The lone bird

There has to be a middle ground -- a place where truth can be received and ingested and considered.  There is no way we can continue in a world where news that is considered legitimate comes from corporate (and government, how the hell do I know?) backed sources.  And any other news of any other kind is considered a conspiracy theory.  It's not right.

I watch people's eyes glaze over when I start to talk about certain things.  I get it.  I get that not thinking about horrible, crazy, scary things is far easier than doing so.  Believe me, I get it.  I have to stop, sometimes and pretend that the world is a wonderful, unscary place where the birds are only falling from the sky because you know, that happens sometimes.  Blasted fireworks.  And I am the first one to admit that I will get caught up in a "conspiracy theory" and go overboard with believing it with no other proof than someone is telling me so.

But how is that really any different than being told there is no concern that birds and fish are dying?  I have no proof from supposedly legitimate sources that this is so.  I just take their word for it?  On my email loop today everyone was commenting that there is too much cancer around.  Too many people they know are getting cancer.  Perhaps people went to too many fireworks?

That certainly seems more plausible to some people than the fact we are surrounded by cancer-causing agents, including the cell phones we keep glued to our brains and the constant emission of high frequency radio waves our electronics send out and the food we eat that has been radiated in one form or another.  (Take this into your brain if you dare:  Hundreds of cows out in a big, green beautiful pasture.  And underneath an antenna runs below their free range feet and emits gawd knows how much crap into their udders.  You know, where the milk comes out.) But no one wants to hear that kind of thing.  It sounds ridiculous.  It sounds ridiculous.  I am agreeing with you.  And yet, more and more people keep getting cancer.  Where is it coming from then?

I don't think that corporations want to kill people, I just don't think that they care if they do.  So does that make it okay?  The entire system that people believe is in place to protect them is the very system that protects those doing the bad things.  The scary things no one wants to think about.  But you are a nut job if you believe anything other than what you are told via the news channels people watch and feel confident that they are being informed.

There is always someone in control. Always.  Whatever your system of government is depending on where in the world you live, there is someone else besides you that controls what happens to your life, ultimately.  As Americans we grow up to believe that we are special -- we live in a democracy and we are free to do whatever we want, whenever we want.  It's a beautiful idea, it really is.  But terribly naive.

I just feel fortunate that I did not come to this planet with a burning desire to control people or to create fortunes or put other people's lives in danger for the sake of bettering my own.  And if you are that type of person, then you should feel fortunate as well.  But the other side of that coin is that you are in danger of falling into the path or clutches of such a person ... or group of such people ... and becoming collateral damage, which in other words means nothing.  You are nothing.  Dead is dead, gone is gone.  Bye bye.

I remember when I was younger and a news show like 20/20 or Nightline would be on, and they would unmask this horrible thing -- some awful thing that some company had done or some government entity had done, and I would think, wow.  This is really going to shake things up.  And yet ... that was it.  It was one show and it was never mentioned again.   And I couldn't find all that many people who had seen the show so there was no one to discuss such horrific events with.  So I would sit with it.  So you can only imagine that the Internet was a boondoggle for me in terms of finding like-minded people who would get their ire up about such things and not let them go.  But there is no where to go with it!  Anywhere.  Horrible things happen and maybe you can get a celebrity on board and it will be on the news a little more, and maybe even that celebrity can meet with the president, and well, we know that changes everything.  Oh.  Right.  It means nothing.  It all pretty much means nothing.  Pay offs.  Calling someone a cuckoo bird.  Ruining people's lives who have less power than you do.  Or killing them off slowly by poisoning their drinking water and their food and ...

Yes.  I know.  I really try very hard to not go off.  I completely and wholly understand that no one wants to hear it.  And believe me, I don't want to talk about it either.    And I certainly do not spend every day basking in total domination of all facts that might or might not be true.  No.  I try to maintain a balance by going on a shamanic journey and trying to figure things out from another angle.  I try to have good, powerful, intentional thoughts about good, powerful and intention-worthy things and causes.  And I truly believe that in a world that is strife with equal parts good and evil, that I am solidly standing on the Red Rover side of good, and no matter how I am tempted, no matter what I am told, I am not running over, red rover red rover send Lisa over ... oh no.  I am going to stand firm and I will continue to not close my eyes to that group over yonder who thinks they will get me one way or another, on their team (or not, but gone nonetheless from the good side) because I believe.

