Tag Heart

Tales from the heart

Michael 7 Comments

I have a confession to make. The last few weeks I’ve taken advantage of a random quote by fifth century Pope, St. Celestine I. Celestin founded the Vatican diplomatic corps. Imagine, 2,000 years ago the world already needed diplomats for countries to speak kindly to each other. Probably because like today, it was difficult to understand what was going on when everyone was shouting, so they needed experts at listening and whispering.

I’ve contrasted those Monday posts with Thursday’s Good News of the Week feature. Proof that even as the world’s former greatest civilized country crumbles in despotism, they are pockets, very large pockets of good in the rest of the world. They’ve been fun looking up and selecting 5 or 6 examples of, if not happy news, at least news that doesn’t want to make you throw up every time tangerine face pops up from his recharging pad and says something more stupid than you thought it could get.

The truth is, they are both easy subjects to pull together 500 words that don’t sound like 500 words of gibberish, aka what a text based social media post passes for nowadays. There were easy and I needed easy.

I am wrapping up a significant creative project that I’ll be announcing sometime in September and a lot of my creative fuel has been spent on that. At the same time, I’ve been involved with a series of speech contests again, this time as organizer and chair rather than contestant. Contestant by far is the easier gig.

With all that going on, I’d typically still be able to think up a few original thoughts to share with you but for the fact that I have all that going on while I’m running at about 60% capacity. Earlier this year, I noticed my walks were getting more difficult. To make a long story short (too late), after ruling out joint, muscle, strength and stamina, and respiratory concerns, the last organ to be looked at was heart.

As a lifelong member of the “I have a heart murmur club” I knew I had a valve that was not like the others. I also knew they can stay a nuisance for a lifetime or shift into problem gear over a very short time. Mine decided to shift. In the process of checking that out, they also uncovered a slightly uncooperative heart artery.

As this post is being published, I will be prepped for a cardiac catheterization, angioplasty, and deeper look at the mitral valve. Supposedly this will all take just a few hours, and I’ll be home to peruse today’s Reader sometime this afternoon.

I’ve taken Celestine’s quote, “We are deservedly to blame if we encourage error by silence,” to heart (no pun intended) and do not want to be also responsible for misunderstanding encouraged by silence. I hope by next week I can be more myself on Monday posts. I think I’d like to continue taking the easy way out on Thursday though and stick with Good News Thursday releases. There’s always room for good news, even if they do their damnedest to suppress it in Washington, DC.

Have a Heart, Please

Michael 2 Comments
For such a short month with only 28 days, 29 this and every Presidential election year affording candidates an additional 24 hours to make fools of themselves, February is chock full of imposters, sequels, and me too holidays.
 
The most famous of non-holidays comes up next week but has been in full fledged celebration by car dealers, furniture stores, and discount houses for weeks now. Of course that is the never authorized, not recognized Presidents Day.  Not being an official national holiday has not stopped business from taking advantage of consumers with “the biggest savings of the year” nor unions taking advantage of businesses with demands of yet another day off with pay. Of course the real holiday is Washington’s Birthday, never celebrated on his actual birthday because that would mean the loss of a 3 day weekend in most years. Bonus points for anybody who can identify Washington’s actual birthday without Google.
 
Looking for a reason to drink to excess and St. Patrick’s Day is a whole month away. Don’t fret or fear, Mardi Gras is here. What started out a few hundred years ago as a day of atonement and confession before Lent begins has morphed into “let’s eat everything in sight, have parades all day, drink all night, and show our boobs (pardon me) in exchange for a string of plastic beads.” Although the date varies because Ash Wednesday varies because Easter varies (you remember those days, right?), it most often is during February that merchants along Bourbon Street grease the poles outside their establishments to deter drunken idiots from trying to climb them.
 
For 134 years a peace loving furry woodland creature has been forecasting Spring’s arrival in a quaint Pennsylvania town. Of course this is commemorated in the most important day in the modern calendar, February 2, Groundhog Day. Sometime, details are sketchy exactly when, meteorologists began celebrating National Weatherman’s Day, now known of course as National Weatherperson’s Day on February 5. There’s logic to this they say. That is the birthday of John Jeffries, purportedly the first to record daily weather observations. That would be fine. Many professions recognize their pioneers. But this year I noticed on February 5 more news snippets decrying Punxsutawney Phil’s bold prediction of an early spring with repeated references to his predictions being accurate only 40% of the time. I did a little research on this. Phil is predicting for 6 weeks! According to National Weather Service data although a 7 day forecast is accurate 80% of the time, a 45 day forecast (about 6 weeks) has an accuracy rate of 40-50%. Hmmm. Methinks and all that jazz. 
 
February is the month of love recognized as National Weddings Month (I would have thought June, no?), Creative Romance Month, and Affair to Remember Month (no clarification if that refers to the movie or a tryst), with International Flirting Week (for the not so serious?) tossed in on the month’s third week. But if those and the chocoholic’s dream date Valentine’s Day don’t fill your bill we can now add, and on this very day, Galentine’s Day. A day with origins similar to and about as real as Festivus and Friendsgiving which are now also apparently really real. And yes, the wanting to be next to be really real, Palentine’s Day is making inroads also. And here all these years I’ve been sitting at home alone without a romantic other half to celebrate. Gee, who would have thought one could make a holiday out of picking up the phone and asking a couple friends to go out for a drink. I would have have missed the boat and called that something like Thursday but then I’d have missed out on the greeting card conscesssions. (Oh yes you can. Check out your local card shop.) 
 
One day in the month that should be a real deal holiday with cards, gifts, TV specials and days off for proper celebrations (with pay if you can swing it) is February 14, no, not the flowers and chocolate day, but National Organ Donor Day. Hop over to organdonor.gov to find out about how organ and tissue donation works and how to register to donate. Ah, the gift of giving your heart to someone. Now that’s true love. And nobody will throw beads at you.
 
 
GTHeart