Sudden Sharp Noises May Lead to Knee Injuries... and ...

Last night I read about a study put out by Clowns International that reported findings of children being less scared when accompanied by clowns for medical testing. I was highly skeptical, one, because surprise! look who put up the study and two, of course they had a lower Galvanic skin response... the kids were passed out cold from the shock of a clown popping into the exam room like a Twilight Zone episode. The kids had lower heart rate and pulse findings because there was temporarily no heart rate and pulse to find until they came to.

Obviously.

These studies are amazing, "High heels give you bunions," "Sleeping on a bad mattress causes backache." Both studies funded by These Are Not Your Mama's Heels and The Airfoam Mattress Association of America.

But in today's paper? I don't know what to do with this one. “Sudden Sharp Noises May Lead to Knee Injuries.”

They neglected to add a few things.

 

Like “... and Trauma” because among the list of things that sudden sharp noises may lead to, how could they overlook:

--Whiplash

--Getting hit by cars when you jump into the road

--Cracked skulls from tripping in your hurry to get away

--Broken wrists from breaking your fall as you run away

--Girly screams

--Chipped nails

--Stubbed toes

--Embarrassment down to your soul

--Humiliation depending on who's there to see

--Low self esteem as your children watch you jump because of an air horn

--Negative self talk as you chastise yourself with “It's only a motorcycle beep for crying out loud”

--Peril as you choose oncoming cars over a safe sidewalk

--Slipping tripping and falling from the sharp surprise bark of loose dogs behind you

--Cracked knee caps from falling while walking the dog who takes off from his own reaction to said sudden sharp noise

--Going into shock in a quiet house in front of the glow of the computer when a picture frame *sharply* drops from the upstairs bathroom

--Paralyzing flashbacks of sharp sudden barking dog encounters that didn't end so well

--Spasms as subcircuits in the brain -- like all of them ever – fire off all at once in both hemispheres

--Ruptured Achilles tendon from fight or flight response

--Broken bones from falling from running away

--Unsteady gait from the guarantee of adrenaline Jello legs

These are just a few overlooked outcomes to Sudden Sharp Noises. To this sudden sharp noise caveat of only worrying about your knees, I say, please.

 

Where's the warning to worry about the Double Threat now? Not only are you injured but the thing making the sudden sharp noise is going to get you for sure because of your cracked skull and broken wrists from flight or fight.

What do you have to say about that, Knee Study? What does your "Only worry about the knee" committee want us to do with this information? If it's to be en garde and prepared -- well, it's that pre in prepared that concerns me.

It would appear that the only way to be sure of any potential Sudden Sharp Noise Injury Avoidance is to be alert but not too alert, because you'll just startle yourself prematurely in anticipation and then what happens if you fall and you break your bones and the noise startles you again and you can't get up now? I think the pre in prepare will make the actual startle even worse.

It's not that I think too much, Knee Committee, because consider this. Every time you hear a noise from now on, because you will be more worried about your knees because of this study thank you that was meant to prepare you (I'm guessing that's what you wanted), you will proactively be jumping because of what happened with the last surprise noise that made you jump and crack your elbows and now muscle memory has set in. Because that's how it works.

The only good advice I can give anyone who read this study like I did, is to put on headphones.

A knee brace and headphones.

And now I am as guilty as the newspaper publishing this study because look at the mess I got you into by even bringing this up.

Okay, new advice – Backtrack and forget you read this. I want you to go back to before the time of knee pre-fear and have you not pre-prepare for the pre-noises that could cause the pre-knee injuries.

If all else fails, just walk around with a clown. I just read a study that said clown presence in your life puts off knee replacement surgery by ten years.

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Rod Serling, King of My Heart

I would have lost TV privileges for a month if anyone had caught me sneaking behind the sofa to watch television late at night, but that's the irresistible fixation I had with a terrifying television series when I was little. It wasn't sci-fi, like Outer Limits, and it wasn't horror, like Alfred Hitchcock, what it was, was something I was ready to risk any form of punishment for.

I'm talking about the Twilight Zone.

As a kid, I hungrily gobbled up every rerun in the "dimension of not only sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a land whose boundaries are that of imagination ... at the signpost up ahead, your next stop ... the Twilight Zone.”

 

It's the 55th anniversary of the Twilight Zone. Each week, when I would hear the adrenaline-inducing doodoo-doodoo of the Twilight Zone's theme music, I would hide behind the sofa and not a sound would leave my lips as I watched the episodes behind my teen sisters' backs. The episodes lasted 20 minutes, but in that time, Rod Serling created a depth in his stories that made his tales complete. He had no story line that carried over from the week before, and there was no drama series to string the episodes together, but he managed to expertly satisfy us with a recounting that always promised a twist. Oh, you knew the twist was coming, your clenched stomach didn't let you forget that, but you didn't know when, or what, or from whom, and that's what kept you chewing on your fingernails, eyes bugged open, gripping the sides of your chair. Every time the crux of the story was revealed, I came *this close* to giving away my hiding spot with the sound of my gasps.

