Part 2: Now Let’s Throw in Some Tics.

In most Tourette’s patients, tics are usually simple involuntary motor movements of the head, neck or face like eye blinking, shoulder shrugging, squinting, or what appears to be tossing hair out of the eyes. The person might also exhibit some simple phonic tics like throat clearing sounds, sniffing, grunting, or humming. ( First find me a child who doesn’t do at least one of the afore mentioned things and you’ll understand how easy it is to overlook the tics as habits or simple annoyances).

With Little Man…, he hums.
Not a familiar tune, or particular song. Just a brief, two second humming sound that almost sounds like a monkey. In addition, he has gone through many varying tics such as head jerks, and repetitive facial expressions.

Here's another test to get you back into his shoes for a moment. Remembering how you did on the previous test counting the “E”s, let’s now add “tics” to the mixture. As you read the paragraph below, frequently jerk your head back hard and fast. Try to do the head jerk in bursts—like two or three at a time. Wait a few seconds, then do it again. Do it frequently throughout your effort to read the paragraph. OK?
Begin:
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Children with Tourette’s Syndrome follow the same normal curve model for Intelligence as the general population. In fact, some believe they may actually be more intellectually or creatively gifted than the general population. Tics of the head and eyes are the most common and often interfere with math and written work.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now how did you do? Did the head jerking interfere with your ability to read? Did you get dizzy or nauseous at all, or maybe felt a tad frustrated? Did your neck start to hurt, and oh yes…did you remember to count all the “E”s? If you were a kid being asked to read, would you get irritable after a while, or just plain fatigued and want to give up? What's wrong, I only asked you to read a few sentences!

The tics you actually see are only the tip of the iceberg too. A sufferer of Tourette’s will suppress his tics as best he can to prevent being teased at school at the expense of great mental and emotional energy. This often misleads teachers to think that the tics that do pop up are voluntary, or that Mom is most certainly crazy because “We’ve never noticed him do that before.” While suppressing tics may keep your condition a secret at school, it leads to an explosion of tics that will happen once you come home compensating for what has been suppressed all day.

Did I mention that stress makes your tics worse? Let’s add a teacher into this story. One who thinks you’re just not paying attention, or can’t understand why you have to read something several times to comprehend what you’re reading, when you are obviously so intelligent. Throw in the stress of a timed test too, just to make it realistic.
Still having fun?

Part One in a Series of Several:

I don’t talk about these kinds of things on my blog as a rule. Mainly because Contemblogging is my channel for humor and writing, but more importantly because it just never seemed appropriate in my mind to discuss another person at length in a way that might be construed as negative.

As of late, however, I find myself very stressed and in need of an outlet to collect, organize and come to terms with certain issues effecting my sleep and sanity. It is my Blog after all, and I make the rules…so I thought I’d throw some things out there to the giant collective that is the internet. I’ll see what it might unveil. Perhaps someone will know something, or have the missing information I’ve been looking for.

My son has Tourette’s, and although most people associate this syndrome with verbal outbursts of profanity, it’s actually much much more. In fact, only a small percentage of individuals with Tourette’s exhibit such verbally offensive symptoms. Rather they suffer from a spectrum of disorders such as attention deficit, Obsessive Compulsive thoughts, and anxiety/panic disorder, combined with tics either vocal or motor.

Meet Little Man. He’s a good boy. Polite, smart, intellectual and for most outward appearances... Normal. A little nerdy maybe, using an extensive vocabulary that far exceeds his peers, but nonetheless…normal.

From the time he was old enough to talk, we began noticing certain obsessive thought patterns and behaviors. Namely, worrying that something would happen to me, and I would die. If I left, he feared he would never see me again, and would have to hug me many times before I could leave the house. If he was upstairs, and I downstairs, he had to repeatedly check (literally every 3 minutes) to see if I was safe and still alive. Odd for a tiny fella, yes, but we wrote it off to separation anxiety. Just a phase. Something he would outgrow.

Getting him to school each morning was like capturing a feral cat, and attempting to put it into a box. It would take myself, the counselor and his teacher to coax him out of my van in the mornings, prying his gripped fingers from the door handles, as he would scream and cry out of pure fear.
He was scared to death and having a full fledged panic attack every day.

