MiddleAgedWomanBlogging's Open Salon Blog

SNOWACOLYPSE 2011!! Chicago!!!

Tue, 1 Feb 2011 13:02:51 -0500

Snowmageddon 2011

Has

Begun!!!!

Larger photo, if you can see it! Join the Blizzard Group on FB!

http://on.fb.me/ga693e

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126341710769018&index=1

Columbus Was An Ass!!

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:10:02 -0400

Spent some time with my son this weekend. Here is one of our intellectually stimulating conversations.

Me: "Monday's a holiday."
Z: "What holiday?"
Me: "Columbus Day!"
Z: "Columbus was an ass!"

So I Googled "Columbus was an ass" and it turns out Z was right!

Christopher Columbus Was An Asshole

After reading the book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen a few years back, I compiled a list of reasons that he should in no way have any positive connotations related to him whatsoever.

- His purpose was conquest and exploitation and used religion as a rationale for it (sound familiar?).
- He introduced 2 phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: taking land, wealth and labor from indigenous peoples, leading to their near extinction and the transatlantic slave trade which created a racial underclass.
- On his first voyage he kidnapped 10-25 Native Americans to take to Spain.
- In 1495 sent 500 Arawaks to Spain, kept 500 slaves at the island of Haiti as well.
- In 1499 Columbus made major gold strikes on Haiti and forced hundreds of thousands of Indians to mine for him.
- Spaniards hunted Native Americans for sport and murdered them for dog food.
- Haiti population before Columbus - 8 million. Indian adults - between 1 and 3 million. In 1516 - 12,000 // In 1542 - fewer than 200 // By 1555 - all gone.
- This death rate led to Spanish importing tens of thousands more slaves from the Bahamas as well as starting a slave trade in Africa, initiated by Columbus' son.

HE DID NOT "DISCOVER" AMERICA.

- A Norse colony, in as early as 900 CE, on Greenland sent expeditions to various parts of North America: Baffin Land, Newfoundland, Labrador and possibly New England.
- Afro-Phoenicians launched from Egypt and are said to have reached Atlantic coast of Mexico in about 750 BCE.
- Organic material associated with colossal heads of basalt on Eastern Coast of Mexico (Olmec heads - where they got the name for the dude on Legends of the Hidden Temple, duh) are dated to about 750 BCE. They are thought to be realistic portraits of West Africans.
- He is also erroneously associated with 'discovering' that the world is round and corrected faulty geography. It was the popular belief at the time and he did not right this wrong.

THANKSGIVING IS THE WHITE MAN'S HOLIDAY.

- The first non-native settlers were African slaves left in South Carolina in 1526 by Spaniards who abandoned a settlement attempt
- British in Virginia took Native American prisoners and forced them to teach the colonists how to farm.
- Squanto, that dude who taught white folk how to farm corn with dead fish, traveled across the Atlantic AT LEAST 6 times. He was part of an early slave trade and was taken to places such as Holland and Africa... how the fuck do you think he just 'knew' English if he never saw a white man before?!
- Early Virginians engaged in bickering, sloth or even cannibalism; they dug random holes in search for gold and were soon starting to dig up putrid Native American corpses to eat or rented themselves out to Native American families as servants.
- All foods mentioned in the original thanksgiving feast are exclusively indigenous to the Americas and had been provided by the local tribe (probably against their will, as well).
- Eastern Indians had observed Autumnal Harvest celebrations for centuries. Washington set aside days for a national thanksgiving but our modern traditions date back only to 1863. Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday during the Civil War. Pilgrims were not included in the tradition until the 1890s and no one used the term 'pilgrims' until the 1870s.

http://crustyriotgrrl.blogspot.com/2008/06/christopher-colombus-was-asshole.html

I've Never Been So Scared - Part Two

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:09:37 -0400

Read part one here...

Zach gave the nurse all his information then, she pulled out a wheelchair to haul him back to an emergency room. He refused and walked instead, still carrying his backpack. He isn’t grimacing in pain. He’s smiling and being polite. I’m wondering to myself, what is wrong with this child? We settled ourselves in a room, talked to the doctor and waited for the x-ray technician. Soon, I could see not one, but two doctors sitting at what looked like a television screen staring at x-rays. They had to be Zach’s. It was at this point things moved into warp speed.

Before I knew it, six to seven people were lining up against the walls of our room. I could hear mumblings about a procedure. One person told me they didn’t often get a chance to watch this.

I’m thinking, “Watch what?”

Someone pulled out a tray, shining stainless steel instruments were lain out nicely and the two doctors entered our room.

“He has a collapsed lung. We’re going to try to inflate it,” one said to me as he gowned up and pulled on those awful rubber gloves.

“Right here? Right now?”

“Yes, do you want to stay or go?”

“I’m staying,” I replied as I looked into Zach’s eyes and watched the color drain from his face.

I held his hand tightly as they gave him the shot to numb his chest, then tighter still as the scalpel cut into his skin before they pushed a tube into his side. I could now plainly see all the pain my son had been hiding. He had been in more denial than I ever had.

“Classic case,” I heard someone say, “Tall, thin, and male.”

Another x-ray and the lung looked good. I could breath. Afterwards, I walked out into a hallway trying to reach Zach’s father, who lives in Beijing. Hearing voicemail in a language so foreign to me, I hung up and immediately called my stepson. At this point, my voice broke and the tears began to flow. I’d been more tense than I realized.

