mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
You can scroll the shelf using ← and → keys
Throw a Dog a Triberr Bone
January 15, 2013
— 6 Comments
The hardest working men in the publishing business have responded, repaired, and restructured the idea tested recently of limiting members’ posts to 6 per week. They truly care about being excellent Chiefs of this Digital Nation. They have graciously served all the free loading members like me who have gathered to suck down services and enjoy the free ride while they beta test the system. They have now generously capitulated to allow 14 posts to non paying members. This is perhaps a dangerous slippery slope for our three musketeers, caving to the whining of the never satisfied. To balance what has become an unfair fight in my estimation, I am going to start my subscription to the newly created Prime Lite. I double dog dare all other members of Triberr to follow suit. Put up, or shut up, as they say.
I do not resent losing the imaginary bones that were created as currency within they system. As Dan explained, since there is no way to spend them, they have been retired…like Green Stamps, or the game at the grocery store with the bingo stickers. Do NOT resent losing the silly bones. They were imaginary….okay? The expenses the Chiefs incur to create our little wonderland are real. So many have expressed opinions about how the system operates, but so few have bothered to pay for it. I personally love to pay for quality. It means that quality can thrive and be there for me next time I want to pay for it. Triberr is a very high quality service. I want to help it to grow and prosper, because it helps me grow and prosper.
I firmly believe that if you have time to write 14 blogs a week worth reading, you also have time to cough up $10 a month to keep the system flowing. Let us find that $10, and show our Chiefs we love what they do for us. If you have $40, I encourage you to just send it. Go Prime…this is probably the only thing in the world that you can do all the way to Prime for just $40 a month. If you have some reason you do not want to pay, I ,very specifically,do not want to hear about it. You can just go be cheap and quiet in your own pitiful corner.
Winter is the Season of the Water Element
January 14, 2013
The elemental nature of winter coincides with water. Diet and activity can make a big difference to our health during the cold season. Water and the kidney meridian will determine if you are easy going and flowing, or timid and fearful. Your basic constitution, your resilience, is found in the health of your kidneys. During winter it is important to cover the head, neck, and abdomen to stay warm. It is helpful to eat a diet that includes some ginger and cranberries, to preserve the water balance in the body. Nettles are an herbal remedy that also works very well as a balancing tonic. You can simply drink tea made from nettles, which has a very mild flavor, but a powerful effect.
If you have too much water you will feel sluggish and swollen. Too little will result in bitterness and brittle bones. All the organs depend on the kidneys to balance PH and electrolytes. During winter the kidneys are most vulnerable, prone to deficiency or excess. This causes a stagnation of all the organ functions. this sluggish state causes depression and confusion. Simple movements such as the qigong above, twists and bends the area of the kidneys to bring fresh circulation to the adrenals and kidneys. This one is simple to follow, but there are many examples you can learn. TCM is becoming more popular in the US because it works. Try it. You might like it, and your renal system will thank you for it.
Triberr Changes Rules, Uproar Ensues
January 13, 2013
— 16 Comments
I have been enjoying meeting and spreading the work of bloggers on the Triberr platform. I went to NYC in September to learn more about it, and have been pleased with all I have gained from my enjoyment of Triberr. Yesterday the stream of blogs started drying up and today we learn that a limit was imposed of a maximum of 6 posts a week for each member. I am not as prolific as many of my tribe mates. I do not advertise or promote anyone’s products on my blog. My thing is simple. I am just shocked that they are going all Netfix with no warning.
I predict there will be an exodus of some kind, and maybe a knock off site. In the meantime it will be the talk of the town, not in a good way. I do not mind paying a small fee, but there is something about changing the rules overnight that causes uproar. Triberr has some ‘splainin to do.
