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Natural Health, March, 2002, by Dina Aronson

Death in the Family

In the last couple of years, I have lost a lot of relatives. Two aunts and most recently my uncle. My father also passed away about 9 years ago. It's weird to watch all the adults from my childhood grow old and pass away. I miss them alot. I might not have shown it when they were alive, but I truely loved them, each in a special way. Sometimes, I get sad about the way life ends up. You grow old and die. It isn't always peaceful or comfortable. Sometimes it's down right painful and depressing. I am not sure you can always control how you feel in your old age. I guess that is, of course, if you make it there at all. I know there are lots of people who wish their relatives had lived on into old age. That's sad too.

Ping, Feed, Link and Ping Some More...

This blogging thing is a lot more complicated than I ever realized. I have spent the last few days linking, feeding, pinging, optimizing, authorizing,...whew..and it doesn't seem to have changed anything but my opinion about blogging. I feel like I am nurturing some sort of cyber pet here. Feed it, walk it, pet it...oh my God! I am still researching, so if it ever makes any sense to me I will try to break it all down and post it here. (fat chance of that ever happening) Anyway, in the meantime, Happy Pinging to you and yours on Memorial day.

Clifford Antone

Clifford Antone died the other day. I'm still having trouble realizing such a legend in the Austin Music Scene has died. I was out of town when he died, so I didn't hear about it until I got home to Austin. I can't understand why the news didn't reach as far as Harlingen.

I can remember when Antone's opened on 6th street in 1975. There has always been an Antone's in Austin. It has always been home to some of the best music in the world. Mostly Blues. Antone's was in the same league with the Armadillo. Always a good show. Clifford Antone brought some of the best musicians in the world to Austin to perform at his club. And he helped some great musicians get started on their way to fame. Clifford Antone literally supported some of the best musicians in town. Lucinda Williams owes alot to Clifford Antone, as does Sue Foley. I actually met Sue Foley one evening at Ruby's bar b que "back in the day" when Antone's was next door to Ruby's on Guadelupe. She had come by to play with a friend at Ruby's while waiting for her set at Antone's. This is before she became sort of famous.

If you lived in Austin in the 70's and 80's chances were you were only one person away from knowing Clifford Antone, if you didn't know him personally. He was always around and he really appreciated good music. It seemed like he was always in the middle of everything worthwhile in the music scene. And then he went to prison. It wasn't really a surprise, but it was kind of sad. And now he's dead. Wow. Another Austin Legend gone. I just don't know what to think.

Academy to open its biggest store yet

Academy Sports & Outdoors is moving into the former Home Depot at 5400 Brodie Lane in Sunset Valley. The store will be 102,000-square-feet which is much larger than the average Academy at 74,000 square feet. Apparently Academy was feeling some competition from Cabella down in Kyle and the huge discount stores like Walmart and Target. The Academy people though felt like the move was worth it because Austin is such and outdoorsy, sporting kind of town. So there you have it. Another big box store made good. Whew! And we were worried they might turn that corner into a green belt or something!!

Now my next question is, whatever happened to REI moving into the old Whole Foods building on Lamar? I thought they were supposed to open a store there when Whole Foods moved to it's new building across the street, but I have seen no signs of anything happening with that building. It kind of leaves BookPeople hanging out there all alone. That's really too bad.

Cyburbia

I found another urban planning forum site that looks promising. It's Cyburbia. Their introduction reads, "Welcome to the Internet's most active urban/town planning-related bulletin board! Cyburbia Forum members include planners, students and others from around the world who are interested in the built environment." It's located at: http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/

Working for a Living OR Living for Work???

It's Sunday morning. Sunday's used to be such a laid back day, but now it seems just as busy as any other day of the week. I have to do so much on the weekends to keep up the rest of the week, Sunday has become a day of work not a day of rest. There is definately something wrong with our society that we are so busy we can't take one day out of the week for rest. I hear that Americans work on the average 60 hours a week.
Some work more than that! We just don't know how to have a relaxing weekend anymore cause we are just too busy. I know I worked this weekend and I'm pretty sure I was not alone. What happened to the days when work was over at 5pm on Friday and didn't start back up again until Monday morning? Now we are working longer days and even into the weekend. Is it that important that we need to take away from our personal lives?
What if we all just stopped doing it? Everyone in the US just take a break and work only 40 hours in one week. Just to see what would happen. I bet half the people would freak out, not because they would get behind at work, but because they wouldn't know what to do with themselves with all that extra time.

