Tag Stress

Sneak non-peek, ‘Tis the Season

Michael 3 Comments

Are you feeling holiday stress now Ethan we deep into the Winter Holiday Stress Zone? I bet is not the same stress I’m feeling.


Stress. We were reminded of that when we were talking about how quickly the year has gone, bringing us to the annual Winter Holiday Stress Zone. That is how we describe the days that begin at Halloween and end with January 2. And that’s not meant in a bad way.

Stress is a funny thing. Ask most people what they think of when they hear the word stress and you may hear things like stress management and stress relief, stress hives and stress headaches or maybe stress test or stress fracture.

The dictionary stresses a different side of stress.

I’m going to stop there. I don’t want to give away all of it!  It’s another sneak peek but that’s all you’re getting today. That’s part of a post we published to ROAMcare last November. ‘Tis the Season talked about the good stress of the holidays and every other day. We’re featuring it in tomorrow’s Flashback Friday.

You can read it all of tomorrow, by subscribing to Uplift today.Join the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

I know. I’m getting mean in my old age.

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Resolved to Not

Michael Leave a comment

If you’ve been following along with me for the past several years you know I’m in no danger of breaking my resolutions before this week is up because I won’t be getting around to making them for a few months. (See “Be It Resolved,” Jan. 2, 2012 if you don’t remember or understand.) While I think I have a perfectly reasonable self-help program going on there (even though I seem to be actually helping myself very little most of the time), most of the world has already gone out on that New Year’s Resolution limb. And many of them armed with a chainsaw.

I was enjoying reading an article on an on-line journal yesterday when a link at the end caught my eye. It was something to the effect of why you should make “non-resolutions” this year. If you consider that “to be resolved” is a quite strong statement in that one who is resolute is adamant and unwavering  about one’s decision, to make a “non-resolution” would be to plan on faltering or even failing. Which seems to be what happens to most of our resolutions anyway. This, I thought, bears some further study. Maybe.

I clicked on the link to see what the author had in mind but what he had in mind was to sell some of his books on positive thinking and I thought I was pretty positive that I could think fairly well on my own. So I thought for a while and I think I came up with something. This “non-resolution” idea just might go somewhere.

Consider what most people resolve to do in the shadow of empty champagne bottles, pork roast remnants, more sauerkraut than was really a good idea, and still more empty champagne bottles. To lose weight. To stop drinking. To eat less sauerkraut. They are negative goals and success means not doing something. And unless you are really adept like to a professional level at problem solving, you probably do set personal goals from a negative perspective. Eat less. Reduce debt. Don’t be late for work. It’s not unnatural to our thinking because it is indeed easier to not do than to do.

A self-help expert would say to be successful you must plan positively and with a specific target or goal. You don’t resolve to lose weight you resolve to eat healthier, exercise more, and lose two pounds a week over the next 4 months. No wonder nobody ever loses weight starting in January. That’s a full time job you’re taking on there. Now what if we give those “not to” abstracts some still real measurable goals? Without changing the negative of course. Eat less becomes eat three less desserts a week or eat at McDonald’s one less time a week. You’re still planning on not doing something and you’re brain is still comfortable with that. But now you have something specific to not do and if you don’t do it you meet your goal.

Sure it’s not for everybody, but maybe it’s worth a try just so you can say you didn’t break your resolution before you took down the Christmas tree.

Or. You could resolve to make your resolutions this spring. With me. When I’m pretty positive they should be made.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?

The Not Quite So Bad Smelling Pot

Michael Leave a comment

My last post was the bad side of a potpourri of encounters at the local retailers. This post is the better smelling side of that pot. It’s still a bit rotten but it has a less pungent odor about it.

On top of this list of things that don’t smell quite right (or if you prefer, things that make you go hmm) are shopping carts. Shopping carts themselves are not new fodder for the RRSB. Type “shopping cart” into my search bar and you can relive tales of shoppers with carts, carts without shoppers, crazy people with carts and crazy carts out to maim me. (My personal favorite that one. Relive it specifically at “Handicap Hate Crime,” (June 19, 2014)). But what put shopping carts on this particular list is that they officially are now everywhere, and some of it is intentional.

An intentional, yet questionable placement of shopping carts is now at the greeting card store. I’m ambivalent about greeting cards. I like them well enough. I like the idea of sending and getting real mail even if some far afield professional has written the sentiment. They fill a void that mere mortals like me could not and I for one feel accomplished just putting my name after somebody else’s perfectly chosen words. But I’m not so enamored with greeting cards that I feel the need to greet every occasion with a professional acknowledgement. Apparently the greeting card store people feel differently. So differently that they believe so many people will be buying so many of their cards in a single transaction that they have taken the step to make one’s shopping experience less physically exhausting and are now providing shopping cards in which to haul about your selection of selections as you go about selecting their cards. It is clearly just another overstated case of exaggerated hyperbole. Indubitably.

