Facets of Our Lives

I'm 38, I have to rush at this point! I mean, really, I'm playing 'beat the clock' nowadays. :/ Rushing is not necessary. I promise you will have the same ability to get pregnant after 40 that you do now. :-) This was a recent exchange I had with a friend on Facebook. A discussion took place later with a different group of friends regarding ageism. The issue has many facets. First, you have the conversation with my friend above. Despite all of the press about "40 is the new 30" and so forth, people living longer and somewhat healthier lives, and the trend toward establishing stability in one's life before marriage, the belief persists that if you reach 40 and you're not married or otherwise partnered, you're somehow doomed. There is the further psychological implication that you are somehow defective and undesirable for being unable to close the permanent deal by 40. Women are worried about their biological clocks, which is certainly releva...

Our youngest dog, Buddy, aka Mouth-with-Feet, is a terrier mix of boundless energy. He goes from 0 to 60 in 2.3 seconds, is always eager to eat (his food or yours ), and is always up for attention of any kind. Needless to say, when his behavior changed, it was frightening. His attitude toward food became oh fine, if you insist , which was probably the most disturbing. After a number of standard tests, the vet couldn't find anything wrong. But we may have discovered the culprit. A scorpion . Buddy has a strong prey drive, as most terriers do -- he'll chase just about anything, dig for things, and he's even more intent if his target is smaller than he is. And when it comes to insects or arachnids, he eats them. We will frequently find him staring at something only to discover it to be a moth, a multi-legged insect, or most recently, a scorpion. Even if a scorpion doesn't manage to sting, there is still venom contained within its tail. So our guess is, he success...

The internet has changed how friendships work. Through Facebook, other social media, even this blog, I find myself interacting with people I haven't seen, in some cases, in up to 30 years. In other cases, there are people I've never met at all, at least, not in real life. There was a time, when the internet was young, that telling someone you met someone over the internet was a source of embarrassment. Now it's just a matter of course. In my case, there has been a chain of connections, starting with someone I knew, which led to their internet contacts, which in turn led to their internet contacts. Only a small percentage were truly random, out-of-nowhere sorts of connections. I even have business colleagues that I have only ever experienced via e-mail, online chat, and telephone. It's become the nature of the world. So is this intimacy false? Some of the more uncomfortable conversations I have had online have been with old friends. It isn't to say that I am...

On Friday, 22nd July 2011, Norway endured coordinated terrorist attacks in the city of Oslo and the nearby island of Utoya. I am writing this post on Saturday, as information is still being discovered, determined, and evaluated. The death toll is currently 93* as of this writing, with the vast majority of the victims being teenagers at a youth camp. The man suspected to be responsible for this chaos has been additionally identified as a Christian fundamentalist, concerned about non-Christians being present in the country. A friend on Facebook wrote, Well when we stop focusing on important issues like banning marriages, smoking, and the right to live as individuals maybe we will find time to stop the hate. My response was, It's not the hate, it's the continued arrogance and ignorance. Do away with those, and the hate goes with it. And it's just that simple. Humanity continues to work under the premise that one group is inherently better than another, and we al...

One of my recent food addictions is stuffed jalapeño peppers. Hot peppers of any type, hotter than our usual bell peppers in the US, just didn't agree with me. The heat of peppers comes from organic acids, usually contained in the seeds and more liquid centers of the peppers. Even tomatoes have a certain amount of acidity in their seeds. Having learned that seeded tomatoes do not seem to impact my digestive system, I've tried the same thing with some of the hotter peppers, and a whole new world of flavors has opened up to me. So stuffed jalapeños are just what they sound like. Most fillings tend to be sweet or creamy, but I plan to experiment with different combinations in upcoming weeks. If you ever bought stuffed jalapeños from a restaurant, they tend to be breaded and deep-fried, and filled with cream cheese, possibly other cheeses, and spices. While tasty, there are are definitely healthier alternatives. With luck, this will be the last recipe I provide that includes da...

Hello again. I apologize for this period of radio silence. I'd been writing consistently for several weeks, and I needed a break. Mostly because I found myself getting angry, and I just didn't know how to keep this blog from becoming a constant, curmudgeonly rant. You see, I'm just an average, well-educated American. I vote in every election, even my local elections, because it makes me feel like I am part of the process. I also read a lot so that I can be informed about my candidates and the issues, and so I can know what I'm talking about when it comes time to make my opinion known. Even for this blog, I research topics before I write about them -- even if I give an opinion, I try to give a basis for that opinion, or give my readers somewhere else to turn for more information. But lately, I am enormously discouraged. My four core topics are food, politics, sex & relationships, and pets/animals. In the US, we pay subsidies to agro-industries for specific...

I feel I have a unique perspective on being an American. For a long time, it wasn't clear to me what it meant to be an American -- I mean, I was born here, and I knew that it described my nationality. I was the grandchild of immigrants, so the idea of "coming to the New World" for a better life was present in my own, tangible history, as well as the prejudices that my grandparents and great-grandparents had to face. I am also descended from original settlers of North America, from Massachusetts to New Jersey, so there is this sense of being an "old" American family -- the group that struck out across the ocean, not knowing what they would find, and then taming the land and building a community. But the first time I can say I truly felt American was when I was outside the country. I lived in Europe in my 20s, and after a while, you grow accustomed to not seeing those ubiquitous symbols like the flag, the currency, even the architecture or those phrases about l...

June 2011 has been an important month for change in the United States. June is typically "Pride Month", as cities across North America hold their local Pride celebrations, so perhaps it is fitting that there have been so many strides this month in the fight for marriage equality. On Friday, June 24, New York became the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage. On Wednesday, June 29, Rhode Island became the fifth state to offer same-sex civil unions. The next battles are expected in Minnesota, Maine, and Maryland, and the case against California's Proposition 8, repealing same-sex marriage in that state, continues through the appellate court system, and is expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court before it is all over. But as of July 24, when New York's law becomes effective, more than 1 in 10 people in the U.S. will be able to enter into a same-sex marriage if they so desire. I support marriage equality from the perspective that we are a secular democratic repu...