Be safe east coast...

Smoking Up

Wow - it's been a while!

After a relaxing weekend came way too much work for early August and a play date with one of my closest college friends. That's all been great, and I will be playing blog catch up for a while here, but now it is onto the fall. That's right - summer is over for me. How sad. But being focused is necessary and fruitful during this time of year when everything lurches forward, and I end up doing pretty well with it. It's exciting, if nothing else, to have the year be at it's beginning come September. I'm motivated to do great things in the world of public health and prevention.

That brings us to today's blog topic - marijuana. I myself have been trained not to give my opinions on the matter at work. Teaching and talking all over the world about alcohol and other drugs, we stick to the facts of health and science. Policy debate - even when medicine or research enter into the equation - is seen as taboo and tricky for us to weigh in on. So we don't.

But I'll just say that I was refreshed to see, in my Google Alert today for "substance abuse prevention," this editorial in a Colorado paper.

This brings us back to the legalization effort. I've read and heard the cries. Let me say that the “science” can say many things that can be used by both sides in their respective arguments. But some things are constant and true. First, prohibition results in decreased use. Yes, America was consuming 60 percent less alcohol when we emerged from Prohibition. Second, science and medicine agree that smoking anything is the least effective and an immeasurably more harmful way of delivering “medicine.” Third, more kids are being treated for marijuana use than any of the other drugs combined. Fourth, science and medicine agree that extended marijuana use increases the likelihood of depression and a psychotic episode. Finally, there are no independent studies that prove that marijuana causes no harm … and there never will be!

To read the whole thing, go here.

I love when people lay the facts so convincingly on the line. I love it when an argument is clear, and the opposition is left to balk in cynicism or immaturity. I love it when health makes sense.

So there you have where my mind will undoubtedly be for the next three months. Prior to the snow, the snowboarding, and the promise of great family holidays ahead, here's to the politics of health policy and the health at the heart of it all.

Pajama Party

After weekends full of family and cars, and cars becoming family, S and I wanted to take it easy this weekend. We planned a series of date nights for maximized laziness and kicked off Friday night with a theme date planned by yours truly - Saturday Morning Cartoons.

By now, you should know I love a good theme - for dates especially. They bring a certain lightness to the affair, while allowing my love of organization and planning to seize the day.

On Friday, after long work weeks for us both, it was jammy time.

S and I donned our cutest PJs while O the Cat opted for an "in the buff" approach to his night-time wear.

I whipped up some dinner along the lines of a nice Saturday morning breakfast smorgasbord.

We popped in a DVD of S's favorite old school cartoon, Rocko's Modern Life, and proceeded to munch away.

As if we were still kiddies, the food was followed by a sugar high and the necessary crash, whereby we took a much needed adult-sized nap to begin our weekend.

Hope your weekend was also filled with fun, themed or un-themed, times!

The Great Debt Ceiling

A sense of humor is essential to a well lived life, much more so than a lot of money or the ceiling that somehow contains it.

The Great Debt Ceiling

Happy weekend!

New books

I am fairly sure my lifestyle could be well-enjoyed by a grandma. A fit grandma, I guess, but a little old lady none-the-less.

That doesn't stop me from being super excited about new books from the library this week. After loving The Blind Side earlier this summer, I'm in the mood to read some other good stories straight through, and to keep my learnin' up, of course.

Here's the break down:

1) The San Francisco Chronicle called this book "a tall tale, fairy tale, soap opera romance, Mexican cookbook, and home-remedy handbook all rolled into one." Yes, please!

2) I was supposed to read this book in 11th grade British Literature for my thesis paper. While I turned in that paper (and got an A on it) in spring 2002, perhaps I can get some extra life credit for actually finishing it this time around?

3) I public speak all the time. Or rather, I look at 75% of the speaking I do at work as a form of public speaking, because it is either in a client support, presentation, or training capacity. Despite being awkward, I would like to sound it less. It's time for the dummies to help me out here.

