Strange Happenings And Hard Times

We are living in strange times these days and it isn't helping that we have less and less control over what effects our lives. And then there’s money. Can you ever have enough? It's a hard world we live in now.

We are suppose to have more rights then ever and although that sounds good when we try and use these rights we find out that it's either impossible or it includes getting a lawyer to help us and between the laws and the lawyer's fees it's just an impossible task. So as it turns out we don't really have these rights because we can't afford (or figure out how)  to obtain these rights. So what good are they?

Just yesterday my roommate who works for Sony (PlayStation Division) called me and told me that several people (including his boss that had worked there for 10+ years) were laid off and had security escort them out of the building. It was a shock for him, but it's sad because his boss had told him about a month ago that his family had given up cable TV and Internet access  because they couldn't meet their bills then. How sad is that?

Of course we're glad James still has his job but I can't help but feel bad for his boss and the other people who need to make a living just like all of us do. There is a company meeting this morning to explain to the rest of the employees why this had to be done and what's to happen in the future. I'm sure things are fine for James and the rest of them so that's a good thing.

This isn’t lay-offs like in the 90’s so that’s why it seems so shocking to me. It feels strange when your boss loses his job and he’s above you in rank at work yet you still have your job. Maybe Sony was too boss heavy and the powers to be decided to cut there loses and have fewer of them.  

So many things are happening that are out of our control and how do we deal with them? It's not an easy question to answer, is it? I know many of you are having problems (just like us all) and are struggling to figure out just how to set things right.

 

Everyone wants the good things in life. I know I have always wanted a home or land of my own, but at this rate I never will have it unless I can win the lottery or something spectacular like that. It's not likely to happen, but I'm OK with it because I am getting so much out of life that I want already like my car, cats, a place to live, a room mate and friends that care about me. I may not be a rich or well-to-do person but I find I have enough. Most of the time I am a happy fulfilled person. And what more can one ask for in these strange times?

 

 

These times are hard to understand and deal with! Maybe someday the economy will straighten out again and things will get back to normal, whatever that is....tee hee!  My wish is that for everyone the economy will get better not just the well-to-do people; EVERYONE! We all deserve a clean place to live, plenty to eat, time spent with family and friends, time out for hobbies and all in all a reasonable life. Who's with me?

 

 

Something's very wrong when you put decades into a job and you depend on that job for everything in your life. You and your family's very existence. Then one day without a clue your job is gone. Sure you have Unemployment payments but for how long? Everyone knows how long finding another job can take if you can find one at all, if you are lucky enough to do so and will this next job pay as much because most of the time I see friends of mine taking a lesser job which means a pay cut. To deal with this and rising costs on top of everything else it's no wonder that the crime rate is so high.

 

Look at all of the people being diagnosed with different mental problems due to dealing with these times we live in now! There are new syndromes being discovered every day like hoarding and other diseases. These are people trying to cope with the stresses of loss of control. These strange and very hard times.

 

Yes, I could be in a lot better shape and I may be in worse shape come mid April, Lol!. (I am speaking financially now, tee hee!)  But I won't sell my car (it's great on gas) and no one said disability was going to be easy. I got a parking plague too, oh yeah!

 

Spring is coming! I can't wait for Spring it's always been my favorite time of the year. Renewal; we all need some renewal it feeds the soul. Times may be hard, but always count your blessings; my beloved Grandma always told me that.

 

May God bless and keep you and yours safe and sound during these strange and hard times. Let's pray for better things to come and pray for a future we can all be proud of.

   

 

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Tastes Like Chicken

Human tongue on the hospital canteen menu?

A human tongue has been served up in a hospital canteen's chicken risotto and bosses figure it was accidentally dropped into the food by another doctor.

 

Slovenian officials are investigating after a doctor complained about a strange piece of meat on his plate. The doctor insisted it was not chicken and after some intense bickering it was sent away for tests-and found out it was part of a human tongue!

 

I guess that answers the question that "everything" doesn't always taste like chicken!

 

Inspectors have closed the canteen in Izola, southern Slovenia, to review hygiene standards. A hospital spokesman insisted: "I can say clearly that we have never used patients' parts in any of our dishes."

 

Bosses believe that another doctor could have unwittingly dropped the tongue in the food after treating a patient. This begs the question…Slovenian Doctor, why are you even carrying around a human tongue specimen in the canteen area of the hospital in the first place? Gives me the creeps! Thank heavens I don't live in southern Slovenia!

