Tossing WHAT?!

One of my great grandmothers was born in Northern Ireland, which makes me 1/4 Scots-Irish. As such, of course, my children are the next smaller fraction. So it shouldn't be a total surprise that my kids get a kick out of attending the frequently offered Scottish events in our local area. What WAS a surprise was that the younger of my two adult sons decided--with no advance preparation whatsoever--to participate in the heavy athletic events that were offered at the annual St. Patrick's Day-connected Scottish celebration here in town.

For those unfamiliar with this concept, let me elaborate: heavy athletics includes tossing things most people who've never lived on a farm would never consider tossing. For example: the hammer throw, one of the field events in Olympic track and field (the hammer weighs 22 pounds). There's a bale toss, which item weighs somewhere around 11 or 12 pounds and is slung from a pitchfork up over a bar some 15 feet in the air. There are heavy (52 pounds) and light (28 pounds) weights tossed through the air and the distance measured. Yes, the weights are odd--they base them on how many "stone" they are. A stone is 14 pounds and is used to measure people's body weight among other things over in Britain, as I found out in my 3 years' stay over there (my goal is to weigh closer to 11 stone than I currently do!).

I've purposely left the most interesting part for last: the tossing of the caber, which is a roughly 18 foot long, 100 pound "miniature telephone pole" they pick up, hold erect, run several feet with while holding it in this manner, then toss end over end away from themselves. (A relative of mine remarked, after once seeing this done, that he now understands why the Scots drink!) This was the part I was most interested in seeing my offspring attempt, as I knew this in particular would be far from his normal activity! To put it mildly, his efforts were quite laudable; the results, well...

The first time he tried it, he could barely lift the stupid thing from the ground. The second time he managed to get it to the point that it was over his shoulder, though he almost immediately dropped the thing (and really, what reasonable person is surprised by this?). The final time he DID get the thing nearly to a 90 degree angle, but again dropped the oversized pole almost immediately.

Personally, I'm impressed that he even TRIED this! I certainly never would have (and yes, there was ONE female among the heavy athletics participants--as a demonstrator because most of her peers are also involved with indoor track & field, which season has not yet concluded for the year).

My older son made it easy on himself--he went to a whiskey-tasting event and sampled the wares. Far less strenuous than trying to pitch a pole end over end, no matter how heavy the dram! ;)

Show Biz and Respites

The past ten days have been sufficiently busy to keep me away from my keyboard between court hearings for my job, out of state travels with my children, and arriving home to be blindsided by one of the two types of flu slamming our area overnight Monday into Tuesday morning. I'm still achy and stiff, though not as feverish as I was earlier in the week. (I've joked in other venues that my husband & daughter, who were home all weekend, were generous enough to share--hubby confirmed the diagnosis with his doctor on Monday.)

I'm compelled to offer condolences to Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave, & their extended family in the loss of Natasha Richardson. Very sad way to end what I'm sure was a welcome break in the Laurentian hills.

In other show biz news (which I don't ordinarily follow, but this bit from today's NY Times caught my eye), Steve Martin is now paying for an off-campus high school production of "Picasso at the Lapin Agile"(written by him) after a petition from local adults protesting the "adult content" of the play being put on by students at La Grande (OR) High School. Hope the situation is resolved to the satisfaction of all involved. The subject matter of the play, for those unfamiliar with it, is an imagined meeting between Picasso and Albert Einstein in a Paris watering hole.

Guess it's time to mine my own imagination for such greatness--Steve Martin had (I suspect) a great, novel idea there!

Loony Moon

I knew before I even began work on Monday this week would be the full moon. And I didn't need to look at the sky to confirm that--it's been a busy, odd week and the forecast is for it to remain that way through my travels with my youngest on Friday!

Earlier today I spoke with my husband's stepmother and was advised that the suspected TIA my father-in-law had on Saturday evening may not have been one after all--it might have been a precipitous drop in his blood sugar, brought on by his diabetes medication! They'll be confirming that with his doctor at his appointment next week, but as my mother is on the same medication, I'll be sharing that information ASAP for her and my dad to look into with her physician. That's a scary thought--that your diabetes meds are SO effective, you wind up hypoglycemic and passing out!!!

My workout this evening was a tad more strenuous than usual thanks to my junior personal trainer in training. ;) My 9 year old supervised and checked off each set of repetitions & noted how much weight I'd actually lifted in accordance with my prescribed Mobile Fit workout at the Y. She had fun being "the boss" while I was sweating my way through the Nautilus machines, my stretches, and my stroll on the treadmill.

Keep me in your thoughts tomorrow as I attend a work-related court hearing!

Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) alert

Thankfully, I've never been (and I hope never TO be!) the victim of one. However, now that a second family member is experiencing them, I feel like some public awareness needs to be raised so my readers can watch their loved ones for any risk/experience of them. (My mother has had several and has not had a recurrence, thankfully, due to her doctor's immediate prescription of Plavix. My father-in-law had one last night and likely faces a similar regimen of diet/exercise/medication to what she's followed for the past decade plus.)