4) Okay, Suze Orman scares me. I like to imagine the Kristen Wiig version of her instead of the real her whenever I can, because while Kristen Wiig makes me laugh, Suze Orman makes me divide my savings account into monthly expenses and calculate how long of an "emergency fund" I have. The former's just more fun to do. But I don't at all discount that Suze is a woman mogul who cares about people and is a financial genius. She's a good person who inspires people to take responsibility for their own lives. I'm all about that.

5) But because she is scary, I need two of her books.

What are you reading these days? It is a mix of summer fluff, seriousness, and Brit Lit like me?

More car

I bought a new car on Saturday, as I said I would need to. I love her, and am so happy to have her.

The requisite picture - too bad it is dark already, but we needed to get one snapped on the day the car was first driven home!

The need for the new car sprang of the fact that my old car (who I love and cherish and will miss terribly) was giving me transmission trouble on about 75% of my trips. This was a jump from about 15% earlier on in the year, so I knew it was time. That little lady’s been from North Carolina to Vermont and has over 173,000 miles on her. We got our first, and only, speeding ticket together. She’s a wild one.

New car is practical and lovely. She’s under warrantee for 10 years, she has enough safety features to avert a global nuclear disaster, and she gets 40 MPG on the highway. Oh, and she’s cute, the whole package.

Baby girl was born out of wedlock. Both mom and baby are doing great. Her name is Serena.

Buying new car was a fairly easy process as far as car buying goes. Our salesperson was enthusiastic, he knew the car, and he helped us get a fantastic price. The dealership took care of cleaning, permanent plates, registration, and the pesky annual inspection required for this state all before I picked her up. The only sticky situation was one we encountered with the finance guy, who took some sort of enjoyment in his incredulity that, with my credit and income, I wasn’t buying “more car.”

I suppose some might have taken this as a compliment, and in some ways it was, but I also see it as an unhealthy commentary on the American consumerist mindset. You see, other people might legitimately need “more car” for their family/life circumstances, and that might be the right choice for them. But not for me, who entered the “real world” in the midst of countless foreclosures, high unemployment, and unprecedented levels of student and consumer debt, etc., etc., etc. Definitely not for me.

I’ve been researching cars, car buying, and payment options since January of this year. You’ll see here and here that in my life, I’ve been preparing to buy a car, through saving and prioritizing and knowing my stuff. And he’s right, with my credit and income, I could have, in my 20s, financed my dream car - a luxurious, humongous, insult-to-fuel economy beauty. That would have been great.


I will buy this lovely in cash one day, once it's available in hyrid or electric.

But here’s the thing for me about “more car”:

1) “More car” is the product of a lie which tells me and you and others that a. your car defines your status in life, b. you should always try to get the most that you can for yourself, and c. that qualifying for a long-term loan/financing a vehicle is the same thing as being able to “afford” it.

2) More for me means less for others. This is a physical and natural law.

Instead of “more car”, I choose peace of mind and better off retirement, savings, and checking accounts. I choose paying off my credit card in full before due. I choose building giving plans into my lifestyle that allow my money to support the lives of the poor and the underserved instead of just me and mine. I choose a life where I am rich in spirit for all those other things.

Reach

In the US, myself and most others either take food for granted or eat way too much of it, making us sick. My last blog post, ironic or not, highlights this fact. We have too many choices.

If we eat too little here, most of us do so by choice, or have a disorder that promotes this behavior.

Right now, and always really, there are people - a minority in this country and a majority in other places - that don't get enough to eat and are - man, woman and child - actually straving.

If you want to be a part of healing this issue, for real people, here and now, join us.

Thanks.

More mixed munchies

I first posted about our plentiful pasta nights here, when I described just how easy it is for a vegan and a carnivore to share a meal. We will call this the lion and the lamb strategy.
Well, here is another option.