 

(And yes, this was a true story in the sense that it was in a newspaper article I saw online.)

 

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Alice In Wonderland Syndrome

I picked Bekkie In Wonderland for my web site name because Alice In Wonderland is not only a book I'm fascinated with but it seemed a name like that for my site really captured my off beat creativeness and personality. Just like my own little Wonderland in my head and heart! Then as I did more research into the book, the author and other things Wonderland I found many fascinating things connected to it all. My mind can do wild and wonderful things for me, but sometimes it can seem like I'm under the Red Queen's decree; "Off with your head!"

 

I'm sure we all have had these days, and as I was searching the web today I found a real illness named after Alice In Wonderland! It doesn't sound like any fun at all in this case! At About.com this is what I found and it's called Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.

 

What Is Alice In Wonderland Syndrome? Imagine this: You're hallucinating, and you know it. Time is messed up. First it seems slowed, then it seems to be speeding up. Even more noticeably, when you look at your body, it seems to be morphing. You're getting smaller. Minutes later, you're growing larger and larger. Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is a rare form of migraine aura. The most distinctive symptom is this type of metamorphosis, a distortion of body image and perspective which migraine sufferers know is not real. This can occur at any age, but is more commonly experienced by children.

 

 

This syndrome was first described by C.W. Lippman in 1952 and named such by J. Todd. In his 1955 article, the syndrome of Alice In Wonderland, was written about in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He named it for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.

Carroll is know to have had bad migraines and it's thought that much of the imagery for his writings may have been inspired by his own migraine auras.    

The idea for the name of the syndrome comes mainly from the opening scenes of Alice in Wonderland. After Alice falls down a rabbit hole and lands in a hallway she finds a bottle that says; "Drink Me," which she drinks that causes her to shrink. "I must be shutting up like a telescope. And so it was indeed, she was now only 10 inches high!" Later, she eats a piece of cake that says; "Eat me," that makes her grow. "Curiouser and curiouser," cried Alice. "Now I am opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye feet!" (For when she looked down at her feet they seemed to be almost out of sight they were getting so far away.)

These are text book migraine symptoms and describes the Alice In Wonderland Syndrome well. Lewis Carroll used his strengths and weaknesses to his advantage when he wrote his books and throughout his life. Along with this he had other fastening characters in his books that have very interesting backgrounds like the Mad Hatter. But that my friends is yet another blog. 

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A Pill For Happiness

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You know those days when you wake up feeling somewhat…unhappy. On those days, wouldn’t it be nice to have a happy pill to make you feel better? One that doesn’t even require a prescription?

 

A design firm in Barcelona has come up with a fun and different candy shop called “happy pills” selling placebo happiness in jars and pill cases not unlike real pharmacies.

 

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So you wake up feeling bad for no reason with a full day ahead of you, what do you do? Maybe you need a bottle of “happy pills” to sweeten your day. Something that will make you happy by popping a pill that has no side effects. Imagine tasting that yummy candy on your taste buds; pills you can’t overdose on. Let the sugar rush take care of the doldrums and have an awesome day.

 

Just what the doctor ordered.

 

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Nestled literally between two buildings on Avinguda del Portal de l'Angel, the “happy pills” shop would be fairly easy to miss. That is, if it weren't for the crowd of tourists and gawkers outside the store.

 

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Once inside, you are greeted by rows of different flavors of gummy candy. You pick what kind, what size prescription you want and they pack them in tamper proof bottles for you. They seal the bottles shut and put the descriptions on the bottles in English or Spanish.

 

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“Against the unbearable lightness of being”, “Against Mondays”, and “Against the square root” are some of the (translated from Spanish to English) prescriptions of happy pills they are offering at their unique store.

The process and the presentation are clean and enjoyable, long after the candy has been consumed (which happens very quickly). So I have a smile on my face and a bottle of happy pills on my desk as I write this blog.

What a clever idea for a candy store! Now, if I only lived in Spain…or had some stock in the company. Ha ha!

 

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National Day Of Unplugging

 

Based on a Jewish holiday there are people persuading us to be unplugged and I'm not talking about MTV. It's being called a National Day Of Unplugging and it runs from sundown on the 4th to sundown on the 5th I doubt that even the people involved in it's planning will be able to do it.

