A Taxing Situation

Every two weeks, we choose a new topic to flap about!

Our current topic is:  The Tax Man Cometh.

"Great Cats in Art"

I enjoyed Henny Red's post with altered artwork by her friend Mark Olmsted, so I thought I'd post these artist trading cards (2 1/2" by 3 1/2") that I created a couple of years ago featuring my cat, Neferkitty, as the subject of some famous works of art.

All Jazzed Up!

As promised, here are some additional creations from Mark Olmsted. He calls them Hy-Art. Mark creatively mixes two or more works of art into a new unique image. Sometimes he takes it a step further and introduces a real person into the original painting, a sort of "you-in-art." These are a few of my favorites among his creations, one of which feature yours truly.

I added the caption to the image on the left. The image to the top right is one of my favorites.The one below and to the right is of my dad astride Napoleon's horse.

Another birthday this week - Henny Red, it's your day!

Bring on the cake, Hens, and pour the beaujolais!

This wise, funny chick's brain is still unfolding. . .

So we'd advise our favorite Ms. to remain "55 and holding..."

Happy Birthday, Henny! Paint the town Red!

Amor Fati

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.--Emerson

Frank Hebert

Amor Fati

On the line between fate and coincidence,

Picture the tightrope. 

Now, picture the walker.

Dress her up in a tutu. No, tight skirt and high heels.

Call her Fortune and hold your breath for her. 

Sling her high over could be and never can.

Toss no coin, no I Ching,

Put your palm away.

Throw  foregone conclusions to the wind for her.

If you love her, don't whisper a prayer.

I consulted a fortune teller long ago. It was 1975 and I'd had a miserable two years...so much so that, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I was sure I'd already blown my whole life. We'll call the fortune teller MS and let's just forget our preconceived notions for her; she wore a suit, had a tidy, well-lit, one-woman office with the first dot matrix printer I ever saw. She was the talk of the over-educated and aging youth of tired and tripped-out Chapel Hill at the end of the Age of Aquarius. The waitresses at the health food restaurant on Franklin St. looked bored with their miso and brown rice. We were all wondering, what would we become now that we'd been the center of the universe?

MS didn't act mysterious. She acted more like a personnel director interviewing me for a job...cool, a little impersonal, like she didn't much care if I got the job or not, which somehow cut more ice with me than if she'd worn a turban and hunched over a crystal ball. This was more like science than seance, I told myself. I had an appointment, a time-slot. I can't recall much except that I felt intimidated. At the end, my personal future was handed to me, unreadably dot-matrixed onto perforated-edged paper. Single spaced.

Here's all I remember: There will never be children in your life and you have a guardian angel named David who will always watch out for you. There was a whole lot more, but these were bad news, so they stuck with me. I wanted to have children and I absolutely refused to let anyone named David angel me.

In fact, she lost me right there with the whole guardian thing. There were a slew of them listed, with job descriptions and a pecking order; you'd think, with that many angels, a person could manage to put some children in her life if she wanted to. Those worthless guardians may have taken up most of the three pages of my whole future. Who needed a fancy, cutting edge printer and a white-carpeted office for that? And yet, I was afraid to scoff, even silently to myself; that's how protected a girl could be growing up in the South back then.  I felt even more fragile and sorry for myself when I left than I did going in, but, if she happened to be right--and she had as good a chance as anybody--I figured fate was fate and I'd better bow to it gracefully. Throw out the guardian angels and she'd confirmed my worst fears; I was sunk, finis, and I'd never even really left home yet. And a gaggle of guardian angels were going to see to it that nothing exciting ever happened. 

If she'd actually been able to tell the future, here's what she would have printed out for me:

You'll marry a fighter pilot. You'll be engaged in Las Vegas. You'll live in a dump in Korea and on a river in Alaska. And in the Arizona desert, and near the salt ponds of Tidewater, Virginia, and in the armpit of Alabama. You'll have two blonde, blue-eyed children with merry spirits. You'll be a dancer and an athlete. And a shrink. You'll be rich for one year. Just one. But you'll worry about money that year, too. On your sixty-third birthday, you'll remember me and marvel at how you'd given up hope. And at how you could have been young enough and dumb enough to ask me in the first place. Your whole life, you'll think guardian angels are bologna.