On the other hand, at stores where shopping with carts is advisable and often indeed a necessity, we are now faced with a decision as we pass through the doors that open automatically (and just in case you were unsure of that they are clearly so labeled but that’s a post for a different day). Of course I am talking about our basic supermarkets. At my closest go-to store the vestibule has 6 differently sized wheeled carts (one motorized) and two carry basket variants. For some reason the sporty compact models seem to be the most popular and never about when I need to pick up a dozen or so articles. Thus I am forced to wobble about poorly balanced (as if I wasn’t to be begin with) with a too small basket held in the crook of my arm or to reach deep into the void at the checkout line as I rummage for those 12 items in the bottom of the cart sized suitably to carry a month’s worth of groceries for a family of 4 (plus 2 pets). Where are all the cute little carts? They are being wheeled about by the family of four (pets safely locked in the over-sized SUV idling at the end of parking row 3) sagging under the weight of the soon to be purchased vittles and the pair of matching mini-monsters (aka 3 year olds who prefer to be at home in bed). It is clearly a case of bad choices. Several.

The last petal in our pot comes at the consideration of the local home improvement store. Today my needs that can be satisfied at a lumber, hardware, plumbing, electrical, lighting, appliance, paint, paper, carpet, and appliance store and nursery (the plant version, not the refuge for 3 year olds taking a break from mom and dad) can be met at that very nursery (the plant version). My biggest takeaways from the lawn and garden department begin at the garden half and end on my patio in the forms of plants, pots, and potting soil. Plants or seeds that will someday grow up to be young strapping plants and pots with a simple stand for the pots after the plants have been therein potted are light enough that a supermarket style shopping cart handles them with ease. But then there is that bag of potting soil. First I shouldn’t be lifting anything heavier than a five pound bag of donut holes and second I don’t want to be lifting anything heavier than a five pound bag of donut wholes. A flat bed cart that I can drag the bag of soil onto from the stack o’ bags would be ideal. But no, even though there is an entire store of wood, concrete, and refrigerator-freezers that have their own special carts, in the garden center you have only the extra-large version of the supermarket shopping cart that just ate my twelve items (no waiting) in the preceding paragraph.  It is clearly a choice of too many choices inside and not enough outside. By design.

At here you have it, today’s mélange just this side of rotten.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

The Rotten Pot

Michael Leave a comment

The potpourri – a quite lovely arrangement of highly scented dried flowers used to decorate and perfume.  Or collection of songs or poems, or a mélange of thoughts, ideas, or fact.  Whatever you want to make of it, or make it from, it is a beautiful order of otherwise unrelated things. In fact, I have often used it in post titles when I have too little of any one thing rummaging around in my head to add up to a couple hundred words of lucid thinking thus keeping that post from getting too ugly. Until now.

Now we have the not so flattering side of the potpourri – it’s otherwise disagreeable origin. From seventeenth century French it is literally the “rotten pot.” And today is a collection of the rotten side of reality that stuck its ugly face in my path this week.

The major ingredient in this pot is “some people’s children.” Not once, not twice, but three times just since Sunday did I get to witness not one, not two, but three little monsters disturbing the peace and leaving it in pieces.

There was the 3 or 4 year old girl (or boy, at that age does it matter) who made her own potpourri while seated in a shopping cart and systematically pulled petal after petal from the bouquet of flowers I suppose that her mother left with her to keep her (the child) occupied while she (the mother) gave her order to the deli counter clerk (and who couldn’t contain herself (the clerk) and pointed out the impromptu de-blooming). And then there was the 6 or 7 year old girl who at the local party store walked through a full aisle of piñata, punching one after the other until she got bored with that, realized that mom was not within arm’s reach, and wailed at the approximate pitch and volume of an ambulance siren.

But the killer (could we wish) was the around six-ish boy (I think) who stood (yes stood!) on the conveyor belt at the supermarket checkout line while he (I think) systematically threw every item in the impulse rack above the belt onto the belt to his (hers?) mother’s chorus of “Please get back in the cart, get in the cart, get back in the cart, I’m telling you get back in the cart, this is the last time now get back in the cart, get in the cart, get in the cart.” When the cashier had the nerve to say “It’s all right,” I couldn’t just stand there idly at the next check-out line. I said “No, it’s not alright. It’s rude and disgusting. And it’s why I’m in this line because I’m certainly not putting my food on that belt and if I were you (now directed to the cashier) I’d have someone get over there and clean that up.” And I actually felt good about myself having said something until the mother said, “Like that belt was any too clean before.”