 

 

This experiment (as it's being referred to) is the idea of Reboot, a nonprofit think tank of hip, media-savvy Jewish professionals based in New York, with staff members in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Founded in 2003 it's members include television executives, Web developers, writers, filmmakers and CEO's. People who would have a most difficult time unplugging.

 

 The idea is to bring your offline family and friends together for a whole day of old fashioned togetherness. No cheating allowed! Organizers hope the day of unplugging will draw attention to Reboot’s Sabbath Manifesto: a set of 10 'core principles' introduced earlier this year to guide Jewish tradition-seekers in ways that are meaningful in an information-driven world. The Manifesto offers instructions like “avoid technology,” “find silence,” "light candles" and “drink wine.”

 

 Do you think for one day you could give up your smart phones, computers, TVs, video games, stereos and any other forms of plugged in enjoyment that you use everyday? For instance, are batteries allowed? If you need to go shopping, what if they don't take cash?

 

 

All joshing aside, I may not be Jewish but if I sat in my clothes closet with a lit candle and a big enough bottle of wine I could most certainly do it! Depending on the wine, probably for more than one day! Lol! Care to join me for the National Day Of Unplugging?

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Break In At My Buiding

 

Just as I thought things were starting to calm down in life, Murphy's law went into action and showed me this was not to be. My apartment building had a break in on Tuesday before noon and the place that got broken into was only 3 doors down from mine. In broad daylight too! I wasn't home like I usually am either so it freaked out.

 

For those of you who don't know what Murphy's Law is, here is the definition:  Murphy's Law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." It's a true set of rules that has been around for decades that I learned about when I went to school for electronics.

Between 11 and 11:30am I left to go pick up my monthly medications. As I walked out to my car I looked at the other apartment doors (just a habit I have) and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, not that I expected to. I got to my car and noticed a strange car parked next to mine.

 

First I thought to myself; "Oh no, I hope they didn't ding my car door."  So I proceeded to check my car to make sure (just in case I could get the license number) that there were no new dents. I wasn't seeing any and when I stood up all of a sudden there was a black teen in the passengers seat of the car. He had been slumped down talking on a cell phone so I didn't see him at first and we both startled each other. I told him what I was doing and we laughed because we had scared each other.

I walked around to get into my car and saw a larger older black man going through our garbage bin. He was even opening bags and he looked like he had lost something the way he was going through them but he didn't live here. I didn't know him.

 

So many people go through our garbage bin anymore that it's not unusual to see strangers doing this especially for cans. I just took note of him, figured the boy was waiting for him and went on my way.

 

I got back around 12:30PM and my roommate James was home for lunch. He was parked in my spot and when I ran in and asked him why he said just park on the street for now because something was going on. So I did and when I was walking back to my place I saw both our building managers and some neighbors outside and they were talking in a group. Something had to be up!

 

When I got inside my place James told me when he got home from lunch he saw the door to #5 had been kicked in and the kitchen window was even pried open. He couldn't get the managers to answer him so he called the police. I told him about the strange guys and that the door was fine when I left so we decided it must of happened between those hours. I told him the managers were out there now and James said the police were coming soon.

 

I went outside and told the managers about the strangers and a couple of other people said they had seen the older black man also and some said they had seen two young black men on another day. I told them when the police came if they wanted to speak to me I would be here.

 

The police eventually knocked on my door and asked me all kinds of questions. I could certainly ID the younger man if they caught him and they were glad to hear that. Otherwise, I told them all I could and they left to question other residents.

 

I spied some of my neighbors still talking outdoors so I went to ask them if I missed out on anything. As we chatted I came to the conclusion that since it was rent time (and the apartment wasn't really tossed) it seemed like they knew what they wanted and it may of been someone they knew. They only took money and a few other items and seemed to know where to look. Of course, that's up to the police to figure out. We're all hoping they don't come back for more.

 

I was so blessed it wasn't me because if someone broke in here they would of had a field day finding things to take. Still, it was awfully close, too close for comfort!

 

When I was still living in San Francisco I had a white female crack addict cat burglar (say that 3 times quickly) break into my apartment and I was home. She was on the fire escape coming in my kitchen window and we came face to face. I fought with her until she got away from me out of my front door. I picked her out of a line up and they got her but the courts (even though this was her 3rd strike for cat burglary) gave her a month in jail with no drug rehab. (They had promised she'd get rehab but that's the way things go these days.)