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. --Goethe

Bulletin:

HAPPY, BIRTHDAY LOULOU! from all the chicks in the henhouse.

May your day--and your year--be positively rosy!

Readers: We now return you to your regular programming. Please keep reading--there is some terrific stuff there, including one posted today.

A Little Birdie Told Me So...

Relating to the preceding posts of my fellow hens: I dressed up as a fortune teller once (reason: a neighborhood carnival on base - I was 13 or 14); I also called a psychic once (reason: I was 19, the commercial was very convincing, and I had a vital boy/summer romance question). That shared, my thoughts/take on this topic - Fortune Told - lean toward recent events...perhaps a tarot card disguised as a photo ;).

Mini-preface: In my last post, I mentioned my interest/focus on flocks of birds and their choreography; I explained what they mean to me and how they translate to a spiritual presence.

Post: The Thursday before last, the 10th of March, I arrived home after work & errands around 8:00pm. I went into the house, grabbed my camera, and walked my snap-happy self right back out...as I had seen three small flocks of black birds (black in color, I've no idea if they were actual blackbirds) in the trees in our yard + the yard across the street. I sat on the curb, camera poised to capture the group-diving which fascinates me so. On this day, there was less diving and more...direct flight. These birds were communicative and organized. Focused. It seemed that one [of them] would make a statement/a call, more imperative than declarative, and that statement would trigger movement from one tree to the next. They used the same set of trees, and the same [isosceles shaped] path each time. In between very spry flights - they would spend what felt like 20 minutes in position amongst the branches...all very still, and all looking in the same direction. Their time spent still was probably closer to 4 minutes, but a fair amount of time just the same (flighty, as birds are). Though we characterize birds as free (free as a bird, etc..), they are also creatures of discipline. They resourcefully build their homes, fiercely protect their young, and dutifully provide regular meals to the tiny, squawking, translucent beaks of their hatchlings. And these birds, my birds on the 10th, seemed to be running a drill of some sort. I stayed outside for a bit, took some photos, and went back inside...feeling somewhat disappointed in the tone. Rather than uplifting (like catching a glimpse of Betty), it felt...somber (as evidenced in the photo itself). Note to reader: I qualify as a photography enthusiast with aspirations of becoming an amateur.

North Augusta, SC - March 10, 2011

It wasn't until Saturday that I realized my time spent with the birds that evening took place close to what had been 10am Friday morning in Japan...around 5 hours before the earthquake shook and then shifted the planet. The more I look at the photo, the more I'm convinced that the birds were tuning in...sensing what was near in the Far East. Winged seers. 

We were stationed at Misawa AFB in Japan for 3 years. That assignment affected me more than any other, probably more than all others combined. I love Japan, adore the people, and admire their traditions & customs. Land of the rising sun - yes. It's also enchanting, quirky, challenging, and completely charming. And Misawa... There's something about that place. I'm not unique in having been affected so significantly; the kinship among fellow Misawa-stationees blows my mind. Before Facebook, Myspace, or Classmates - we congregated on webpages dedicated to the base and our experiences there...there were forums, message boards, photos, and announcements of reunions open to anyone who had ever gone to school on the base. Facebook has only allowed the virtual gatherings to flourish and reach more even more brats; it's brilliant and 75% of what makes FB worthwhile to/for me.

As says the the cliche, home is where the heart is... The considerable space that Japan holds in my heart is both broken and in awe of all they are experiencing. As I pray for those suffering and in need, I also know witnessing a resilient, innovative, and humble people rebuild is sure to be an equally extraordinary experience. I only hope to help in a meaningful way. 

Not Your Everyday Psychic

Fortune's Fool

It was Halloween 1974 or maybe 1975. I was helping plan a Halloween party for my college dorm. Not really a very imaginative job; parties were all the same: beer kegs or a big plastic trashcan of a very potent punch known as PJ, which consisted of Everclear, Hawaiian Punch, and fresh oranges and lemons, and a few jars of maraschino cherries. We were health conscious drinkers. 

We decided to  require everyone to wear a costume, after all, it was Halloween. We were so creative. I decided to go as a fortune teller. After wrapping my head in a colorful scarf, I added dangling earrings, dark lipstick, and a crimson floor length caftan with a touch of glitter sprinkled throughout it's wine color.