And that was my mélange of otherwise unrelated urges to kill.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Customer Disservice

Michael Leave a comment

Last night, actually early (VERY early) this morning, I was watching a blank TV screen in bed. It was the best thing I could get. When the screen wasn’t blank I had a message from the cable company that read “Something has gone wrong. Please unplug your box for ten seconds then plug it back in. When the signal returns, you can begin watching your show again.” Now that’s a polite message for a cable company. It was also a big fat lie.

About a month ago I had a semi-similar problem. I had to upgrade the type of set top box I had been using so I had them ship me a replacement for a self-install. Even after carefully following the directions I couldn’t get the thing to work. A call to the support center revealed that they couldn‘t get the thing to work either. But not for trying. I was on the phone with them for about 35 minutes while the technician sent a variety of reset signals, check error codes and ping-backs, and generally did what she could to correct my problem from a distance. It didn’t happen. After apologizing for her inability to get the box working and for making me wait so long, she arranged for a technician to come out the next day and replace the box with a new one. I was also issued a credit for being inconvenienced by the lack of service for a day.

Last night’s technician could have used some guidance from the previous encounter. After confirming my name, phone, address, social security number, mother’s maiden name, length of great toe on my left foot, and the winner of the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay of 1962 (To Kill a Mockingbird) she began her diagnostic check. First she told me to unplug my set top box for 10 seconds then plug it back in. As we waited for it to reset she told me that when the signal returns I could continue to watch my show. (Yes, I thought it sounded familiar also.)  Eventually the screen replayed the same message. “Well,” she said, “I’m stumped. Let’s set up a service appointment for you. Our next opening is next January 6 at 4:30.” Yes, that January 6. Sheesh. “Thank you for calling.”

Within minutes I received an e-mail confirming the appointment and noting that I will be charged a $50 service fee my next bill. I will be calling customer service later this morning.

Sheesh. Again.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

No Means Why Not

Michael Leave a comment

Jerry Seinfeld once said that the only warning label people really pay attention to is “Dry Clean Only.”  He has a point.  Just about everything else we are told not to do we do and do it with gusto.  If you take a warning label, put it on steroids, turn the fabric to metal, and hang it on a pole along the side of the road you get those big warning signs.  They don’t have anywhere near the impact of “Dry Clean Only.”

Perhaps it’s because we got back to real winter weather.  Perhaps it’s because all of the stars lined up just right and all of the blind, nearly blind, and soon to be blind-sided were out driving at the same time.  Perhaps it’s because so many people take traffic laws as suggestions.  For whatever reason, yesterday was not a day to be out driving in the local business district.

There are some “No” traffic laws that are never going to be heeded.  No passing on right.  No turns from shoulder.  No lane changing in tunnel.   Most people do them and get away with them without much problem.  There are other “No” laws that are to be heeded because they are more vital to life.  They usually involve aiming the car at a point that crosses traffic and that traffic is usually high speed and busy not paying attention to its own warnings.  No left turn.  No U turn.  No turn on red.  Yesterday was the day that for every “No” the signs said there was a driver saying “Oh yes I can.”

It’s along one span of a quite large business route that there are traffic lights every 500 feet or so.  Shopping centers, malls, clusters of stores and restaurants, and car dealerships line both sides of the 4 or 5 mile stretch of roadway.  To keep unnecessary traffic out of these various shopping areas’ parking lots, most of the lights permit U-turns.  But then, most of the road is only 2 lanes in either direction.  At the two lights where the road expands to 4 lanes each way the lights are clearly signed “No U Turn.”  At both of these there were cars literally lined up to reverse their courses rather than travel the quarter-mile to the next legal switching point.  At both of these the cars were still lined up after at one intersection the U-Turning car was struck by another and at the second the U-Turning car crossed two lanes of traffic and did half a donut to avoid being struck by a car bearing down on him.

Along a different road there are two “No Left Turn” intersections that, if permitted, would require the turning car to pass in front of three lanes of uncontrolled oncoming traffic.  At the first of these I had to stop while not one, not two, but three of the four cars ahead prepared to make an unlawful left turn.  To be safe about it, they all had their turn signals on.  At the second of these there was only one car making its illegal turn.  That car was a police car.