The panic attacks have to an extent, waned with age but will flare up in certain situations.

Obsessive thoughts are a constant source of distraction for him as well. Try the test below to see what it’s like to be Little Man, and then imagine how hard it is to keep your grades up under those circumstances.


As you read the excerpt below, tell yourself that you must count all the times the letter “E” occurs in the paragraph. But here’s the catch: You have to count and read simultaneously—you can’t just read and then go back and count the “E”s, nor can you keep track of them on a piece of paper. You have to do the counting in your head for this exercise. Then to make it a bit more realistic, assume that accuracy is very important to you—if you lose track of the count or aren’t 100% sure that you’ve counted correctly…you’ll have to go back to the beginning of the paragraph and start again. Since you have OCD, you probably will doubt that you counted correctly at least once during the exercise, and need to start over.
Ok? Begin:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Children who have OCD often have hidden or silent compulsive rituals. These hidden rituals often confuse teachers who may look at a child and not realize what is going on internally that may make it almost impossible for the child to function normally at times. Young children often don’t realize that what they are doing is abnormal, and older children, teens, or adults are often embarrassed by the rituals and won’t tell you about them.
--------------------------

Well?
How’d you do on that one? If you were a student with OCD, how would you feel trying to read in school or at home and how do you think it would effect your reading comprehension? What if you had to read it in 2 minutes, fully comprehend the point, yet timed tests make you nervous and cause the obsessive behavior to intensify? Isn’t this fun?

My case in point.

Staying on target with grades is a constant battle, and finding the right school or learning situation for optimal performance is difficult at best. Little Man is currently attending private school at exorbitant tuition prices, yet they offer no special assistance to children with the need for modified learning environments. Public School’s in Georgia are not worth their weight in peanuts, so that’s not an option. What’s left? Home schooling? Private tutoring? Valium for Mom?

This is what keeps me up at nights. Wondering what to do. How to help him succeed in an education system that prefers the teaching path of least resistance, not necessarily what works for each individual child.

Mermaids and gnats with teeth!

The weather was beautiful today.
So beautiful, that the sand gnats were out in full force enjoying the spring like the rest of us wanted to do. Stepping outside on a beautiful spring day in Savannah can be likened to strapping chicken to your body just before hurling oneself into a pool of piranha at feeding time.

Someone came by to look at the motorcycle which is currently up for sale. I showed her the bike all the while waving my arms vigorously through the air in an attempt to keep the gnats from gnawing the flesh from my body. I answered her questions regarding riding, mileage, curb weight and so forth, as I flailed about in what appeared to be some sort of epileptic seizure. I’m not all together sure why the gnats didn’t seem to be chewing on her like they were me, but I am convinced this woman now thinks I’m selling my bike for obvious medical reasons.

When I came in from feeding the gnats, I sat down to write this blog entry because I have the neatest thing to show you guys! The journal and angel button I ordered from Sharon’s store arrived and I just love them! I was particularly fond of this sketch when I saw it on her blog and when she put it on the journal it was perfect. I bought the button for my son to wear on his jacket when he leaves for Belgium in a couple of months. Each year I pin a new angel on his jacket or book bag to look after him while he’s away, and this year Sharon’s angel will travel along for the ride.

But that’s not all though! I had a second package that caught me off guard. It was ANOTHER box from Sharon, only I couldn’t remember ordering anything else? Guess what it was?

It was the MERMAID! I can’t believe she sent me the mermaid and fish she made with her son which you can read about here on February 12th. How cool was that? It’s so neat to read about something a fellow Blogger does, and then actually get to see it in person! I tried to take some pictures of the details like her bead bracelet, or the key she clutches in her left hand, but they didn’t come out so well. I’m not sure if you can see in the photograph but she cleverly used green ribbon with beads to mimic seaweed, and she sits on a large sea shell that I later learned was a gift from her father when she was little.

I wanted to say Thank you to Sharon for thinking of me, and sending me the mermaid. It means a lot, especially because I was feeling kind of whiney and pitiful today, convinced nobody loved me…

Except for maybe the gnats.
Thank you Sharon for making my day special!!