I didn't have a crystal ball but I did have a deck of Tarot cards, so I settled myself at a table and began to entertain the party goers with a little palm reading and for the more adventuresome, a reading of the Tarot cards. Little did I know that I was tapping into a previous lifetime; indeed, I may have never realized my past life as a soothsayer if not for the discovery of a 17th century painting by Georges de la Tour, appropriately entitled The Fortune Teller. 

Oh okay, actually the artist is my friend Mark Olmsted who modified Monsieur de la Tour's painting just a tad, but I had you going for a minute, didn't I?

The original work:

Luck is a 4-Letter Word

Even though I consider myself a fairly fortunate person, I believe I have achieved this blessed state without any apparent guidance from charting my stars, having my palm read, casting runes, or even getting my colors done. I pretty much accept all the credit and blame for the ups and downs in my life story, and even if I could have foreseen some of the less-than-happy endings of affairs of heart or commerce, I would have given little heed to the knowledge.

Maybe I watched too many episodes of "I Dream of Jeannie" as a child, but I used to spend a lot of time wishing:I wished for new toys, for school days to go faster and weekends slower, for a different body or hair color or set of parents. I even started digging a hole in the back yard in search of buried treasure. When I would express "I wish..." out loud, my mother would scold me for wishing my life away...or admonish me to be careful what I wished for. It seemed to me that she was saying I should take satisfaction in present circumstances and not hope for anything to get better, or I'd only end up further disappointed. I didn't have a habit of listening to my mother, especially when she told me something I didn't want to hear, and so I didn't heed that particular advice either. The mere act of positive thinking, I was sure, would make good things happen.

Sometimes, though, fate has other ideas. As I pondered how the heck I would address this current bloggy theme, something caught my eye: the Google Ad on the page where I read LouLou's invitation to post on the topic was for a free astrological reading from Gabriella. Hoping for inspiration, I clicked and entered my birthdate and gender and first name, and trusted that Gabriella would ask me for a cash outlay before revealing more than the generic Taurus horoscope.

I was rewarded with a 7 page report on my romantic, financial, and career prospects. I skimmed the paragraphs looking for when to expect Prince Charming, a raise, or a job offer from Conde Nast, but all Gabriella could dwell on was the negative. She derided me for making poor choices in love and friendship, called me lazy, and delivered various similar messages of "tough love." The good news is that I have just entered a new cosmic cycle, and my new BFF Gabriella has come into my life to guide me through this phase, toward untold happiness, success, and fortune. Gabriella asked for a $49 donation to the divine powers (at least she wasn't personally profiting!) for my grand in-depth astral reading and continued input from her.

I'm sure Gabriella means well, but I'm going to take my chances and navigate this life on my own, thanks. If I'm going to trust anyone's intuition, it'll be my own.

We Tauruses are stubborn like that.

Confessions of an eBay Tarot Reader

My mother is the one who passed along the ESP gene to me, but it just scared her so she never wanted to acknowledge it much, except for when the phone rang and she knew who was calling. One thing she did relate to me was that she has a vivid memory of being next to her paternal grandfather’s deathbed. She can describe what he looked like, with his long mustaches, etc. The only problem is, she hadn’t been born yet when her grandfather died. However, her mother was pregnant with her at the time. My take on it is her soul was there observing the scene. I tried to delve further into this fascinating “memory” but it freaked her out too much and she didn’t want to discuss it. She has also awakened from naps on the couch and seen people (often a little girl, sometimes a woman in a hat, once or twice a cat) standing next to her, observing her. My daughter has dealt with the whole “I see dead people” thing throughout her life and has no interest in developing any talents she has in that realm.



Personally, I have always been interested in stuff like this. When I was a child there was a program on t.v. called “The Dunninger”—a “mentalist”, if you will,— who used to do feats of ESP every week. Once he had a card with the name of a tree on it, upon which he concentrated and sent out his thoughts to the folks in the t.v. audience—me included. My Mom, Dad, and my older brother each gave silly answers. I closed my eyes and there on the back of my lids was the word “Elm.” So that’s what I blurted out. I didn’t even know what an Elm was at the age of eight or nine, but I said it anyway. Turns out the tree was the Elm. Everyone regarded me with new respect.  Except my brother, who continued to pound me whenever I came near the door to his room.


