You know the human animal is a complex being. I watch Dr. Oz occasionally and find myself amazed at just how complex our bodies are. His animations and actual displays of organs continually reinforce my amazement. The other day there was a panel of Doctors discussing what not to eat yada, yada, yada. Low and behold I find out that virtually ALL of the low fat foods I eat and drink are now bad for you. And yes, they actually condition the body to resist losing weight and even make you gain weight in some cases. Good Grief! Being the good little kid that my mama raised, I always follow my doctor's advice and have a clean handkerchief in my pocket. I try to live by his edicts. HOGWASH! Not anymore - if I have said it once, I have said it more than ten times. I have felt for a long time that most of the diseases we cope with today are a result of ingesting artificial foods, foods with chemical additives, preservatives and coloring. I mean do we really need our prepackaged meat we buy in the grocery store to be 1. imported from some other country and 2. have the package filled with nitrogen to length the time the meat stays red. Let's get real people.
Back to the complex being thing. Debby, the younger and proud parent of the Pugs, has a brand new set of twin God-children. Last night the twins were born, albeit prematurely. The little angels were 2 lbs 8 oz and 3 lbs 3 oz. Just itty bitty kidlings. They appear to be in very good condition thankfully. Debby posted a couple of photos on FB. A hand was next to each to give a point of reference. Wow - how can so much complex mechanism be packaged in such small bundles? Truly amazing.
One of the most complex parts of our body is the brain. It is really such an advanced piece of machinery. How chemicals, cells, nerves, twitches, nodes, nodules and such transform impulses and reactions into thoughts, memories, muscle movements is really awesome. I usually don't pay much attention to the power of the brain, just kind of take it as a given, I guess like most of us. I do think about it though at times when it doesn't function quite right. Take, for instance, last night. My electric blanket is one of those with dual controls, a left and right side. Being a soul who likes it cool for sleeping, I only use the low setting. Being a creature who doesn't think ahead a lot of times, I usually turn it on and crank it to high when I go to bed. This causes me to lie in bed and shiver for several minutes until the blanket begins to heat then I turn it back down to low. Yes, there have been times when I fall asleep before turning it down. And yes I have woken up in the middle of the night with a start having been dreaming about sleeping on a BBQ grill.
I think my penchant for a cool sleeping environment stems from my childhood. Born in central Iowa just after WWII ended on a farm, I lived until about the age of 10 or 12 in a 4 room farm house equipped with running water but no bathroom, just an outhouse. Got used to dark cold walks around the house, under the walnut tree to the outhouse to do my "business". In the winter, I didn't linger at this - believe me. Thinking about it, we didn't linger in the summer either. The smell was pretty ripe if you know what I mean. We move to my grandfathers farm at about age 12. Oh what a beautiful place this was. The house was one of those traditional 2 story ones with a huge kitchen, a formal dining room, a setting room, and 2, yes - 2, living rooms downstairs. There were 3 sets of sliding glass doors separating the living rooms, dining room and setting room. Upstairs had 4 bedrooms and an attic. What luxury. Yes, it even had an indoor toilet. Hallelujah, Hallelujah. No more cold walks to the outhouse. The only down side was that the upstairs bedrooms were virtually unheated, no storm windows plus the windows were not particularly tight. At bedtime in winter, you donned the PJ's downstairs raced up the stairs, jumped into a bed covered with somewhere around 5-8 blankets and shivered until a warm spot was created by your body. As you slept, you did not dare move because you would move out of the warm spot and freeze. In the morning it was not unusual to awaken and jump out of bed into a small snow drift on the floor. Needless to say, not much time was spent upstairs in the winter. I really think this is where my desire for a cool room was formed.
Having that childhood background, I have always had an electric blanket as an adult, vowing to NEVER suffer through cold winter nights again. Having installed the blanket as usual, I have noticed that the blanket didn't seem to be heating as quickly as I had remembered. Rarely is the other side turned on but no big deal it did "seem" to get warm eventually. I hadn't really been too concerned about until last night. My brain, in one of its wiser moments told me to turn my blanket on as I was getting ready for a shower around 9:00 pm. First time the brain had kicked in to have me do that. Bedtime rolls around and like a robot, I turn the TV off, family room light off, so on and so forth - the nightly routine. Into bed I go with a bound. Well, maybe a "bound" is a little strong. Let's say, I fell into bed, pulled the covers over me. YEOW!!!!! Iceberg city. Seemed twice as cold as it should have been especially when expecting a nice toasty warm bed. Shivering, my brain reverts back to childhood, don't move, get the warm spot made it says. There that really isn't so bad. I dozed off into dreamland. At some point in the night my leg moved over to the other side of the bed. My subconscious registered that it was a lot colder over there. I stayed put all night, did move again, but had an ongoing dream that I was a CSI investigator trying to unravel the mystery of the unwarm electric heating blanket. I woke this morning with the realization (CSI conclusion) that maybe, just maybe when I installed the blanket this year I had a brain f*rt and put it on upside down thereby switching the sides being controlled. Switched on the other side, and low and behold my side warmed up nicely - thank you very much. I was again reminded just how miraculous our mind is when it is functioning normally.
Yes Sue, there is life after Drivel just not nearly as entertaining. Then as Mark Twain once said, "I am an old man and have know a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened." Could not have said it better. French Roast and Drivel are about gone for this day. More to come. TA!
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