En nu... een woord in het Nederlands

Beste lezers,
Soms heb ik niets te zeggen. Ik prat alle dag op het werk en wanneer ik thuis kom, ben ik moo van het geluid van mijn eigen stem.

Zo dan lees ik. Ik lees blogs, boeken of tijdschriften waarin sluit ik in geef mijn stem een kans te rusten.

Ik probeer mijn Nederlands te herinneren zich. Het is moeilijk en ik was nooit heel goed aan schrijven in Nederlands.

Dit is een poging.

Niemand leest mijn blog in ieder geval, maar indien u begrijpt. ..say hallo!
bedankt voor het poging

Salut!!

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dog?

Carnival of Cats

Have an Irish Mermaid Martini...

www.venusrose.com
Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

How things change...

As a twelve year old, stopping to appreciate the beauty and historical significance of Savannah to the South wasn’t particularly high on my priority list of fun things to do. Football games, tennis matches, and socializing with classmates always seemed more important at the time, and took priority more so than not.

I’d venture to say that I was, in fact, indifferent to my surroundings, not paying much attention at all to it’s rich cultural heritage or it’s stunning moss hung trees dotted with dazzling flowers. Now I did enjoy St. Patrick’s Day and all it’s festivities, but that only came around once a year and wasn’t enough to hold my attention for very long. The city seemed too small, behind the times, and lacking in *something*

Needless to say, that after graduating High School, I left.

First it was off to college, and then to work in the metropolitan city of Atlanta. But when an opportunity to see the world while getting paid to do so, presented itself ….? How could I refuse? New York City called my name and I was, pardon the pun, gone with the wind.

I had a need to satiate. To travel, explore different places and see everything I could before I grew older and bound to responsibilities. Flying was one of the most rewarding jobs I ever had, and I would highly recommend it to anyone of a similar mindset and situation.

But then, as they always do, those very same responsibilities I was dodging, caught up with me and I quit my job as a Flight Attendant. Life landed me in Belgium and dealt me a hand which laid the foundation for the next ten years.

Finally in the year 2000 I returned to Savannah. I remember it well, because everyone was convinced we would die at the stroke of midnight on December 31st. Y2K was the CNN story of the moment and if I recall, people were hoarding tuna cans and water bottles in the garage and under their beds.
I've been in Savannah ever since and as an adult It looks so different. Not so much in the actual appearance of the city itself, because Savannah is zoned to be historical from now until eternity. Not a single tree can come down, nor a building erected without much political paperwork and discussion.

Rather it looks different through my eyes.

It's a beautiful place to live, especially at this time of year when the weather is wonderful and the entire city is in full bloom. I grabbed my old digital camera today and headed out of the door, with the intention of sharing the love. I had appointments all over the place and took the opportunity to stick my camera out of the window at various moments to capture the debuting flowers. This particular month draws in tourists by the thousands, and so it should as every street corner produces a spectacular sight to behold, and often times a breathtaking vision.

I’ll share a few of the photos, just keep in mind they were taken by sticking my camera out of the window. The flowers are just beautiful! Tomorrow is once again St. Patrick's Day, yet even that looks different to me. The whole city will be green. People will wear green, eat green, drink green, and most likely end up looking a tad green after a full day of consuming green beverage. They will watch a green parade, barter for green beads, and regardless of whether they are actually Irish or not is neither here nor there. They will sport buttons stating “kiss me I’m Irish” anyways, and everyone will be happy. Now I see it through the eyes of a Mom. I’ll dress my child up in green, look for the most family friendly area away from all the drunks where me and several other Mommies will watch the Shriner’s march by in the 3rd largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration of our country. I’ll worry about traffic accidents, and the safety of everyone around us, stay sober and make sure all the kids stay out of the street. Then when the parade is over, i'll come home and cook a nice traditional dinner of corned beef, potatoes, and cabbage so it will be ready for my husband when he gets home from work.
Yes, things have changed. They are the same...yet somehow very different.

Sshhhhhh.

Listen.

Do you hear that?
Me either.
Isn’t it wonderful? I’m stretched out on the couch, laptop in my lap, cat curled up at my feet and taking a moment to surf blogs and enjoy a “me” moment.

