This is my first time participating in Musical Monday, and I have to admit that I decided to join along because of the theme for this week. Music moves us in many ways: it can move us to tears; it can get us to move our feet as we dance along; it can move us to make changes in our lives or society. When I first thought about what moves me in terms of music, I couldn't make a single choice because music moves me in so many ways. So, without further ado, here are my choices based on the three ways that music moves me.

Music that moves me to tears:






Music that makes me move my feet:






Music that moves me to make changes:





To join in the fun or to see other entries, just click the logo at the top of the page.

I was lucky enough to have shared the first 17 years of my life with the most amazing woman I have ever known -- my mom. My mom enjoyed all kinds of music, and one of my earliest memories is of her singing "Sugartime" by the Maguire Sisters to me. It's interesting how many of the memories of my mother involve music somehow.

My mom was absolutely crazy for Tom Jones. The first weekend my parents had away from me and my sisters was when my dad took her to Las Vegas to see the Welsh version of Elvis. Seeing Tom Jones in person only further cemented her adoration of him and his sexiness. Mom would put an album on the record player and twirl around the living room, while lip syncing every song.

She was only 37 when she died of massive internal bleeding caused by the Mallory Weiss Syndrome. So in honor of Mother's Day, I've chosen to share my mother's favorite song by her favorite singer because the image of her singing and dancing around the house to it is my favorite memory of her.





Lyrics
I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window
I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind
She was my woman
As she deceived me I watched and went out of my mind
My, my, my, Delilah
Why, why, why, Delilah
I could see that girl was no good for me
But I was lost like a slave that no man could free

At break of day when that man drove away, I was waiting
I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door
She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more
My, my, my Delilah
Why, why, why Delilah
So before they come to break down the door
Forgive me Delilah I just couldnt take any more

She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more
My, my, my, Delilah
Why, why, why, Delilah
So before they come to break down the door
Forgive me Delilah I just couldn't take any more
Forgive me Delilah I just couldn't take any more

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be DELETED without prejudice.

1. What is on the walls of your room?
Yellow paint and a landscape above the bed.


2. What type of music do you listen to?
All kinds, but I'm especially partial to the Bakersfield Sound (country) of Dwight Yoakum, Merle Haggard, and Buck Owens. I also really, really like the music of the 50's and 60's: Fats Domino, Bobby Vinton, Elvis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Conway Twitty (both the rockabilly and the country stuff), Cliff Richard, The Beatles, The Everly Brothers. And the crooners -- I like the crooners, too: Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tony Bennett. If I don't stop now, this list will be the whole post.


3. What do you want more than anything right now?
I would love to have my mother with me. I've been married to my husband longer than I lived with my mom, who died 32 years ago, but I still miss her every single day.


4. Do you get scared in the dark?
Nope. I don't see well at night anyway, so it doesn't really matter.


5. What's you worst fear?
That my husband will die before me.


6. If you could anything right now, what would it be?
If I could WHAT anything right now? EAT -- a 'Shroom Burger from Red Robin; DO -- take a nap; BUY -- a plane ticket to England; BAN -- willing ignorance; SMELL -- gardenias


7. What’s the meaningful gift that you’ve received?
I believe that every gift is meaningful because someone put their time, thought, and feeling into buying it for me. No matter what it is, that makes it a meaningful gift.


8. Do you have a crush?
I've had a crush for close to 30 years on the Amazing Egyptian Dude.


9. Who is your favorite celebrity?
Hmmm...my answer would differ based on the why. For example, my favorite actress is Meg Ryan; however, I really admire Michael J. Fox and Holly Robinson Peet as much for their talent as for their activism on behalf of Parkinson's Disease.


10. Could you fall in love with someone that you know must leave?
Yes, because leaving doesn't have to be permanent like death, so there's room to hope that the person would or could return.


11. Share a favorite quote of yours.
"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead." -- Thomas Paine


12. What’s your weakness?
Sad songs. I can't get enough of them, even though I should. I'm so partial to them that even when I'm not feeling down, I need to hear a sad song! Where's Dr. Freud when you really need him?


13. Do you believe that we all have a soul mate?
I'm not much for Aristotelian philosophy.


14. What were you doing before Sunday Stealing?
I was watching You've Got Mail. See #9. :)


15. What do you get complicated about the most?
I get complicated about dealing with people whose minds are so closed that they remind me of the stones in the Great Pyramid -- even a sheet of paper won't fit between them.