Put simply, the American Heart Association's web page devoted to the topic explains TIA as (quote from their site) "a "warning stroke" or "mini-stroke" that produces stroke-like symptoms but no lasting damage. Recognizing and treating TIAs can reduce your risk of a major stroke.

Most strokes aren't preceded by TIAs. However, of the people who've had one or more TIAs, more than a third will later have a stroke. In fact, a person who's had one or more TIAs is more likely to have a stroke than someone of the same age and sex who hasn't.

TIAs are important in predicting if a stroke will occur rather than when one will happen. They can occur days, weeks or even months before a major stroke. In about half the cases, the stroke occurs within one year of the TIA."

The site goes on to describe TIA symptoms as being the same as those for a stroke (e.g. sudden numbness on one side of the face or body, sudden confusion, sudden severe headache without known cause, trouble speaking/understanding, loss of balance/coordination), but much more brief in duration (about five (5) minutes) and leaving no lasting damage in its wake.

If I've managed to educate only ONE person with this information today, my work is done. Please feel free to share this information with friends and loved ones. They may thank you later for doing so! (And if you don't share my post, at least refer them to the American Heart Association's site for more information--they would appreciate the information being disseminated widely!)

You Be The Judge

Personally, I'm convinced that I'm surrounded by idiots (thought that during my youth, but it seems a more pervasive belief now that I've lived in another part of the country for nearly 20 years). But as today's title suggests, read on and decide for yourself.

Our local CBS affiliate's website reports that a gent the same age as my younger son who resides in the same city where my son attends college has been charged with carrying a weapon on school property, carrying a pistol unlawfully, and discharging a firearm within city limits, as well as being suspended from school. His offense, you ask? Well you might: he brought a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun to class at another institution of higher learning. Initial reports were that he'd had the gun in his pocket, it fell out and accidentally went off during class. He later adjusted the tale shared with local law enforcement to say he was holding the gun and accidentally pulled the trigger.

Question #1: WHY are we taking a handgun to ANY institution of higher learning other than the police academy?
Question #2: How many years will he get for this stupidity?

Did I mention my son has met this so-called genius? Predictably, I'm afraid, his first impression wasn't positive.

Monday, Monday, freakin’ M-O-N-D-A-Y!

This has been a less than ideal one so far; I sincerely hope it improves vastly as the day continues. (We’ve all had days/weekends like this one!)

First off, my other half decided he had to set the alarm clock for 5:30, an hour early, because despite the fact that public schools in the county where he works are closed, the boarding school where he teaches and serves as Scoutmaster of the on-campus troop is OPEN and he needed to get grades into the computer for report cards to be sent out on time. He gently woke me at 6:30 because he was too busy preparing to leave to verify whether our girls had school at the usual time. I stumbled out of bed, into warm clothes, and down to the computer and checked the local CBS affiliate’s website, to learn that not only the girls, but I, have to be places at the usual time.

The 1-2” of snow we were forecast to get NEVER CAME and our roads were DRY! So off we went at 7:00 to find out WHY we didn’t get it--it was about 38 degrees outside! I deposited my daughters at their respective schools. Upon returning home, I got the dishwasher loaded and running after a hasty breakfast of lowfat yogurt (on top of a Dunkin’ Donut left over from yesterday) and hit the shower after I confined the dogs and cats, fed the fish, fed and watered the mice, and gave the larger critters a bowl of water. Shower over, hair blown dry, made up, and dressed appropriately, I got to work on time--only to find our office’s official opening was delayed until 10:00 a.m!

So here I sit blogging…Yes, I posted it WAY later, but it was drafted before 10:00 a.m.

On a related note, hubby’s Boy Scout campout this weekend was a soggy disaster due to the weather up in the Piedmont. They went to a state park where they’ve camped before, but this weekend was a washout before they even started. It rained all night Friday, all day Saturday, and the overnight forecast for Saturday into Sunday was for more of the same with added gale force winds for a bit of variety and ahead of the whit diversion that was forecast to start sometime Sunday afternoon. He and his 10 hardy boys, as well as the other adult traveling with them, looked at their sodden campsite, soggy tents and clothing, difficult-to-keep-burning fire, and everyone concurred: the heck with this, take us back to the boarding school! They packed it in early Saturday evening.

Hubby called me from the road at 7:30 p.m. to estimate his arrival at home around midnight. Based on the weather reports I’d heard all day Saturday, it was a welcome call. It also set me into a flurry of motion. I set the girls to vacuuming, taking out the kitchen & bathroom trash, cleaning out the cats’ litter box, bringing firewood in from the garage, and moving wet laundry to the dryer while I put away all the non-perishable groceries I’d bought earlier in the day and thoroughly cleaned the kitchen. Within three hours the first floor of the house had been vacuumed except two rooms, the fire was roaring in the stove with more wood available to keep it so, and scented candles burned in the kitchen and dining room while the dishwasher hummed away.

I keep trying to convince my daughters that it’s good to pick stuff up throughout the week and just KEEP the house neat, but at their ages they aren’t getting that message quite yet. I look forward to the day when my weekends DON’T have to include vacuuming, putting stuff away, and cleaning bathrooms!