Oily Plastic

Blah, Blah, Blah on saving wildlife - fish, birds and plants - in favor of having lightweight ipods and cell phones and portable computers and containers in general. What are all of these items made with? Plastic of course, and what is plastic a derivative of? Well, oil.

If we would just take advantage of all the proven reserves of oil in and around this country and not worry about a bunch of sea animals and go build the systems to drill it, we might be in a better position to negotiate with the Arabs. We and other wildlife will always adapt. There is the potential for oil spills, but how much worse is that than a cyclone in Myramar, an earthquake in China or flooding in the US?

The dependence on oil is not just evidenced by the use of autos/planes, but also every bit of plastic in your home/office is made from petroleum by-products, derived from oil from the ground. Can you see using metal or glass IV's, or no more baggies or Tupperware? What about computers, TVs and radios? LOTS of plastic in this great country of ours. Take a look around your surroundings now and see how influential it is.

Initiating all hybrid or cell-fuel cars, or eliminating air travel is not going to reduce our dependence on oil. Yes, it's a great answer, but by the time those things are evolved to that point, we could have access to tons of our own oil/fuel and be in better shape than ever, if we'd only begin setting up and drilling now. Of course, those plastic bottles, baggies and food containers are leaching chemicals into the food you swallow, so maybe we can find a solution for that as well. More on that later ...

Sometimes we don’t really even think about a word until we have to see it, feel it, and live it, over and over. Take the word fever. We have all had a fever at some point, whether during a flu episode, virus or sinusitis. It lasts a couple of days, maybe, and we probably don’t even check it ourselves too much, unless we have an easy-to-use tympanic (ear probe) thermometer. And we probably only have one of those if we have children.

Fever on a child, taken with a tympanic, is over 100.4 degrees. Imagine you child’s fever rising to 104 degrees and above, every four to six hours, despite the repeated dosages of junior strength Motrin, for five days straight. Imagine how fun it is to deal with a raging nine-year-old hallucinating about game shows and making purchases, and having to cajole her into taking the ibuprofen. Imagine your glee at having to rise at 3 am and 4 am, for five nights in a row to check on her, re-administer the medication, and often give a cool bath to lower her temperature. Imagine her horror at the taste and consistency, and subsequent vomiting, after administering the awful tasting grape-flavored liquid Tylenol. No, don’t imagine it, because it’s just too painful.

May you never have to endure the discouragement and frustration of an unknown fever/virus on your child, and have to think, feel and live fever.

Brown Ease

Annabeth had never been a big brownie fan, either to bake or to eat. The pre-packaged box with the dirt brown mixes had never appealed to her. Adding eggs, water and oil to the chalky powder, then only mixing it fifty strokes just did not get her attention. Until the advent of Pam or Crisco cooking spray, which makes it much easier but can leave an artificial taste in the mouth when biting into the baked chocolate, it was quite a pain to have to grease up a paper towel to spread across the heavy glass pan, making sure to get every inch covered, lest a spot of brownie that would stick to the pan.

Cooking them could be tricky sometimes, with the variance in mixes, pans and grease method. It was rare to get the “perfect brownie.” It was either too dry on the outside and firm on the inside, or perfect on the outside crust – chewy but not too crisp – but then too gooey in the middle. The texture from both her own and others brownies and the chocolate taste did demand her sampling or making them.

She remembers a time when her younger sister decided to bake brownies herself, when she was still living at home. Having made several cakes with their mother in the past, Jennifer followed the sign of readiness being that a toothpick stuck in the middle would come out clean. After the appropriate time of 25-30 minutes, the pick of course was not near clean, so she baked another five minutes. Again, no clean toothpick. So, she set the timer for another five. Still sticky. She proceeded to cook the brownies over an hour before the pick was clean enough to her satisfaction. Proud of her persistence, Jennifer took the brownies out of the oven. She put the pan on the cooling rack and went to read a book.

A little while later, Jennifer went to cut the brownies she had just baked. Was she in for a surprise! Her handy dandy knife had a bit of difficulty getting through the top crust of the brownie, her hand slipped, and Ow! She picked up her hand to examine the hurt from hitting the brownie and what did she see but blood! The hardened brownie had cut her sister. This experience of her sister’s prompted her to halt her brownie making, lest she draw blood.

