3292 More about Christmas letters

Previously, I posted about a Christmas letter I got from the OSU Medical Center, which hasn't yet deleted my name from its list of employees (6 years I've been retired). I just counted our printed Christmas letters on festive paper, fifteen, and our hand written letters and notes, also fifteen. This is a pretty skimpy survey, but based on past Christmases, I think only Democrats include political statements in their Christmas letters. Anti-Bush, anti-war, global warming, etc. Nothing like 2004, however. Although, I suppose if someone mentioned stem cell research or abortion (no one did), that would be a draw, because it could be considered a seasonal message, Jesus having been an unattached embryo at one point in his life. But I give liberals a pass on this, because I used to be a Democrat, and thinking back, I think I probably used my Christmas letter to smack others around too, but now I have blogs. Did you see me on the cover of Time Magazine?

We also received a lot of nice family photos. Most of the people we know seem to be repopulating the earth with grandchildren--5, 8, 10. Over the years, we've watched their kids growing up; now we're seeing the grandchildren. We love the family updates, and worry for a few moments over the people who are missing from the photos.

We've also received some wonderful original poetry and art. My friend Lynne (from high school) always has something fabulous. My brother-in-law is terribly clever, and our son-in-law-once-removed (brother of our son-in-law) also has a cute one. Several of our artist friends sent reproductions.

I just LOVE getting mail. Don't let any Grinchivious advice columnist tell you otherwise.

3291 Joseph Rago doesn't have a blog

He's a highfalutin journalist, writing for the WSJ (MSM) and bloggers are just scum. Check it out. If you're reading this, you're an imbecile, and I'm a fool for writing it.

Joseph Rago
bloggers

3290 The Christmas letters

Yesterday was probably the big haul--maybe 10 cards and 4 or 5 letters. Today I got a lovely Christmas letter [holiday letter] from the Ohio State University Medical Center thanking me for all my hard work and dedication in 2006. "The success we have achieved would not be possible without [my] your contributions and all of us working together as one team."

I retired over six years ago, but there's a few folks over there who haven't noticed I'm gone.

But I learned a lot reading the Christmas letter [holiday letter]:

• There is a $780 million expansion project, the largest upgrade and expansion of facilities in OSU Medical Center history--this year they completed the Biomedical Research Tower (800 researchers identifying the mechanisms of disease) and started the expansion of the Heart Hospital and Digestive Diseases Tower.
  
• All kinds of new talent and administrators have been hired.
  
• The Center improved in national rankings in ALL three of the mission areas--patient care, research and education
  
• The Leapfrog Group named the Center to its list of top hospitals in the USA in quality and safety.
  
• US News & World Report ranked our hospitals among America's Best for the 14th consecutive year and in the top 20 for the 2nd year in a row
  
• We were named one of the 100 most wired health systems by Hospitals & Health Networks and
  
• received the CIO 100 Award from CIO magazine.
  
• The faculty hold almost $200 million in sponsored research funding--triple the amount when I retired (was it me?)
  
• We have the 8th largest medical student enrollment in the country--only 9% of the applicants are accepted.
  
• Financially, 2006 was the best year ever--we generated more than $1 billion in revenue and reinvested almost $50 million back into our organization in all areas.

But we went to Finland, Estonia and Russia, Bay View, Michigan and Columbus, Indiana, California and Illinois.

3289 Malaria's Silent Spring

The October 2006 Budget Travel has two unrelated items, linked unintentionally. After p. 30 there is a full page ad for Malarone (atovaquone and proguanil HCl). An attractive couple is sunning on a tropical white sand beach joined on a third cot by an ugly, huge mosquito. "It could take just one bite from one infected mosquito to get malaria," reads the text.

Then after p. 57 there is a pull-out booklet, "Born in the U.S.A." by Michele McEvoy with details about where 50 important Americans grew up (includes Elvis Presley, but not Ronald Reagan). There is a paragraph on Rachel Carson, Springdale, PA, "credited for galvanizing the modern environmental movement" with Silent Spring and banning DDT.

