My Mother taught me LOGIC... "If you fall off that swing and break your neck, you can't go to the store with me."
My Mother taught me MEDICINE... "If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they're going to freeze that way."
My Mother taught me TO THINK AHEAD... "If you don't pass your spelling test, you'll never get a good job!"
My Mother taught me ESP... "Put your sweater on; don't you think that I know when you're cold?"
My Mother taught me TO MEET A CHALLENGE... "What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you...Don't talk back to me!"
My Mother taught me HUMOR... "When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."
My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT... "If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up.
My mother taught me about GENETICS... "You are just like your father!"
My mother taught me about my ROOTS... "Do you think you were born in a barn?"
My mother taught me about the WISDOM of AGE... "When you get to be my age, you will understand."
My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION... "Just wait until your father gets home."
My mother taught me about RECEIVING... "You are going to get it when we get home."
And my all time favorite thing- JUSTICE... "One day you will have kids, and I hope they turn out just like YOU..then you'll see what it's like."
My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE... "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside - I just finished cleaning!"
My mother taught me RELIGION... "You better pray that will come out of the carpet."
My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL... "If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"
Motherly Lessons, Part II My mother taught me LOGIC... "Because I said so, that's why."
My mother taught me FORESIGHT... "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident.
My mother taught me IRONY... "Keep crying and I'll give you something to cry about."
My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS... "Shut your mouth and eat your supper!" My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM... "Will you just look at the dirt on the back of your neck!"
My mother taught me about STAMINA... "You'll sit there 'till all that spinach is finished."
My mother taught me about WEATHER... "It looks as if a tornado swept through your room." My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY... "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times - Don't Exaggerate!!!"
My mother taught me THE CIRCLE OF LIFE... "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."
My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION... "Stop acting like your father!"
My mother taught me about ENVY... "There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do!"
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Why Women Shouldn't Take Men Shopping
After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Target. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse.
Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Target.
Dear Mrs. Hudson
Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store.We cannot tolerate this behaviour and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. J.Hudson are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.
1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.
2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. July 7:He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.
4. July 19:Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away?. This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.
5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layby.
6. August 14:Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.
7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers he'd invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.
8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' Police were called.
9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.
10. September 10:While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.
11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the 'Mission Impossible' theme.
12. October 6:In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.
13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'
14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'
And last, but not least:
15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here. One of the clerks passed out.
Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Target.
Dear Mrs. Hudson
Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store.We cannot tolerate this behaviour and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. J.Hudson are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.
1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.
2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. July 7:He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.
4. July 19:Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away?. This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.
5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layby.
6. August 14:Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.
7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers he'd invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.
8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' Police were called.
9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.
10. September 10:While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.
11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the 'Mission Impossible' theme.
12. October 6:In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.
13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'
14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'
And last, but not least:
15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here. One of the clerks passed out.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
This is why we need health care reform
ladyvampire
