High Fructose Corn Syrup and Mercury

So last year's New Year's Resolution was to eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup and Partially Hydrogenated Oils from the family's diet. It took some time early on, going through labels at the grocery store, we've mostly eliminated those two items from our diet. The exception, sadly, has been bread, which invariably includes one or the other, or else spoils really quickly (and I hate to refrigerate bread). The nice discovery was that General Mills cereals don't contain either, while Kellogg's and Post cereals still do.

The reason we did this was that HFCS has been linked to diabetes and PHO to heart disease, so it seemed a no-brainer (and we really haven't missed it). We still occasionally "slip up" and buy snacks (and don't get me started on halloween candy!) but I might be less inclined to do that in the future.

I wonder whether a reasonable next study would be whether all the diagnoses of ADD are actually Mercury poisoning a la the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland (mercury used to be used to stiffen hats but was found to have the side effect of causing madness).

The article is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831.html

Around the World In 80 Days

I just went and saw a great production of Jules Verne's play, "Around the World In Eighty Days" at the Cleveland Playhouse. It was a great show, made even more impressive by the fact that the entire show was acted by a cast of five (a fact that my seven-year-old son tried to contest at the end - "No, but what about the guy that..." "Nope, that was this guy"). It was done so seamlessly (and comically at one point when Passepartout tried to usher the sailor offstage so that the captain could come in).

I had told the story to my son, so he knew how the play would end. At intermission, I had to warn him not to give the ending away for his friend who came with us (when my four-year-old son decided he didn't want to go to the play, I decided not to push it).

In the end, I'm not sure who enjoyed the play more. I do not like to attend plays without first knowing the story; I think I gain more from the experience if I'm not too focused on what is going to happen. By knowing the story ahead of time, I feel like I can notice all the little nuances of the performance - the scenery, the blocking, the costumes, the character choices and development. I love noticing how a line that I had read was interpreted totally differently by the actor; it adds so much depth to the experience.

And it doesn't hurt that the play was funny as hell! So, if you live in Cleveland and can make it out to the show, I would highly recommend it.

But anyhow, the story took place back in 1872. Phileas Fogg, on a bet, set off to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. So I wonder, with all of the latest technology, what is the fastest that someone could travel the globe today?

I contend that it would actually have been faster back in 1972 than today. Clearly, added airport security these days would slow down the process. But perhaps the longer flights would make up for that difference. Phileas Fogg traveled with only a carry-on bag (a carpet bag). That would speed up the process considerably. But truly, are there flights scheduled such that one could travel eastward around the globe and return within one week? Within three days? What is the comparable time frame now?

Cleveland Wed 3pm - New York Wed 5pm
New York Wed 7pm - Mumbai Thurs 11pm (+ 1 day)
Mumbai Fri 5:20 am - Hong Kong Fri 3:35pm
Hong Kong Fri 5pm - San Francisco Fri 1pm (is this right?)
San Francisco Fri 10:15pm - Sat 11am

So, assuming no delays with customs, perfect weather with all flights exactly on time, it would be possible to follow the same path (except that it completely bypasses London and is instead centered around Cleveland) in three days. Is that about right?
Again, you would ask, why? In this scenario, all you gain are bedsores and a vow never again to eat airplane food.

And yet, with no references to airplanes, cellular phones, iPods, television, video games, cars, or many other technologies that we take completely for granted, this story was entertaining. It held the interest of two second grade boys, who seemed to be the right age to catch the fast speech (and certainly not miss the three curse words, though the double entendres fortunately remained one-dimensional for them - although it seems the time has come for me to take down my print of Dali's - “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea, which at 30 meters becomes the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko)” that I have up in my foyer). I'd like to say it's because my husband has never cared for the piece, because am I sending a bad message if I let my kids' giggling at the nakedity in the piece shame me into hiding a piece of fine art? Am I supposed to leave it up and just make it normal instead of taboo? I'm trying to be a much more laid-back mom than I inherently am; all this takes so much thought that I don't know how to react. I thought I had it all down, but lately, I don't know much of anything anymore. I really take mothering seriously, and I don't think I've been playing my A game lately. It's been a steady decline into bad habits and counter-productive patterns that leave me feeling like my good relationship with my boys is slipping a bit.