Knowledge is power.  It astounds me that even within my own family circle it is almost impossible to impart what I know for sure in my own personal campaign to keep us all healthy and happy.  So I know without a shadow of a doubt that I have no possibility of offering you anything more than an eye roll or two and maybe a second of "hmmmmm."  And I am okay with that.  What I would not be okay with is never saying anything.

That would be wrong.  That would be letting go of all the good hand's and running over to the other side to stand quietly beside them and believe that I am safer over there.

If you have some inkling that the bird's falling out of the sky and the fish dying in schools is kinda weird, google HAARP.  I am not prepared to blog about it right now because I can't really find a mainstream outlet (in other words, a news source that most people would believe has some cache) that is covering it.  Which is why I started with this blog stating that there has to be another layer -- another tier of reporting where the news isn't considered so ridiculous it's dismissed immediately. 

I actually saw a dead blue jay the other day on a walk.  Laying there on the side of the road.  My hair stood on end.  Is one dead blue jay meaningful?

I don't know.  You tell me.

Menopausal meanderings

I think that I am part of a generation that is absolutely defining the new menopause of the future, as indicated by the picture above.  And I am ready and willing to jump on that bandwagon because ready or not, here it comes!

I have experienced signs of peri-menopause for a number of years now in regards to irregular and crazy ass periods.  I have had the occasional moment where I will just go off my rocker temporarily and let something trivial bother me and yell at someone way out of proportion to the situation.  When that happens my kids mutter "geesh what is her problem," and skulk away.  I don't care.  You see, this not caring part is the best part of all!  You could give a flying rat's ass to what other people think about your going ballistic over the mayo being left on the counter.  Truly.


The first thing you need to do as a woman on the edge of "the change," is to understand it.  And really, it's very cool.  It's a complete and total metamorphosis of your body chemistry.  Yeah, you lose all that collagen that keeps your skin taut and supple, and your hormones fluctuate up and down so you get hair growing in all sorts of odd and random places, and in truth there are a lot of sucky things that happen.  But you know, not for ten seconds would I trade who I am today for who I used to be (all taut and unhairy) because there is a freedom in not giving a hoot of what other people think of you that is worth more than all the wrinkle free skin in China.
So the first step you need to take is to embrace it.  And fill yourself with knowledge.  Read books by smart people (I recommend Christiane Northrup's books) and with that knowledge comes power.  I don't have traditional hot flashes, but I run hot.  I watch my teenage son walk around in a t-shirt outside, and I get it.  Right now when I go near fleece I start to hyperventilate.  I feel as though I am claustrophobic and it's going to kill me.


So that's easy, I don't wear fleece.  I also can't wear jackets.  Or scarves.  Oh my gawd, put a scarf around my neck and I freak out.  What is so irritating is that I can be so hot, and then the next thing you know, I am cold.  But not like I had a flash and then I am cold, but like someone turned down the heat and didn't warn me!  Five minutes under a blanket and I am good.  Just as long as no one comes near me with fleece!

It also helps to hear from other people.  One woman, who is on the other side, said that she couldn't wear sweaters for two years.  We learn to adapt -- fleece, sweaters, jackets -- people who live in warm climes never use them, so what is the big deal?  I don't have many friends who I can talk to about symptoms for various and sundry reasons.  A big one is that they have had all such equipment removed.  "Oh, I haven't had a period in years and I take hormones."  Or they have been on some type of hormone replacement therapy since the first signal of menopause hit, so they don't have much to add.  I do wonder of course, if I am making the right decision in  jumping into the menopause pool without assistance (medical or otherwise!).  I say this because I really and truly thought that natural childbirth was the way to go.  And I was wrong.  And I could be super wrong about this, but the one thing I want to do is keep my children hyper aware of what is happening.

My mother jumped on the hormones immediately and I swear to this day she is still struggling to get to the other side.  I envision the other side as a place where it's all smooth sailing and the storms of hormonal influence have abated into a nice gentle flow of easy peasy.  The other side is where I embrace the wisdom that the turmoil of monumental body changes has given to me as a gift for making it through.  With flying colors!