 

Still, you only have yourself to blame if you're not careful around your house. Always keep your eyes peeled when you are around your home or property. Most people do not because at home is where we feel the safest and most comfortable. If anything happens out of the ordinary or you find some strangers on your property or at your door be vigilant! They may be dressed up and have the Watch Tower with them but that doesn't mean they aren't faking it to have a look around. Don't tell anyone where you keep your valuables or even if you have them. Use your common sense, these are hard times with even more hard up people.

 

Stay safe and stay blessed my friends!

 

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Twenty Five Ways To Show You've Grown Up

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I got this in my email and wanted to share it with you. You can forward this, and any other of my blogs by clicking on the email icon at the bottom of each one.)

Did You Know?

 

Barbie had her 50th birthday this year.

 

What about our beloved cartoon characters?

 

 

Tweedy Bird

"I thot I saw a puddy cat! Oh I forgot, the puddy cat is dead. Oh my missing tail feathers, so is granny. Then, where am I?"

 

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Too Many Guns

 

Do we really need another kind of gun?

 

Pirates are bad and we need to stop them. Now the Pentagon has an excuse and the headlines to contract Lockheed Martin and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging to make a .50 caliber rifle that can kill from a mile or more away. The money put into it so far? Altogether, 21.8 million dollars for a start and voiding technical difficulties it could be done by 2015.

The military needs the right tools for the job and I don't have a problem with them having the guns they need to protect themselves and our country especially during war although I'm against violence. I have 2 uncles whom were proud Marines so I know what they went through and I respect the military because of them. Unfortunately even military weapons of all types have filtered down to be had by the general public through illegal means and that includes sniper rifles.

President Kennedy's death comes to mind and he isn't the only one to die from a sniper. All you have to do is look at the news reports. Guns and the stupid people using them are causing more deaths of innocent people in the U.S. then ever before. Most states are practically handing them out to the public and countless non-military people even obtain permits to carry that gun until it is pried out of their cold dead hands.

Even if you don't own a gun I bet you know someone, a family member or friend (not in a job that requires a gun) that does. There are more guns than people to shot them. With a permit to carry a person can take their gun on airplanes, buses, trains anywhere they go in this country in any public venue.

I personally know many gun-totting Americans. Not only are they proud of it they have more than one gun to their name and most of them have never went to a shooting range to practice shooting these guns. My father was one of these people and he died by his own hand gun in 1990 after which the Indiana police were quick to hand that same gun over to my brother who took it back to Florida. The Indiana police should of destroyed that gun.

If a gun is just handed over to another person where is the gun control? Criminals have been caught with all kinds of illegal guns with silencers and guns that have been altered. The police (who are sometimes the problem) can't keep up and the murder rate caused by guns has gone up alarmingly. Hand guns can be bought very cheaply on the street with the serial numbers ground off, ready for a new crime.

If the military need this supergun and it saves solders lives I'm all for it but a supergun isn't going to stop bombs and other terrorism in our modern day world. We have so many weapons at our disposal already I just feel like that much money could be better spent.

So many have so little and we already have an expensive war that (along with oil prices) has brought our economy down even more. The people making guns and bullets still have their jobs and are making good money at it.

There was a plan to stamp serial numbers on bullets for more control and although I haven't heard anything about it lately it would sure make it harder to commit crimes with all guns. Better yet if there were no guns then people would have to fight hand to hand and I feel it would be a lot more fair. Maybe one man would think twice about attacking another and the death rate from shootings would go away. Or maybe I'm just dreaming of a better less violent world without guns and the people who almost worship them.

 

What a beautiful dream that would be, without guns!

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Just In Case You Weren't Feeling 'Old Enough' Today ♥

 The people who are going to college this year were born in 1993. They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up. Their lifetime has always included AIDS. The CD was introduced four years before they were born. They have always had an answering machine. They have always had cable. They couldn't imagine life without their cell phones. Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show. They have never been without microwaves and can't cook without them. They never took a swim and thought about Jaws. They don't know who Mork was or where he was from. They never heard; "Where's the Beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel. ", or "de plane Boss, de plane." McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers. They don't have a clue as how to use a typewriter. They use calculators, computers and the Internet in college to do all of their lessons. They have always had 'personal' computers. Search Engines have taken the place of a set of good Encyclopedias. Email and texting has taken the place of writing personal letters and mailing them. Notice the larger type? That's for those of us who have trouble reading cause we're getting 'old.'    P.S. Save the earth. It's the only planet with chocolate.

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