When my children were old enough to watch the Twilight Zone, which was about ten years older than I was when I shouldn't have been watching, I began our weekly family TZ viewing. On weekend nights, their imaginations and senses are hooked and drawn into supernatural stories that they don't even notice the show is in black and white (often a complaint).

Rod Serling holds you spellbound because the man can tell a story. His everyday character who finds himself in a shocking twisted world made me bite the tips of my fingers off from my secret viewing spot. If something could happen to someone who was as normal as they are, I'd tell myself, then it could happen to me! That was the frightening, yet fascinating, magic right there. You could be that poor victim of an outrageous fate. A bent reality booby trap was possible for any of us! You uncomfortably squirmed as you witnessed their logical mind slowly begin to unravel. I knew I should look away, but I couldn't help myself. I kept watching, my eyes peeking out from in between my fingers.

55 years ago, Rod Serling wrote of things we find ourselves still fearing today: nuclear war, technology dominating our lives, social isolation, prejudice, inhumanity, the government's increasing presence and role in our life. As an adult, I see him as a visionary, but as a little girl, he was the man responsible for my life-long love of storytelling.

As well as for my first nightmares.

If you're barely familiar with the Twilight Zone, before you watch, I have to warn you: You won't easily fall asleep without checking under the bed after seeing my Top Four favorites:

"Eye of The Beholder"
"Young Man's Fancy"
"The Hunt"

And, best for last: "Living Doll."

You will be screaming at the screen, "Turn around!" with the psychological thrill of "Young Man's Fancy". You'll be terrified in ways you didn't think possible. But with "Living Doll?" So not a good idea if you anthropomorphize the toys in your bedroom, much like this once little girl did.

No doll for me, thanks, Mom. Not for my birthday, or Christmas, or any other occasion under the sun.

 

Best of The Internet

It's getting colder. We're not indoors more, as I'd like to be, because soccer season rules right now, but when I'm in, the internet keeps me good company. Like always, the gems abound. Here's the choice few:

--From a video shot from a streetcar traveling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1905. (super cool) I can see why they had to sit down and say, "Hmmm, thinkin' some rules for the road might be a good idea with all these new street cars we got here..."

--Ah! I discovered this kickin' new site. 12Most. I am in love with lists, and the ones featured here daily are uniquely charming. Like, 12 Most Reliable Ways to Build Trust, 12 Most Honest Ways to Break Off a Friendship, 12 Most Clever Ways to Ask Someone on a Date. You get the idea. Go check them out.

--Food for thought, via one of my favorite sites, Brain Pickings. "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it." A meditation on the importance of our time: The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and The Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long

--These tips via BuzzFeed really work. Especially #17. "27 Ways To Make Your Groceries Last As Long As Possible." Do 'em, because how dumb is it to keep buying well intended fruits and vegetables, then throwing them out because they get slimy and brown? Pretty dumb. So here's how to keep them fresher, longer.

Have a great week, everyone. xo

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The Cilantro Way

In the kitchen of my childhood, in the middle of our round wooden table, sat an ever present rinsed-out glass herring jar. My abuela had repurposed it to hold her home-made Colombian spicy sauce, called Aji. On sunny mornings, the day's rays glinted off the jar's ruby red cap and sent rainbows shooting out from the raised fish outlines etched on its sides.

Sunday afternoons would find my abuela pulling out her wooden cutting board and with a heavy thud, she'd set it in the middle of the table. Her board had been worn to a caramel brown in the center, and on it, she would begin slicing white onions, flattening garlic bulbs with the edge of a butter knife, dicing tomatoes, chopping cilantro, seeding Aji peppers, and filling our house with the sweet ripe smell of onion and garlic. When the ingredients were ready, my grandmother would take her wooden spoon made smooth with years of use, and mix everything together in a glass bowl for the week's Aji.

My abuelita's Aji wasn't blazingly hot, as the Aji peppers would lead you to believe, but instead it was a condiment that skimmed across your taste buds turning what seemed lifeless before you, rice, soup, potatoes, chicken, alive with a more profound level of experience. All you needed to do was unscrew the jar's squeaky metal rim, reach in with your tablespoon and bring it back up generously filled with the Aji, and spoon atop your food. With a snap of a finger, your meal was abracadabra'd into something that made you smile through a mouth watering explosion of delight.

The Aji peppers never made the original taste of the food disappear. The opposite happened. Your  chicken, your beef, became more -- from something routine to in-the-moment sparkling.

My grandmother is gone now, but the lesson I learned from her then, of how a few embellishments can catapult the ordinary into the stratosphere, has stayed with me. 

 

With some small effort, the surprise addition of the new and novel, an already delicious existence can become spectacular. Like a walk on a misting day without an umbrella, a spontaneous weekend away, or throwing down a blanket unannounced in the living room and spreading out a picnic dinner.