Obviously many women of my age are treating menopause with humor and knowledge and putting it out there in the mainstream.  There are so many aspects that are important:  like you reach a crossroads at the height of menopause that essentially sets the course for the second part of your life.   That is pretty heavy duty stuff, and if you have no clue about it, you might just miss the road signs.  But if you do examine your thoughts and feelings and explain to your family members that your entire body aches right now, not because you climbed Mt. Everest or did Pilates for three hours yesterday, but because it just damn aches and that is the way it is and so shut up, you can accept it.  There are some mornings when I wake up and it feels as though I have slept on a piece of granite instead of a thousands-of-dollars posturepedic mattress.  There are some days I am so tired I don't think I can possibly pick up a pencil.  There are some days when I am so full of energy and have this radiating and pulsing knowledge that I know everything and can do everything ... every day is a crap shoot!  And that is fine.

Yesterday Peter took my car to drop off Maddie's skis and soon after that Charlie texted to say he wanted to be picked up.  The only vehicle outside was Peter's truck.  Which I abhor.  It is huge, it's diesel and noisy and bouncy and I am just not a pick-up type gal!  (Oh those were the days, when being a pick-up type gal did not involve a truck!)
I tried to call him, but his cell phone rang in the basement. GRRRRRR.  I was annoyed at first, then as I realized I was going to have to start that behemoth truck, I became good and pissed.  He loves his damn truck, so why take my car?  I waited as long as I possibly could and then gave in.  My intent was to head out and flag him down and switch vehicles.  I never drive the truck.  Ever.
 This is it minus the dualies.  The dual wheels.  It is huge.  It is forebodingly huge and I never feel comfortable driving it because I am afraid I am going to hit people.  In addition it has a big rack in the back so you can't really see out the back window.  Truck people use those big mirrors.  I just hope I don't hit or kill anyone.  In truth, I avoid driving the truck like the plague!  Okay, so now I am in the truck, and I think I see him coming towards me.  It is hard to judge because all cars going by are covered in six inches of salt and dirt, so they are all the same color.  But I am pretty sure.  As soon as he gets close, I start flashing the lights.  Except I never drive the damn thing so I have just turned the windshield wipers on and off.  Now, here is the defining moment.  Am I going to fricking go nuts or not?  You never know.  I could feel a surge of craziness go through me, and my first thought was to turn around and follow him back home and yell at him and all that, but I was already five minutes into a 30 minute drive and really, was it THAT bad to drive the truck?  Not to mention I would have to turn around, and you can't just do that anywhere.  So then I started to adjust things ... first I had to get the heat off because it was suffocating me.  Figured that out, and then I went to work on the seat.  None of the controls made sense, and I was going forward instead of backward and left instead of right and I messed up that seat good and proper.  That brought me much glee.  GOOD!  When he gets back into his truck he will have a helluva time getting the seat comfortable.  HA!  But then I was like, oh, it's not that big of a deal, whatever.  And it dawned on me ... this was new!  This complete and total withdrawal of nurturing my cause ... of being pissed because he inconvenienced me.  I mean, it wasn't as though I was left without a vehicle, I was just left with one I don't like!  Within five minutes of having spotted him, I was over it.

And that, my friends, would never have happened before.  Oh no.  When I came home he asked me why I hadn't pulled over.  I thought he hadn't seen me at all, but he had, and had turned around and followed me.  He had thought I was going to Maddie's school and switching to the Jeep, so he drove all the way back there and checked.  (Remember, he couldn't call because his cell phone was in the basement.)  So ultimately he knew I would be mad (and really, since he was in that direction already, if he had had his phone he could have just gone to pick up Charlie from there.)  He made a mistake.  Or a flub.  Not a big deal.  And like I said, you would think the depiction of menopausal women is that they would go ballistic over such an event.  But I think it is just the opposite.  I have moved on from my petty feuds ...

... just don't pull out an apple peeler at 10:00 at night and be surprised when I freak out and yell at you because how ridiculous it is to bring that out when all you have to use is a stupid knife to cut up your apple!  (That is what happened last night to Charlie, who was like, geesh, calm down, fine, I won't use the apple peeler.)

It's the simple things.  That make my head spin!

Kindle all the way!

In the debate of kindle versus real books, I have decidedly come to a wholehearted conclusion:  Kindle baby, all the way.

I know that I have been quite vocal about my love of kindle -- and if not in this blog, then you're just not listening!  Because I do.  I love it.  Love it.  Love love love it.

