From The, "Damn, I wish I hadn't read this because I can't stop thinking about it," File

One cow, hundreds of uses (with a nod to my sister-in-law for bringing it to my attention.)

Dog Cheese

One of my dogs is on pain medication due to arthritis and the only way I can get her to take the pill each morning is to wrap a little cheese around it. The best type of cheese to use is pasteurized process cheese. You know, those packets of soft sliced cheese that melt so easily on a cheeseburger? Since they melt so easily they are also easy to shape into a little pellet around the pill. Kate loves it.

Anyway, I noticed I only had one slice of cheese left this morning so I put "dog cheese" on my grocery list. Later I stood in front of the dairy case studying the packets of process cheeses. Not all process cheese is created equal. I picked up a package of cheese that read, "pasteurized process cheese," then another package that read, "pasteurized process cheese food", then another package that read "pasteurized process cheese product," and, lastly, a package that read,"imitation process cheese." Why do I have the feeling that with each package I pick up I am moving farther and farther away from real cheese and farther and farther away from real food. I buy the "pasteurized process cheese."

When I get home I look up "cheese food" on the Internet and find the following information.

1. Process Cheese is made from real cheese that has had an emulsifier added to it which allows it to be melted and molded into blocks of soft cheese that melts quickly when heated. These blocks are sliced and packaged into individual slice packs.

2. Process Cheese Food has less cheese than Process Cheese, only 51%, and has had dry milk, whey solids, and milkfat added.

At what point does cheese stop being cheese?

3. Process Cheese Product has even less cheese than Process Cheese Food and more dry milk, whey solids, milkfat.

4. Imitation Process Cheese is just what it says it is, imitation process cheese. It has no cheese and is made from vegetable oil.

So, I'd say the last two aren't even real food. Now I wonder how much of the food at the grocery store can be considered real food.

Life And Death In A Small Town

My husband's friend's father died last Saturday. When I heard the news on Tuesday I was surprised because I did not know he was ill. Then I found out he died in a car accident. He and his wife were driving home from a family gathering at his brother's house, in another small town just across the Colorado/Kansas border, when the van he was driving hit a patch of ice, slid off the road and rolled over. He was not wearing a seatbelt and was killed instantly when he was thrown from the vehicle. Now the horrible part of this story. His wife has MS and is in a wheelchair. The van was equipped with a wheelchair lift but it did not have an attachment that locked the wheelchair down nor did the wheelchair have any type of safety belt. When the van stopped she had broken one leg below the knee, three ribs, her collarbone, two vertebrae in her neck, and seriously bruised her lungs. She is alive but in severe pain. The last thing she remembers is her husband saying, "Oh, shit. Ice."

When I heard this story I was horrified. I had seen the two of them at the library just before Christmas. After they left that day I thought about how sweet they were together. How could this happen to two such good people? How could this happen to my husband's friend who is such a sweet gentle man? This thing has haunted me since I first heard about it. I can't stop thinking about his mother being in that van with that loose wheelchair as the van rolled over. How could something like this happen?

Today was the funeral. Normally the church's congregation only fills up about half the pews but so many people showed up today the church had to put chairs up in the balcony where the choir usually stands. On an off during the service the sound of people's muffled sobs drifted though the church. When I read the service bulletin I was a little shocked to see that today would have been the man's 76th birthday. Then I understood this was fitting in a way, it completed the circle of his life. Born on January 8th and then buried on the same date.

This was a man who was well loved by his community. He was the kind of man you like right away. The kind of a man you were glad to know. The kind of a man who was going to be sorely missed after he was gone. This man was so loved that even on a cold, bluster Winter's day half of the people in the church went up to the cemetery for the graveside service. It was bitter standing there in a inch of slushy snow while an Army honor guard lifted the flag that was draping his casket and silently folded it up to the sound of another soldier playing Taps on a muffled trumpet. After the flag was presented to the family the service ended and we headed back to the church for lunch.

I ended up sitting beside my next door neighbor and asked if she was there as a member of the church. No, she was my husband's friend's distant cousin. They had the same great-great grandfather. She then mentioned six family names that I recognized. Names that made up most of the town's families. She was related to all of them in some way or another. I found this fascinating since I don't know anything about my mother's family and I am so totally disconnected from my father's.

As we sat there we talked about our own parent's death. For me, my mother, and for her, her father. Both our parents had been ill for along time before they died and she said she felt guilty because she had felt so relieved after her father had died. I told her not to be because I felt the same way, it was normal. You are relieved that your loved one is no longer suffering any pain and also relieved that you, yourself, are no longer suffering the agony of watching a loved one be in pain.

I have always understood that death and pain are a part of life. As I sat there talking to her I accepted more deeply the fact that this is true. We do not like to see other people suffer and when they do it is hard to accept. So by asking how all of this could happen, I was not accepting that pain and death are a part of life for everyone, even good people. How could it happen? It was an accident. Accidents happen.

Life happens.

But I don't have to like it.