Little man is off eating dinner with his friend, so the house is quiet and still.
There is no T.V. blaring commercials in my face and the only audible sounds I hear are the roar of the air conditioner and the tic tic tic of my fingernails as they tap against the keyboard. Soon enough, noise will pour back into the living room and family life will resume as it does at the end of a long week.

My week was filled with work and travel but Friday has finally arrived and as always, I hope to catch up on various and sundry projects, housecleaning, or whatever else might present itself in the way of entertainment.

Savannah is gearing up for St. Patrick’s Day 2006, and tomorrow we will don our best leprechaun green and watch the festivities on Tybee Island. My Dad will be marching in the parade with the Shriners of course, so I will chauffeur a car load of children to dance on the sidelines, wave and catch as many beads as we can!

I double checked to make sure Little Man’s St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt from last year will still fit. He seems to be getting bigger by the minute despite my futile efforts at stunting his growth, so I can never become too confident that a shirt, or a pair of pants can be worn from one day to the next.

I plan to take it easy for the remainder of the weekend. If I don’t get the chance to stop in and say hello, let me say it here and now.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

Words To Work By.

I love Dilbert. My appreciation for the comic series stemmed from a previous job, long ago in another life. Many hours spent working in Corporate America lends itself to an enriched and varied vocabulary and on occasion I get tickled when I find myself revisiting this environment, or when I read Dilbert.

Take for instance the following phrases: “amplifying successes”….which I like to assume means making your successes seem better than they actually are by magnifying them on quarterly reports and market trend reviews. This can be achieved by including “charts that show your trajectory leveraging power” as a “positive market indicator”.

How about the phrase:
“diverse and dynamic growth” (as opposed to …um…… “limited and lethargic growth”…uh… I guess)?

If you want to sound important and directive-like you should include word combinations, for example:
“share alignment synergies”, and “collective value chain”. This is sure to captivate your audience and send them into bouts of office envy.

My friend Jen sent me an email today with the essential new vocabulary additions for the 2006 workplace.
Please take note:

1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was
missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on
everything, and then leaves.

3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and
advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream
only to get screwed and die in the end.

5. CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles

6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube
farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

7. MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

8. SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies
turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home
with the kids.

9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and
whiny.

10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because
the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's
workplace.

12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but
you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or
not) was a prime example - Michael Jackson, another.

13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an
electronic device to get it to work again.

14. ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above
the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often
profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to
solve.

15. 404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404
Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

16. GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same
no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and
subdivisions.

17. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that
you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting Send on an email by
mistake)

18. WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.

19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a cube
Farm

They made me giggle. Feel free to stop in and say hi to Jen at her space!

Updates and What Not's...

NOPE…
Ellen hasn't responded yet, and NO,
unless she pulls through, it doesn’t look like I’ll be attending the BlogHer convention nor will they be getting their sponsorship!

It certainly isn’t the result of our lack of trying that’s for sure, and as anyone can clearly see… you guys rock!! A big THANK YOU to everyone who commented, emailed, brought me munchies, took pictures of me naked…(hey, wait a minute) and uh, wrote to the show on my behalf.

The convention is July 28th and 29th, in San Jose California and if you are so inclined you can learn more about it at BlogHer’s website. Perhaps you can go, in which case I will experience the event vicariously through you and your blog. Ok?

It’s not too late for Ellen to sponsor, mind you….

It’s just that I’ve grown terribly impatient with this whole “chained naked to a flag-pole” thing. My hair is all frizzy from being out of doors, and I need a bath in the worst way, so I’ve come inside to rectify my unpleasant situation.

Perhaps Ellen will take pity on a cleverly resourceful yet freshly bathed and fully clothed woman with a new manicure instead? No? !


I think she’s weakening …I can feel it

Any how.

I promised myself I would never blog about work, so I won’t mention how conference calls with large corporations make me shake my head in antipathy. Or how I entertain myself while listening by picturing Dilbert in my head.




So I won’t.

I’ll also spare you the details of how I spent the majority of the week sitting in endless doctors office waiting rooms and hospitals with Little Man who was suffering unbearable and agonizing head pain!