Ghost Tourism
January 13, 2013
— 4 Comments
My Dead Peeps
I have traveled in person only once to visit my dead ancestors and look for local records of their lives. I went to Tulsa, where I was born, and my grandparents are buried, but I can not find their graves. After my cousin went back to Iowa I did more investigation in the town where my father was born, Independence, KS. I drove to the small rural town of Ladore, where many of my ancestors settled when they came from Ohio and New York. I found the grave of one of my 2nd great grandmother while looking for somebody else. It made the hair stand up on my neck even in sweltering humid July in Kansas. I have been all over the world on all kinds of journeys, but this is a whole new way to look at travel…visiting history by combining the ancestors and geography. Kinky, and very cool.
I have accumulated and am trying to geographically arrange data on ancestors around Plymouth Colony, MA and around Jamestown, VA. I will go to both destinations eventually, but have to choose one to be the first. The peeps are mostly very fancy in both places and we know how to find many of the graves, some homes, etc. I am not really into them for the royal blood and fame, I just like them because they survived. It is nothing like visiting living relatives. They are past judgement and are all very low maintenance. They are what you might call spooky. I just learned from a local that Virginia is a vortex for ticks, which makes graves in Massachusetts instantly sound so much more appealing. I am thinking now of flying to tick free, but cold Boston. Someday I will procure the right tick graveyard gear to safely visit my Virginians…like Mary, who is in the private and elite graveyard at Warner Hall with a lot of my other ancestors:
The walled family cemetery of the Warner and Lewis families is located on the Warner Hall property, southeast of Warner Hall. Access to the Graveyard is from the road North of Warner Hall and not from Warner Hall or the Driveway to Warner Hall located West of the Graveyard. The cemetery is the final resting place for many of the Warner and Lewis family members. The family cemetery, is also the resting place for such well known ancestors of George Washington, Robert E. Lee, The Queen Mother of England, and Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth has visited Gloucester where she placed a wreath upon her ancestor’s grave. The cemetery has thirteen graves and plaques in memory of all the family. The cemetery is owned and maintained by the Association for Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (A.P.V.A.). The A.P.V.A. acquired the cemetery at Warner Hall in 1903, since which time the Association’s Gloucester Branch, now known as the Joseph Bryan Branch, has zealously maintained it.
There are thirteen graves in the Warner Hall Grave Yard. they are:1 Mary Warner (believed to be Mary Towneley Warner), 1614 – 16622 Augustine Warner I, 1611 – 16743 Augustine Warner II, 1642 – 16814 Mildred Reade Warner (wife of Augustine Warner II), 16945 Augustine Warner III, 1666 – 16866 Elizabeth Warner Lewis (d/o Augustine Warner II w/o Col John Lewis), 1672 – 17197 Col John Lewis (s/o John & Isabella Lewis h/o Elizabeth Warner), 1669 – 17258 Mary Chiswell Lewis (d/o John & Elizabeth Randolph Chiswell w/o Warner Lewis II, 1748 – 17769 Warner Lewis II (s/o Warner Lewis I & Eleanor Bowles Gooch Lewis & grandson of Col John Lewis & Elizabeth Warner Lewis), 1747 – 179110 Juliana Clayton (d/o Dr. Thomas & Isabella Lewis Clayton), 1731 – 173411 Isabella Lewis Clayton (d/o Col John Lewis & Elizabeth Warner w/o Dr. Thomas Clayton), 1706/7 – 1742 (the dates 1706/7 is exactly what is engraved on her stone)12 (Dr.) Thomas Clayton (h/o Isabella Lewis), 1701 – 173913 Caroline Lewis Barrett (d/o Warner Lewis II), 1783 – 1811
Mary Cant Towneley (1614 – 1662)
is my 11th great grandmother
Son of Mary Cant
Daughter of Colonel Augustine II
Son of Mary
Daughter of Augustine Warner
Daughter of Martha
Son of Mary
Son of Johannes John
Son of Henry
Son of Swain
Daughter of Jerimiah
Son of Minnie M
Son of Ernest Abner
I am the daughter of Richard Arden
Private Graveyard at Warner Hall
Design and Deliver Happiness
January 12, 2013
The all around good time, right livelihood, and value vibe created by Zappos is a result of excellent design. The products we buy from Zappos are of high quality. What is perhaps more important is that they are steering capitalism in a healthy direction by upgrading the way business is designed. Feudalism, slavery, share cropping and all other adverse forms of employment feature happiness for shareholders only. This short-sighted vision produces more unhappy servants of the apparently happy owners of companies than it does loyal customers. With the contentment quotient working in reverse, quality, innovation, and value erode and vanish. I think this erosion is occurring in the public service sector. If Vets kill themselves there is a clear indication that something essential is missing in the overall design of our public business.
