Ode to a Krazor

I recently retired my beloved KRZR "Krazor" cell phone. I loved this cell phone! At the time, it was rather expensive . . . about $120. It is a charming little flip phone that wasn't all "plasticky". It had a mirror on the front which didn't become scratched. Upon retirement, this phone still looked brand new. It was the perfect size . . . like baby bear--not to big, not to small, just right! It was a mother's day present from my wonderful husband and children.

I miss it. Weird . . . 'cause I'm not a cell phone obsessive person.

It was replaced by a glamorous iPhone. I should be excited about this, right? Okay, I'm starting to get pulled into the iPhone cult. While I'm a pretty good technology person (teacher's have to be these days), I've always resisted becoming the type of person who can't seem to go five minutes without poking at their smart phone . . . if they are that smart, why do people have to check for stuff all the time, shouldn't a smart phone be able to answer email for it's owner?

I quickly discovered why there are so many distracted drivers out there. Iphones and other touch phones divert your attention far more than my Krazor ever did. There is nothing tactile about a smart phone. You must look at it in order to know where to poke. Even playing music from this phone puts me in danger of having my Prius meet a tree, face-on.

But it's fun . . . right? Okay . . . it's growing on me. Slowly. Frankly, the cost of this phone ought to include a graduate course in it's usage. There's a lot to learn with this phone and the learning curve is time-consuming. Yes, you really can't do anything wrong but still . . . it's far more complicated than my laptop computer.

My biggest accomplishment with this phone at this time is finally arriving at the selection of a case. I chose a Fab Speck case . . . a case that is rather slim but that has fabric on the back of it. As usual, I failed to have the confidence to select the one I wanted . . . I am so bad at avoiding my gut choices, especially in restaurants. Selecting just the right case and keeping a balance of style and protection was tough. I am rather appalled at the cost of these cheaply made items . . . we all know they were made by 8 year old children in rural China, after all.

I have also learned how to access my Netflix account and must admit that there is some enjoyment to be had in being able to watch a movie anytime, anywhere. Movies, though, suck up battery power quite rapidly. Perhaps I need to revise my case selection by choosing one with battery enhancement . . . hee hee hee . . .for some reason, that term amuses me!

Oh The Places You'll Go . . . a day of DEAD-ness in the life of an elementary music teacher . . .

I love to read . . . even more than I love music . . . okay, maybe the two are tied. I will read anything . . . great novels, bad novels, trashy beach novels, tabloids, the New York Times, . . . the only thing I hate is most self help books. Like . . . I have my own life, not interested in how you live yours . . . My Kindle is an ever-present gadget wherever I go. I am terrified of having free time on my hands without the access to a good book. Seriously, having time on my hands without having a method of occupying my attention is a true phobia.

Today we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday during my school's Read Across America day. Our kids had a breakfast treat (Green Eggs and Ham, anyone . . . ). I'm sure their wonderful classroom teachers read their favorite Dr. Seuss books. Some enterprising reading teachers ran a trivia contest. I felt kind of dumb when a few kids asked me if I knew how old Dr. Seuss is . . . I pointed out he is actually dead. They laughed and clarified. For the record . . . He would be something like 108. Did you know Dr. Seuss really didn't like children . . . seriously, all true.

Now, for the DEAD-ness part . . . My favorite! We had a five minute DEAR session . . . this means Drop Everything And Read. One of my kiddies charmingly and erroneously called it DEAD. In my amusement, I decided to not correct his error. After all, to a child some days can seem to be rather dead. Besides, I correct this child's musical performance all the time . . . he doesn't need to hear me correct his perception of our special day.

Now . . . I am truly ready to climb into bed and engage in seriously sleepy DEAD-ness! Ha ha ha . . . couldn't resist!

Back Pain Rulz . . .

Back pain, despite my efforts to will it to go away, often rules my life. I have two herniated disks. One has been removed in my cervical spine, one has no surgical option because doing so would most certainly cause the disks above and below it to herniate.

So . . . I live with it. I scream at it. I have conversations with it. Sometimes I say "No, you are not going to distract me right now." Sometimes I'm successful. Sometimes it wins. We've come to a mutual level of respect where I recognize it's existence and it leaves me alone as long as I don't forget to take my medication and go to my yoga class once per week. My heating pad is a constant companion . . . and it's actually nice to be able to get warm in the cold winters of northeastern US.

Pain is familiar. It's scary to realize that fact. Pain has become this thing that is always there under the surface. I've developed empathy for people with pain far worse than mine . . . like burn victims or people with amputated limbs. I can't imagine living in a state of crazy uncontrolled pain. I was raised to just suck it up and deal with it. You know the 1970's parenting adage: stop being a crybaby. I'll never say that to my kids. Never. I want them to speak up and become good advocates for themselves rather than choke back the tears.

My wonderfully caring rheumatologist shared some statistics with me this week--there is a law that requires emergency room doctors to treat reported patient pain, whether or not they are exhibiting drug seeking behavior. Conversely, medical insurance doesn't want doctors to prescribe pain meds. So most doctors don't treat pain. My doctor shared that our pain receptors in our brain will cause more generalized chronic pain if localized acute pain isn't treated. A one-time treatment of acute pain could result in the avoidance of developing chronic pain . . . and save huge amounts of healthcare dollars. Only in America would insurance companies and Congress do something that makes no sense and that costs a lot of money. In the county in which I live, only two pain management doctors will prescribe medication to treat pain. Doctors, usually seen as being compassionate people, are now forced to say "suck it up and deal, no crybabies".

No wonder Americans are hurting!

Birthdays and other pathways . . .