In a nutshell, we waited, …he whimpered…

I paced, huffed, puffed, and tapped my foot to the tune of my ever growing displeasure for the office staff and their obvious indifference to patient care.

After all was checked, probed, x-rayed and viewed, it was determined that my son was suffering from a migraine! Four and a half days of comforting my sweet little boy who moaned in misery, convinced his eyeballs were popping out of his head, finally relieved by a single shot to the bottom!

Within 30 minutes a look of peace washed away his scrunched up frown of torture and he was on the road to recovery.

Nothing makes you feel more helpless than watching your child suffer. Not knowing the cause, having nothing you try successfully help to ease his anguish, all the while dealing with overworked medical professionals who are more concerned with insurance verification than diagnosis and treatment.

It was enough to make my head explode!

Thank god and a deep breath later we were given preventative prescriptions and were allowed to go home, so...

I gathered up his eyeballs and scooped my brains from the wall and things are back to normal.

Aren't you glad I didn't blog about it?

Filed Under: Shameless Plugs

*Updated below*

What does a penniless, yet cleverly resourceful woman do when she wants to attend the 2nd annual BlogHer’s convention in San Jose California, but can’t afford the awesome new outfit and strappy little sandals she’d need to attend, let alone the airfare and hotel accommodations?

Well I’ll tell you.
She pleads and grovels to her favorite comedian Ellen Degeneres and host of
the Ellen Degeneres Show that’s what! Stay with me!

We already know I have no shame, and like my Father always used to tell me “You never know until you try” right?

So I whined, and begged, and supplicated myself to the producers of her show, explaining what a wonderful opportunity this would be for them to sponsor women every where, and how Ellen would be doing a service to the sisterhood of talented writers across the nation (thus increasing television ratings, which would in turn generate more profitable income for her) You see? Win-Win!

....and then I got naked and chained myself to a flagpole refusing to leave until they agreed to sponsor BlogHer, or at least fly ME first class to San Jose (whichever was more likely to bring in good ratings of course).

Ok, I didn’t really whine.

But I did send an email informing Ellen, if she actually reads those things, of the BlogHer’s convention and how “wouldn’t it be a hoot if I could attend”? Some of my favorite bloggers are speaking and I should probably be there to...uh... applaud and give them my undivided attention don’t you know.

BlogHer’s mission is to:
Create opportunities for women bloggers to pursue exposure, education and community, and is comprised of around 1000 utterly fascinating, informational, educational and humorous blogs.

I can only hope that she reads her fan mail and takes pity on naked women strapped to flagpoles in shameless demonstration.

Won’t you please encourage Ellen to help me out by commenting on this post? Even if you just delurk to sign your name.

It’s getting chilly out here, and I don't want to resort to that whole stalking thing.


Ellen's Photo taken from NNDB.

*update*
I've been out here on this flagpole for a few days now, and guess what? No word from the producers of the Ellen show!
I knooow!
You'd think what with me naked on this flag pole and all...that they'd be on top of things, calling my agent, and booking me on the show?

wait...ok, I don't have an agent.

But, but, but if I did his phone should be ringing off the hook by this time! I appreciate you all stopping by to toss my favorite guacamoli doritos at me, and help me plead with Ellen, but i'm thinking we're going to need to step it up a notch. Maybe if all us bloggers write the show at http://ellen.warnerbros.com/funstuff/talk/, we can catch their attention. BlogHer needs the sponsorship...for bloggers everywhere!
oh...and could someone bring me a blanket? It's getting chilly out here!

Mermaids

I've got a mile high pile of laundry to do today, so blogging will be minimal at best. Instead of writing today, i'm going to share a few of my favorite mermaid pictures which I will do occasionally when time (or my imagination) is limited.

While your at it, run over to Sharon's and check out the mermaid she just did!

It's Valentine's Day Folks..."Happy" being the operative word here!

One of my girlfriends opened a new boutique about three months ago. It was a huge undertaking and a lot of hard work resulting in a beautiful gift shop, art gallery and florist. Business had been steady, as the locals popped in to see the wonderful things creatively displayed around the store, and to pick up a treasure or two.

