Fun with Packaging

I think I need to move to Asia.



It comes with a "mobile phone cleaner" too!



Also you really should try these olives from China.



"Ingredients: Fresh fruit, salt, etc."
We tried them. Clearly an acquired taste.

Playin' @ Art

Altering--or adulterating?--an ad card. Just for fun. Because it's there. Or something.

Wait, Wait

What are we all waiting for? Are we waiting in traffic, waiting for the light to change, waiting for the big hand to get to the 2 and the little hand to get to the 6? Wait, there are no hands on this clock! Are we counting the days until school gets out as most kids do? Are we counting the days until our birthday as most little kids do? Or waiting to see if anyone remembers our birthday as some adults have to do? Are we waiting for winter to be over, finally?
Wouldn't it be more zen-like not to wait at all? To always live in the present moment, comfortably enjoying whatever life chooses to send to us? I'd like to do that savoring-thing, wouldn't you? Imagine us all sitting at that stop light full of the joy of present. Perhaps we'd watch a mote of dust flying by our face. We'd banish all road rage and smile sweetly when someone cuts into the bank line ahead of us. The deadline for that raise or tax-refund would pass us by and we would take note, but mildly. We'd smell all the daisies and never mind the hay fever or the bees. The plane might be late to take off, but suddenly sardine-class seems so cozy.
Imagine the practice of medicine--no need to swear after being left on hold for 45 minutes by a managed care company. Think of all the happy patients in the waiting room who have enjoyed the canned music and 3 year old magazines while waiting for you to deal with yet another emergency. And as you show your next appointment in, your patient delightedly comments on how he watched the busy ants in the lobby carrying a half eaten candy bar back to their nest in the building walls.
The irritable, hyperactive children join hands and dance with their siblings expressing their joy to be together. Their tired, overworked teachers bless them for the joy their inattention brings them. The insomniac sings the praise of all those extra hours of awareness his troubles bring him. Depression gives us time to get in tune with our inner self-loathing. We all love the way the panic attacks make every second seem like hours.
Wait, wait, don't hang up now. I have more joy and inner beauty to share with you, really! Not to mention there is this lovely gentleman in Nigeria who needs our financial support. His lawyer can be reached at. . . .

Well that explains it.

"The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals." From CNN.com found on March 10, 2008.

Hmmm, let me see:
Valium--see no evil, feel no evil
THC--they didn't inhale!
Prozac--for the rose colored glasses
Oxycontin--they don't feel your pain
Ritalin--too late, they never did pay attention in school
Viagra--enough said

For the real story, go to the link.
The sad thing is that doctors were always told to flush expired sample medications down the toilet. Only recently did I learn that pharmaceuticals are supposed to be otherwise disposed of. The question is where? In the trash that the homeless regularly dig through in my neighborhood? One article suggests that you mix the used medications in with something unsavory like used kitty litter. What an awesome idea. Quick, let's mix up a batch right now! Even the rats won't eat that!
Of course it isn't medication samples that are the main source of the problem. It is the other stuff we flush. All the medications we take and then excrete unmetabolized. Who woulda thunk it? I always assumed that sewage treatment took care of it. Turns out if our livers don't break it down, our sewage plants may not either. Water filters like Brita aren't effective either.
Of course there is no reason to panic. The amounts are minute and we have no evidence they are harming us. But still room for thought. Oh, and bottled water may not be any better. Besides think of all the plastic waste the bottles generate and all the trucks, boats, trains and planes moving all that tap water across our planet to give us the placebo effect that it is better liquid than what one can get for free at home.

Speaking of THC, I'll close here with a final quote from that bard and social historian of the sixties (and he sure did inhale) Tom Lehrer.

"Lots of things there that you can drink,
But stay away from the kitchen sink.
The breakfast garbage that you throw in to the Bay,
They drink at lunch in San Jose."

If you haven't already seen it, watch Lehrer sing it on You Tube. It will brighten your day.

You know you've spent too much time remodeling when. . .

Your son asks you to sew up a seam in his winter coat and you wonder if you should blow in some insulation before you do.
True story.

Thin crust

Older kid was getting mouthy today. Said I, "You're walking on thin ice there." Said he,"And you're carrying an ice axe."

Gotta admit that is a good line there!

Driving do's and don'ts

Do As I Say. . . .

Don't talk on the phone while driving,
Above all don't write a poem.
Don't look for something on the floor
Or program your Palm Treo.
No candid shots of passersby
Or flipping rude drivers the bird.
And absolutely, never, ever, take
This photograph.




By way of explanation, as I was heading to work on Tuesday, traffic hit a total slow down, and boredom overtook the anxiety of knowing, I'd arrive late at work. I took a few photos and wrote this poem. When the cause of the traffic was visible I took one shot but with the blockage passed there was no time to focus or frame the photo.

Which dwarf are you today?