16. What turns you off the most from a potential partner?
I haven't had to think about this for a very long time! I suppose it would be obnoxious behavior, especially in public. I mean the kind of behavior that makes a person just cringe inside and want to disappear into the floor to avoid being seen with the culprit.


17. What is you worst habit?
Becoming obsessed with a task and not being able to stop until it is finished. I used to be able to work on multiple projects at once quite comfortably, but the older I get, the more important it has become to finish a task before starting another one. Maybe I subconsciously worry that I'll die before the task is finished and cause unnecessary hardship on someone who might not know how to complete it.

18. When was the last time that you were jealous?
The last time I remember being jealous was when I started noticing that my students drove nicer cars than I. Once I expressed that to the Amazing Egyptian Dude, I got a brand new one.


19. Have you ever had a “friend with benefits”?
No.


20. Do you use sarcasm?
Me? Who's been talking to you?


21. At the moment, what’s you favorite song?
"He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones has been my favorite song for many years.


22. What is you favorite day of the year?
Thanksgiving Day. It has always been my favorite holiday.


23. Describe your love life.
What's to describe? I love life!


24. When was your last one night stand?
Never.


25. How many past lovers are too many?
That's a judgmental question, and I do my best to avoid passing judgment.

Join in the fun! See more Sunday Stealing responses here.

You are Honest, Loyal, Generous, Humble and Tolerant

Loyalty: You value loyalty highly. You're completely devoted to your friends and family. Even if they totally screw up, you're still there for them. Just make sure they're equally loyal to you! Honesty: You value honesty a fair amount. You're honest when you can be, but you aren't a stickler for it. If a little white lie will make a situation more comfortable, you'll go for it. In the end, you mostly care about "situational integrity." Generosity: You value generosity a fair amount. You are all about giving, as long as there's some give and take. Supportive and kind, you don't mind helping out a friend in need. But you know when you've given too much. You have no problem saying "no"! Humility: You value humility highly. You have the self-confidence to be happy with who you are. And you don't need to seek praise to make yourself feel better. You're very modest, and you're keep the drama factor low. Tolerance: You value tolerance highly. Not only do you enjoy the company of those very different from you... You do all that you can to seek it out interesting and unique friends. You think there are many truths in life, and you're open to many of them.

I studied Spanish all four years of high school. Senor Munoz (sorry, but I have no clue how to get the proper tilde above the "n"!), who made learning the language fun most of the time, made it a point to teach us songs and phrases that we could begin to use right away no matter how little of the language we had actually mastered. And so, it is with a sense of profound gratitude to Senor Munoz that I shout, for all the world to hear, "Gracias a Dios que hoy es Viernes!" And in English --


What a week this has been. Let me say that again -- what a w---E---E---k!

I haven't had a seizure for two days, so my little world seems to be settling down again. The headaches, however, haven't quite finished reminding me that The Brain is in charge of things no matter what I think. All in all, though, I can't complain too much about The Brain's obsession with electrical surges; it is what it is, and I'll continue to muddle along as usual. So what has made me so thrilled that the end of the work week has come, at last? In a word, students.

If it weren't for the fact that I will soon be a retired educator, this professor is ready to throw in the teaching towel. Yesterday, my students, who have been working on a research paper for four -- count them, folks, FOUR -- weeks, should have had a rough draft of their essays ready for their classmates to read and critique. Between the two classes, no more than a dozen students actually had a draft for their group members to read. Many still hadn't completed the required research and had left their peers in the lurch, as they couldn't write a draft without the research that their group members should have collected and shared.

In all my years of teaching, I have never seen such a blatant lack of consideration for others as I witnessed yesterday. They have all known for four weeks that this assignment requires cooperation with one another and that if one member of the group fails to meet scheduled deadlines, the others suffer. Despite this knowledge, some of them decided that the undue, uncalled for, and unnecessary stress they placed on their group members was simply not as big a deal as their inability to conquer their procrastination habits.

Let's just say that I let them all hear my displeasure with the irresponsible behavior. It didn't help those poor students whose stress levels had risen to new heights, but it just might act as a wakeup call for the inconsiderate and irresponsible.

I may be shouting T.G.I.F. to the world, but I'm still a cockeyed optimist! Amen and Amen.

This is my first entry for the Thursday Thirteen meme and since I'm not all that familiar with it, I did some scouting around the participants' blogs to get a feel for it. Unless I am way off base, it looks as though I should compose a list of 13 things related to a topic of my choosing.