Of course with today being Valentine’s Day they were swamped so my friend asked if I would be able to help out with the floral deliveries. I’m always happy to assist a friend, so I agreed.

From morning until evening, the shop was a-buzz with Valentine business. The phones rang off the walls, as bewildered looking men made their way through the store ordering flowers and looking for the perfect gifts. My job was to play delivery woman, in which case I spent the day going back and forth between the store and the homes of many unsuspecting women who were pleasantly surprised to be the recipients of assorted bouquets. Each time a woman would come to the door she would squeal in delight, or blush with embarrassment. Either way, their reactions tickled me.

I must have delivered to 40 different addresses stopping only for an hour to drop of 180 chocolate chip cookies at the 5th grade Valentine party and to check on the outcome of a certain little girl’s answer to my son’s request to be his valentine. He nervously stayed up last night making her the perfect card with carefully placed butterfly stickers, and admiring the peach colored flip-flop charm that was to be her gift.

It was a busy day and I got to share in a little bit of a lot of people’s happiness, and that was a pleasure.

Until her.

She was my very last stop of the evening and while my heart was still smiling from a full day of pleasant deliveries, it was about to be crushed by a customer’s whose chest cavity was filled with vinegar and thumbtacks.

I rang the door expecting to be greeted with someone’s surprised wife only to be verbally accosted by an ungrateful, unappreciative, hateful bitch who complained that she was getting flowers at 6:00 pm, which was UNACCEPTABLE!
She spent what seemed to be an eternity yelling at me about the flowers, the time it was, and the basket they were in without so much as barely glancing at them. She told me she didn’t want them now, with the same fury of a three year old not getting her way! My friend’s florist was unacceptable, the product was unacceptable, the delivery was unacceptable, my fuchsia cashmere sweater with my grey WOOL PANTS WERE TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE…
(Ok she didn’t say that, but she might have well had because by this point I was starting to take her whole assault very personal and that uncomfortable twinge that happens in my stomach right before I start to cry was creeping up)! She called my friend and told her off, then told me off some more. I just stood there like a dope, all the while thinking to myself what poor man had to come home to her every night.

What’s wrong with people?

Doesn’t she know that somewhere a little boy’s heart is breaking because after mustering up all of his courage to profess his fondness for his Valentine, she said no? …. Doesn’t she know that her husband took the time to especially order those three particular flowers just for her.., one for each of their daughters names….Rose, Lilly, and Iris?,…and that my friend had to special order the lilies because they weren’t in season?

Somewhere someone would have loved to get a Valentine. But nope.
Not her.
It was 6:00.
There was nothing waiting for her at the door when she arrived home from work 30 minutes ago and THAT…
was simply UNACCEPTABLE.

Wow. What a hateful woman.

I want to go back to my little grass shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii.

I visited many beautiful places on my trip to Hawaii, but my most favorite things I did always involved the hula shows.

Hawaiian’s have inherited a rich tradition of hula (dances) and mele oli (chants), full of stories of gods and goddesses, ceremonies, prayers, protocol, imagery, wisdom, and intelligence. The tradition is passed on to each generation and teaches how to respect family, appreciate natural phenomena, love the land, understand hierarchy, recognize life and death cycles, and acknowledge and honor the presence of life.


I was fascinated by the rich history of the hula, the stories they told, as well as the beauty and grace of the performers. The dance steps that you see are not only stunning to watch, but represent different movements in nature.

Of course while I was there, I just had to pick up a couple of DVD’s on the hula. I bought a variety to help me remember the wonderful shows, colors, and music we experienced in order to relive them at later moments of recollection. (It had nothing to do with the fact that there were waaay too many to choose from, and I couldn’t make up my mind so I had to buy several).

(Ahem).

I bought:
How to Hula…because learning is a good thing and I always want to learn.
The hula workout…because uh...I hate to jog.
And the Polynesian Cultural Center’s show…because it was very entertaining.

I wish you could see the Hula workout video! Holy cow! If following along with Kiki’s workout three times a week will make my figure look like her’s…,well then I’d better get started right now!

I turned it on because I was in the mood for some exercise, but I got so mesmerized just watching the steps that the next thing I knew I was sitting on the couch gnawing on a pork chop and watching the T.V. like it was a good movie.

