The Stars at Night are Big and Bright

The Stars at Night are Big and Bright...and boring.  Lauren and I went stargazing in Arizona with about twenty others who had nothing better to do.  
Two amateur astronomers brought big, hulking telescopes for which Galileo might have bartered his three offspring. Believe me, these 'scopes were WELL loved babies.  The two guys excitedly programmed them to see each astral treat with TV-like remote controls. (Cheaters). We expected to see the fiery bits of carbon up close and personal. No. Instead, they still looked like a bunch of little pinpricks--just lots more of them. I politely asked the astronomer geeks how they got so into this. (And they were REALLY into it).  Both had become obsessed at about age ten causing me to conjecture that stellar addiction MUST occur before puberty or not at all. I recalled how badly I had wanted a telescope at that age.  Oh, how fortunate that letter to Santa never made it to the star-studded North Pole.
©10/2012  Jana B Patrick

Thanksgiving Guest

Our front door is all glass and you can imagine my surprise when I turned around the corner and saw a GIANT, fat turkey standing at the front door.  No, I didn't take a picture, (drat)  instead I called our catatonic, perennially somnolent little doggie to the door to see what he would do. He actually barked.  He scared the turkey a total of about five feet away.  Tom turkey and friends hung out in the yard awhile discussing how to get inside.  They had heard of previous generations being the Guests of Honor at November gatherings and wanted a piece of the action.  As far as I was concerned, they were not welcome unless they came frozen, featherless, headless and dead.
©11/2012  Jana B Patrick

Happy Thanksgiving.  Gobble, gobble.

Dizzy! I'm So Dizzy, My Head is Spinnin'

I think that someone gave the USA a frontal lobotomy when we were napping. Perhaps it was a Groupon deal. Both hemispheres of our collective brains seem polar and permanently divided. Both sides of the gray matter are spinning at vortex speed creating doubt and subterfuge about the actions or perceived actions of it's mirror image. Both sides need psychiatric help. With a co-pay of just $938 billion, help is SOON available from Big Brother! Unfortunately, the lobotomy makes reading the 2300 page health care program with accompanying 13,000 pages of regulations a bit tricky. 

©11/13/2012  Jana B. Patrick,  http://janasrandomwriting.blogspot.com/

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

"Peeeee-yew!"

I went hiking up on the Continental Divide in Colorado this past weekend with my daughter, Lauren, and her dog, Spartacus.  It was cold, windy and trying.  I think ALL of the above highlighted words describe aspects of this year's elections...
Sparticus has a new backpack and was able to carry his own sh!t off the trail.  I would be willing to use tax dollars to supply politicians with much larger versions of these.
©11/06/2012  Jana B. Patrick,  
http://janasrandomwriting.blogspot.com/

Random Hockey Thoughts

I play hockey year round and sometimes go right to picking up the grand kids and hanging out with them. Someday they will walk into a stinky, rancid locker room, inhale deeply and exclaim fondly, "Hey!  This smell reminds me of...Nana!!!"

My hockey shot is pathetically off course.  I told a pacifist friend of mine that I was going to take some shooting lessons. "You have a GUN?!!" she asked incredulously.  No, just a hockey stick.

"I forgot my hockey stick at the airport!" I cried out while we were being driven away to Scottsdale, Arizona from Minnesota in early October.  (This was during my 6 week online shooting course, so naturally I needed the stick to practice while I was gone.)  The limo driver turned around abruptly and said, "YOU play hockey? I played for the Detroit Red Wings back in the 70's and 80's."  How cool is that? ( As he laments, "the guys now make more in one week than I made in a year...") Yeah, but you got to play in THE NHL!!!
I used to usher at the North Star games back when he was playing against them.  I only got $1.65 an hour, (and , okay, FREE North Star games)--Quit your whining, dude!
©10/2012  Jana B Patrick

Random Hiking Thoughts

I hiked Pinnacle Peak in Arizona last week, and, as I do with any physical activity I am not in shape for, I allowed my mind to wander so as to ignore the death rattle that my breathing had become.

I decided to notice the other hikers.  One had on some ladies sensible dress shoe pumps--not so sensible on a rocky, gravelly mountain, but much more sensible than the rhinestone studded high heal sandals one of my sisters sported on the same trail some years back.

I noticed an 80 year old guy wearing a "BEAT ARMY" T-shirt racing up and down the five mile mountain trail. When I commented on seeing him again, he said it was his third lap that morning.  Show off.  Probably told his great-grandkids about passing up all of us losers...

I also noticed one out-of-shape laggard that stopped every 25 yards or so to supposedly 'check her I-Pod.' Sure.  I noticed this because I was keeping pace just behind the slacker.  Since I don't have an I-Pod, I merely would stop and check my moles to see if any had suddenly turned cancerous.

Now I am back in flat Minnesota treading the monotonous elliptical and wondering how in the world that lady ahead of me got into the spray-on camo spandex...and why the over-the-hill guy over there thinks short shorts are remotely attractive.  I really have to get an I-Pod.
©10/2012  Jana B. Patrick,  janasrandomwriting.blogspot.com

Friendly Fire

Intestinal bacteria, referred to as probiotics, are microscopic critters creating your very own private universe--a microbiome--in your gut. (I suspect my personal parasites have been partying lately and abusing their curfew.) 

According to the journal, "Science", "(Intestinal) bacteria are organized into socially cohesive units (gangs) in which antagonism occurs between, rather than within...defined populations (rival gangs)"  Whoa.  I see a Spielberg movie. Casting the bacterial warriors could be interesting...

Dr. Joseph Mercola says, "...certain bacteria have the ability to produce chemical compounds that inhibit growth of other bacteria, while not harming their own kind or "close relatives."  These...natural antibiotics act as a type of chemical warfare, (in your stomach!!!) allowing the bacteria in question to gain a competitive edge by killing off the competition.  Meanwhile, other "allies" are spared, as they are resistant to the antibiotic chemicals produced."  Interesting, huh?  World War Three going on in every living gut.  The Allies versus Bacterial Terrorists.  May the good guys win.

Eating probiotic, fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kefir, pickles etc. makes for happy bacterial campers.

Now for casting the movie: Arnold?--Good guy or bad boy?  For SURE a bad guy part for JERRY SANDUSKY.  Especially since he is now introducing bacteria at both ends...  (Same for Minnesota creeper, Curt Wehmeyer)
©10/2012  Jana B Patrick