With my 50th birthday and retirement both coming up soon, friends have been sending me snarky emails filled with jokes about aging. So I'm going to share thirteen jokes about aging and the elderly. Enjoy, 'cause I sure did!

1. Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were playing golf one fine March day.
One remarked to the other, "Windy, isn't it?"
"No," the second man replied, "it's Thursday."
And the third man chimed in, "Me, too! Let's have a beer."

2. Where should 60+ year olds look for eye glasses?
On their foreheads.

3. My father is so old that when he was in school, history was called current events.

4. As a young man was strolling down the street he passed a large building with a fence around it, he heard a group of people chanting "thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen" over and over again. Curious, he tried to see over the fence but couldn't. Then he spotted a hole through the wood and put his eye through it to see. He just managed to spy some old people sitting on deck chairs chanting, when a finger came out of nowhere and poked him in the eye. As he staggered back, the old people started chanting "fourteen, fourteen, fourteen..."

5. Old Jim and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.
Edna promptly jumped in to save him She swam to the bottom and pulled Jim out.

When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act, she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable. When she went to tell Edna the news she said, "Edna, I have good news and bad news.

The good news is you're being discharged; since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of another patient, I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.
The bad news is, Jim, the patient you saved, hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I'm so sorry, but he's dead."

Edna replied, "He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?"

6. An elderly couple was attending a church service. About halfway through, the wife leans over and says, "I just did a silent fart, what do you think I should do?"

Her husband replies, "Put a new battery in your hearing aid."

7. A woman and a baby were in the doctor's examining room, waiting for the doctor to come in for the baby's first exam. The doctor arrived, and examined the baby, checked his weight, and being a little concerned, asked if the baby was breast-fed or bottle-fed. "Breast-fed," she replied. "Well, strip down to your waist," the doctor ordered. She did. He pinched her nipples, pressed, kneaded, and rubbed both breasts for a while in a very professional and detailed examination. Motioning to her to get dressed, the doctor said, "No wonder this baby is underweight. You don't have any milk."

"I know," she said, "I'm his Grandma, But I'm glad I came!"

8. Two elderly ladies were discussing the upcoming dance at the country club. "We're supposed to wear something that matches our husband's hair, so I'm wearing black," said Mrs. Smith. "Oh my," said Mrs. Jones, "I'd better not go."

9. Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards. One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, "Now don't get mad at me. I know we've been friends for a long time, but I just can't think of your name! I've thought and thought, but I can't remember it. Please tell me what your name is. "

Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes, she just stared and glared at her. Finally she said, "How soon do you need to know?"

10. My 50-something friend Nancy and I decided to introduce her mother to the magic of the Internet. Our first move was to access the popular Ask Jeeves site, and we told her it could answer any question she had. Nancy's mother was very skeptical until Nancy said. "It's true, Mom. Think of something to ask it." As I sat with my fingers poised over the keyboard, Nancy's mother thought for a minute, then responded, "How is Aunt Helen feeling this morning?"

11. I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me, and always she was correct. But it was fun for me, so I continued. At last she headed for the door, saying sagely, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these yourself!"

12. A distraught senior citizen phoned her doctor's office. "Is it true," she wanted to know, "that the medication you prescribed has to be taken for the rest of my life?" "Yes, I'm afraid so," the doctor told her. There was a moment of silence before the senior lady replied, "I'm wondering, then, just how serious is my condition because this prescription is marked 'NO REFILLS'."

13.

Check out the other Thursday Thirteen entries here.

No smiles today, just frowns I've got.
It's time for a rest on the pity pot.

I'm sad, I'm cranky. It'll be a day or two
Of feeling down, of feeling blue.

This isn't just a simple mood swing,
It's an honest to goodness pity pot thing.

You must admit that I've earned this spot
Right up front on the pity pot.

It's just so hard to keep this smile.
I need a pity pot break for just a while.

So give me time to wallow a bit.
I know real soon that I'll get over it.

The clouds will part and the sun will grow hot,
And I'll jump right off this pity pot.

This morning started out right nicely enough. I woke up early, got everything ready to begin grading essays, and was all set to put the past few days' worth of seizures behind me. I had heard something on the news that I just had to share with the Amazing Egyptian Dude, so I got up from my computer desk and began to amble over toward the living room. Maybe half a dozen steps into the trek, and I'm hit with the headache -- the one that makes breathing painful and moving excruciating. It nearly always starts on the right side, as that's the side of my body that Chiari seems to like torturing the most.