WASHINGTON (Sept. 30) – An early autumn chill was in the air as Regina Holliday's long summer of mourning came to an end this week. Just a few more brushstrokes on a gas station wall and her mural symbolizing the problems of the U.S. health care system would be complete."It's very cathartic to do this, to paint, to let out the stress and anxiety and everything that's happened," said Holliday, who has been sharing her family's medical nightmare in acrylic paint since a few days after her husband, Fred, died of cancer.That was June 17, the day the U.S. Senate began its debate on health care reform.On the last day of September, not 24 hours after the Senate Finance Committee rejected a public insurance program as part of its health reform bill, Holliday was about done. Painting, that is."Any struggle for good is not done overnight," said Holliday, 37, a widowed mother of two who pays 2 ½ times her monthly income as a preschool art teacher for health insurance.Still, she calls the influential tax-writing panel's action "very frustrating." Holliday knows about frustration. She watched elected officials "buckling" in the face of angry constituents who jammed town hall meetings in August to rail against "death panels" and "Obamacare.""It's so easy for them to say, 'No! We're against!'" said Holliday, who joined a counterprotest when "tea party" opponents marched here Sept. 12. "Those of us who are for it have to give these long, in-depth discussions of health care and all the myriad aspects and when you start doing that, it's easy to lose attention. It doesn't create sound bites."Holliday's 20-by-50-foot mural on the back wall of a BP station and across from a CVS drug store isn't easily summed up, either. The brooding piece is full of allusions from art history, from Jacques-Louis David's 18th-century masterpiece 'The Death of Marat' to Russian icons to Pablo Picasso's 'Guernica.' There is a giant film roll with frames depicting a tiny likeness of Fred, who was a film studies professor. "The end of a reel of a very short life," she said.There also are classic references. In a twist on the old "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" proverb, Holliday changed the monkeys to figures representing the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies and small businesses. Often she'll interpret the symbols for curious passers-by. Holliday explains it all on her Medical Advocacy blog, a mix of academic papers, video links, poems and stream-of-consciousness entries documenting her own personal health care crisis.The crisis came to a head earlier this year when Fred Holliday, who had held a series of temporary teaching jobs without benefits, got a full-time position at American University that included health insurance. Finally, he could afford to see a doctor about the blood in his urine and the fatigue that wouldn't let up. But it was too late. The 39-year-old was diagnosed with inoperable kidney cancer. If there was any good news, it was that the family had health insurance to cover Fred's treatment. The bad news, his wife learned, is that even those with coverage must negotiate reams of red tape at a time in their lives when they are most distraught and vulnerable.Holliday says she pleaded with doctors to tell her how long Fred had to live, so that the couple could decide when it made sense to stop painful treatments and allow the patient to spend what little time he had left with his family. "They said, 'This isn’t television. We don't do that.'""We were being left in the dark," said Holliday. But late nights searching the Internet brought the awful answer: two to three months. In her blog, on Facebook and on Twitter, Holliday recounts the 46 gurney trips Fred made as he was moved from hospital to hospital, hospice to home. During one transfer, a rough move by an orderly broke Fred's hip. Another time he was dropped.Even with health insurance, "they want you out" after two or three weeks in a hospital, she said. "The day you get there they ask, 'What is your discharge plan?' Well, it's like, my husband's really sick."Fred was sent home for the last time on June 11. The family had moved into a more expensive, two-bedroom apartment because their one-bedroom was too small for his hospital-sized bed and their sons Freddie, an 11-year-old with autism, and Isaac, 3.In less than a week, Fred was gone. Six days later, after the funeral and a memorial service, Holliday began her mural, first painting a black background on what had been whitewashed brick.She calls it "73 Cents." That's what it costs for a copy of each page in her husband's medical record. His file, which eventually filled a foot-thick notebook, was beyond her means.People began to notice the mural in July. It particularly drew the attention of the city's power brokers and media elite, who regularly gather for readings a few steps away at the Politics & Prose bookstore. "It's very powerful," said Ted Eytan, a family doctor and local advocate for opening medical records to patients. "For the first time, people have a place to go and have this conversation. I'm calling it a national monument."Eytan met Holliday through Twitter and has written about her on his blog. He distributed photos of the mural on the Internet, attracting the attention of the prestigious British Medical Journal, which put it on the front cover of its print edition. Holliday's handiwork also caught the eye of the BBC, Al-Jazeera and German television, as well as CNN and local TV stations. Newspaper reporters from the Netherlands, which has universal health care, weighed in. So did many bloggers. Voice of America called Holliday "a media darling."Democrats embraced her project. First lady Michelle Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid invited Holliday to news conferences. Suddenly the college dropout found herself at academic meetings on health care reform.Friends also spread the word on Flickr and Facebook. Nancy Shearer, 39, who goes to the same nearby church as Holliday, posted photos on Facebook of the work-in-progress all summer. She said Holliday hasn't omitted a single detail of her ordeal, right down to painting the hornet that buzzed around Fred's hospital room because no staff would answer her pleas to swat it. "You look at it and see the little things that can get done" to comfort patients, Shearer said. "She just wants people to stop and think."Many did. Most responded positively, often pressing a $5 or $10 bill into her hand to help pay for paint. "So many people come up to me to share their stories of what happened to them and their spouse and their parent and their child. And they're oftentimes horror stories," Holliday said. "There's this feeling that you're not alone, that there are other people who have been through the exact same thing that you've been through."But others, a minority in this upscale neighborhood in Northwest Washington, are less sympathetic.