Good News

They sent my brother home from the hospital yesterday. They ruled out a heart attack but still do not know what the problem is exactly. He gets some more test next week.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY GIRL!

Today is my sister's birthday.

La Peregrina Back On Line

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
-John Lennon

Hello, I've been off line or had intermittent connection to the Internet since Sunday afternoon. My husband put a new motherboard in our computer and had some problems with both the modem and reinstalling Windows. He finally got the modem working again on Monday and then connected to Microsoft to reinstall the Service Pack. This took the rest of the day and did not get finished until 0300 the next morning. I know because I was the one who stayed up until then. God, I hate Microsoft. We kept getting a "error in service pack, do you want to retry?" message and each time I clicked "yes" it would start downloading again.

Tuesday I pretty much stayed away from the machine while my husband reinstalled some of the programs that did not make it when the new board was installed. Yesterday he was a little upset when he got a message that new Windows updates were available since we and spent all the time updating crap from Microsoft already. God, I hate Microsoft.

But this was small stuff compared to the phone call I got from my sister-in-law on Monday telling me my brother was in the hospital after suffering what they thought was a heart attack on Saturday. He went in that day but did not want her to call at first because he was sure he would be out of the hospital by Monday. They kept him because they wanted to run some tests. Well, he was still in the hospital this morning but they both hoped the doctors would let him go home today. We still don't know what the problem was but I will be talking to my brother tonight. Life goes on.

Snow

Snow
It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow
Snow
I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow

Snow
I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow
Snow
Oh, to see a great big man entirely made of snow

Where it's snowing
All winter through
That's where I want to be
Snowball throwing
That's what I'll do
How I'm longing to ski
Through the

Snow
Those glist'ning houses that seem to be built of snow
Snow
Oh, to see a mountain covered with a quilt of snow

What is Christmas with no snow
No white Christmas with no snow
Snow

I'll soon be there with snow
I'll wash my hair with snow
And with a spade of snow
I'll build a man that's made of snow
I'd love to stay up with you but I recommend a little shuteye
Go to sleep

It snowed last night. Yeaaaah! Two inches on the ground. Cold, sparkling, dry, light, snow.

Snow, written by Irving Berlin.

New Year's Resolutions

I don't do resolutions and until I read this post by Kathryn at A Mindful Life I did not understand why.

"Happy New Year! I hope your holidays brought some joy amidst all the chaos. Here we are, full of hope and resolution to improve ourselves. What is it about the turn of the calendar every 12 months that causes us to aspire to change? A more logical new year would be one's birthday, actually.

In any case, I didn't make any resolutions. Nope, not a one. I've decided, this year, to apply the concept of intention. (Yes, I know what they say about intentions, but I'm not playing.) I believe there really is a difference. A resolution feels like a declaration -- a promise to deliver -- with expectation turning to disappointment and judgment if it is not fulfilled. Who wants to start a new year with guilt?

Intention feels different. I've identified what I would like to do this year and will use this list to keep me inspired. The issue of whether or not I do them isn't paramount. If I slack off, there is no sense of failure. I'll just remember my purpose and return to fulfilling my intentions as best as I can. (This is similar to meditation. When you notice yourself thinking, the point is not to castigate yourself for failing to keep an empty mind. That's a distraction. You simply notice that you're thinking and then return to meditation.) This way, I'll fulfill my intentions to some degree and not fritter away NOW with self-recrimination. Sounds a lot more fun, don't you think?"

I agree, it does sound like more fun. This year my intentions are:
1. To eat healthier
2. To exercise daily
3. To drink more water
4. To meditate daily
5. To carry out the above intentions the best I can.

Doors

It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
-J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
-Dr. Laura Schlessinger

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
-Epictetus

Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself.
-Chinese Proverb

When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.
-Joseph Campbell

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
-Graham Greene

When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of Creation is completed inside us, the doors of our souls fly open, and love steps forth to heal everything in sight.
-Michael Bridge

Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.
-Unknown

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.
-Flora Whittemore

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
-J. Krishnamarti

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru' chinks of his cavern.
-Blake

When in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.
-Raymond Chandler

You can do anything you think you can. This knowledge is literally the gift of the gods, for through it you can solve every human problem. It should make of you an incurable optimist. It is the open door.
-Robert Collier


Photo, Misty Morning, taken by my sister.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

To BW, at Blue Witch,
to Rashunda, at rashundatramble,
to doc, at Big N Juicy,
to Rune, at Queen of Cups,
to Susan, at Easy Bake Coven,
to Roger, at Loopydoop,
to NiC, at Planarchy,
to Ron, at Ron's World ,
to Ian, at Sime World,
to e, at The Purple Pen,
to Harriet, at In The Aquarium,
to Sheila, at Drug of Choice,
to Dave, at ClearBlueSkies,
to Elsie, somewhere out there in blogland,
to celticsag, at the library,
to Tara, at home
and to Martha, also at home.

My best wishes to you all.