There just isn’t enough space to detail all of the No Turn on Red turns but one was absolutely spectacular.  That will be a post for another day.

There was no indication of how many of these scofflaws needed to have something dry cleaned.  By the end of the day, I did.

Now that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

If Not For Bad Luck

Michael Leave a comment

A recent Reuters news article reported that 65% of cancers can be attributed to physiological bad luck.  Some 22 of 31 identified cancer types were traced to unexplained, random cell mutations.  These cancers included leukemia, pancreatic cancer, and ovarian and testicular cancer.  The other nine types which included lung, skin, and colorectal cancers, could be attributed to environmental or hereditary changes.  One of the researchers whose work was examined for the article was quoted saying the real reason that people get cancer in many cases, “is that person was unlucky. It’s losing the lottery.”

Well, that’s a relief.  I thought I had done something wrong to earn my cancer.  Fortunately now I know that it was just plain old bad luck.  It was probably bad luck that I had a surgical wound open up after the operation to remove that fluke.  That was compounded by more bad luck when the infection popped up.  And let’s not forget the bad luck of the revisions to the original surgery that had to be performed, all of that keeping me in the hospital some six months out of the past eighteen.

And it was during those same eighteen months that the company I was contracted to sold off the facility I was assigned to dropping me into the ranks of the unemployed as well as those of the unlucky.  The unlucky circumstances thus continued when all of the treatments and therapies though quite effective in keeping me alive couldn’t keep me with enough stamina to work a full business day so I continue to be unemployed while searching for an employer compassionate enough to understand that someone who has been extremely effective can still be so while working only half days at a time.

Of course there was the additional unluckiness of not being a child, a single mom, a returning veteran, a celebrity, a politician, or a television or movie character that may or may not be based on an actual person.  Nobody was submitting my name to any foundation to cover the expenses of a trip to Pisa or to Punxsutawney while arranging for free housekeeping, a new suit, and an interview on the late show thus garnering enough new found publicity that the previous paragraph’s ill fortune was quite handsomely negated.

So now I spend most days filling out insurance forms and sweepstakes entries with about the same odds of success, job applications with even longer odds, or call an old colleague to see if he or she has any spare hours or opportunities with the longest odds of them all.  On the bright side, I have been catching up with my reading and writing.  Seriously, on the bright side…come on, seriously a bright side?

Imagine playing the lottery with a 65% chance of hitting.  Oh wait, the researcher said that was like losing the lottery.  I manage to do that every week, twice a week.  That is ok.  If I hit the lottery I’d probably just squander the winnings on things like food and mortgage payments.  What a relief that choice doesn’t have to be made!  And here I thought I was just plain old unlucky.

Sorry, not every post is going to be up-beat.  Just real.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Resolving to Keep It Real

Michael 2 Comments

Last year the Monday adjacent to New Year’s Day was actually January 2.  We called it the day resolutions die and posed that if we made our annual resolutions more toward a climatic re-awakening, say the beginning of spring, we’d be more likely to keep them for more than 24 hours.  So last year we made our resolution to make our resolutions come spring.  (See Be It Resolved, Jan. 2, 2012.)  How did we do?

Let’s pick two.  When we finally got around to making those resolutions She of We felt she was watching too much television and to combat that would read more.  Well she’s reading more but still feels she watches too much television.  He of We clearly needed more exercise and by the time spring rolled around had a positive plan.  That was to walk the local high school football field every morning before work. Well he walked some for about a month but that was still better than just 24 hours.  (See Be It Further Resolved, March 22, 2012.)  The real question is, was delaying resolution making successful in making rational, keepable resolutions?  Really, not much.

So here we are, back to another winter Monday and this time it’s New Year’s Eve, the day resolutions are made.  Will we?  We have some time to think about.  We might.  We still know January is a terrible time to start a new year.  But we also know we need to still exercise more no matter if we’re at the beginning, middle, or end of the year.  We know we need to still keep our minds nimble no matter if it’s hot, cold, or comfortable outside.  And we need to spend less, save more, and eat better.  Do we need resolutions for those?  Really, not much.

We like the idea of not making any serious goals while it’s only 20 degrees outside.  The mind is challenged enough at the holidays and New Year’s Day is still best suited for continuing the stress of the holiday period.  That hasn’t changed from last year.  But we think we can come up with a few rational, keepable resolutions. 