“Please have Bob call me,” I explained.

While Zach was being admitted to the hospital, my phone rang.

“Should I fly home?” he offered.

“No, I don’t think it’s necessary. They way they talked this is a classic case. They keep him 24 hours, take another x-ray and probably release him to go home. I just thought you should know,” I told him because I honestly believed this was the worst of it. I was wrong.

Twenty-four hours later, the lung had deflated. Forty-eight hours passed and it was looking like surgery was in order. Not again, I thought. Bob kept calling but still, I told him he needn’t come home. They way the doctor talked, this is pretty common. He did over 155 surgeries like this in the last year. Things should be good, I tried reassuring myself as well as Bob.

Zach almost died as an infant. He’d been born with a hole in his diaphragm. His kidney and all of his intestines were shoved up into his chest cavity and only one lung had expanded. A nurse came into my room to take his foot prints. When she pulled back his blankets, he was blue. Time warp number one. He’d had surgery within two hours of his birth and spent weeks in the neonatal unit. In the middle of the night, I could hear him crying and calling for me. I’d rush to his side at all hours. This could not be happening again. All of the memories weighed heavily on my heart.

Seventy-two hours later he was getting a CT scan. Five hours after that, I was face to face with the surgeon. They’d found a mass in Zach’s chest. It wasn’t going to be the simple “attach the lung to the rib cage” surgery any longer. They wanted to saw open my son’s sternum, just like open heart surgery, and remove the mass. I didn’t hear the “80%” chance of not being cancer, I heard the “20%” chance it could be cancer and “six month recovery period.” Zach heard “school might not be an option this semester” and felt his life coming to a complete halt.

“Come home now, Bob,” I cried into the phone, “It’s more serious than we thought, please, come home now.”

It’s a twenty-four hour flight from Thailand, where Bob had been vacationing. He was home the next day and surgery was the day after that. I wanted my mother, who passed two years ago. I wanted to go back in time and change what had been. I wanted a miracle.

It’s been one month since Zach’s surgery. His biopsy showed no cancer. He’s back in school getting his Master’s and TAing a class. His father stayed with him for the first two weeks helping him get back on his feet. Zach has yet another scar on his chest to add to his collection. He’s telling people he got it wrestling tigers in India.

I want to thank all my friends and family and all of Zach’s friends who prayed and showed support for us while we were going through this ordeal. You are my miracle!

I've Never Been So Scared

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:09:28 -0400

My son almost died last month. My only son, whom I love with every breath I take, almost died in my arms for the second time in his life. He is twenty-four years old now. The first time was at birth. He was born with a diaphragmatic hernia, had surgery when he was a little over an hour old and has a foot long scar on his chest to prove it. His father and I divorced almost eight years ago. He moved to Asia and has lived there ever since. I stay in the city where I was born and raised, taking care of my father and providing a home base for our children.

A month ago my son called from Chicago around 7 PM in the evening, “I don’t feel right. Can you come and get me?”

“What’s wrong? Zach! I am three hours away! If it’s that bad get your ass to Northwestern!

“I don’t have a car, Lois, remember?” He has always called me Lois. Lois, Loey, Lobo, Lo Lo… anything but Mom.

“Dear God, Zach, call one of your cousins. They both have cars.”

“But, I want you to come and get me. I want to see my doctor.”

“Let me repeat, I am three hours away. What is wrong with you?”

“I’m not sure. This morning I was tying my shoe, then… I jumped up and threw my hands in the air and it felt like I pulled something in my chest where my pec muscle is.”

“You think you pulled a muscle and you want me to drive three hours to Chicago, then three hours back to Peoria so you can see a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“No!” I hung up the phone in disgust. He had to be kidding, right? My thoughts were muddled. What if he were really hurt? He couldn’t be. He runs five miles a day. He plays basketball four times a week. He rock climbs at the gym a couple of times a week. He lifts weights. He eats healthier than anyone I know.

My phone rang again, “Please, please come and get me, Mom.”

I didn't think twice. He called me Mom. This was serious. I grabbed my purse, jumped in my car and headed north to Chicago. The sun was barely setting as I drove past cornfield after cornfield until I reached I-80. By the time I was rounding my way onto Lake Shore Drive, the city was lit with a million flickering lights. I pulled up in front of my son’s apartment and there he stood, my 6 foot tall, slender and strong boy child, his backpack slung over his shoulder, waiting for his Mommy with a smile on his face.

I got out of my car, threw my arms around him giving him a huge hug. He seemed fine. He seemed really fine. He was smiling and joking and happy. He didn't seem to be in any pain. Why was I here, exactly? I didn't question him. We headed back to Peoria down interstate 55, him sleeping most of the way. The closer I got to home the more I thought... a twenty-four year old man doesn't call his mommy at 7:30 on a Friday night to come and get him unless something is seriously wrong. I drove straight to the emergency room. I had been driving for at least six hours. It was after 1:30 AM.

To be continued...

Greatest Sports Celebration Ever!

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:07:17 -0400

When it comes to goal celebrations, it doesn't get much better than this. In a match between Stjarnan and Fylkir in Iceland last weekend, the winning goal celebration was actually better than the winning goal. After Stjarnan's Halldor Orri Bjornsson scored on a penalty kick in extra time to take a 2-1 lead, he and his teammates began pretending they were going fishing. Defender Johann Laxdal was the fish and it all ended with a fake photo shoot.