I had another encounter with a mentalist in the 1970′s. This time it was up close and personal. I was with friends at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, California—it was an old mansion in the Hollywood Hills that had been converted into a restaurant and a place for magicians to showcase their talents. The main room in the basement was like a movie theater with plush seats and a stage. The headliner was the Amazing Kreskin. He came out and said he needed a volunteer. We were sitting in the front row since my friends had been there before and knew it was a prime spot. I sort of put my head down and kept saying to myself “Don’t pick me, oh please, don’t pick me.” Having read Kreskin’s memoirs in the years since, this was the worst thing I could have done. He had to have “heard” me, because I was picked.


I went up on the stage and, to make a long story fairly short, Kreskin wrote a number on a piece of paper and showed it to the audience, but not to me, and then put the paper into a safe which was on the stage. He then proceeded to mentally project to me a series of numbers which I then wrote down on a slate, the surface of which he couldn’t see. After I had a long column of numbers written down (which I saw in my mind much the same as I’d perceived “Elm”) Kreskin then asked me to add them up. Oh, no! I’m horrible with math and told him he’d picked the wrong person to be doing this. But I did it (trying not to count on my fingers) and gave him the slate with the sum of all those numbers. He went to the safe, opened it and took out his piece of paper. He showed it and the slate to the audience. The sum was the same on both of them. I left the stage to riotous applause and when we were walking out I was approached by Morrie Amsterdam (the sidekick on the old Dick Van Dyke Show) who had been in the audience. He told me how much he enjoyed what had just transpired. I was hooked.


The Tarot cards I used in my readings were quite lighthearted. They depicted retro images of housewives and images of food and appliances from the 1950′s rather than the somewhat inscrutable esoteric designs usually found on cards of that type. For example, the card for the Tower was a towering Jello mold and the one for the Chariot was a station wagon. The cards themselves don’t have any “power”—they just serve as a vehicle to jump start the psychic process. You put the question at hand out there and, kind of like using a search engine similar to Google, the answers come to you. At least that’s how it worked for me.


I did approximately 100 readings before I took my clairvoyant shingle down. I enjoyed doing them and liked helping people figure out in what direction their lives were headed. My readings weren’t about a future that was set in stone. Rather, they were more like little “snap-shots” of what was going in the client’s life and what the possibilities were for the future so they could make some informed decisions.


My “fee” for each reading was less than five dollars, and sometimes even as little as ninety-nine cents. (Such a deal!) I had several repeat clients, and therein lies the rub. After the initial reading (where I quite often was being tested for veracity) they would come back and want more information and advice; usually love-life questions—although there was one client who came back numerous times to determine which house she and her husband should rent. I came to the realization that some of these folks were becoming a bit too dependent on me.


Furthermore, they weren’t listening to the advice that was coming to me from the cards. One gal was in a lose/lose relationship with an older guy who had a child from his former marriage. Every reading said that this was going nowhere and she was going to get hurt, but mainly it was her pride and arrogance that stood in the way. She wouldn’t believe it and kept coming back to find out when he was going to marry her.


I finally realized that I didn’t have enough detachment from these situations and was allowing myself to become frustrated by the clients’ apparent inattention to what was right under their noses. Being a reader requires having some emotional distance from the client, kind of like a psychologist. I shouldn’t have let it bother me whether they accepted the cards’ advice or not, since life is about free will. The choice was theirs to make.


But it drained the foo out of me. So I quit.


Maybe I’ll get back into it again sometime, but I doubt that it’ll be any time soon. Although, I did see a nice refurbished crystal ball on eBay…..

Dark Lady: Fulcrum, Fulminator, Fabulous

Every Southern town has at least one pink or lavender cinderblock house on the outskirts of town with a Psychic Reader sign in the front yard. As a licensed psychotherapist, I always figured that would be my retirement plan. Now, I've fulfilled the first requirement, the retirement part, but I'm struggling with reincarnation to teller of fortunes. I can't quite manage to fit my own colorful mental image of Dark Lady. I worry that my hair is wrong.

