For the over 50’s amongst us … everyone, in other words, except me (and Julie, of course) LOL!
We have Fred Beyer to thank for this: Ode to Forgetfulness
Author: admin
Bob Waldmire – Route 66 Artist
George sent this link by email. I have no idea who has seen it already, but I thought it quite touching:
Chicago Tribune article: Robert Waldemire:legendary Route 66 artist says farewell
November 10th – Milestones
My mother is 80 today. The party wasn’t the one my sister, Sarah, and I had planned. Instead of a lunch party for 50, we had tea and cakes in Mum’s hospital room, surrounded by cards and flowers from her many well-wishers.
When she was admitted in July, there were doubts as to whether we would be having a birthday party at all. But today we celebrated two milestones.
As far as being 80 is concerned, most of the greetings card manufacturers seem to shy away from creating humourous cards for octogenarians. Perhaps they assume that one loses one’s sense of humour with age. I have news for them. Exactly twenty years ago, on her 60th birthday, Mum commented to me that she was only getting crumbly on the outside. Inside, she still felt 21.
I was 26. At the time, I didn’t understand. Now, aged 46, I am still wondering if I will ever feel “grown up” After all, my mother is mature and sensible, simply by virtue of being my mother. That is her job. May be I beat the system. As I never had children of my own, who is to say I should ever be either mature or sensible. But I keep looking for symptoms.
The other milestone, Mum created for herself a few weeks ago. Having only recently arrived back in a private room, weak and emaciated from weeks spent in Intensive Care, her physiotherapists reprimanded her for a lack of effort. “You can’t stay here for ever”, they said. “You need a goal to aim for if you want to be strong enough to go home.” So, between them they came up with a target. On the whiteboard at the end of Mum’s bed, the physio wrote, “Goal: to be able to stand on my own on my birthday, 10th November 2009.”
Today, underneath the original message, someone had written “Achieved! Yea hey! Next goal .”
Eating fruits
Some of you remember “Coffee” from Texas who rode Route 66 in 2000 and again in 2005. He sent this to me. I can’t vouch for its validity, but it’s certainly “food for thought”.
— john
See the last part about drinking hot or cold drinks.
NEWS YOU CAN USE……
EATING FRUIT…
It’s long but very informative
We all think eating fruits means just buying fruits, cutting it and just popping it into our mouths. It’s not as easy as you think. It’s important to know how and when to eat.
What is the correct way of eating fruits?
IT MEANS NOT EATING FRUITS AFTER YOUR MEALS! * FRUITS SHOULD BE EATEN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH.
If you eat fruit like that, it will play a major role to detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight loss and other life activities.
FRUIT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FOOD. Let’s say you eat two slices of bread and then a slice of fruit. The slice of fruit is ready to go straight through the stomach into the intestines, but it is prevented from doing so.
In the meantime the whole meal rots and ferments and turns to acid. The minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil….
So please eat your fruits on an empty stomach or before your meals! You have heard people complaining – every time I eat watermelon I burp, when I eat durian my stomach bloats up, when I eat a banana I feel like running to the toilet etc – actually all this will not arise if you eat the fruit on an empty stomach. The fruit mixes with the putrefying other food and produces gas and hence you will bloat!
Graying hair, balding, nervous outburst, and dark circles under the eyes all these will NOT happen if you take fruits on an empty stomach.
There is no such thing as some fruits, like orange and lemon are acidic, because all fruits become alkaline in our body, according to Dr. Herbert Shelton who did research on this matter. If you have mastered the correct way of eating fruits, you have the Secret of beauty, longevity, health, energy, happiness and normal weight.
When you need to drink fruit juice – drink only fresh fruit juice, NOT from the cans. Don’t even drink juice that has been heated up. Don’t eat cooked fruits because you don’t get the nutrients at all. You only get to taste. Cooking destroys all the vitamins.
But eating a whole fruit is better than drinking the juice. If you should drink the juice, drink it mouthful by mouthful slowly, because you must let it mix with your saliva before swallowing it. You can go on a 3-day fruit fast to cleanse your body. Just eat fruits and drink fruit juice throughout the 3 days and you will be surprised when your friends tell you how radiant you look!
KIWI: Tiny but mighty. This is a good source of potassium, magnesium, vitamin E & fiber. Its vitamin C content is twice that of an orange.
APPLE: An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Although an apple has a low vitamin C content, it has antioxidants & flavonoids which enhances the activity of vitamin C thereby helping to lower the risks of colon cancer, heart attack & stroke.
STRAWBERRY: Protective Fruit. Strawberries have the highest total antioxidant power among major fruits & protect the body from cancer-causing, blood vessel-clogging free radicals.
ORANGE : Sweetest medicine. Taking 2-4 oranges a day may help keep colds away, lower cholesterol, prevent & dissolve kidney stones as well as lessens the risk of colon cancer.