I have been reading straight kindle for months but my sister had loaned me The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequel months ago, saying I had to read it.  But it was in book form!  I literally scorned it because it was a book!  But this month for book club, the book we are reading is just that one, and so with a heavy heart I put my kindle down and picked up the book.  I didn't think it was going to be as bad as it was, I really didn't.  I mean, I have been reading old-fashioned books all my life so you wouldn't think it would be such an imposition.  But you have to turn pages!  And the pages are not crisp and clear, they are sort of dull.  And sometimes if you're not holding the book properly, words get stuck in the gutter.

It was a nightmare.  And at night I like to read myself to sleep.  (This of course backfires more often than not because if it is a good book I will stay up much later than I should) but it was near impossible with the book.  With kindle all you have to do is clip on the book light (I am not permitted to read with light, it's a marriage issue and for years and years, pre-kindle years that is, I did not read in bed.  Totally sucked but the itty bitty book lights kept him up too, poor thing.  Wah wah.)  Anyway, the kindle booklight is small and only has to highlight one side versus two, so it doesn't shed as much light.  In other words, it doesn't wake Peter up so he can bitch about the light.  But the past few nights I've had to clip on the big old book light and he has complained.  And so have I!  The damn thing moves around all the time and I can't lay on my side and hold the book out like I do with kindle because I have to keep flipping the pages!  SO IRRITATING!

So at dinner last night I was showing a friend how to operate her kindle, and I was saying how much I missed mine because I was reading that damn book club book in book form.  And she said why?  It's only five bucks for kindle.

Yes, you are correct.  I rushed home and downloaded it and went to bed reading, happily ever after.  That is it.  No more books for me.  They are clunky and unsupportive of my challenges of reading in bed!

Kindle all the way!  And if you don't have one, for heaven's sake get one.  They are cheap cheap and you will forever wonder why it took you so long.

Food, glorious food

It seems that for a long time now I have been in a rut when it comes to meals.  And it seems to me there are more and more and more cases of people who have food allergies; and probably many more who don't realize it.

The 'Net is full of blogs of people who are making wholesome meals on a daily basis; and I like to think that I do the same.  But I have gotten very lazy for a long time now -- probably more because I don't have a phase, like raw, to keep me in the game.  There is only one truth that we don't want to accept -- and that is in order to eat healthy meals we need to make them.  We can pretend that going out to restaurants is okay, but it's not.  When the Sisco (Cysco?) truck drives away from a restaurant, it is leaving a bunch of crap in its wake.  Crap that is prepared in the guise of food.  I know this.  And yet, let's face it, it is much easier to eat food you don't prepare yourself.

Where I live there are no healthy restaurants or stores that prepare healthy food to take home.  When I am in a city where such a thing exists, I nearly begin to pant at the wonder of what life would be like if I had access to this on a daily basis.  And when I go away, it is the first thing I take advantage of.  When we were in Chicago in October, Hallie my mother and I brought home all sorts of prepared food for our dinner.  It was heaven. 

But that is not an option and really, the meals we feed ourselves and our families are a first line defense against getting sick.  I can see a huge difference in Charlie's behavior after a few weeks of eating bad food in the form of cakes, cookies, candy and what have you that is around during the holiday season.  It has always been a challenge for me to make sure he eats properly -- because it defines who he actually is.  I would much rather have a sweet, considerate and happy child in the midst as opposed to a surly, growly, mean and nasty being.

Food matters.  But why does it have to be such a pain?!!!  In order for me to keep good, healthy food in the house I must travel.  Our local Hannaford's is pathetic in terms of what it carries for organic food -- and the produce is dead.  I know I have written about this time and again, but for some reason today I have come to the realization that it's too important to ignore.  Last night Charlie was so hungry after I picked him up at school that we stopped at Subway.  Not good.


Several blogs I am intrigued by are gluten free; and I wonder if one of the reasons I am so drawn to them is because I should be removing gluten from our diets?  None of us have any particular symptoms per se, but why not remove something that clearly has impacted so many people?

Tonight I am going to make turkey meatballs with asian style noodles and fresh herbs.  It has an ingredient list the size of Montana -- which always causes me to roll my eyes -- but the picture looked so delicious and I do so love meatballs.  I have been cheating over the holidays and using frozen meatballs (albeit they are organic free range ...) but still, it's probably not as good.  I don't know.  Here is the recipe if anyone is interested.  What is even more appealing is that I have all the ingredients on hand and don't have to head north or south to shop!
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2010/04/turkey-meatballs-with-asian-noodles.html

The other thing I am itching to do is make bread.  I love to knead dough, I find it very cathartic.  I was all set to make this challah, but then realized it was a sourdough recipe and you need a sourdough starter.  Bummer.  Also, the problem with creating breads that are gluten free is that I run the very real risk of being the only person in the house who will eat it.  And that sucks.