I grabbed my head and wobbled over to the couch, where I collapsed in a groaning heap. Whether my cats can sense something is wrong or they just like me being a captive audience for their affections, I don't know; but just seconds after I got myself situated comfortably on the couch, I had one cat at my head, one on my chest, and another on my feet. I fell asleep that way. See when I get these pressure headaches, the only way to deal with them is to sleep them off. Although I did manage to sleep, I awoke with a headache and a droopy right half of my face. If you've ever seen anyone with Bell's Palsy, then you'll know what I mean by a droopy face.

The headache is gone now, but I am wiped out. I am confident that I've earned this break on the pity pot, and by golly, I'm going to take it!

See the other Wordless Wednesday entries here.

• I've seen some improvement on the seizure front -- at last! Yesterday, I had only one. Maybe whatever it was that sent The Brain into a tizzy has moved on to greener pastures? One can only hope!
• Ali has jacked my iPhone. He has discovered how to play games on it and now, as soon as he gets home and settled in for the evening, he snatches my phone. The man will play games until the battery indicator warns him that unless it receives an immediate charge the world will come to an end. Now that he has learned how to charge the phone on the amazing speaker dock that I told him to buy me for my birthday last year, I no longer wake up in the morning to a totally dead phone. Woot, woot!
• While watering the jasmine and grapevine in the backyard yesterday evening, I decided to check out the guava tree at the same time. The one growing in the front yard has looked rather sickly for a couple of months, but the one in the backyard is in full blossom. Looks like Ali and the neighborhood will enjoy guavas later this summer. And it looks like we'll have another amazing grape crop this year, too! Last year's crop was amazing -- I don't think I've seen so many grapes in my whole life as I did when we were cutting the bunches off the single vine that has grown in our yard for about 15 years. Sadly, we didn't get around to cutting off any of the young leaves for stuffing (in Greek, which is most people are familiar with, stuffed grape leaves are called dolmades; in Arabic they are called mahshi wara aynab). Personally, I don't care what the heck you call 'em as long as you call me to eat 'em! Mmmmm...mmmmm....good!
• You know, I think that the average person will never be satisifed with anything the government does. We griped and complained about how poorly prepared FEMA was to handle a disaster after everything we witnessed with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So when WHO expressed concern about the possibilities of Swine Flu becoming a pandemic, our president responded appropriately. Now that it looks like Mexico's death toll has plummeted from the highest of 159 (it may be more, but that's the highest number I heard reported) to less than 50, some people are throwing hissy fits because they say that our government sacred us unnecessarily. I can't help but wonder how Uncle Sam will ever win with such a difficult crowd to please. Can you imagine the uproar had the CDC remained silent and the Swine Flu turned out to be a more vicious virus? Sheesh, people, give the old uncle a break!
• If you haven't seen Andrew Lloyd Weber's Joseph and the Amazing Techincolor Dream Coat yet, you should! I had the chance to see it all the way through for the first time yesterday and absolutely loved it. Donny Osmond, one of my favorite old teenage heartthrobs, gave an amazing performance. Joan Collins was delightfully wicked, too! You can probably rent it from Netflix, as I saw it on DVD. The musical will soon be revived on London's West End. I'm thinking that's enough reason to visit the UK again, don't you? ;)

If you'd like to join in the fun of random ramblings, just post 5 random thoughts on Tuesday. Send me the link to your post by leaving a comment, and I'll add you to the list of random ramblers!

• Sherlock's Stuff
• My Xanadu Too!
  

I've come to the conclusion that I don't like my brain. My mind? I like it quite a bit, but the hard drive where my mind lives and the motherboard that operates it are currently on my sh*t list. BIG TIME!

I didn't have as many seizures yesterday as I had on the previous two, which is always a good thing. Still, although there were fewer electrical misfiring episodes, they happened -- four times to be precise. As a result, I spent much of yesterday trying to determine exactly what had triggered the power surges this time. And the more I thought about it, the more clueless I became.

If turning 50 in 15 days were a big deal to me, I suppose that I could attribute the seizures to a belated midlife crisis since I never really had one in my thirties. Remember folks, a midlife crisis happens at the halfway mark of life and although some of us may want to be around when we're 100, the mid-point for most of us occurs around 35. Besides, Dante Alighieri already set the bar for us way back in the day -- with the midlife crisis that led him to make that famous trip to Hell:

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost."
(Inferno I.1-3)

But to be honest, turning 50 doesn't phase me in the least. I got over all that age trauma when I hit 30 so that by the time 40 rolled around, I was happy to be alive and didn't care how old I was anymore! Hitting the Golden Years, I've discovered, is actually something to look forward to.