The flowers were incredible in Hawaii too, and before long I was decorated from head to toe with the most fragrant orchids and plumeria leis. I can still smell them in my mind, and in the body lotion I brought home with me from the hotel.

It was a wonderful trip, and I can’t wait to hear all about Kim’s adventures when she returns. She’s scheduled to hook up with D. and B’tude one day while she’s there too so that should be fun.
Ahhh…I want to go back.

a little something...

Sharon did a MeMe on her blog this morning, and as I am totally in awe of her talent, and don’t possess the inkling to produce anything original today, I’ve decided to shamelessly follow suit and do the MeMe myself. I would also like to note that something has gone wrong with the formatting of my posts. The previews never look like the published version, with all spacing non existant, causing the whole entry to look like one giant run on sentence. If anyone knows what the problem is, i'd appreciate the tip too! *note: Seems i've found the problem and it's working now!

Now for that Meme.
Here goes:

Four jobs I was really, really bad at:
I don’t recall being bad at any of my jobs! I can remember working with minimal enthusiasm over selling lamps one summer in a department store, but I wasn’t bad at it. In fact, If any poor soul accidentially wandered into the lamp department I'm pretty sure I kept them fairly entertained if nothing else.

Four movies I could watch over and over:
Honestly, I do well to stay focused long enough to watch one movie all the way through once. If I watch a movie more than once, I’m sure to catch something I didn’t see the first go round. A few movies I did enjoy were:
1. The Napoleon mini series
2. SWAT
3. Enemy of the State

Some celebrities I worshiped when I was little.
The name of my favorite show when I was a kid alludes me at the moment. It starred Leif Garret, the singing teen idol, and I had a huge crush on him. I believe he looks something like this now and is once again in drug rehab. I will say that my fascination with celebrities is very small to say the least, because the ones I have met were either obnoxious or disappointing. They are people just like us… only richer. On the other end of the spectrum, I discovered while googling these images of Leif, that there are apparently people who actually scrapbook photographs and articles of their favorite celebrity which is waaaay creepy in my opinion.

Names I wanted instead of Suzanne
The name Suzanne is just fine for me, although I didn’t go by Suzanne until my first year in college. Up till that point I was “Suzi” and a handful of old friends may refer to me by that name from time to time out of habit. I’m not fond of Suzi, so I wouldn’t recommend addressing me in that fashion these days unless we have a long history.
I am especially irritated by those substituting the name Sue, or Susan for my actual name Suzanne.

Injuries I have suffered:
The worst was a concussion and would explain a lot of things about me I’m afraid. I lived at the roller skating rink in my youth, and once while rounding the corner of the dimly lit skating surface, tripped on another child causing me to hit my head on the floor and again on the wall. I remember sitting down on the carpet covered benches, and seeing what appeared to be water filing up in my eyes. Shortly thereafter I had no vision at all, and was mentioning something about my wing being broken. I believe this is when my mother decided it was time to take me to the emergency room, and if memory serves me correct my vision didn’t return for a full day or so. Other than that….I’ve been pretty lucky having no broken bones or other major accidents knock on wood.
Four childhood memories and/or dreams.
1. Eating laundry soap
2. Having my teeth fall out
3. Having my teeth crumble out
4. Having my teeth wiggle loose and me spitting them out.
I’m seeing a pattern here.

Four celebrities I have bothered:
None. The whole celebrity stalker thing kind of creeps me out. I might pick up a magazine at the beauty salon and glimpse at the goings on of the moment, but I have no desire to chase, bother, scrapbook, or otherwise obsess over any celebrity. In fact when I have seen them in the past, I specifically act as if I don’t know them.
In my flight attendant days, I saw many and personally was never that impressed.
Here’s the rundown that I can think of at the moment which I either served, walked next to, spoke with or had to sneak past hoards of fans. Lionel Richie, Michael J. Fox, his wife and kid, Kenny Loggins, (he was very tall) Regis and Joy Philbin, Martin Sheen, George Carlin, Richard Lewis, Jerry Springer, professional wrestlers, and a couple more actors that I can’t remember their names at the moment.

That’s it for today folks.