As I go through traditional bread recipes, I was quickly brought back to when I first began making bread as a teenager.  Oh, the loaves I made that could kill people -- because they were as heavy as a brick!  It has been so long since I've made bread, I wonder if I still have the touch!  I became quite good at it, but stopped because everyone else in the family was eating store bought bread while I was wolfing through mine before it got stale.  Hence, I was eating about five times the usual amount of bread than I normally did.  Bread isn't lettuce.  Oh no sirree!

A long time ago when I was a child, my father sold real estate.  He had a partner and together they bought a house in the middle of nowhere in Bradford.  His partner and family lived there, and we would visit them from time to time.  When I say the middle of nowhere, I mean, really, the boonies.  But I was fascinated by it -- and the wife made her own bread, and as I stood there in the farmhouse kitchen, she kneaded it out and then later, after we'd explored the barns and other outbuildings, she popped it in the oven.  Then when it came out, she slathered the slices with butter and offered them to us -- holding them out in front of her, I stared at those hot pieces with big pats of butter melting on top and fell in love.  Sheer and total love.  (And then I began my own bread making adventures.)

I thought this family was the luckiest in the world!  They had chickens running around outside and homemade bread and they lived in this really cool house in the middle of nowhere.  Later, I would learn that they had very little money and were eating like that because they needed to.  Also, the wife was quite miserable being out in the middle of nowhere as she had small children and no car.  Well, she sure fooled me.  But maybe she was positively blissful during those moments when she created the bread.  I like to think so!

And so I am going to go make bread.  It is actually not a good day for it, because the house is chilly, so it will have difficulty rising.  But we shall rise above that!

4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie

When four and twenty blackbirds die from the sky (and really, many, many more) personally I think that's unsettling.  And then when a bunch of fish nearby die too.  That seems to scream DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON.

The media keeps comparing it to the end of days, some apocalyptical deal that hints that the world is coming to an end.  Well!  At least we know it's not that, because the media wants us to believe something so foolish, therefore it must be something else.  Right?  My thoughts?

Poison.  I don't think the birds are hitting UFO's and falling to the ground, as our trustworthy media has reported, and I don't think God is sending us dead blackbirds as a hint of what is to come.  But I do think that some entity (and by that I mean human as hell) has put something out into the atmosphere -- that obviously affects the air and water -- that is deadly.  Probably too small doses to hurt people, but certainly (as unproven indications of 3000 birds) enough to kill them.  Oh, and the little fishies.

I would write about facts, but I don't really know them.  All I can go on are media reports, and quite frankly, they are so absurd I can't get through them.  First 3,000 birds fell from the sky, dead as doorknobs, on January 1 in Beebe, Arkansas.

The director of Cornell University's ornithology lab in Ithaca, N.Y., said the most likely suspect is violent weather. It's probable that thousands of birds were asleep, roosting in a single tree, when a "washing machine-type thunderstorm" sucked them up into the air, disoriented them, and even fatally soaked and chilled them. 

Since I'm not the director of Cornell University's ornithology lab, I'm not going to dispute this theory.  But did anyone in the town happen to notice a crazy-assed thunderstorm that night?  Just wondering.  There were reports that there was a tornado 150 miles away -- and thunderstorms were in the area.  But no one specifically has confirmed a storm in Beebe.  Who.  What.  Where.  When.  Why.

Fortunately the news stories are beginning to be a little less dramatic (the sky is falling, the sky is falling) since another drop of birds hit the highway in Louisiana, littering it with little red winged blackbird carcasses and perhaps, just maybe, making that storm washing machine story seem a little less likely. 

"Birds can be really good indicators of environmental problems, so I'd hate to think that 5,000 would die and nobody would care," says Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation at the National Audobon Society, in Washington. "It's worth investigation to find out what happened because there is potentially something we should worry about and it's potentially something that has an odd, but benign cause."

I agree we should worry, I have a hard time imagining it to be a benign cause.  That just seems like an odd statement when there is no solid proof one way or the other of what happened.

Americans have theorized that everything from fallout from secret government weapons testing to UFO collisions downed the birds in Arkansas. But the newly-discovered bird rain in Louisiana is likely to focus more serious attention to the plight of blackbirds now bundled in winter flocks that can number over 100,000 birds.
 
