thoughts along storylines. Frittering, though, has the curious ability to speed up time with its nonproductiveness.

Microtrends

Finished reading Microtrends by Mark J. Penn this morning. Here’s my review from GoodReads:

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes by Mark J. Penn

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’m a trend junkie and this book feeds that need in spades. Penn introduces over 75 trends, each of which is described in just a few pages. This makes it an easy book to pick up, read a little, and set down when you don’t have much time. I’ve had inklings of most of the trends mentioned, but not those in the chapter on International trends. A number of surprises there. Great book for the sociologist hidden inside of you.

View all my reviews.

And now it’s time for bed. (1:15 a.m. Ugh!)

Traditions

I had to look back at a couple of blog entries from this time last year to see if I was going to repeat myself this year. Doesn’t look like it. Not much, anyway.

I’ve already mentioned our family’s yearly tradition of visiting an area tree farm to pick out a Christmas tree. We have a few more traditions during the Christmas season – celebrating Christmas, for one. Hubby and I are both agnostic, so our observance of Christmas is a holdover from having grown up in Christian households. I feel more inclined to celebrate Solstice, but we haven’t developed any habits concerning Solstice, so Christmas it is.

One of our holiday traditions, which we started somewhere between 6 and 10 years ago, is to eat at an Asian restaurant on Christmas Eve. We did so tonight, in fact, choosing a restaurant we recently discovered called Asian House. The place serves delicious Thai food in gigantic portions. We brought several boxes of leftovers home.

We continue the childhood tradition of giving presents to family members. When I was a kid, my siblings and I were always allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve, then had to wait until Christmas Day to open the rest. We do the same with our children, so they each opened a present this evening. I got to open one, too.

Peruvian Flute Band Hat

Here I am, all decked out in my new Peruvian Flute Band hat. Cool, huh? And very warm.

Oh, Christmas Tree

We were very late in getting our Christmas tree this year. So late, in fact, that we almost decided not to get one. We’ve made it a family tradition to go to a particular tree farm to pick out a tree. Because Eldest Son has been away at school, he hasn’t been home in order to take part in the family ritual, and we didn’t want to do this without him. Hubby picked him up for his holiday break last Friday and Saturday morning we sat down with all the kids and said, “Do you want a tree?” The kids definitively said, “Yes,” and we headed out of the house and into the near blizzard to get our tree.

When we got to the tree farm, we saw that there wasn’t a huge selection, but Daughter and I agreed that a small selection was actually a blessing. There was no arguing about what tree was the best. We got the tree shaken and wrapped and took it home and set it on the front stoop until after I had cleaned the living room.

Eldest Son had plans to have a friend over and when the friend arrived, he happened to be just in time for me to put the tree in the living room. He dragged it in and held it while I attached it to the tree stand. Here’s what it looked like:

Oh, Christmas Tree

And that’s the way it almost stayed. No one seemed to want to decorate it and several of us were of the mind that it didn’t need decorating. We broke down tonight. Daughter thought it needed some lights, which Daughter and I applied, thus:

Oh, Christmas Tree, How Lovely Are Your Light Strings

It is now completely color coordinated with the living room.

(Young Son #2 loaned me his tripod in order to get a non-blurry shot of the tree with lights.)

M&M Hugged Pretzels – A Recipe in Pictures

Daughter decided to make a food gift for all of her school friends this year for Christmas. She picked and easy, yummy recipe – M&M Hugged Pretzels. I helped her put the treat together. As we got started, she said, “Mom, aren’t you going to take pictures for your blog?” That’s Daughter, always thinking ahead.

Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Fahrenheit

Gather the following ingredients:

Roundish pretzels - holiday shaped ones are also good - don't use sticks or rods

Hershey's Hugs - Don't mix Hugs & Kisses on the same pan. They melt at different rates.

M&M's - If going with a holiday theme, pick the appropriate color.

Line baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place pretzels on sheet & put a Hug on top of each.

Put baking sheets in oven and set timer for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, check to see if Hugs have melted enough. If not, leave in oven for another minute. (It took ours 6 minutes.)

Removed pan from oven. Place M&M on top of each melted Hug. Must be done fairly quickly - before chocolate sets.

When M&M's are all in place, put the baking sheet in a cool place to allow the chocolate to set. A refrigerator works, or, in our case, the back porch.

After the M&M Hugged Pretzels have cooled, go ahead and enjoy!

[December 30, 2008] NOTE! – We tried this recipe with Kisses last night  and it didn’t work. The low temperature wouldn’t melt the Kisses. We kept them in the oven longer and turned up the heat, to no avail. We merely succeeded in drying out the Kisses, ruining the whole batch. In looking for a solution online, we found that we should have set the oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and left the Kissed pretzels in for about 3 minutes. We’re thinking that the reason Kisses don’t melt at a lower temp is that they don’t have as much cocoa butter in them as other chocolate does.