We resolve to keep having fun.  We resolve to work on the hard stuff later.  We resolve to keep you posted on how we’re doing with both.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

It’s Not the End of the World

Michael Leave a comment

If you lived to see Christmas then you know the world did not come to an end on December 20.  Or even December 21.  Probably there are just as many now a week later who are saying they never did believe in that stuff as there were a week ago who were convinced that this was the month to skip the mortgage payment.  As much as we would have loved to skip a payment or two, we were pretty much certain that the time to say we’ll never see another day wasn’t going to be determined by when the Mayans ran out of rock to carve their time in stone.

But it did get us to thinking.  Were there things this year that we’ll never see again.  We’ll not see another repeating date like we did on 12/12/12.  The next one will be 01/01/01 and January of 2101 is pretty far off.  But we could still be around for 2/2/22 or even 3/3/33.  Purists will say that those are not true repeating dates but since we’re talking life or death here, 2/2/22 is pretty close.

We saw lots of celebrities go in 2012.  Dick Clark, Andy Williams, Andy Griffith.  Whitney Houston, Donna Summer.  Etta James. Dave Brubeck.  Big names.  And many other big names.  And there could be a voice we’ll never hear again or a presence on the stage we’ll never see again.  But others will come.  Others will make us laugh and sing and snap our fingers and hum along.

There will never be another Twinkie or another Pontiac GTO, two brands that disappeared in 2012.  But somebody will eventually buy the Twinkie name and start baking vanilla sponge cakes with creamy centers and somebody will tell you that the last GTO wasn’t the same as the mid-60’s muscle car that made those three letters the monogram every teenage boy wanted in his garage anyway.

Some stuff we’ve missed but we know will be back.  Hockey hasn’t made a permanent exit even though some of the people whose livelihoods have been imperiled may feel it has.  No, not the players or the owners.  Especially not the league office or the players’ union.  We mean the ticket takers, ushers, vendors, and parking attendants.  Those who rely on 41 home games – plus playoffs – for a good chunk of their annual income.

And some stuff we really hope will stay away.  Do we have to hear one more time about “the biggest sale of the season!” Does every story have to be “Breaking news!”  Does every game have to have the “Play of the century!” in it?  And for good, bad, or otherwise, once January comes can we please retire “Fiscal Cliff” or at the very least make the Washington geniuses jump off of it?

All in all we have to say that 2012 wasn’t a banner year for things going away.  We should all get together and say, “Come on 2013, let’s see what you got but don’t expect us to just roll over and play dead.”  After all, it’s not the end of the world.   

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

 

Scared Skinny

Michael Leave a comment

Recently we had the opportunity to be in a Sears store.  Sears is one of the last places where you can buy just about anything.  After we had wandered past the lawn tractors, fountains, kitchen utensils, refrigerators, bedding, fine jewelry, cameras, vacuum cleaners (got a good deal in that department) linens, furniture, and cookware, we strolled by the exercise equipment.  We’re pretty certain we heard a voice from the acoustic tile say, “Be afraid.”

We aren’t completely unaware of exercise.  We run errands.  We climb the ladder to success.  We dive into dinner and we jump to conclusions.  But we hadn’t been introduced to these person trainers.

The first items we noticed were the stair climbers.  He of We had an immediate thought. He would need a step stool to climb onto one of these climbers.  She of We confirmed that with her thought, this one spoken.  “Do they have to be that large?”  Large they were.  The pad that we assumed one placed one’s foot would be sufficient to accept the Incredible Hulk’s foot, or perhaps King Kong.  Kong probably doesn’t need a piece of equipment to help with his climbing.

The treadmills loomed next.  He of We found his voice and recalled the simple rotating track and three position switch (Off, Slow, Fast) of the model his father used some fifteen or so years ago.  These machines had displays on them that looked like the main display in the NASA control room as portrayed in “Apollo 13.”  In output and in size.  The tread itself looked to be able to hold a small family, a couple vowed to exercise together, or a man and his large, well-trained dog.  Checking out the display a little closer we discovered that one could make the treadmill go uphill, downhill, fast, slow, moderate, level, uneven, or any combination, or a programmed course encompassing the entire variety.  Just like walking outside.  (Be afraid.)

We also saw weight machines, dumbbells, kettle bells, exercise balls, and those new dumbbells that have the weights inside them that shift back and forth when you shake them.  There were exercise bikes, all larger than either of our own bicycles and all with places to put water bottles which neither of our own has.  The stationary skiers were longer than your average cross county ski that they are supposed to mimic.  And in the corner of the display, a boxer’s heavy bag.  Probably laughing at us.

We suppose running laps around a football field, riding bikes along a trail, and doing aerobics in front of the television are just maintenance.  If you really want to be in shape you’ve got to get one of these.  Otherwise, where will you hang your laundry?

 Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?