Thus, we can also credit Ms. Carson, who was not a scientist, with the deaths of millions of Africans from malaria, more than died in the brutal trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. To date, there is no record of anyone ever dying from exposure to DDT.

That's one homestead I don't plan to visit.

3288 How Kool is this?

Trinkets and Trash is a website that keeps track of all the artifacts of the tobacco industry with an archive of tobacco products and tobacco industry marketing materials. Items are indexed by brand, media, and type/category (point of sale, free gift, gender, ethnicity, signage, etc.). Database includes a photo of the item. I came across it when I was reading an article in Tobacco Control which mentioned that Kool offers small business grants for creativity. Apparently, a simple addiction isn't enough. Death has no measure with these guys.

Zippo lighter/tape measure Marlboro

3287 Next they'll be telling us there's no Santa Claus

Seven health myths about the kids and flu and cold season. I believed most of these, although my kids never had ear infections.

HT Rebecca, who has a really great blog with wonderful stories about hymns.

3286 Darwin's Works on-line

I'll never need this, but perhaps you will. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.

"This site contains Darwin's complete publications, many handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published. There are over 160 ancillary texts, from reference works to reviews, obituaries, recollections and more. Free mp3 downloads are available."

Wrong, but on-line. Amazing world we live in. There are times, however, that I wish Christians had the faith in God that the secularists have in Darwin.

3285 It's still just a baseball cap

and it's rude and unattractive to wear them inside. I still have to remind my husband to take his off while kissing so I don't get an eyebrow injury or have my glasses knocked off. See this.

3284 Don't wait to start saving

It will cost you a lot of money.

"David is 25 years old.
He begins saving $2,000 a year for ten years (until age 34) then stops. A total of $20,000 has been invested.

Katie, age 22, plans to wait until age 35 to start saving and will invest $2,000 a year until age 65 at a total investment of $62,000.

Who would you expect would have more money at 65?

If you guessed David, you were RIGHT!

David’s initial investment of $20,000 in stocks (at an average interest of 10%) would be worth $545,344 at age 65.

Katie’s initial investment of $62,000 ($2,000 X 31 years) in those same stocks would be worth $352,427 at age 65."

And if David hadn't stopped, but kept going until he was 65? He'd have $815,771. think of it. Just $2,000 a year. That's just a little more than a pack of cigarettes a day not bought and smoked.

Project Cash How time affects the value of money

Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you about my brief, Christmas singing career?


This memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think it was for Christmas 1947 that my mother organized her four adorable children, 6, 8, 10, and 12, into a quartet and we performed for the various organizations and church groups in our little town of Forreston, Illinois. It was a very small town, so people must have heard us more than once. I'm not sure if Mother was overcome with ambition, or the townspeople were trying to make us feel welcome, or if there was a huge shortage of programming, or all three. My oldest sister played the piano, and the rest of us, little stair steps dressed in our Sunday best, faced the audience and sang, "Frosty the Snowman," "White Christmas," and "Winter Wonderland." My sister continues to perform as a church musician, but the rest of us had no talent and we outgrew cute. However, it was fun--and I still know the words.

You'll find lots of ways to modify your photos with beards, wigs, hats or antlers with this.

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My visitors and those I'll visit this week are: Anna, Becki, Chelle, Chelle Y., Cozy Reader, Debbie, Friday's Child, Gracey, Irish Church Lady, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Jen, Katia, Lady Bug, Lazy Daisy, Ma, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Melli, Michelle, Paul, Susan, Viamarie,

3282 Person of the Year

Finally, I'm a POTY mouth. Time magazine named all of us who have contributed content on the internet, such as BLOGGERS, as person of the year. The magazine started this in 1927, so we've got some illustrious and infamous covermates.

With a mirror on the cover, Time released its Person of the Year today, "because it literally reflects the idea that you, not us, are transforming the information age," Editor Richard Stengel said.

According to Reuters, we "beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State who led Washington's bipartisan Iraq Study Group."

I humbly accept this POTY award.