With time, Annabeth overcame her fear of brownies, for her busy lifestyle had demanded an easy and affordable dessert. She’d been inclined to make hundreds of them in the past couple of years, for teacher appreciation, Bible study gatherings, dessert for neighborly get-togethers, girl scouts and get well soon dinners. The simplicity of slitting open the chocolate dust and adding the three ingredients with relatively little muscle movement was appealing and fast.

But something happened over the course of baking those dozens and dozens of dark brown goo. She began to sample, experiment and test new boxes and recipes. She tried an old fashioned version of brownies from her grandmother. She experimented with the store brand and the Duncan Hines variety. She bought the milk chocolate version and the dark chocolate version.

Annabeth found that she was required to prepare so many snacks and treats that she wanted to at least sample them and then began to truly like eating the brownies. She decided to make the box recipes her own by adding ingredients and seeking new methods. Walnuts, chocolate chips, pecans, caramel, coconut and almonds found themselves in her brownies. She did a taste test to see which brand was the best and found that it was a dark chocolate store brand.

She actually began to like eating whole brownies. And they came to become her identity, as to her friends, with them wondering what ingredients, box mix or recipe she would bring to that event. Finally, Annabeth began to make them for herself and her family to enjoy. Now, when someone asks her to bring something to a potluck or teacher appreciation, Annabeth will ask, “how about brownies?”

Strong and Noisy

It is amazing that we can feel or hear some weather occurrences but not actually see them. We can hear and feel that it is windy outside but it is invisible. We can “feel” heat or cold but not see it. The wind is one of those natural occurrences that we can perceive in another way besides visualizing it, although we can see the effects of it as it sways trees, wave’s flags and creates mini funnel clouds of dust.

The high pressure system over south central Texas has affected our wind patterns lately and makes me think of how I was taught as a child about the month of March, even though it is June – comes in like a lion (with winds, rain, extreme weather), and goes out like a lamb (calm, comfortable temperatures, predictable weather). The strength and power of this invisible force called wind is startling sometimes. Jumping on the trampoline, a 50 pound child can be swayed by the intensity. An adult walking along a ridge can be zigzagged. Tree limbs bend and twist. Oak branches and leaves are knocked off of the tree and pound on my roof, as just happened moments ago. The gusts are what just occurred there, an inconstant blast of wind characterized by the rapid change in the force and/or direction of the wind.

Wind is a mysterious force that feels good when it is warm, awesome when it is the perfect temperature, and awful when it is too cold. It is simply air in motion, caused by the uneven heating of the earth, absorbing the heat of the sun at different rates. During daylight hours, the air above land heats up more quickly than the air over water. The warmer air particles over land expand and rise, and the heavier, cooler air rushes in to take its place, creating winds. Cool.

The other way we know about wind is by its sound. The sound of the wind must have something to do with the air particles being so compacted and forcefully pushed around that we hear it. It is also the noise of the various items that are tossed and pressed together with the wind – plant and tree leaves, grasses, insects and other dirt and debris – clattering and banging around to howl or moan.

The wind intrigues and stimulates me. I take comfort in the fact that the wind will blow as long as the sun still shines.

Who Am I?

Instead of asking a person close to us “what would you say about me if I died tomorrow?” we should maybe impose the question of, “Would you say that I am kind, generous, a good parent, spouse (or whatever words we wish to describe ourselves) if I was gone tomorrow?"

If the person has hesitation, or honestly says no, we can work to achieve those descriptions. Another way to look at it is to ascribe to be a certain way and then ask if we are meeting our goal. If we wish to be described a certain way – humorous, funny, loving, goofy, fun, brainy, smart, pretty, or a good engineer, writer, Realtor or businessman, it should be a goal to act or do in the way that could be described as such.

The reason for the question is my recently being "stuck" with the Metro section of the Sunday paper. As I browsed through the obituaries, I noted all of the lovely prose about the now deceased. Were these people truly as they were described? Had they written their own obitiuaries, or at least contributed to them before they died? Will I like my own obituary?

Once, in a Mary Kay training session, or maybe a church-related retreat, we were asked to write our own obit. The task I have detailed, of describing yourself and then living up to it was the point. If you want to be described in a certain way, act it. If there is a description about yourself that you don't like (which may be true) change it to avoid the description in your obit. Although I doubt anyone has ever been called selfish or a nag in their post-mortem portrayal.