My birthday is tomorrow. While I don't particularly like birthdays (I try to forget about mine but my family refuses to play along), they do get me thinking about this path we follow called "life". My path has taken me in many directions . . . some of which I would never have predicted. Who would have guessed that I'd actually follow my dream of being a music teacher? Two children? After being the oldest of four, I would have guessed that I'd only ever have one daughter who would be just like me, without the life mistakes of course . . . actually I have to wonderful boys, so much for my being able to control this part of my life. If someone had shown me a picture and a description of my husband when I was a teenager, I would have laughed and told them that I preferred Tom Cruise and Andrew McCarthy. How I ended up marrying this intelligent, funny, and devoted person, I'll never know. Lucky, I guess. Someone who controls my destiny knew that this wonderful person would give me the life I needed, not the one I thought I wanted.

So . . . back to my birthday. At first I thought I'd write about aging gracefully but then I realized, after spending more money on facial anti-aging products, that I'm not willing to age gracefully. I'm just not. I liked being young and want to stay there. Therefore, I need a new meaningful topic. Thus, the idea of paths and pathways. So . . . I decided to explore my photographs and am sharing one of my favorite pathways.

A path through Mount Rainier . . . you need an ice pick to get to the waterfall at the end of this path. Needless to say, we didn't have one. This photo was taken in June. Yes, June. A month when we want to see green mountains and pretty flowers. Sunshine. Yeah right . . . the Pacific Northwest doesn't see the sun until halfway through July. No one told us this fact when we booked our plane tickets. So our visit to the stunning Mount Rainier was wet, rainy, misty, and the mountain was still covered with snow. People still ski during this month in the Pacific Northwest. My shorts stayed in the suitcase and I craved my winter coat. However, all complaints ended when we drove through the small wooden archway that provides people with a simple entrance to a grand mountain.

Mount Rainier was beautiful in all it's misty foggy rain sodden glory. You have to seek out it's wonders . . . it doesn't overtly present them. The drive along the paved road is nice but the hidden secrets of this mountain call to you, begging one to park the car and get wet. Many of it's beautiful features require a bit of a hike. It's as if Mother Nature wants people to work for the reward of seeing the natural wonders on this mountain. I'm okay with that . . . it's a fair trade.

The light is different from any mountain I've seen in the past. In the rain and fog of June, it's a bit dark . . . the darkness adds to it's power and delicate natural beauties. Waterfalls abound and each sings their own splashy song. There are small ponds hidden along the pathways, covered with bright green algae and other plant growth. I wondered if there were fairies and gnomes living underneath the ferns of this mountain. We were too early to see the meadow wild flowers in a location aptly called "Paradise" but didn't feel deprived. The fog crept along the snow-covered fields, changing the view every few minutes. My camera took wonderful photos but didn't come close to being accurate in its representation of this amazing place.

What a divergent mountain . . . somehow, I wish that Walt Whitman had lived to see this place. He would have done justice in describing the powerful height, merry waterfalls, delicate snow flowers, and scents of pine. My words are sorely inadequate and I feel as though we were only allowed to peek into a few crevices of this natural site. It's now seven months after our trip and I still seek out my photos on a regular basis. I want to go back and explore more of this place. Maybe the mountain gods will open more doors and share more of its secrets. I hope so . . .

New Year's Resolutions . . .

I don't really buy into making resolutions in January . . . however, for some reason I thought I'd give this a try. So here goes . . . I started with items like "eat more chocolate", spend more weekends traveling to local places, and avoid time-wasting sites like Facebook but then decided that a resolution must improve the resolver's daily and long term life. So . . .

For the obligatory "exercise" resolution . . . I'd like to maintain my yoga schedule throughout the year. I have this rather lazy habit of turning a weekly conflict into a multi-month vacation from yoga. Not sure why . . . I actually love yoga! If we all did yoga, world peace would be possible. I truly believe this.

For the mandatory "eat healthy" resolution, I decided to be specific . . . Vegetables . . . my husband seeks every opportunity to ban me from our kitchen . . . and I don't exactly fight this most of the time. However, he violates the "palm-sized" meat portion rule and believes that one should finish meat portions "because it costs more". Me . . . I'd probably become a vegetarian or someone who rarely eats meat if I were left to my own devices. I love the color and crunch of good vegetables. So . . . I hereby resolve to become the vegetable cook. This will, of course, involve an expenditure of some truly beautiful veggie cookbooks. Now . . . if I can just convince my husband that it's okay if I use his expensive Shun knife!

Movies . . . okay, this one is self-indulgent. I work hard, don't I deserve some recreation? I think so! I love movies . . . good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones . . . I love all movies except for pornography and slasher flicks. As a child of the '80's, I grew up with enough slasher films to last a life time. After the eighteenth Friday the 13th film, I swore off this genre . . . with the one exception of Silence of the Lambs (Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster's performances were too impressive to miss). Now . . . I avoid slasher flicks like the plague. My tastes run towards indie films, dramas, and films that produce truly great artistic performances. I like most Oscar nominated films although I haven't been able to get through last year's winner, The Hurt Locker. I don't get to see enough movies in the theater. My resolution is to fix this . . . it's okay to go to a film by myself and I vow to do that if my family members are sluggish about joining me.

Here's the difficult resolution fulfilling the "make me a better person" requirement . . . I resolve to keep my bedroom clean for one third of the year. Yes, this will kill me! I'm surprised that my husband hasn't banished me to the basement for my penchant for never putting clean clothing away. I will need to invest in some closet essentials and more dresser space but this is something that must be done.

Finally, I must include the commercial "let's lose 50 lbs. in two weeks" resolution. However, 10 lbs. is probably more reasonable. Perhaps I can bring myself to reacquaint myself with my treadmill or convince my better half to actually go for evening walks. We'll see . . . heck, I ought to be able to lose 10 lbs. simply by avoiding my school's cafeteria for a week!