Lost Watch = Abandonment?!? I am REALLY losing it!

I lost my very favorite watch today. It was a fossil watch with a green dial and a prism crystal. Very unique. They don't make them anymore. I had thought about wearing it last night to go work out so I figured it had fallen off at the gym. But we went by the gym this morning and no one had turned in a watch. I had looked everywhere at home. On the dresser where I usually keep it, on the night stand, in my purse, by my computer, in the bathroom, in the car...ALL over the house, but it was no where. We even checked all the dirty clothes in the dirty clothes hamper. No luck.

I was aggravated and decided not to think about it anymore cause it was really upsetting me. I even got testy when my mother and my husband would ask me about it. They just made me think about it more and then I got even more upset. I kept thinking, "Everything and everyone I ever love, or have loved, has, or will, disappear eventually. Get used to it!" (I know. I am very cynical and pessimistic).

I decided that I had looked everywhere I could think of and it would either turn up sooner or later, or it was gone for good. Then this afternoon, I was opening my dresser drawer and lo and behold, there was my watch. It had fallen off the dresser into the open drawer!! Whew! I guess my theory was right! It had turned up.

But then again there had been that possibility that it might have been lost forever. And I hadn't wanted to face that. I didn't want to admit that it was true that everything I love will eventually disappear forever. I REALLY didn't want to accept that everyONE I love will eventually disappear. Although it has happened to me before, I don't want it to happen to me again! I need to accept that people don't live forever. And that sometimes, no matter how much you love them, people do disappear forever. Such is life. So I guess my aggravation wasn't really about the watch after all, was it?

Kinky Friedman for Governor!!

VOTE FOR KINKY FOR GOVERNOR!!

Are Amusement Parks a Thing of the Past?

I am staying across the road from Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington and it made me wonder, are the days of the big amusement parks numbered? They use up a lot of land and it seems like people have access to so much else these days that they may not want to go out in the heat of the summer to stand in long lines to ride the rides. Plus the cost to get in is so expensive. They closed AstroWorld in Houston and it seems like most of the business that fed off Six Flags here have closed down. So it just made me think....

Southwest Airlines: Control the Carry Ons Not the Seating

Southwest Airlines is considering assigned seating on it's flights. With assigned seating, the airline can tell exactly where everyone is sitting. In this day and age it is important for airlines to maintain as much security as possible, but what does it mean for the everyday traveler? How does this impact those of us that fly two or three times a week on Southwest airlines? Assigned seating would definately give the people who book their flights early a chance to choose where they want to sit without having to arrive early to stand in line to get a "good" seat. However, most of the flights I have been on are full of business travelers who don't really book their flights that far in advance. They don't know where they will be traveling until a few weeks or even days before they travel. So booking early is not an option.

And which seats on a Southwest plane are really the GOOD seats? Flying on Southwest is already like riding on a flying bus. As it is, the seats are so close together you end up with way too much personal contact with the passengers beside you. I guess some people might HAVE to have a window seat or an aisle seat. I definately would prefer not to sit in the middle crammed between two total strangers both hogging the arm rests. It's hard to fly for an hour with your arms pressed to your sides. Otherwise, I just don't think that there's THAT much difference in where you sit. It's not like they have first class seating.

What Southwest NEEDS to do is limit the size of the carry on luggage being brought on the planes these days. No one wants to have to check their luggage any more and the size of the carry ons is getting outrageous. During boarding, everyone has to wait in the aisles while some tiny woman with a steamer trunk trys to hoist it up into the over head bin. Then when the plane lands, the tiny lady trys to get her luggage down, and ends up giving the person sitting below it a concussion when she drops it on their head! If Southwest really wants to improve their service, they need to control the size of the carry ons not the seating arraingements.