Postmortem tests of birds in the Arkansas incident showed evidence of blunt force trauma to many of the victims, which Mr. Butcher says means that it's likely the birds were spooked by New Year's Eve fireworks and may, in mass confusion, have run into cars and houses.

I don't buy this.  First off, the birds fell from the sky and landed on the ground.  I don't need to perform a postmortem test to discern that a bird falling from the sky and slamming into pavement is going to suffer blunt force trauma.  So why is this Butcher man stating that it's worth investigation, and then saying something like they were scared by fireworks and probably hit houses and cars?  I believe this negates him as an expert.


Since blackbirds are considered a nuisance by farmers, the mass death in Louisiana could be attributable to a legal pest control effort. Pest control experts kill blackbird roosts in several ways, including spraying water on birds to induce hypothermia or by using legal poisons. Most such poisons work quickly, but a botched control attempt could mean that birds may have flown away from the roost and died nearby.

Okay, now we're talking.  Let us point out that it was a LEGAL pest control effort -- and yet, it didn't necessarily happen either, and it could have been botched.  Yes.  Now, WHO botched it?  Who. What. When. Why. Where.

Apparently the sky is absolutely black with these birds when they fly around.  Several televised reports of residents of Beebe stated that these birds are everywhere. 











Why the need for these suits?  Do they know something we don't?  They have on gas masks.  Again, I repeat, do they know something we don't?



An ABC News report did not bring up UFO's, etc. and reported that there was not any storm activity in the area, so I am happy to see that while the newspapers seem to not feel inclined to do any reporting, at least someone is on the story!

I guess the purpose for this blog is to kind of try to shake things up a little and remind people that thousands of birds falling from the sky, no matter what the reason, should at least be a topic of conversation!  And if it was poison, then someone should mark it on their calendars, for however many years from now when children start dying of cancer, and adults as well, this can be considered ground zero.  The canary in the coal mine if you will.  For things don't die for no good reason.  Ever.

There is a town in Ohio that has a cancer cluster -- there is no apparent reason for it.

Every time his kids cough, Dave Hisey's mind starts to race. Is it cancer? Is it coming back? His oldest daughter, diagnosed with leukemia nearly five years ago when she was 13, is in remission. His 12-year-old son has another year of chemotherapy for a different type of leukemia. And his 9-year-old daughter is scared she'll be next.

Hisey is not alone in fearing the worst. Just about every mom and dad in this rural northern Ohio town gets nervous whenever their children get a sinus infection or a stomachache lingers. It's hard not to panic since mysterious cancers have sickened dozens of area children in recent years.

Since 1996, 35 children have been diagnosed — and three have died — of brain tumors, leukemia, lymphoma, and other forms of cancer — all within a 12-mile wide circle that includes two small towns and farmland just south of Lake Erie. With many of the diagnoses coming between 2002 and 2006, state health authorities declared it a cancer cluster, saying the number and type of diagnoses exceed what would be expected statistically for so small a population over that time.

"All you think about is what happened to these kids," said Donna Hisey, 43, the mother whose family has been devastated by cancer. "Is it gone? Or is it still here? What is it?!"

After three years of exhaustive investigation, no cause is known. Investigators have tested wells and public drinking water, sampled groundwater and air near factories and checked homes, schools and industries for radiation. They also set up a network of air monitors across eastern Sandusky County, finding cleaner air than in most places around Ohio, the health department said.
Nothing unusual was detected. Not even a hint.

And yet, there IS a reason.  And yet these people stay.  Would I?  Not for a second.  Like I said, there IS a reason, and because it's not in the wells and public drinking water and air RIGHT NOW, does not mean that it wasn't, or isn't.  The cancer isn't stopping.  There IS a reason, and it's happening right there.  And I can not imagine why you would risk your child's life by staying in an obviously contaminated environment.  What type of proof do people need?  Since 1996. 

Birds don't fall from the sky and kids don't die of cancer FOR NO REASON.

The outbreak around Clyde is only 50 miles north of another cluster that Ohio health officials spent four years investigating. Beginning in the late 1990s, nine former students from River Valley High School in Marion were diagnosed with leukemia. Tests found toxic chemicals in schoolyard soil and students were relocated to new buildings miles away. Investigators never definitively linked the cancers to the old school site, a former World War II Army depot where wastes and solvents were dumped and burned. 

