"A Vast Burden ...."

I have just read the best quote ever. I found it here in Shephard's blog.

"Almost everybody walks around with a vast burden of imaginary limitations inside his head. While the burden remains, success is as difficult to achieve as the conquest of Mount Everest with a sack of rocks tied to to your back." 

 

 J.H. Brennan, Irish Author

We all have burdens; some are self-imposed, some we are born with, and some are imposed by others - whether they are aware of it or not. 

The mother who tells her child she's too fat (or too thin), the one who says "You'll never amount to anything...I knew I couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," ....the child who fails at understanding math in third grade and forever after can't make sense of it due to a mental block. 

Why do we let this happen to us? A 'vast burden of imaginary limitations...." The key word is "imaginary." If it is imaginary in childhood, it should be crystal clear that it was imposed on us, by the time we reach adulthood - or surely by the time we are 50. And yet, so many people I know or have read about are still strapped by those limitations (imaginary or not) in later years. Let's resolve to break free of those limitations and pursue success (in whatever area) with a vengeance born of frustration. Let me know how you do, okay? 

*****

The dentist gave me a good report today  -  YAY!

Seasonal allergies have settled into the kenju home and I am a bundle of itchy eyes and runny nose  -  BOO!

I got the grocery shopping done for the week  -  YAY! Have I told you how much I hate grocery shopping?

Gas prices will be the death of my ability to take off whenever I please. Mr. kenju had his heart set on going to Virginia in March and I was looking forward to seeing SRP again, but due to the recent precipitous rise in gas prices, that won't happen any time soon  -  BOO!

Rain, Rain, Stay a While and other Odds and Ends

Today is the first time we have had much rain to speak of for weeks. We are in a deep deficit for the past year and it will take a long time to bring it back to normal, if ever. I need to grocery shop, but I am putting it off until tomorrow, when I have to go out for a dental cleaning anyway. 

Picasa has a glitch of some sort; it won't let me post photos to the blog. A friend emailed me with the same problem, so I know it isn't just me.  It's a pity, since I have many pix to show you from yesterday's wedding at The Grand Marquise and also some from our most recent trip to A Southern Season in Chapel Hill. I hope the problem will be cured soon. Since mr. kenju's computer got fried by a virus, I am "dead in the water" when it comes to photos. You'll just have to deal with having nothing pretty to look at for a while.

When I went to work yesterday, one of Mel's cats was ill. We both worried about her all day, but as of last night she had perked up and was no longer barfing and other unmentionable things. That's a relief. A few years back she had a big hairball that required surgery to remove, and it was very costly. It's nice to know that won't be necessary now.

UNC beat the pants off Duke last night and that always makes my immediate family happy. I really enjoyed that game; especially since they beat UNC in the other game this season. I have a cousin who is married to a man who went to Duke, and they go to as many games as they can during the year (meaning all of the ones at home.) I suspect they were sort of glad they weren't at UNC last night.

Quotes of Note

To know how to say what other people only think is what makes men poets and sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers, or both.

Elizabeth Rundle Charles, writer (1828-1896)

*******

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst.

Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

English is Weird!

1. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger;

neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

2. English muffins were not invented in England or

french fries in France.

3. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which

aren't sweet, are meat.

4. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes,

we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,

and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

5. And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers

don't groce, and hammers don't ham?

6. If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?

One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese? One index, two indices?

Is cheese the plural of choose?

7. If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

8. If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

9. In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?

10. Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

11. Have noses that run and feet that smell?

12. Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

13. How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,

while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

14. How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold

as hell another?

15. When a house burns up, it burns down.

16. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock

goes off by going on.

17. When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the

lights are out, they are invisible?

We Have Two Computers....

or we did until Monday, when my husband downloaded an email video and fried his.  He shut it down as soon as he saw the message about the malware, and when I got home, I re-booted to see if I could fix the problem. No way. The message I got says that the malware has infected my virus program (Avast) and cannot be deleted in the "normal" way - whatever that is.

The odd thing is that he sent the video to my computer (before he knew it was bad) and I opened it with no trouble. Luckily I decided not to forward it to anyone. It was a very funny video, so I'm not sure why I opted not to send it on - but I'm sure glad I didn't.

He called his trusty computer tech, so we hope to have it running again soon. Meanwhile, I will have to share mine with him....   :-/ as well as :-(

Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones.....

A new blog has recently come to my attention. Taketheloadoffkittsie  has a  most interesting and candid post about being too heavy as a child, and what it does to your soul when people say things that are meant to  compliment and mollify, but devastate instead, due to hidden meaning. Go and read about it - I'll wait. 

I hate to admit that I have been guilty of saying some of the phrases that Colleen mentioned; such as...."You have a beautiful face...." to a woman whom I'd refer to as "large. " I will try never to say that again, especially to a child who might misinterpret what I meant to say.

I had the opposite problem. My mom was always first in line to tell me daily that I was too thin. My nicknames were slat-legs, skinny minnie, bag-o-bones and the like. Believe me, it hurt me just as much as it hurts a fat child to be wearing clothing labeled as "chubby" or to hear herself being called mean names referring to her weight. I was given ice cream, milkshakes, sodas, extra helpings of mashed potatoes and gravy, huge pieces of cake - and when all that failed to put a pound on me, she resorted to making me eat something that had to have been conjured up by the devil. 

Called "Wate-On", it was a thin wafer that tasted like cardboard that had a faint banana flavor, and it made me gag every time. I began to figure out ways I could get around chewing it, and I was very happy when mom had to leave the kitchen for some reason and I could stash it away  deep in the trash container , while pretending I had swallowed it. (The link takes you to a blog I found that mentioned the product and shows old advertisements for it. )

At age fifteen, I started smoking. It's a long story (I've told it before), and by the time I had smoked one pack, I was totally hooked. The cigarettes managed to keep my appetite suppressed and consequently I stayed thin all through high school, college and my early married years. At age thirty-eight, I quit smoking (hardest thing I have ever done) and thus began the end to my skinny years. I put on twenty pounds the first year, twenty pounds the second year and since then, I've gained a few every year. I joke that I was perfect (body-wise) for about two weeks in 1982, and then it all went downhill...lol

The point of telling you this and pointing you to Colleen's blog, is to hope that you will realize that what you say to a person about their weight (whether they are heavy or thin) affects them in ways you could never imagine, and it is especially hard for children. One tends to assume that a fat person is a glutton and that skinny people are or may be ill. Those assumptions are not necessarily true - although they could be.

Some of you are probably thinking that being skinny isn't a bad problem to have. I am here to tell you that it is just as devastating to a kid to be teased about being thin as it is to be obese.  Please think before you speak!

Old, but Still Very Good

Puns for Educated Minds 1. The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian . 3.   She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. 4.   A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. 5.   No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery. 6.  A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. 7.  A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart 8.  Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie. 9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. 10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. 11.  Atheism is a non-prophet organization. 12.  Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.' 13.  I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me. 14.  A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.' 15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. 16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran. 17. A backward poet writes inverse. 18.  In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes. 19.  When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion. 20.   If you jumped off the bridge in Paris , you'd be in Seine . 21.   A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.' 22. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and  says 'Dam!' 23.  Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too. 24.   Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.' 25.   Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication. 26.    There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope  that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

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