Torture

I’ve been meaning to write about torture since October when I saw an episode of Mythbusters and one of CSI. The Mythbusters episode is the one where the team decides to test Chinese water torture to see if, in fact, it’s actually torturous. Adam Savage undergoes the water torture (drip, drip, drip of water on the forehead) without being restrained and, other than being a bit annoyed by the water, suffers no ill effects. Kari Byron undergoes the water torture while shackled to a table and has a panic attack. At the end of the experiment, an expert on torture talks about how dangerous it is to do such experiments, even if in the company of trusted people, because of the potential long-term psychological effects.

The CSI episode I caught in October was replayed last night. In it, the CSI team has to figure out who is killing people in such a way that they appear to become statues. The very last victim in the episode is a little boy who is shown strung up in the air on a bicycle. His eyes and mouth are taped into position.

Have you ever noticed that when you get interested in a subject, suddenly you hear about that topic everywhere? Such is the case with my research into torture. I have a long list of bookmarks related to the topic, plus it keeps cropping up in the news, especially in regards to Guantanomo Bay. Trent Reznor’s post about how the music of Nine Inch Nails is being used as part of that torture revitalized my interest in posting about the topic.

With both of the TVshows, my mirror neurons were firing like mad. Any time I see, hear, or read about torture, I feel panic arising in my chest and stomach. My muscles tighten. I cringe at the mere mention of the word torture. Thus, it should be no surprise that I am disgusted with the Bush Administration’s use of torture on “enemy combatants” in the War on Terror, many of whom have been released without ever having been charged with a crime.

It’s a sure bet that if I was stuck in a small, cold, dark room without regular food, shackled or restrained in some way, I would go stark raving mad or die. End of story. I cannot understand how those who are ordering torture techniques to be used on prisoners, or those who carry them out, can shut off their sense of empathy or mirror neurons and blithely continue their activities. Actually, within my research, I’ve discovered that those who have to carry out acts of torture suffer psychological damage because of their actions. Those who torture by continuous loud music also have to listen (and shout over) that loud music.

It should be a no-brainer that if the torturer suffers along with the torturee, that torture the world over should come to an end.  But it doesn’t. I think that’s because those who decide torture is a good idea are nowhere near the scene of the crime. (Ahem, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld.) If they aren’t participating in the torture, their mirror neurons aren’t firing and they don’t have a chance to feel sick inside.

I’ve also discovered that those who think torture is a good idea tend to think that they could survive torture if it happened to them; that they can train to resist torture. There’s a military group called SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) that conducts torture resistance training, however, it’s been revealed that those who’ve undergone SERE training are taking what they’ve learned and are using that knowledge to torture others.

The most common rationalization these people use to explain the use of torture is that they have to get critical secret information out of dangerous prisoners. Any third grader can tell you that if you want to know today’s big playground secret, you don’t run up to the person with that secret and kick her in the shin. Instead, you buddy-up to the secret bearer.  How is it that adults, who should know better, can’t seem to remember this?

Not only do we not remember this, but those who order torture subvert this lesson so they can continue on their merry torturing ways. There have been soldiers who have reported the use of torture on prisoners of the War on Terror because it violates the Geneva Convention. They were told by those higher up the military food chain that those being held weren’t “prisoners of war,” but, instead, are “enemy combatants,” which aren’t covered by the Geneva Convention, so it’s okay to torture them. When it comes to sadistic people who want to do what they want to do, they’ll happily change the language so that they can get around the rules.

Regardless of what the Geneva Convention says about torture, the United States did, at least in principal, agree to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Heck, Eleanor Roosevelt was chair of the Commission on Human Rights when it was written.  Article 5 of the Declaration of Human Rights says, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” I don’t see any sort of categories about specifically who should or should not be tortured within that statement, do you? No “prisoners of war.” No “enemy combatants.” No “supposed terrorists.” Just human beings. None of whom should be tortured. Ever.

But, then, the United States tends to want to make up its own rules when it is in the best interests of the current rulers of the country. So, we have not as yet formally ratified this Declaration and have dragged our feet on making other human rights covenants part of our law, which means our government can bend and tweak things (including body parts) as it likes, changing our language so as to make it look like we are still in compliance with treaties we have ratified.

And the sad thing is that they are doing it in my name, your name, and in the names of all of the country’s citizens. If our government can do this to people of other countries without remorse, when is it going to decide that its disagreeable citizens deserve the same treatment?

Are your mirror neurons firing yet?

————

The most complete article I’ve read on torture is one I found posted as a link on the Nine Inch Nails forum. It’s called “You arein a place that is out of the world . . .”: Music in the Detention Camps of the “Global War on Terror” by Suzanne G. Cusick. The article can be found through Cambridge Journals Online. Try this link: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=1674932&jid=&volumeId=&issueId=&aid=1674928

If that doesn’t work, go to http://journals.cambridge.org and type a portion of the title into the search box.

[Addendum 12/24/2008: Jonathan Turley discusses the Milgram torture test on his blog.]

Rules of the Internet

Did you know there were rules of the internet? Neither did I, but someone referenced one of the rules of the internet on the forum Hubby follows, so we decided to look up these supposed rules. I came up with two sites:

Everything Shii Knows – Rules of the Internet

Urban Dictionary – Rules of the Internet – apparently someone decided to fill in the rest of the rules with a lot of nonsensical stuff and potty humor