With age comes privilege. We tend to make excuses for the embarrassing behavior of "older" folks because, well, they're old; their biological time clocks are running in reverse as they make their way toward a second childhood. Don't you remember the Sphinx's riddle from Oedipus?

What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?

Man starts out on all fours in the crawling stage, learns to walk on two legs as he matures, and in old age uses on a cane for assistance, thus regressing or moving back to a period of reliance on others. Maybe when I'm 50, I can crank up the car radio when CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" comes on the oldies station and my daughter won't be embarrassed anymore. She can, after all, chalk up my rocking out while driving to old age instead of some pitiful attempt to be cool! But as interesting as all this is, it doesn't account for the seizures.

So if it's not worrying about old age, what has triggered these electrical surges in The Brain? Honestly, I can only say, "Beats me!" And the beat goes

on
and
on
and
on
and
on

Welcome to my world or as Alice Cooper would say, "Welcome to My Nightmare."

This is the first time that I've participated in this meme, but it looked like so much fun that I just couldn't pass it up. I've chosen a funny song to start with because Mondays should always begin with fun!



Gitarzan by Ray Stevens

He's free as the breeze
He's always at ease
He lives in the jungle and hangs by his knees
As he swings through the trees
With a trapeze in his B.V.D.s
He's got a union card and he's practicing hard
To play, the guitar, gonna be a big star
Yeah, he's gonna go far
And carry moonbeams home in a jar
He ordered Chet's guitar course C.O.D.
Makes A and E and he's working on B
Big C&W and R&B and even the chimpanzees agree
That someday soon he'll be a celebrity
Get it, get it, get it.

Gitarzan, he's a gitar man
He's all you can stand
Give him a hand, Gitarzan

He's got a girl named Jane
With no last name
Kinda homely and plain
But he loves her just the same
Cause she kindles the flame
And it drives him insane
When he hears her say
She really does her thing
It's her claim to fame
Come on sing one Jane
Baby, baby, oh baby
Baby, oh baby

They've got a pet monkey who likes
To get drunk and sing boogie woogie
And it sounds real funky
Come on your turn boy
Sing one monkey
Let's hear it for the monkey
On Saturday night they need some excitement
Jane gets right and the monkey gets tight
And their voices unite
In the pale moonlight
And it sounds all right

Yeah, it's dynamite, it's out of sight
Let's hear it right now
Baby, baby oh baby
Yeah, shut up baby, I'm trying to sing
Get it, get it, get it
Repeat Chorus

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Here's the list of 100 Movies that Yahoo! says we should see before we die (in alphabetical order). After looking at the list, I can honestly say that it's missing quite a few of the ones I would have included as "must see" films, but oh well. The ones that I have seen are in bold. Which ones have you seen? The ones that I would add to the list are at the end of Yahoo's list.

Thanks to NurseExec at Driven to Distraction for the great idea!

**I'm a bit ahead of schedule because seizures have been bothering me quite a bit for the past two days and since I really don't want to miss out Sunday Stealing, I did mine between seizures just in case tomorrow is more of the same.**

First Job: I worked in an old-fashioned movie theater that was privately owned by a very unusual husband and wife team. I was 15 and got to see movies free, so it was easy to put up with the Addams Family of bosses.

First Real Job: Receptionist at a huge Buick dealership. Unfortunately, the owner was less than honest, and the DMV closed him down. I went to work one morning and discovered that a security company was in charge and all employees were sent away.


First Favorite Politician: Abraham Lincoln. My grandfather, a Civil War buff, sparked my interest in our 16th president, and it has never died.




First Car: 1973 Plymouth Duster

First Record/CD: Same Train / Different Time by Merle Haggard

First Sport Played: Barbies -- that counts, doesn't it?

First Concert: The Beatles

First Foreign Country Visited: Mexico


First Favorite TV Show: It's About Time. For years, I have remembered the theme song for this goofy show! Don't ask me why, because I honestly can't tell you. My very first school lunch box was the one in the photo below. Oh, what I'd give to have one of them now!




First Favorite Actor: Rock Hudson

First Favorite Actress: Doris Day



First Girlfriend/Boyfriend: The first love of my life was my Uncle Jerry. He stayed with us when he was in the Navy and stationed in San Diego. Since I'm the first grandchild on both sides of the family, I readily admit to being terribly spoiled and never wanting for attention as a child. Uncle Jerry, however, was my special pal because he watched Batman with me. From as early as I can remember, I was convinced that I would marry my Uncle Jerry. He broke my heart, though, when I was five and he married my Aunt Juanita. Poor thing had to really work at winning me over after she stole my man, but she succeeded just fine.