From my friend JES, a novel in the works...

…and (the “she” in this passage a “reader of palms, of cards, of signs and portents and mysterious coincidences”):

“Things are coming to pass,” she went on. “Destructive things, but also wonderful things — literally wonderful: things full of wonder. Remember that wonders need not all be nice, Wayne. Some can be quite terrible. A dark comet colliding with the Earth is as much a wonder as a brilliant one passing in the night sky, hundreds of thousands of miles distant. But things, yes, wonders long in the making are coming to pass.

“At the heart of these things coming to pass stands a woman — perhaps more than one woman. Each woman a fulcrum, you see? A hinge about which a particular problem can be seen to swing.”

She closed her eyes but continued to speak, as though hypnagogically.

“She — or you, under her influence — must find an unexpected opening and cut into and through the problem. The woman will not be easily pleased, she may not accept at first what you are trying to accomplish, or how. You must not let her decide for you — the fulcrum, you see? she is not the lever itself – but you must attend to her. To get to the wonder, you see?”

(JES, Seems to Fit)

Cocktail parties were a always a challenge for me. Any new person you meet at a cocktail party, if accidentally and awkwardly left alone with you, will ask you what you do. No one is as comfortable asking that question of a woman now as they were in the seventies, before feminism hit its early stride, but no one has come up with a better ice breaker that I know of, either. If I answered honestly--I am a psychotherapist--I either got an earful of how the field is bullpucky and didn't help the Ex one bit, or else I was expected to comp an endless consultation while standing and imbibing alcohol, ankles ever a-swell.

I learned to lie slightly about my job. I'd tell my new cocktail party best friend (short half-life) that I was a Seer. Not too far off. Therapists talk about needing to hurry back from lunch to "see a client." We'll say, "Oh, yes, I saw him for about six months before he defeated me, felt satisfied, and pronounced himself cured." So, to strangers who asked, I'd say, "I'm a seer," and I'd give him or her the Look.

Here's an example of the Look:

Next, my favorite fortune teller movie. Great cast: Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reaves, Giovanni Ribisi,  Hillary Swank and The Bride of Dianetics.



And, finally, I think this is the image of The Dark Lady that I hold up as my ideal. I fall only slightly short of it, but still....



All the dark ladies of my imagining have portentous hair. Absolutely none of them have really short, sorta brindle cat-colored hair and incipient chin wattles. And they don't wear as many neutrals as I do. I think earrings are essential, but I've let my pierced ears grow shut from sheer laziness. About the only quality I've got nailed is the languid part. And the dress in this video? I've got one just like it, but more in my color range; that one's never going to Goodwill while I'm alive.

 Image-wise, I've got some work to do. Maybe extensions would help.

Fortnight's Topic: Fortunes Told

How fortunate that I have a few fortune-related stories!

Once, at a family owned Chinese food restaurant, my little brother got a fortune cookie that read "if you are still hungry, have another fortune cookie."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I once had my fortune told at a Renaissance Fair, back in the spring of 2006. Everyone was dressed in medieval garb, speaking in faux accents, hawking overpriced handmade handicrafts, and drinking "mead." I was without appropriate renaissance attire, and feeling very much like a "guest" at this event for serious renaissance attendees, so I was looking for a way to fully engage in the fanfare.

As I wandered around, I saw a small purple tent, situated under a shady tree. A hand-chalked sign advertised a variety of fortune telling experiences, with the teller being a "Tarot Card Specialist." What do you suppose a teller has to do to become a "specialist" of a certain method? I suspect it involves renting enough advertising space to add the word "specialist" to the end of your name :) I wonder if they all get together and sign off each other's continuing education credits or something... if two psychics meet up does one say to the other "You are fine, how am I?"

I don't remember all the details of the reading, but there was this: the fortune teller, a bald man with blue eyes, said that I face ups and downs like everyone else, but that I should expect a "life changer" in the month of February. I left feeling properly inducted into the party, and glad to have sat down in the shade for a while.

Within a few months, I discovered I was pregnant, and due date was for late January. Well, I guess Mr. Fortune Teller knew what he was talking about, 'cause little chick stayed put till mid-February. There has been no other event in my life that more aptly deserves to be called a "life changer," that's for sure!