How can we make the business of government switch from a stagnant vessel of inefficient service to a lean mean contentment machine? Are there ways to practice the Zap happy values in public service and politics?
- Deliver WOW Through Service
- Embrace and Drive Change
- Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Pursue Growth and Learning
- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
- Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
- Do More With Less
- Be Passionate and Determined
- Be Humble
I do see a little weirdness, but far too little. The WOW Through Service is just not happening. Imagine the government being passionate to do more with less, or be humble. These core values are created for the benefit of all. Happiness compounds daily, as does negligence. My dream government applies these guiding principles to create a better world. Imagine, gentle reader, a government that makes us as happy as Zappos does, all while being creative and open minded. We can dream.
Bubbling Spring of Health and Confidence
January 12, 2013
— 2 Comments
I was reminded of a meditation technique I used to practice, but have almost forgotten. The bubbling spring meditation is an active way to make contact with the earth element and move stagnant energy in the body. It is powerful and easy to learn. I need to brush up and use it, since it is vital to remember how energy flows (and becomes stagnant) in the body. Kidneys, as well as kidney chi, are the source of confidence and mental clarity. I think this is the big mental illness plague confusing and freaking out the United States. The kidney chi of the nation has been trashed with coffee and alcohol, drugs and junk food. The adrenal gland of the nation is shot from constant flight or flight paranoid delusional thinking. This is a people in need of contact with the earth, our supporting element. The water element of your body meets the earth at a specific point on the bottom of your foot known as the kidney one point. You can learn about this in more detail from a teacher of qigong, Tai Chi, or any Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, such as an acupuncturist. I encourage you to do so.
Kidney one, a point to be found on the sole of your foot, is the important gateway to health available with each step you take. All you need to do is to find kidney one and start to know how it makes your life either lovely or hellish. Once you know, you will respect the kidney meridian. I spent a lot of time in dementia wards for a few years when my mom needed care. We rescued her from that care because the standard of care was to dehydrate the helpless seniors to death. A few years later all the citizens of my country, including the congress, resemble the folks we met in the locked dementia wards. They are angry, and irrational like crazy fire. Kidney chi, gentle reader, kidney chi.
The water element is as unhealthy in our emotional society as the bodies of polluted water are around the globe. We polluted the water on earth the same way we emotionally pollute our society. We dis the flow. We fight the river. We ignore the Tao. Simple steps can be taken to restore balance and order. Awareness is the key.
Who is Crazier than Whom?
January 10, 2013
— 1 Comment
There is no crazy in the big overview. There is only true and false. To establish a mental health norm we need to establish a norm for the plain old truth. The truth will set us free, but the will to quibble about what is true is stronger than our will to be free. I attended the University of Texas at Austin in 1968 where our very famous tower had been featured a couple of years earlier in the first spectacular insane school shooting in America. The tower says, in giant letters, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” During the school year someone managed to steal Bevo ,the longhorn mascot, and take him to the top of the tower to hold for ransom. I believe this was part of the Send Bevo to Biafra movement, but that is not the important point. The point is that Bevo himself could be taken to the top of the tower two years after the mentally ill Nam Vet found the perfect spot to take aim at society…that tower. Let us not debate what is true and not true, what is safe and not safe. Let us take a rational overview to see what is happening to our social fabric. Let us be willing to be still and know the truth in order to be set free from our own self inflicted crazy.
