Walden Cabin: Observations typed on an old Underwood

Waiting...
...for the Minister to call back, so I can finish the Maclean's piece. Hoping ... that Jasper won't wake up before the call ... that my editor will like this draft ... that there's a beer in the back of the fridge, behind the Christmas leftovers. Praying ... for warmer weather ... that the ultrasound results will be normal ... for the bank financing to be approved. Worried ... that I will never work above ground again ... that this pain in my back is more than stress ... Concerned ... that Suzy and I won't really talk again until our kids grow up ...

Where's that beer.
Oh, there's the phone!

Blah-busters
Face it, don't you just want to yell at the people who still have their Christmas lights on? But it's not about them. January sucks. Beating the winter blahs calls for creative solutions. Here's an idea: Take a fist-full of tissues and a lighter. Amble down the street after dark and toss lit Kleenex wads into tossed-away tinder-dry Christmas trees. How Canadian; it's victim-less, environmentally-friendly arson.

It's understandable that this remedy for January stress may not have universal appeal. Not everyone wants to risk losing fingers to frostbite while fumbling with a lighter. So here are some other ideas:

1) Try Jane-Diane's Blah-buster Winter Soup. Hot stuff.
2) From Bea’s Diary:
Things I’m doing to beat the winter blahs.
3) Read some poetry: Zachary Houle's new blog site.
4) Look at some pictures: Lana Stewart is also from PEI.
4) Make a papier maché pinata. Fun with glue and newspaper, and you get to smash the crap out of it in the end. Ah.

Mars: I'm lovin' it™
Click for the pic. Thanks to Samy.

VIDEO:
Jasper speculates on the sex of baby 2. Click to find out -- He's wrong.
>> Everything you need to know about vasectomy.
>> Some guy in the US put his vasectomy pics on the web: I didn't make it all the way thru this site.

Carbon copy this to your friends
Someone commented recently that old familiar phrases are disappearing from the vernacular. When was the last time you brought home a "bucket of chicken" or saved a file on a "floppy disk?"
>> What other words are set to disappear? Should we be burying hand-cranked presses and pencils with manuals in anticipation of the imminent collapse or am I just having a bad week?
>> New words in English.

Read this. Live.
Everyone in this country should be given CPR training, for free. I attended a CPR Heart Saver course last night, and couldn't believe the misconceptions I had about heart disease, symptoms, and emergency treatment. Here are some highlights; this is stuff everyone should know:

1) Women are generally considered to be at lower risk of heart attack. This is based on bad information. Heart attacks in women manifest themselves so differently from men's that many, many heart attacks in women are not factored into statistics. Heart attack symptoms in women tend to include a stiff neck and jaw pain, and may not include the typical male symptoms such as crushing chest pain or limb pain. If you think it's just a bad sleep that gave you that stiff neck, think again.
2) When pressing on the chest as part of CPR on an adult heart attack victim, you're not doing it right if you don't break a few of the victim's ribs. The chest has to be compressed by a third to be effective. If the victim can complain of a broken rib after you've revived them, you may still get a medal of valour -- because They're Not Dead!
3) Angina is not a heart attack. It's heart pain that is caused by constriction of blood vessels and arteries on the heart. You can have low cholesterol and the unclogged arteries of a teenager, and still get angina. You can also live a long and healthy life with the condition. It does not indicate that a heart attack is imminent.
4) If someone is suffering symptoms of a heart attack or stroke, do not give them an aspirin or other "blood thinner" such as alcohol. If the symptoms are caused by an aneurism, and not a blockage, you could cause serious and fatal internal bleeding.

There is so much more. Wouldn't it be nice if we knew that everyone in our society were armed with the training and information needed to save lives? Wouldn't an informed public also save health care dollars? The cost of a publicly paid programme of CPR and First Aid training would be more than covered by savings from hospital treatment. Lives would be saved. I've harped on this before, but once again I can't believe how short-sighted our country's "leaders" are. As my grandma always said, "An ounce of prevention ... "

>> Find out what you need to know about Heart Health. Visit the Heart and Stoke Foundation of Canada.

posted by Stuart Hickox | 2:38 PM