WATERMELON: Coolest thirst quencher.. Composed of 92% water, it is also packed with a giant dose of glutathione, which helps boost our immune system. They are also a key source of lycopene – the cancer fighting oxidant. Other nutrients found in watermelon are vitamin C & Potassium.
GUAVA & PAPAYA: Top awards for vitamin C. They are the clear winners for their high vitamin C content. Guava is also rich in fiber, which helps prevent constipation. Papaya is rich in carotene; this is good for your eyes.
Drinking Cold water after a meal = Cancer! Can u believe this?? For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this ‘sludge’ reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.
A serious note about heart attacks HEART ATTACK PROCEDURE’: (THIS IS NOT A JOKE!) Women should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting.. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.. You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack . Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms.. Sixty percent of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive…
A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we’ll save at least one life.
Read this….It could save your life!!
Mafia Wars Game
Willie asked about games a while back. Here’s one that Facebook users might enjoy.
How it works is that when you register as a new Don (or Donna), the game pulls together any of your existing friends who are already playing as your “family”. John and I found we had half a dozen between us, but could do with some reinforcements …
Happy Halloween from Rose …
She’s a wicked woman, that Rose! This is funny …
“Monster Mash” like you’ve never seen it before!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL
ARE YOU PEOPLE PARTY POOPERS???
How is everyone, haven’t herd from anyone. this is chris sanfilippo nudging you. Nudge , nudge You may speak you know.
chris
October 27th – Room 101
Some of you will have wondered how my mother is getting on. Much better, thanks. I apologise for the lack of updates.
Her move to a private room more or less coincided with the start of my CELTA course at the end of September. It happened with no warning at all. We had spent the weekend at my mother’s house on the Isle of Wight and I got the news from my uncle on the way back to London. On Friday, it had been business as usual in Intensive Care but, by Sunday, she was sitting up in bed with her reading specs and a newspaper, talking normally and sipping (specially thickened) apple juice through a straw: no more ventilator, no more trachyotomy.
Mum still has a long way to go. She doesn’t seem to tolerate solid food very well, and she is having to learn to stand on her own two feet again literally! We have had to postpone her 80th birthday party next month but, at least, we are looking forward to spending Christmas together. Realistically, for us, it is likely to be Spring before we get home to France.
and Room 101?
In George Orwell’s book, 1984, Room 101 contained “the worst thing in the world”: a place where enemies of the state were subjected to their own worst nightmares. The name isn’t wholly inappropriate. Mum’s worst nightmare at the moment is her twice-daily torment by the “physio-terrorists”, who bully her into doing her exercises!
October 25th D’ye come ‘ere offen?
Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been well over a month since my last post
I’m in the launderette again. Of all the disruptions caused by the building work, I find our weekly washing arrangements the most tedious. On the other hand, if I ignore the exuberant Asian talent show on the TV and the Hilda Ogden look-alike doing her washing in 4″ hair rollers, they do provide me with an opportunity to catch up with the blog.
Heard the one about the Englishman ,the Scotsman, and the Irishman the Turk, the Pole, the Chinese and the Russian? Allow me to introduce you to my fellow CELTA graduates.
“Cancel your social lives; no late nights, no evenings out ”, warned Christine, Language Link’s Polish secretary, on our first day. Indeed, the four-week intensive course was no place for shrinking violets. After one day of tutorials and observation, we were thrown in at the deep end; teaching grammar to intermediate English speakers, who probably knew the rules better than we did. But, before you feel too sorry for them, I should add that these lessons are free. Students are simply required to pay a £10 registration fee for a four week course. A sense of humour helps too.
The school itself is in Earls Court, a neighbourhood long-since re-Christened “Kangaroo Valley” for its population of Australians and Kiwis. The Antipodeans remain, but the influx of foreigners from the other three corners of the globe has been such that English is very much a minority language. Take my recent exchange with a very polite and efficient Indian Post Office assistant:
Me: How much is a stamp for Portugal?
SA: 56p. Err
are you working here?
Me: Well, yes, I suppose I am
“studying”, anyway.
SA: Do you need a credit card while you are here?
Me: Er, no thanks.
SA: What about a phone card? We do very good international rates.
Me: No thanks.
SA: If you don’t mind me asking, where are you from?
Me (bemused): Fulham. (about 15 minutes’ walk)
SA: No. I mean where were you from originally
before you came to England?
Me (embarrassed): What do you mean? I was born here
At this point I could see the conversation going downhill rapidly, so decided to quit before I was accused of insulting the unfortunate woman. However, it wasn’t quite the end of the story.
Back at the language school, I related my experience to my fellow trainees. Far from the gales of laughter I expected, I was greeted with quizzical looks. Eventually, someone spoke, “Well, we were wondering where you were from. Where did you get that accent?”I was, for a rare moment, completely lost for words or, to use one of my least favourite expressions, utterly gobsmacked!