But after dropping off my younger sons with their grandparents, then turning around and heading back to the theater to make it to the play on time, my eldest son commented that our weekend was kind of like the story in the play, only instead of a bet, we have tickets.

Ah, a metaphor. I guess it worked.

Perhaps I'll write an adaptation relevant to a working mom, or to a slacker who is forced to get things done but wants to watch certain shows - ooh, and his tivo is busted (which is what motivates him to have to follow a schedule). Somewhere in here there's my next story, I just know it. I just have to find it...

Poopsweeper

I took my dog for a walk today. The weather outside was a balmy 5 degrees, and I was well bundled. Two pairs of socks, snow pants, my warmest sweater, a long LL Bean coat, two pairs of gloves, I was good to go. I stepped out the door and instantly felt just how cold it was as the chill hit my face. And then I started walking. Or rather, I started trying to keep up with my dog, my eleven year old black lab/German Shepherd mix wearing nothing more than a dog collar. And he was trodding along, forgetting altogether that when he's inside, he looks to us twice before heading down to the basement, making sure that we are in fact heading down there. But outside, he was practically hopping through the deep snow. It was wonderful to watch, and totally made me forget the cold. In fact, walking across the unplowed sidewalks offered enough resistance that I actually started to sweat!

Anyhow, as I walked, Friday started sniffing a tree. Not so unusual, of course, but I had just read something somewhere about how trees and the whole tradition of sniffing and marking is a communication system for dogs. This article equated the trees as bulletin boards where dogs would learn about what is going on with the other dogs in the neighborhood and leave their own postings.

"So," I asked Friday, "who is that? Jasper? How are they doing?" Okay, I totally made up those names, but I couldn't think of any local dogs' names! "What are you telling them about you? You letting them know we let you have a pumpkin mini-muffin?"

We moved on. And I started wondering more about this bulletin board concept. Do dogs know when other dogs are in trouble? And when they bark at each other and insist on running across the street to meet another dog, are they actually trying to pass on important information to help someone? If we let them, would Friday and the dog down the street head off together toward a house two blocks away where the owner leaves his dog outside too long and doesn't feed him enough?

And before long, I was back home. I went to the backyard, to toss the plastic bag, and found that I had more to pick up.

About eight months after I got married and we were living in Columbus, my husband headed up to Cleveland for a 2 month med school rotation. I decided to join him, since I hated the job I had anyhow, and stayed at my in-laws' house. I signed up with a temp agency and waited for a call. It took a month before I finally got a job, but in the meantime, I kept myself busy playing minesweeper. I got to be pretty darn good at it, instinctively knowing which fields to flag and which to clear. The smallest size, I could complete in something like 6 seconds (or some other obscene number that's only attainable by someone with lots of time and little ambition).

Now, I know that defenders of video games argue that they do serve a purpose, that they help decrease reaction times and help minds process information quickly (among other things). Well, fast forward about 5 years, when we moved to Grand Rapids, and my husband managed to bust his ankle playing indoor soccer and put himself out of commission for about a month. Throughout the winter, which was very similar to our current conditions, with all the deep snow and chilly conditions, I was solely responsible for walking and picking up after the dog. Procrastination didn't serve me well when the snow would fall daily. By the time I would get outside to pick up my dog's excrement, I would discover that several droppings had been covered by snow.

Suddenly, my expertise at Minesweeper saved me. I detected the degree of discoloration of the snow at various points, carefully noting different mines at different depths. And when I finally recognized what I was doing, and gave the activity the name of poopsweeper, it made it more like a game than a chore (okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration).

Final thought about my dog. We had Friday for 3 years before we had our first kid. Sure, it's popular to say that they're good "training" for kids. What a lie. No kid of mine got potty trained so young and so quickly, and I have yet to be able to leave a kid of mine alone at home. I say dogs spoil you and put you into a false sense of security.