Groupies of the Chef
January 9, 2013
— 2 Comments
We have a new favorite restaurant in Tucson. It was recommended to us by a friend, so my neighbor Heidi and I went on reconnaissance. We enjoyed a lovely lunch with gourmet touches and warm service the week before Christmas. I decided to take advantage of a special offer on gift certificates, and purchased three for 2013. I received a 30% discount which always makes me feel smart and happy. Lodge on the Desert is creating a seasonal artisanal menu that suits me perfectly. I am a dedicated groupie of Ryan Clark who tickles my tastebuds exactly the way I like. Dining out is a rare special occasion, so I need to make it count.
Christmas brunch was pure delight. Now I can return for two more blow out gourmet dining experiences when the season changes. The chef is brilliant, the cuisine local and contemporary. This is my idea of ideal dining, right in the ‘hood. Chef Ryan Clark is a local treasure. I am looking forward to tasting our next meal in his restaurant.
-
- grilled romaine
-
- Sangria
-
- passionfruit chiltepin cocktail
-
- Christmas Cheers!
-
- Flatbread made veg for me
-
- crispy tortillas for garnish
-
- duck confit salad
-
- chocolate torte
-
- chocolate chili gelato
-
- too much dessert
-
- charming historical lodge
-
- outdoor fireplace
A Tale of Two Tucsons
January 8, 2013
— 2 Comments
Coopers Hawk Fledgling
I live in the middle of Tucson like Gabrielle Giffords. She lives somewhere just south of my neighborhood in a much fancier part of town. On the anniversary of her shooting two years ago, today there are ceremonies to ring bells, hang bells, pray, and commemorate. Tucson seems to me less peaceful, less educated, more reactionary, and more dangerous than it was two years ago. The city creates PR about how we have come together as more civil and less crazed, less armed, less scary…as IF!!!!!!
Where I live the cops do not respond for at least an hour and then they do not bother to even report the crimes you report to them. Nobody calls them because nobody wants to wait around for no reason. The gun store close to my house has had an overflowing parking lot for the last month. My next door neighbor who goes to the shooting range with a bunch of cops on Sundays told me their highly armed group is freaking out because there is no ammo in town to be purchased. They know that the government is a threat to their freedom, and want to buy all the ammo they may need to defend themselves against the government when they try to take their arms.
While commemoration is all well and good, there are plenty of mentally ill people roaming the streets where I live with instant access to weapons. Unfortunately, they have no access to or interest in mental health therapies. There are no cracks to slip through because there is virtually no safety net to treat mentally ill Tucsonans. There is a place where they can score prescription drugs, but no therapy. There is no evidence of effective law enforcement. If Gabby stayed in my neighborhood for a few days she would understand how futile law passing is. With all due respect to her point of view, nobody enforces the laws we have now. Why would adding more laws have a positive effect? I notice a frightening negative effect in the ammo buying population, all agitated and wanting more arms. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It bears repeating, gentle reader.
Foxy New Year, Downtown Tucson
January 7, 2013
— 1 Comment
New Year’s Eve
uplight
Fox Theater downtown Tucson
stage
Bob takes a call
before the show
lighting fixture at Fox
I had not been in the Fox Theater since the 1970’s when I used to pay $1 to stay all afternoon and watch Woody Allen movies in air conditioned comfort. Downtown Tucson has had a bit of a slow start and restart to our urban renewal concept known as Rio Nuevo. I seriously thought about moving downtown, but did not think it would ever come around to a desirable state. There are still issues, but I am very pleased with what is happening now. We went to a Paula Poundstone show on New Year’s Eve at the historic theater. It was a great comedy concert, but we really enjoyed the design and the atmosphere of the building. We were able to find a cab to take us home, which has been a problem on outings to downtown in the past. Eventually we will have a tram to take us to the restaurants and entertainment venues that are starting to appear. I have high hopes that ten years from now I will be able to hop on the bus in front of my home, connect to the tram to go enjoy the vibrant downtown Tucson deserves. I certainly hope so.
mermaidcamp 