What's your blog list?

This is based on the frequency of posting and the number of links. With 809 links in the last 180 days, I'm an A list blogger. It's based on Technorati figures, and that's about as much as I know. Certain people who comment here who haven't posted since last winter, would be a D-list blogger.

3280 Munching through Sunday

My, it's a rough season to be watching your diet, isn't it? We had a lovely Christmas, sit down dinner at Howard and Betty's beautiful new home up in the next county this afternoon. After two hours we said good-bye to old and new friends and headed for Jan and Marvin's for an afternoon open house. There we saw many we knew from church. After an hour of munchies and conversation we came home to rest up, now we're leaving for church to hear Dave and Pam, recently returned from their ministry in Haiti. They'll be going back after Christmas and in February my husband will go there on a short term mission. Then after that presentation, our small group will be going out--eek. More food. But so wonderful to get together with so many great folks.

3279 Tattoos for librarians

Lorcan Dempsey reports in his blog about a recent visit to book sites in Chicago where saw this at Chicago Comics: The Illustrated Librarian: 12 temporary tatoos for librarians and booklovers. Includes 'I love Dewey Decimal System', 'Read or die', 'Born to read', 'Literate 4 life' with conventional assortment of hearts, skulls, scrolls and gothic script.

3278 And we're giving AIDS/HIV advice and drugs to Africans?

Dr. Anonymous in her memoir Unprotected which was reviewed in the Dec. 14 WSJ reveals that medical personnel can warn college kids about healthier living--trans fat, exercise, sensible weight--but not that their sexual behavior is dangerous and unhealthy.

"I'm discussing a taboo topic here: the dangers of radical social agendas in my profession. My colleagues are well-intentioned, and care deeply about their patients. But campus counseling centers are whitewashing the painful consequences of casual sex, STDs and abortion.

They are promoting the notion that men and women are the same. They are not educating young people about future and family. In these issues, so central to campus health and counseling, we are failing our young people."

She can't suggest to a depressed female student that the source of her pain might be the casual sex vs. her desire for love and commitment.

When she treats a young homosexual college student engaged in "high risk behavior with multiple people she discovers by policy she cannot insist that he be tested for HIV. And if he were to submit to voluntary testing and the tests were to prove positive, she would not be allowed to report this information to the local health department--even as she would have to for any other communicable disease." [from the review]

Publishing details.

3277 Brightly colored lunch

Yesterday I ate one of the prettiest, most colorful and healthy lunches I've had in a long time, and three months ago you wouldn't have been able to get me to even consider it. If you read this blog, you know that for a Thursday Thirteen, I listed my 13 food triggers I was going to avoid, so I could lose some of my "blogging weight." After getting broadband about three years ago, I'd put on 20 pounds, flirting with 150, a new friend I definitely didn't want to get to know better because it had bounced me to the low end of the "overweight" BMI category. After 77 days, I was at 134 and feeling great. Eventually I'll get back to my "normal" 130, but there's no hurry, and with the holidays upon us, it will probably be nearer the end of January.

But what do you eat to replace all those bad-for-you favorites? I tried a number of new things and kept at it until my taste buds adjusted. Prepared food and bags of snacks no longer fill my grocery cart. Black beans and bell peppers were two things I never ate. Now I open a can of fiber rich, high protein beans (someday I may learn to cook dried beans, but I suspect life is too short), rinse them (to get rid of the salt and goo) and put them in the frig mixed with brown rice for my lunch salads. I keep the peppers, high in Vit. A, in 3 colors always around to throw at something that needs a little color.

Yesterday's lunch was a colorful masterpiece. First I grilled some chopped onion in a little olive oil; then I added some dark collard greens, the leaves rolled and sliced into pretty, thin circles; I put the lid on just a few minutes to steam a bit, then added some chopped red bell pepper and about 1/3 cup of frozen yellow corn; earlier in the week I had prepared a mix of brown rice and black beans, dividing it into 4 containers, so I added a container of that--probably 4 oz. of the beans and 2.5 oz of the rice. Oh my. Tender crisp and almost too pretty to eat! I should have taken a photo.