First Encounter with a Famous Person: The Everly Brothers used to play at Townhall Party where my parents went to dance. They took me along when I was a baby, and The Everly Brothers watched me while my parents jitterbugged around the dance hall.

First Brush With Death: If I've had one, I'm blissfully unaware of it and hope that I don't have one until it's the real deal.

First House/Condo Owned: The one I live in now. I hate moving!

First Film Seen: The first movie I remember from childhood is The Three Lives of Thomasina from 1964. I was five.


First Favorite Recording Artist: Merle Haggard

First Favorite Radio Station: 93 KHJ Boss Radio

First Book I Remember Reading: My grandmother was Queen for a Day in 1964 or thereabouts, and one of the prizes she won was a set of Childcraft Books which she gave to me and my sisters. I remember spending hours engrossed in those books, especially the one with the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales.

First Meme You Answered on Your Blog: I think that the first one I did was Movies A-Z. It's been a while. . .


Check out the other entries for Sunday Stealing!

Life is filled with ironies. Yesterday, while writing my post for Blogging Against Disablism Day, I had a seizure. It was the first of several that plagued me throughout the day. Like always, I did what I could between electrical overloads and the naps that follow them. But by the time the fifth seizure came along, I had had enough. My level of frustration reached the boiling point mostly because I have grading that needs to get done, and it's incredibly difficult to maintain focus on student essays when one's brain is performing the electric slide at regular intervals. Seizures make me craziest if they come when I've got something that I need to finish within a certain time frame, otherwise I deal with them quite well.

By mid-afternoon, I had given up on the notion of grading and returning papers. Feeling completely defeated, I settled into my nest on the couch to read a book that a student had loaned me. Two paragraphs into the text, seizure number six came along and blew the reading fuse. Patience be damned! Whatever it was that had triggered the seizures obviously hadn't gotten any better because my brain was still trying to get my attention.

I still don't know what upset The Brain yesterday, but whatever it was must not be resolved yet because this morning began with a double-header: a headache AND a seizure. You know, I wouldn't mind this crap so much if it made me look as cool as this chameleon!

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD), and I'm thrilled to participate for the first time. I thought long and hard about what I would write, but I kept coming up with topics that I had already blogged about: why people are kinder to me than others with invisible illnesses, what it's like to experience a seizure, the letter to my brain written out of frustration over an especially active day of seizures, or feeling trapped in the various circles of life. But very early this morning, I decided not to write about me and my disabilites; instead, I chose to write about Uncle Ronnie and "the leg." I hope that you enjoy it.

~*~*~*~*~

My Uncle Ronnie is quite a character. With a quick wit, a story to tell, and an impeccable sense of comedic timing, Uncle Ronnie made the summer trips to my Dad's hometown in Colorado something that I, his eldest niece, looked forward to each year. We never knew what he would say or do, but my sisters and I knew that Uncle Ronnie would somehow, some way make us laugh as if we'd never experienced the joy of laughter before. And as much as I loved laughing with Uncle Ronnie, he has no clue that he is responsible for some of my most cherished childhood memories and for teaching me how to turn a disability into an asset.

I've never known Uncle Ronnie without "the leg"; it's as much a part of him as his goofy sense of humor. Because I was a toddler when it happened, I have no recollection of the event that changed Uncle Ronnie's life, but I believe that a drunk driver hit him as he crossed a street in San Francisco while stationed there when he was in the Navy. He suffered a leg injury that became gangrenous and resulted in the amputation of that leg just above the knee. He learned to walk with the aid of a prosthetic leg, but he preferred to use crutches at home. It wasn't until I became an adult that I learned that the early versions of "the leg" often caused Uncle Ronnie more pain than using it provided him with assistance.