Eyes Through a Twilight Lens

I'm Feeling a little Twi-lightheaded.

My Winter Break (aka my boys' winter break) was spent reading the entire Twilight series (all four books by Stephanie Meyer) during that two-week period. And now, I'm obsessed. Mentally, these characters are living in my head and I just can't get away.

Now, I am not one to spoil the story for anyone else, so I will try to make any references such that they do not give away the plot.

I read voraciously. Book two was finished in about a day and a half. And then, having to wait longer than that to buy books 3 and 4 was tough for me. I ended up reading Kurt Vonnegut's book, "A Man Without A Country", over a couple of hours, just to pass the time until bedtime.

But now, everywhere I look, I see Twilight. The next book I picked up started in Russia, December 1917. The opening page introduces a woman sitting on a train. She looks to her husband, whose lips are blue and skin is chilled from the cold. The scene is one of danger. I imagine vampires are descending upon them. Or that the man is Edward. And then I think, 1917 - isn't that around the time that Edward became a vampire? Or was he already a vampire at that time? Or at least already alive? It took a while for me to remember that - more relevantly - that's the year that my house was built, and that threw me for a loop too, since I was busy imagining Edward's lifetime. Shake it off. Shake it off.

The other day, I was taking Friday for a walk, and he was bounding around in the snow, happy as can be, and I couldn't help but think of Jacob.

And just now, I read an article about 6 New Web Technologies from Wired magazine (click the title link to read the article). So, while the article reviews important new technology, let me tie them to Twilight:

1. Identity Management: Different sites store different contacts for you, and now there are tools to keep it all together. "You get one virtual ID card that gives you access to hundreds of websites." One existence, hundreds of possibilities: live forever and you can be a doctor, a lawyer, a high school student, a concert pianist...

2. HTML 5: updating the "rules" of the web to make it even better. "HTML 5 will be great step forward". Kinda like vampires, wouldn't you say? Faster, stronger, more powerful than mere humans...

3. Lifestreaming: "Sites like FriendFeed, Plaxo Pulse and Digsby serve as social-network-activity aggregators. They're like virtual funnels." Know what everyone is thinking, all at once - kinda like your own personal Edward... And that's not even mentioning the double meaning of "FriendFeed".

"Oh, and don't expect to be able to add Facebook to your lifestream. The network lets all sorts of data in, but precious little out." - a little like Bella, no?

4. Firefox 3: okay, this one seems to fall along the same lines as HTML 5, in just being Faster, Better, Stronger, but this quote added a little something:

"It's still the second-most-popular browser after Microsoft Internet Explorer by a wide margin, but Firefox 3 is the feisty favorite of the web's elite."

For now, I'd say the Harry Potter books still top the list in terms of overall popularity, but these seem to be a feisty second.

5. Google Chrome: okay, see, now I've got to just keep this going to be complete, but here goes. Chrome is Google's new web browser, with a key new feature that if one tab crashes, only that tab goes down, not the whole browser.

Imagine a family of vampires - say, the Cullens. Now, they are all powerful in their own right, providing all sorts of power. Even when one proves a weak link, the group as a whole does not suffer. They can continue and let the "crashed" vampire recover. (Think Edward after he meets Bella, and Jasper in book 2)

And of course, the article described that as its "killer" feature :).

6. Location Awareness: You know, like being able to send a text message from your cell phone to google (46645) with any query you'd post to google to get directions or a list of nearby restaurants texted back to your phone. Add to that GPS on your phone, buttons on the iPhone to do that automatically, and other technology designed to know where you are at any moment. Makes the mission of a tracker like James even easier, so I don't know that it's necessarily a good thing, but it could also help those vampires that aren't so skilled. In the real world, it could make life easier for those out to get you (and oh how I hope this technology is being mastered by those we trust to protect and serve), but I've long ago come to the realization that I'm neither interesting nor important enough for anyone to be after me, so I don't have to worry about being found.

I have a feeling this twi-lightheadedness is going to last me a while; it took a long time for me to stop associating everything with Harry Potter. But this time around, I think I'm going to spread the joy.