Austin, Texas: Emerging Projects

There's a lot of building projected in Austin for the coming years. A number of high rise residential buildings as well as offices, hotels, museums and University buildings. Here's the link if you are interested in any of the new construction proposed for downtown Austin.
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/...ta_4-30-06.pdf

Austin Connect also has a very interesting site about downtown. Where you can check out all sorts of maps and plans.
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/

Then there is a website devoted to the Robert Mueller redevelopement project which hasn't changed much in the past few months (the website).
http://www.muelleraustin.com/

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Dodging the Bullet

I just finished up with my doctor's visit this past week to confirm whether or not I have diabetes. For now, I have dodged the bullet, just barely. I know some about diabetes from my work, but more importantly I have learned alot first hand from my husband who was diagnosed 10 years ago. I have watched him go from type II diabetes to type I insulin dependent diabetes. On the surface he doesn't appear unhealthy, but there are physical complications related to this disease that don't show up to the naked eye. He had a triple by-pass while he was still in his 40's due in large part to diabetes. He has been hospitalized for infections which were exaserbated by diabetes. He has a slew of other problems as well which may in time worsen. It is a difficult disease, but research has produced better and better treatments. The best treatment is prevention. I am going to have to learn alot more about that now. I guess life can throw you curves but you just have to steer through them.

Right to the Wrong LIfe?

We passed a Right to Lifer standing on the corner of Grover and 38th street Saturday morning, wielding a poster of an aborted fetus. Fortunately the person working at the house on that corner ran them off.

Why don't people stand on the corner with posters of abused children, crack babies, battered wives, or dead soldiers? Why don't they protest the lack of money and resources available to help families with children born with multiple handicaps? The families whose lives are devastated because the child has drained all their emotional and financial resources? Why don't they protest the lack of services or affordable day care for the unwed mothers who give birth alone and have to put their child in day care, working 12-16 hours a day to make ends meet? Or worse leaving the child at home unattended because they can't afford day care. Why don't they have a poster of the students who end up pregnant and have to drop out of high school or college? The women who are dumped by the father of their child and have no financial and emotional support?

I realize it's a hard choice for many women to make, having an abortion. It's not the right choice every time, but it should be a choice. No man should have the right to take that choice away. They don't carry the baby, they don't give birth to the baby and alot of times they don't stick around to support the baby.

depression

I have depression. I have had it most of my life. I finally got help and it has gotten better. Every now and then I still get very depressed. My depression is coupled with anxiety and panic attacks. I have had a lot of them in my life and they're pretty painful. To be depressed is like sinking into a pit of hopelessness. There is no way out. The more I realize there is no way out the more anxious I become, the more anxious I become, the more I panic. I hate being depressed. It's not something I can take lightly. Even with treatment, I have to work at changing myself and finding ways to deal with the depression. No matter what they say, there is no quick fix.

Gene Tied to Depression, Anxiety
New research suggests a variation on one gene can disrupt a mental circuit, making people more susceptible to depression and anxiety.

Randy Dotinga
HealthDay News
MONDAY, May 9

Losing My Religion

Now I don't want to get a bunch of comments from people who want me to re-consider my position, join their church or tell me I am going to Hell. Really, I am just expressing my opinion on what I see as my religious beliefs. OK?!!

I was never much into organized religion. When I was a kid, my parents made us go to church every Sunday. We were raised Presbyterian (and, No, Presbyterians do not believe in pre-destination). It was a very nice small liberal church with a lot of advanced beliefs about religion and society in general. I felt good about belonging to it. Unfortunately, as I got older, so did the population of the church. The surrounding neighborhood fell into decline and many previous members moved away to nicer neighborhoods. There were also some ministers that didn't win any popularity contests and ran off a few members. So over the years the church grew smaller as did another Presbyterian church nearby. They eventually decided to merge and become a "new" Presbyterian church but in the other church's building. That pretty much put an end to the church I knew growing up. So I don't have a family church to go back to even if I wanted.

I gradually began to realize I was something of a "non-believer" several years ago. I mean I had believed before that there was a God, but then over time something changed in me. I don't know what it was, but I began to have my doubts that there was a life after death. And if there was no life after death, was there a God? Sure, that's not a good enough reason not to believe in God, because I doubt there is a Heaven, but I began to believe that we were created through a series of evolutionary changes. People are a part of nature, made up of elements just like the other living creatures on earth. We will literally go from ashes to ashes, from dust to dust in my mind.

I want to believe in a supreme being. One that keeps a watchful eye, trying to nudge us into being better human beings. I try to think that each culture has a religious philosphy that they best understand based on their cultural background and history, but that in the end it is all one Universal Being that holds us all together. Sometimes I think I might believe in reincarnation, but no, I don't really. I think once we die, we are but a memory to those who knew us. Eventually everyone who knew us will die and then we will be forgotten or at least the memory of us will not be as true. For there would be no one alive to tell others about us.