Uncle Ronnie used "the leg" for more than walking. We live in different states and saw him only during the annual family vacation to my dad's hometown in Colorado. Of course, in our excitement to hear Uncle Ronnie's goofy stories like how he had just gotten a perm and didn't want us to mess up his hair (it was about 1/4" long), it was hard for me and my sisters to control ourselves. Once, when my youngest sister was about 4 or 5, she was bouncing up and down on Uncle Ronnie's lap as they were playing around. In a very serious voice, Uncle Ronnie told her that if she didn't sit still, his leg would turn to stone. Because "the leg" had always informed our understanding of "normal" where Uncle Ronnie was concerned, Melody continued to bounce, figuring that it was just another one of his funny stories. Suddenly, Uncle Ronnie stood Melody on the floor and stared at his legs. Gingerly, he touched first one, then the other; he squeezed and rubbed and tapped lightly on each leg as if he were selecting produce from the supermarket. We watched his curious motions with much interest. He grabbed Melody's hand, placed it on the shin of "the leg" and instructed her to knock on it. She looked at him like he had lost his mind, but knock on his leg, she did. And when "the leg" emitted a sound in response to her tapping, Melody's eyes became saucer-like. "See," Uncle Ronnie said, "you didn't sit still like I told you to, and now my leg has turned to stone!"

The three of us learned an important lesson from "the leg" that day -- sometimes acting silly is inappropriate, even with someone as fun and funny as our Uncle Ronnie. We had no understanding of the situation at the time but learned as we got older that the prosthetic leg Uncle Ronnie wore often caused horrific blisters that didn't heal well. Melody's energetic movement caused pain for Uncle Ronnie as "the leg" rubbed against an open blister. Instead of making Melody feel guilty for causing him pain or frightening her about it which might, in turn, make her feel uncomfortable about sitting on his lap, Uncle Ronnie turned his discomfort into a teachable moment on appropriate behavior and the importance of self control.

"The leg," and Uncle Ronnie's attitude toward its role in his life, has helped me to deal better with my own disabilities. I can't recall ever hearing Uncle Ronnie complain about the pain or his disability. What I remember best is him taking us fishing, more often without "the leg" than with it; I remember sharing feasts of grilled rainbow trout fresh from our catch of the day. I remember rubbing his head in a deliberate attempt at messing up his newly permed hair. I remember coming home from school one day and finding "the leg" resting on a pillow and neatly tucked under the covers in the middle of my bed. I remember a man who hasn't let his disability define or confine him.

And on the days when it seems like the endless parade of headaches, seizures, drop attacks, dizziness, double-vision, or any of the other things that make up the Chiari cornucopia will push me over the edge, I need only to picture "the leg" in my bed to put it all into the proper perspective.

Thanks, Uncle Ronnie, you've taught me well.

The nation has been abuzz for the past several days in the wake of the release of memos that discuss torture, also called "enhanced interrogation techniques," from members of the Bush administration. While pundits on the right have expressed outrage over the documents' entrance into the public sphere, pundits on the left have escalated the debate over whether or not the people and agencies involved in the behavior outlined in them deserve further investigation and possible prosecution. One side contends that waterboarding, a torture technique with a long history (see the woodcut from 1556 on the right), at least as practiced by agents of the United States, does not constitute torture. It is, they argue, a legal "enhanced interrogation technique." The opposition recalls that in

• 1949, the U.S. brought charges of war crimes against Yukio Asano, a Japanese soldier, for waterboarding a U.S. civilian, and
  
• that when the Khmer Rouge used the same technique on its own people, the United States considered it a method of torture, or
  
• that an American soldier was court-martialed following the Washington Post's publication of a photo depicting his supervision of the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier, and
• that as recently as 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were tried, convicted, and sentenced to four years in prison for using an "enhanced interrogation technique" to extract "confessions" from prisoners.

Perhaps a definition of torture can clear up the confusion between the two sides' positions.

On February 4, 1985, The United Nations Convention Against Torture established the definition for torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions" (I.1.1.). Under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, the United States of America became a signatory to the Convention on April 18, 1988. Considering that those on the right hold former President Reagan in such high regard, they should have no problem accepting a definition for which he applied his, and the nation's, stamp of approval. One might expect the opposition to the U.S. approved definition of the term to come from the left, but it hasn't. Much like former President Clinton's now infamous remark that "that depends on what your definition of is is," a question of semantics in which the right found a great deal of humor and hypocrisy, waterboarding as a method of torture or an "enhanced interrogation technique" has been reduced to little more than an issue of word choice.