It's In the Cards

Artist trading card by Ima June Pullet (aka TexasTrailerParkTrash)

The GOP, 2012, and the Assault on Unions

The following doesn't really have anything to do with sitting except I was sitting down when I wrote it.

There have been times when I thought that I was being overly defensive and paranoid in my belief that the GOP's primary focus is to ensure that Obama is not re-elected in 2012. I haven't been totally satisfied with all of the president's decisions and there are some with which I fundamentally disagree such as the latest executive order that continues to allow the detention of so-called enemy combatants indefinitely without benefit of charges or trials. Can we say "Gulag" boys and girls? However, in spite of my criticism of some of the president's actions, I still support his overall agenda. 

Exercise Exorcism

This very clever exercise diary has run on several blogs, but we've been unable to determine who actually wrote it. We may not know the author, but we sure know the feeling...!

Dear Diary,
For my birthday this year, my husband gave me a week of personal training at the local health club. Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try. I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Christo, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. Friends seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.

Thought for the Day

Artist trading card by Ima June Pullet (aka TexasTrailerParkTrash)

Well hey there, everybody! My name is Opaline Chook and I've lived in various southern places my whole life... Southern California might be a stretch but I'm claiming it anyways. I've got to peck out my bio and scratch out my first real topic-oriented post, but in the meantime I took this picture a few days ago and I wanted to share. My littlest chick pointed up above the hen house the other day and said "look mamma, eyelashes!" And whaddya know, there they were...

A Pro-Sitting Stance

I have been doing a lot of sitting just lately. After sustaining a painful but as yet undiagnosed knee injury while conventioning in the nation's capitol last week, I haven't had much choice but to sit for hours and hours, leg elevated, knee iced, in hopes that my malfunctioning joint would begin to repair itself.

Having a lot of time to sit equals a lot of time to think, and so my thoughts logically steered toward famous sitters in history.

In February 1960 there was some very important sitting going on in this country. A group of students -- Negro students, the press called them back then -- defied the institution of racial segregation in the South and seated themselves at the Whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth's store in downtown Greensboro, NC. They peacefully, quietly waited to be waited on. The students were ignored, however, while White customers were served their customary coffees and club sandwiches.

Over the following two months, sit-ins protesting segregation took place in over 50 cities across the country. Finally, in July 1960, Woolworth's desegregated its Greensboro store. The Civil Rights movement that grew over the next decade made race-based discrimination illegal, and gradually something resembling equality took hold in the United States. This is history to many of us, but when my daughter and I sat down to watch a PBS special about the Civil Rights movement, my chicklet couldn't believe that there was ever a time in this country when segregation based solely on the color of a person's skin existed. I guess they skipped over that part in her own history classes.

While you won't see "Whites Only" signs on any lunch counters today, there are still a disturbing number of closed minds about. But 21st century racists justify their hatred for brown-skinned "others" by blaming them for "taking" scarce jobs and for being undeserving beneficiaries of government resources that are in short supply, in actuality due to legislative and corporate greed. And there are too many malcontents who see armed confrontation as the way to address their perceived inequalities.

Maybe we are past the days of peaceful sit-ins as a means toward maintaining (or is it once again achieving) social and economic justice. But then again, maybe we sedentary bloggers are doing our part to educate and incite others. We can take a stand, and sit proud.

EDIT: Sit-ins haven't gone by the wayside after all: students sat-in at Dickinson College in PA and successfully brought about a change in that school's sexual misconduct policy.

(Photo credit here.)

Gonna, Gotta GOMA!

Once I took a fiction writing course and, although I have never written a word of fiction since, I did take to heart the first rule that the instructor (himself a published author) offered on how to become a successful writer: AIC.

Ass in chair.

In fact, he suggested that we post a sign above our typewriters. (Hey, so the class was a long time ago...!)

Lou Lou's treatise on the dangers of sedentarianism (could that be a word?) certainly put a tack in my chair. And if that weren't enough, I just happened to be driving to the library that week for my sedentary reading fix when NPR's segment on Serena Williams' pulmonary embolisms came on the radio. Pulmonary embolisms are generally caused, they suggested, by inactivity.