For the veggie lover:

- Penne pasta with olive oil and Mediterranean spices
- baby spinach and green pepper salad
- vegan red potatoes (boiled with salt, pepper, parsley and palm oil based butter substitute)
- diet coke

For the meat and dairy lover:

- Penne pasta with Parmesan cheese and tomato sauce, kielbasa slices added
- iceberg lettuce salad with ceasar dressing and olives
- vegan red potatoes (you can feed these to any meat eater and they will not be able to distinguish the veg butter from real butter...but S knew what it was - I am not sneaky!)
- iced tea

Prep time: 30 minutes, but only about 10 minutes of actual, manual, prep. The rest is just the water boiling!

Enjoy :)

Love/Hate

I have a love/hate relationship with being super active. I think it's important to take stock of this, because it's important as a public healthy to be real with people about health behavior and how hard it can be to change it or even maintain it. If it weren't such a big deal to change a lifestyle from unhealthy to healthy, I wouldn't have been able to earn a degree in the theory and science behind this whole thing. But I digress.

One of the things I have heard about physical activity is the misnomer, "I want to be one of those people who loves (insert strenuous physical exercise here)." As someone with a love/hate relationship with exercise, and someone who needs to run several times a week, several miles a day now, let me speak my truth on this. I don't think anyone (but at the very least, not me!) can love to run.

It's my opinion that no one just loves to run. They might aspire to run often, or prefer it as their primary form of exercise, but let's face it - no matter how long you've been running, at times, be it because of injury, weather conditions, altitude, or even mood or what you just ate, it sucks. If it didn't suck at times, then you wouldn't be doing it right, because who wants to run long term and never get faster or gain more endurance?

Making progress, and making running count as an activity that will bring your fitness to the next level, almost always sucks. And bear in mind, this is coming from someone who's been running regularly for 12 years. It never gets that much easier. It's worth it, but it's not mushy and squishy and easy and lovable.

So other than making the commitment to do so until the half-marathon, why do I run? Lift weights? Do crunches until my tummy hurts? Because staying very active feels right. When I am active without going overboard, my body knows itself better. I can eat whatever I want, but I find myself craving healthier things, including lots more water and a balance of sugar and salts.

It's also great stress relief. I know you've heard this before, but it's true. I can have a horrible day and then get on the treadmill and not even realize that 30 minutes has gone by. I think running is so great for stress because it's a healthy way to be aggressive, it gives you uninterrupted time to think, and it releases pleasure chemicals into your body. Plus, you know you're doing something good for yourself when you run, so it's a bit of a confidence boost too. I don't know anything else that is such an effective, healthy quadruple threat to stress. Retail therapy might come close, ha ha, but it is not always healthy. And running is free.

I'm a huge advocate of finding activities that you enjoy for exercise. I think running comes close to this only for us near-masochistic folks, honestly. But I know in winter, snowboarding felt like no work at all (after the first three days) and at the same time, it actually improved my muscle tone quite drastically and kept me from gaining snowbunny weight even when it was the only exercise I'd get for a month or two.

So I don't doubt that you can love some activities - like organized sports or races if you're competitive or something like yoga for total body-mind-spirit health. I'm just saying that as someone staying active right now, the staying part will turn the love of the activity - any activity - into more of a like. And as you keep the activity up, it must be coupled with the necessary discipline to do it, even when your mood or motivation makes it feel like a loathe every once in a while.

And in that way, this love/hate thing keeps me runnin'.

Thought provoking and beautiful

Don't those two adjectives always go hand in hand?

At any rate, that's how I felt this blog post. It's hard for many people to imagine why the media focused more attention on Amy Winehouse's death than the death of dozens of Norwegian teens, except for rating's sake.

I think this post though, by her friend and a fellow addict, speaks to why a death correlated to alcohol or other drug addiction is so uniquely tragic. Certainly, all life is equal, yet invaluable. But a life ended by a disease that causes the user pain, an inability to be one's true self, and for which society places blame on the victim, is a life that needs more advocacy in our world than the lives of those we rush to protect and affirm.

We must always stand up for the oppressed, those who have been abused the way Amy was when we judged her as something other than who she was in her Creator's sight. May she and all others find peace everlasting.