Just a small dusting of lip-tingling unexpectedness and life goes from mundane to thrilling.

 

Just like Aji spooned over a 5 o'clock dinner.

 

Abuelita's Aji

 

1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves

2 seeded, chopped Aji peppers

1 sweet onion cut in strips

2 coarsely chopped plum tomatoes

Juice of three limes

3/4 cup water

1 crushed garlic bulb 

3/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Mix together in a glass bowl. Let sit at room temperature for a few hours, then keep refrigerated in a repurposed glass jar. (it must be a repurposed jar)

 

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Mommy, Is it True Introverts are Rude and Mean?

"So here’s what I have to say to the quiet, stay-at-home, Meg from "Little Women" introvert: Get over yourself. What we have here is a failure to communicate. At all. Because you don’t like talking. Why do I have to learn how to handle you? Why do I have to hear about your inner workings? And most importantly, why do I have to excuse your antisocial behavior? I really don't have it in me to give you the benefit of the doubt, so, here's an idea: Be Friendly!"

Oho! And Whoa! See this? This is something I just read on a pretty big site. Sure sounds like we, of the introvert variety, are not her favorite type of people. In fact, she's ranted a full-on war nerf-gunned straight at us. 

There's lots I could say, I mean, I'm hurt enough to start defending myself, but I'm taking a deep breath, and asking this, instead: Why do some extroverts let us bother them?

Do we rain on your good times?
Do we bring you down?
Do we grate on your nerves and just over all annoy you?

Instead of not liking us, why not try something new -- don't let us get under your skin.

If you view us from a different perspective, maybe you won't pull your hair out the next time you're seated next to us at the school fundraiser. I mean, you tell us, Just talk already! like that's the easiest thing in the world. Which it is, for YOU. But you forget, therein lies the chasm. Because *Just talk already* works for extroverts; that's why you self identify as an extrovert, which is something introverts don't answer yes to on personality profiles. It's not that we're not friendly, it's that we're just not the extrovert's definition of friendly.

Imagine this, as unnatural as it would be for you to picture yourself being quiet, that's just how uncomfortable it is for introverts to be gregarious. It goes against our nature. Is this helping you understand us a little bit now? It's like this, say you tell introverts "get over yourself" -- ooh, wait! you just did! -- well, that would be equivalent to us saying to an extrovert "can't you just dial it down at this party? You don't have to meet everybody!" Hard, right? Because it's not your personality type. You like the mingling, the electricity, the buzzzzz of connecting. We do, too, just not at Action Level 86.

We're okay with you when you do things differently than we would. When you stand two inches from our face asking us 59 questions about our childhood, our first Christmas toy, how many generations deep do we know our family tree, we go with the flow as long as we can. We may back up a few inches, but we allow you in. If we begin to feel lightheaded from losing out on oxygen, we'll excuse ourselves, refill our lungs, and we'll come back. And then we can answer the rest of your questions.

It sounds like you're taking our subdued vocalness personally, Extrovert. It's not aimed at you. If you talk to us, and I know, I know, you're tired of being the one to have to make the first move, but if you do, you'd find out surprising things. I identify as an introvert, so does 30 percent of the population. That's a lot of people to turn your back to, right? But if you did slide over and spend some time with me, you'd find out that I love to speak publicly. I'm an oral storyteller, and I donate my time to hospitals and community clinics, teaching about finding humor through tough times. We're worth the extra effort you feel you don't have the energy for. 

So, Extrovert, truce, please? Let's not have separate camps, because some days I feel extroverted like you. And maybe some days you feel introverted like me. (no? never? okay. see? easy going) We don't hate you, we love you. And we love talking, too, it just takes us longer to assess and ponder, which is why we love you. You make a lot of things fun, and you do it fast, you really do.

I'm going to ask you to consider loving us back, with our contemplative quietness and all. We don't shun people, we have friends, and we even like to do things with others. Admittedly, we prefer and are more comfortable one on one, which is when we really shine. (Try us, you'll like us!) While you'll never find us working a room or standing in the middle of a circle at a party, our arms in the air and voice booming while we retell a story of being attacked by howler monkeys in Costa Rica (ooh, it's a good story, remind me to tell you next time we're together, just me and you), we're not snobs, we're not conceited.

We're not recluses.
We're not hermits.
We're not boring.
We don't think we're socially superior.
We don't need to be fixed.

We are just chill.

That's pretty much it. But we're nice people. Introverts aren't panic filled at the sight of people, we enjoy conversation, we just approach it differently, for sure, but we're interesting, and good listeners. Some of us are funny.

You know what? Let me read your paragraph again.

Now that I re-read it, extrovert, I think you meant to write about rude people. Oh, it's all good now. Then, yeah, absolutely, I agree, RUDE PEOPLE! Get over yourselves!

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