The key words here are that investigators never definitively linked the cancers to the old school site.  Where wastes and solvents were dumped and burned.

What is the saying?  When you see a herd of horses, don't suspect they might be zebras? 

Something is wrong.  If proof is what you're waiting for, you might die first.

As the sun sets

 As I was preparing dinner I was reflecting on the past week.  It is often a challenge to spend great amounts of time with family members -- and for me it is challenging to never be alone.  I crave my alone time, and it has really been.  A. Long. Time.


  But overall, it has been nice.  Hallie was home for two weeks, and while we didn't see her the entire time as she made a few trips to visit friends, it was nice to have her back in the fold.  Normally this time of year we are dealing with ski races, but this year that is not the case.  Maddie is not on the Eastern team at school this year, so both she and Charlie will only have races on Wednesday.  This is new.  And it is a refreshing change, because quite frankly, I was way done with race spectating.  Time. To. Move. On.

 As different thoughts flitted through my mind, I happened to look outside the window.  Oh my.  It was spectactular, and while it hadn't been that nice of a day, mostly cloudy, the sunset was giving its all.  Charlie had grumped around earlier stating that New Hampshire is boring, we are boring and really it is my job to provide him with, well, I guess with a life!  And since I do do that, I don't really feel too bad for him.  He can go out on his snowmobile, he skied yesterday (and missed the chore of stacking wood) and visited with a friend he hadn't seen since this summer.  I get that disgruntled feeling.  I had been fighting it all day since waking up and knowing that Hallie was on a plane away from us -- back to Chicago and her life and with no concrete plans when we will see her again.  And we spent the morning taking down the tree and rearranging the furniture to mask the hole the removal of the tree had made, and all the lights and jolly ho ho has been stored away for another year.

 But seriously, when you have this too gaze upon, is anything really that bad?  I could literally inhale this sunset -- I ran outside with my camera and just reveled in its sheer beauty.  Of course a picture never comes close to portraying the true awedropping masterpiece, but I felt it, I breathed it in and knew with all my heart that you can't stay down when this is your backyard.

 Not that I was really down.  I have nothing to complain about.  I had a lovely few weeks.  I went to New York City with the Family Chicks and I spent countless hours reading and sleeping and partying with friends and going out to dinner and creating and eating one fabulous meal after another here at home.  But I get how Charlie feels -- and I honor his grumpiness because we all deserve to feel whatever way we feel.  And sometimes the only thing that ultimately helps is to wallow in it, cover yourself with your complaints and when your mother tells you to look at the gorgeous sunset, pretend to ignore her.  But I saw him look.  He has grown up with a mother who loves her sunsets.  Whether I am at the lake, here at home or somewhere else, I am always keyed in to the end of the day.  Sometimes it passes without any fanfare ...

 ...but on some nights you get treated with the real deal.  I kept leaving my chopping board, grabbing my camera and running out to get more pictures.  Again, it was a million times more gorgeous in person, but you get the gist.  It is also crazy warm out, so it is delightful to be out there soaking it in.

 And now that the crowds have headed home, we local yokels are going to head to Mt. Sunapee and ski tomorrow!  All week I have been hearing about record breaking crowds and not for one moment, despite the beautiful weather, have I felt cheated at not skiing.  We have midweek passes this year, and even for many year's past we haven't had passes that allow us to ski during vacation weeks -- and that is fine with us.  We lost a lot of snow in the premature January thaw, but it was nice to have a white Christmas.  (Or did it happen after Christmas?  It's all a blur!)

I think I fell into a new tradition this year -- staying home and watching movies on New Years Eve and then going out for a festive dinner on New Year's Day.  For some reason, it just felt right.  I have always been hot and cold about New Year's Eve -- and will be the first one to throw a party if the mood strikes me.  But this year I was so not into it.  And maybe because it is too much -- first we have Christmas Eve, which requires some sort of recognition, and then we have Christmas Day, which of course needs to be addressed, and then, a week later we need to rinse and repeat?  The whole in with the new and out with the old doesn't resonate with me.  I believe that we should spend every day resolving to make whatever we can better.  January 1st is no different than any other day -- it just has a different number at the end of the year.  I prefer to be timeless versus cataloging my life with time.

So here's to tomorrow.  And the next day, and the day after that.  Hopefully the sunsets will continue to perform.