Gradually, I have become less doubtful that we have a spirit or a soul or something eternal that may disappear back into the cosmos once we die. But that's just a theory of mine. I do like to think that people should strive to be good, to learn as much as they can and to make life better for those around them. But I don't think the threat of "going to Hell" if you don't do these things is really going to work for everyone. Obviously not, since there are so many "bad" people in the world right now who kill and hate. So maybe it is all inside you, God or the Universal Being, and it's up to YOU to find it, not some organized religion to tell you about it. You have to look for it inside yourself and learn about it as you grow. Maybe.

How My Life Turned Out

I once aspired, no, yearned to live in Dallas for many youthful and romantic reasons. I often feel that same yearning when I am in Dallas, but that is only nostalgia. When I come home to Austin I realize that Dallas and I are not a good fit. I could never be like the people in Dallas. It's too high end. Too high maintenance. There is not the emphasis on intellect or informed debate. Everything seems so one sided there. No dialogue about politics, religion, or social awareness. It's a very Republican city and for a liberal Democrat like me, I just would not make it.

When I left college I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had been blind sided by life during my senior year and ended up graduating with no plan for my future. For a short time I worked in the retail business, thinking it would forge some sort of connection between me and the life I was jolted out of when I left college. Eventually i grew tired of working for coporate America. It was a high dollar store with high dollar customers. I just didn't feel like I was doing anything for mankind that was worthwhile. So, I moved on.

I ended up in Human Services, of all things. I never thought this would be my career, but it has been for the last 25+ years. And I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I have. It has been a learning experience. A real eye opener. My area of expertise has been mental retardation. I have worked with some amazing people. Co-workers and consumers. It's been a fascinating career. And I like to believe that I would do it all again. The pay isn't great, but the feeling of accomplishment is wonderful.

To all those people I knew in college who now make big bucks in the coporate world, I salute you for your financial successes. I am sure that is a wonderful thing to be financially secure. I wish I could say that I felt as comfortable about my financial rewards as you, but I think I feel a lot richer in some other ways that you will never know. It's a trade off I guess. I traded off making money for something else. Something I can't really describe, but in the end it's ok.

In the end, it's all ok. As long as we are satisfied we did our best. We learned as much as we could. We tried as hard as we could to do the right thing. Then it's all ok. I hope that's what I have done these last few years. It took me a long long time to get here, but now that I am, it's good. Very, very good.

Birthday Wish

Today is my niece's birthday so I want to wish her a very happy birthday.

Dallas Traffic

I am in Dallas this week. I was in Dallas last week sort of, I was in Allen which is just north of Dallas. Dallas is very different from Austin. Sure it's much bigger, but the attitude of the people who live here is so very different too. Especially in traffic. People in Dallas are nice enough when you meet them face to face, but on the roadways, oh my! The nicest people suddenly become crazed maniacs when driving in Dallas. Even little old ladies are cut throat on the highways here. It's a dog eat dog world on the roads of Dallas.

Drivers in Dallas do NOT yield to other cars. Not to traffic coming off the highway, not to traffic merging on to the highway and DEFINATELY not to traffic trying to change lanes.

Drivers in Dallas do not use blinkers. Using a blinker is totally optional and if you are changing lanes on the highway, it's not a good idea. They will speed up to cut you off from changing lanes in front of them.

Drivers in Dallas do not use traffic lights. In Dallas, Green means go, yellow means go, and Red means go, with a suggestion, "You might want to stop now at this intersection."

Drivers in Dallas do not follow the car in front of them at a safe distance. Come rush hour, traffic on the highways is LITERALLY bumper to bumper. They stay right on your bumper and if you don't stay on the bumper of the car in front of you, well you get cut off by 6 or 7 cars changing lanes in front of you.

Drivers in Dallas change lanes in order to speed up. They jockey for better positioning on the highway by changing lanes frequently. If your lane starts to slow down, you just zip into the next lane until it slows down. Then you move on over again to a faster moving lane. And be sure NOT to use your blinker.

Once you get the hang of it, it's probably not that bad. My suggestion, if you really want to drive around Dallas, get out there around 3 am when there's very little traffic. You MIGHT be safer. Of course that's if you don't miss your turn and have to make a u turn in the wrong part of town. Good luck and Be Careful Out There!!

Falling Water--Frank Lloyd Wright

How can you not just love the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright? And Falling Water has to be one of the, if not the, most magnificent homes ever built!

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

I love Dorothy Parker's wit and cynicism. This may seem like a dark poem but it really isn't in many ways.