Collard greens are mild tasting, and really easy to fix sauted. I think one of the reason I had a negative impression of this wonderful cruciferous vegetable related to broccoli and cauliflower is that I'd only had the overcooked drowned in bacon grease or steamed-to-death dishes. One cup of collard greens (and I probably only had 1/2 cup or less) has 880% of the Vit. K requirement, 119% of Vit. A, almost 60% of Vit. C and lots of the trace minerals and vitamins you're probably buying in your multivitamin pill. It's high in fiber and calcium.

If you're taking a blood thinner for some reason, you should avoid foods high in Vit. K. When my dad, who never met a green leaf vegetable he liked, was taking coumadin for congestive heart failure, he would just beam when reading the list of green leafy things he shouldn't eat. Even without green veggies, he lived to 89.

3276 The Multiple Cat Household

How do you do it? Yesterday, see previous post, I stripped all the bedding, including the blankets, and vacuumed and turned the mattresses. We have one small, short hair domestic, 7 lb calico. The cat hair I clean up day-to-day and week-to-week is just amazing--from the cold air returns, from the chair seats in the dining room, from the kitchen floor, from every upholstered piece in the living room, from my office chair (black) and settee, from the lint filter in the dryer, from the blinds, the lamp shades, inside the ribbon and bow sack we pulled out to wrap presents, and occasionally (but I'm very careful), from the food! So I'm asking you with more than one cat (and I see them on your blogs), do you just live with it and send your guests home covered with fuzz and hair, or do you spend the time you're not blogging vacuuming cat hair?

3275 All I want for Christmas is a new pillow

While stripping the bed down to the mattress today to wash all the bedding, I looked at the stained, sad, pathetic down pillow that my husband uses (I'd taken off the pillow protector and the pillow case), and said to him, "Ten percent of a two year old pillow might be made up of dead mites and their droppings, either the North American or the European, but we probably have the North American, don't you think?" (Don't tell me people who've been married close to 50 years don't have anything to talk about!) "How old is this one?" he asked. "I think my mother got us new down pillows about twenty years ago for Christmas," I said. "Maybe you could get me a new pillow for Christmas," he suggested.

See the fact sheet here--then go out and buy your family new pillows for Christmas.

3274 The HPV Vaccination Debate

The religious parents who are objecting to the HPV vaccination on the belief it will encourage promiscuity need to rethink what they know about sexuality, viruses, and human behavior. Yes, you can teach your daughter your standards and ethics when she is an eleven year old middle schooler, but that control and information will not extend to the man she marries 15 years from now. She could be a pure as the driven snow, absolutely faithful to your standards, a wonderful godly woman. But she meets and marries a man, let's say a future Calvinist pastor, who didn't have your standards before his conversion to Christ a few years before he met your daughter. You would risk your daughter developing cancer in middle age through no action of her own because of what you objected to when she was in middle school? Or let's say, she's the one who slips up. I know, I know. You can't imagine that she'd ever be willful or commit a sin (God doesn't grade on a curve, you understand). But it could happen, and that pesky virus might stick around for many years to develop genital warts and then cervical cancer. Wise up, religious parents. Protect your daughters. This is not birth control pills or condoms handed out with a wink and a nod for next week's prom. This is a vaccine for a life time of protection.

Thursday Thirteen

1) will not appear today.
2) Roadrunner was down in our area for a long time, and
3) although I drafted something yesterday,
4) there wasn't enough time to tweak it.
5) If you come here often,
6) you know I have high standards for blogs written by women (and some guys).
7) I'm even fussier about my own stuff.
8) Besides, I'm going to a party this afternoon,
9) and hosting one this evening,
10) so I really don't have time to come up with a meme worth reading.
11) But I did bake an apple pie, and
12) put out some snack yummies for this evening,
13) so it's not all bad when the internet goes down at our house.

Have a good day--and I'll check on you later.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave a comment and I'll add your name and URL. View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
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