I think I'm a cross between Dopey, Grumpy and Sleepy.
Even on this kind of a day, I still have to be Doc.
Sigh.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

The time has come for me to reveal my true identity. Yes it is I, famed superspy, Mata Sari, or is it Sara Hari, or, no it's, Shmata* Shari, Yiddish speaking supersnoop. No longer will I hide here on the internet as a mild-mannered bird-watching shrink.













Remember all those lurkers reading your site but never leaving comments? That is part of my network of internet spies saving our nation and the free world. It is too late to delete your blogs. I have it all down. Our fearless leader hired me, Shmata, to monitor the net waves for those who dare mock him and his talented team of liberty-loving rednecks.
You have posted your last Bush joke. We now control your internet service provider (hitherto known as IPS--sorry like our leader I'm dsylexic). Those cute little bird pictures? They are my specially trained junco squad. Each gray bird has a designated site they will fly to in the next few days. First the wood peckers and squirrels will gnaw holes in your cables and wires. Then each junco will so delicately take a dump in a critical location. If you thought bird flu was bad, you should try this virus!
Once we control the internet we can get back to business. My advisers have told our president that matters in Iranq and Korea will take more than two years to solve. We owe it to the free world to prolong the tenure of our current administration for another 6 short years. Once we have settled the problem of the Triangle of Evil, Trial of Evil, Triad of Envy, oh you know what I mean, Bush's daughters will be out of rehab. and able to run for office in his stead.
Do not be overconfident. The birds are not my only hench-animals. Did you ever wonder why your cats always linger outside the bathroom when you are in there. They too are monitoring your every move. Should you think to bring your laptop into the bathroom while you do the deed, they know. Each whisker is a special wireless transmitter picking up your every key stroke. Your cats leave secretly encoded messages in the catbox for later pick up.
Oh, I have to go. My security team tells me there was a wren spied in my back yard. More updates to follow.

*Shmatteh - Rag, anything worthless from Yiddishkeit

Egg toys

Silly stuff courtesy of dumpr.net and found via meeyauw.


We include eggs as part of the Passover ritual too.

Spring is here

Just in case you forgot.



And then I remembered a song from one of the all time funny song writers--Tom Lehrer. You have to be of a certain age and from a family with a certain kind of inherent nastiness to know of him I think. Some of his Cold War songs are pretty funny in a sick kind of way. Remember the days of nuclear bomb drills in school? If you do, we know you are old like me :).

So here is old Tom from his album An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer. Go to this site for the full set of lyrics (if you can stomach it). To really appreciate this you really have to hear Lehrer singing and commenting. Enjoy!

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

I'd like to take you now on wings of song as it were, and try and help you forget, perhaps, for a while, your drab wretched lives. Here is a song all about springtime in general, and in particular about one of the many delightful pastimes that the coming of spring affords us all.

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'Course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes every Sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

Fun and games with teenagers

This was just too choice not to blog. . . . This evening we were serving dinner to my family and my older son’s friend. Both older boys are 14 years old. Suddenly my son grabs his stomach and runs to the bathroom. My husband and I look at each other and say that he must be getting the stomach bug that kept my younger son out of school for the previous 2 days. My son’s friend leans over his absent friend’s plate and interjects: “Ooh, can I have his rice?” We nearly died of laughter. Compared to rapid-growth-induced hunger, what are a few virus particles between friends?

Playing Pharmacist 2

I'm not a regular reader, but I've observed that the Onion, a spoof newspaper, does psychiatry quite well. Take the issue of 1-7 June, 2006. One headline reads, Columbia House Launches Subscription Meds Program. I quote from the article here: "Qualified seniors may choose either 12 generic drugs for one cent, or five brand-name medications for 49 cents each, plus shipping and handling. Members are then obligated to buy five more brand-name medications over two years at their regular price, ranging from $12.99 to $549.99." Later they quote a satisfied customer: "Their 'recommended' list said that if I liked Pfizer, I'd absolutely love GlaxoSmithKline--and they were right." Incidentally Pfizer and Glaxo both make antidepressants.
The implications of a subscription drug program are too mind-boggling to go into here. I guess I'll have to order my Viagra from an internet spammer instead. But how to choose from the thousands of offers I get daily. (And I don't even have a peenis, spelling lifted from today's latest spam).
A second article in the same Onion issue takes a more psychodynamic bent: "It's like, 'Hey, ever heard of a little thing called 'resolving issues through unconscious acting-out of a maladaptive fantasy-life manifesting itself through inappropriately weak personal boundaries'?' Hello?" Print this up in a psychoanalytic journal and it would almost sound erudite. So next time I need to throw some good psychobabble into a therapy session I know where to turn.
Night, night (past my bedtime).

Product Alert!

For the ladies only--how many of you knew that they now make spray on hose? This was a discovery I made just yesterday. It makes me think somehow of the World War II stories of women who drew a line down the back of their legs to make it look like they were wearing nylons.
I can see the headline now:
Would be robber suffocates after trying to don girlfriend's spray on panty hose!
Cheers