WASHINGTON (Sept. 30) – An early autumn chill was in the air as Regina Holliday's long summer of mourning came to an end this week. Just a few more brushstrokes on a gas station wall and her mural symbolizing the problems of the U.S. health care system would be complete."It's very cathartic to do this, to paint, to let out the stress and anxiety and everything that's happened," said Holliday, who has been sharing her family's medical nightmare in acrylic paint since a few days after her husband, Fred, died of cancer.That was June 17, the day the U.S. Senate began its debate on health care reform.On the last day of September, not 24 hours after the Senate Finance Committee rejected a public insurance program as part of its health reform bill, Holliday was about done. Painting, that is."Any struggle for good is not done overnight," said Holliday, 37, a widowed mother of two who pays 2 ½ times her monthly income as a preschool art teacher for health insurance.Still, she calls the influential tax-writing panel's action "very frustrating." Holliday knows about frustration. She watched elected officials "buckling" in the face of angry constituents who jammed town hall meetings in August to rail against "death panels" and "Obamacare.""It's so easy for them to say, 'No! We're against!'" said Holliday, who joined a counterprotest when "tea party" opponents marched here Sept. 12. "Those of us who are for it have to give these long, in-depth discussions of health care and all the myriad aspects and when you start doing that, it's easy to lose attention. It doesn't create sound bites."Holliday's 20-by-50-foot mural on the back wall of a BP station and across from a CVS drug store isn't easily summed up, either. The brooding piece is full of allusions from art history, from Jacques-Louis David's 18th-century masterpiece 'The Death of Marat' to Russian icons to Pablo Picasso's 'Guernica.' There is a giant film roll with frames depicting a tiny likeness of Fred, who was a film studies professor. "The end of a reel of a very short life," she said.There also are classic references. In a twist on the old "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" proverb, Holliday changed the monkeys to figures representing the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies and small businesses. Often she'll interpret the symbols for curious passers-by. Holliday explains it all on her Medical Advocacy blog, a mix of academic papers, video links, poems and stream-of-consciousness entries documenting her own personal health care crisis.The crisis came to a head earlier this year when Fred Holliday, who had held a series of temporary teaching jobs without benefits, got a full-time position at American University that included health insurance. Finally, he could afford to see a doctor about the blood in his urine and the fatigue that wouldn't let up. But it was too late. The 39-year-old was diagnosed with inoperable kidney cancer. If there was any good news, it was that the family had health insurance to cover Fred's treatment. The bad news, his wife learned, is that even those with coverage must negotiate reams of red tape at a time in their lives when they are most distraught and vulnerable.Holliday says she pleaded with doctors to tell her how long Fred had to live, so that the couple could decide when it made sense to stop painful treatments and allow the patient to spend what little time he had left with his family. "They said, 'This isn’t television. We don't do that.'""We were being left in the dark," said Holliday. But late nights searching the Internet brought the awful answer: two to three months. In her blog, on Facebook and on Twitter, Holliday recounts the 46 gurney trips Fred made as he was moved from hospital to hospital, hospice to home. During one transfer, a rough move by an orderly broke Fred's hip. Another time he was dropped.Even with health insurance, "they want you out" after two or three weeks in a hospital, she said. "The day you get there they ask, 'What is your discharge plan?' Well, it's like, my husband's really sick."Fred was sent home for the last time on June 11. The family had moved into a more expensive, two-bedroom apartment because their one-bedroom was too small for his hospital-sized bed and their sons Freddie, an 11-year-old with autism, and Isaac, 3.In less than a week, Fred was gone. Six days later, after the funeral and a memorial service, Holliday began her mural, first painting a black background on what had been whitewashed brick.She calls it "73 Cents." That's what it costs for a copy of each page in her husband's medical record. His file, which eventually filled a foot-thick notebook, was beyond her means.People began to notice the mural in July. It particularly drew the attention of the city's power brokers and media elite, who regularly gather for readings a few steps away at the Politics & Prose bookstore. "It's very powerful," said Ted Eytan, a family doctor and local advocate for opening medical records to patients. "For the first time, people have a place to go and have this conversation. I'm calling it a national monument."Eytan met Holliday through Twitter and has written about her on his blog. He distributed photos of the mural on the Internet, attracting the attention of the prestigious British Medical Journal, which put it on the front cover of its print edition. Holliday's handiwork also caught the eye of the BBC, Al-Jazeera and German television, as well as CNN and local TV stations. Newspaper reporters from the Netherlands, which has universal health care, weighed in. So did many bloggers. Voice of America called Holliday "a media darling."Democrats embraced her project. First lady Michelle Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid invited Holliday to news conferences. Suddenly the college dropout found herself at academic meetings on health care reform.Friends also spread the word on Flickr and Facebook. Nancy Shearer, 39, who goes to the same nearby church as Holliday, posted photos on Facebook of the work-in-progress all summer. She said Holliday hasn't omitted a single detail of her ordeal, right down to painting the hornet that buzzed around Fred's hospital room because no staff would answer her pleas to swat it. "You look at it and see the little things that can get done" to comfort patients, Shearer said. "She just wants people to stop and think."Many did. Most responded positively, often pressing a $5 or $10 bill into her hand to help pay for paint. "So many people come up to me to share their stories of what happened to them and their spouse and their parent and their child. And they're oftentimes horror stories," Holliday said. "There's this feeling that you're not alone, that there are other people who have been through the exact same thing that you've been through."But others, a minority in this upscale neighborhood in Northwest Washington, are less sympathetic.
Friday, October 2, 2009
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