But while the pundits in Washington, on both the right and the left, argue over a definition, the practice of torture in its many forms has taken a toll on members of our military. To wit, U.S. Soldier Killed Herself -- After Refusing to Take Part in Torture. What makes this young girl's story so tragic to me is that her action is the ultimate sacrifice made in defense of her beliefs. It's not that she was a Mormon girl who gave up her life rather than do something she felt was wrong that makes her death so tragic -- I don't think that her religion has anything at all to do with it; the tragedy for me is that this young warrior couldn't convince her fellow soldiers that what they were doing was wrong and failing to do that, she could think of no other way out of her ethical dilemma. In her case, and the cases of others like her, suicide is not the ultimate act of a coward; instead, it becomes the ultimate act of bravery, as these soldiers kill themselves to avoid becoming like the enemy while their fellow soldiers see nothing wrong in emulating enemy behavior. And that is just plain sad irrespective of the side of the political spectrum on which you sit.

I feel as though I am slowly making my way down a red carpet, walking (ok, maybe typing is a better word choice) purposefully toward the stage (er, blog) where I will deliver a speech (ahem, make a post) thanking all the little people (well, it's really just one -- Ali of the White Heart) for their help on my journey to fame because I have been honored by Shauna of Shauna's Life in Pain and Other Fun Things and Sherlock of Sherlock's Stuff with the Premio Dardos award which, rumor has it, is Italian for "prize darts"! My first blog award, and I get a double dose -- how amazing is that?! Ladies, thank you both for deeming my blog worthy of such notice.

Here’s the purpose of the award:

The Prémio Dardos is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.

These are the rules:

1. Accept the award by posting on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.
2. Pass the award to another 10 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they've been selected for this award.

And now, I'd like to share this honor with the following people, listed here in no particular order:

OSM of One Sick Mother

Lacie of Live, Love, Laugh

Carolyn of Carolyn's Chiari

Dave of Chewing the Fat

The Goldfish of Diary of a Goldfish

Anni of Hootin' Anni's

Jayne d'Arcy of A Light in the Dark

Yaman of Yaman's Amateur Ramblings

Laila of Raising Yousuf and Noor: Diary of a Palestinian Mother

Nicole of Creative Disaster


Before signing off, I'd like to thank these writers for making my day a little brighter each time I read their blogs. Whether they're telling a story, sharing personal experience, providing food for thought, providing a platform for the discussion of important issues, these bloggers epitomize the purpose behind the Premio Dardos award in my view.

And finally, thanks to Shauna and Sherlock for believing that my blog is worthy of this award; I appreciate your feedback tremendously!

Sherlock, you're quite the inspiration! Not only did you inspire me to fix up my blog's template, but your post of random thoughts has inspired me to start a meme for myself -- Random Thoughts on Tuesday. From now on, I won't feel compelled to come up with a formal post on Tuesday mornings; instead, I'll just post a collection of whatever pops into my head when I hit the keyboard. This could be fun, frightening, thought provoking, comment invoking, interesting, or maybe even entertaining. Let's see what happens!

• Is anyone besides me starting to get worried about the Swine Flu and its potential to become a deadly pandemic? This morning, I found an interesting article in the Times (UK edition -- because I love to read interntional newspapers) called "Ten Facts About Swine Flu" and one of those facts is that "The most lethal flu pandemic of the past century was also caused by a swine flu strain. One billion people are thought to have contracted "Spanish flu" in 1918-19, of whom around 50 million were killed - although the death toll could have been much higher." Now, isn't that just what we all needed to know?
• I'm becoming addicted to blog widgets. There are so many nifty and fun things to put on a blog these days that I have to force myself to remember that not everyone has a high speed internet connection and that too many widgets can slow the load time significantly on a dial-up service. Maybe I could satisfy my widget addiction by rotating them a couple of times a month. . .
• My 50th birthday is coming up in about three weeks, and I've been trying to figure out what I want. Ok, well, actually I know what I want; I'm just having a hard time justifying its purchase, LOL! It's kind of hard to build a convincing argument for a $250 iPhone case!
• Today is D-Day for my retirement paperwork. I will take the last of it to HR after my class this afternoon and see what comes next. It took forever to get the info I needed from one of the community colleges and although I finally got it on Friday, I'm not sure that it's all that I needed from them. Let's just say the employee from payroll was anything but interested in helping me. Maybe, fingers crossed, what I have is enough to get the ball rolling to coordinate the pensions between the two plans for which I qualify.
• On the censorship front, the ALA (American Library Association) has released its list of the Top 10 Challenged Books for 2008. I wasn't surprised to see that And Tango Makes Three remained at the top of the list from last year. What I did find interesting, though, is that none of Judy Blume's books made the top 10 this time! Ms. Blume does, however, remain the most frequently challenged author in American history. What an honor!

If you want to join in the fun of random ramblings, just post five random thoughts this Tuesday. Enjoy!