Talk about piling on! Specifically, such incidents are most apt to occur after a period of prolonged bedrest. Of course, that doesn't explain how Serena Williams' embolism happened, but still, it did give me pause. . . which is the last thing I needed. I do my best pausing in a seated position.

Almost all of my activities are best done sitting; I read, I write, I knit, I do puzzles--crosswords and jigsaws, I sew, I watch movies and TV. I have only to look at my hip measurement to know that I do it all only too well--or at least too often. With a few notable exceptions, I don't like to do things that make me sweat.

Another NPR segment--this one on how walking at least 30 minutes a day three times a week had more to do with fending off dementia than brain teasers like crossword puzzles and Sudoku-- shot another dart at my bubble butt. I LOVE doing those! AIC activities, all.

So it's IXnay on the crosswords (sigh) and O-nay with the walking shoes if I want to stay out of the nursing home. If I really want to hit a homerun, I can download a foreign language lesson to stick in my ears while I'm hoofing it.

The NY Times says that exercise gives rats a shiny coat. Might that be simply sweat? My fleece-lined coat is fine, thank you, but a skinny butt, shiny or not, would be a wondrous thing.

Take down the AIC sign. It's GOMA time: Get off my arse.

No sweat, I hope.

Sit. Stay. Good Girl!

Artist Trading Card by Ima June Pullet (aka TexasTrailerParkTrash)

Stop Reading This!

A new month and a new topic as grist for the mill: Sitters.

So, what are you doing right this minute? Stop, look away from the screen, look around you. I'm sitting on my grandfather's chaise, my favorite blogspot, with my characteristic blogging lunch of Pam-sprayed, sea-salted air-popped popcorn and diet coke within reach (fills me up, satisfies the need for chewing motion, makes my ankles swell for 24 hours, and deposits the customary popcorn fluff between the keys of Lappy, The Laptop). I'm wearing my Curves With Zumba outfit and letting the sweat dry in place, 'cause a retiree doesn't have to interact with anyone who might be offended. And I'm more or less sitting on an ice pack, trying to get my inflamed periformis and iliotibials to shut up and chill out. Ordinarily, I'd be feeling proud of myself right now: I've exercised for the day, I'm recording my Weight Watchers points, and I have yet to knowingly and deliberately offend a single soul all day so far. 'Course, I've only written the intro to this post, so, on that last score, gimme time.

Cue the goody two-shoes NPR story from the American College of Cardiologists on the side-effects of excess sitting and prolonged screen time . Fabulous.

Cardiology at Concorde, UK:

 People who spend two hours or more a day in front of a screen during their leisure time—primarily watching television—have more than double the risk of cardiovascular events over four years compared with those who spend less than two hours a day in front of a screen, even after adjustment of the findings for physical activity. [Source: Journal of American College of Cardiologists, Jan 18, 2011]

Me, sedentary?

Sedentary behavior is typically defined as any behavior with an exceedingly low energy expenditure (defined as <1.5 metabolic equivalents). In general, this means that almost any time you are sitting (e.g. working on a computer, watching TV, driving) or lying down, you are engaging in sedentary behavior. There are a few notable exceptions when you can be sitting or lying down but still expend high energy expenditure (e.g. riding a stationary bike), but in general if you are sitting down, you are being sedentary. [SciAm, 1/06/2011]

And regular workouts between daily sit-ins are not the answer:

The above definition may seem rather intuitive, but this is not the way that the term sedentary has been used by exercise science researchers for the past 50 years. Up until very recently, referring to someone as sedentary meant simply that they were not meeting current guidelines for physical activity. In simple terms, if you were exercising for 60+ minutes/day, you were considered physically active. If you were exercising 10 minutes/day, you were sedentary. Case closed. But as we will discuss below, sedentary time is closely associated with health risk regardless of how much physical activity you perform on a daily basis. Further, it is entirely possible to meet current physical activity guidelines while still being incredibly sedentary. Thus, to quote researcher Marc Hamilton, sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little. [Sci. Am, 1/06/2011]

We're BLOGGERS! We write 'em, read 'em, research for 'em. I'm doomed based on my sittage for today, alone! What's a person with a rear end to do?  Should we even be meeting like this?