In Threes

Bad things happen in threes. And, it seems, celebrity deaths are no exception. In the last few days we've lost Don Knotts, Darren McGavin (somehow I picture a plain pine-box coffin emblazoned with the word "Frah-JEE-lay"), and Dennis Weaver. I didn't make the connection when I heard about the last one, but all three of those have first names starting with D. UB was the one who pointed that out to me, and then we had to speculate on who would be the three E's that will go next. Let's see some of the lucky candidates...

Earl Hindman (hope not!)

Ernest Borgnine (is he dead already or no?)

Englebert Humperdinck (recently awarded an honorary doctorate from... somewhere...)

Eagle Eye Cherry (the first surprising option, given the age bracket)

Eddie Van Halen (after all, he was treated for cancer not too long ago)

Eddie Rabbit (ditto with the "is he dead already?")

Earlene Mandrell (why should it be just men?)

Ed Harris (say it ain't so!)

Edward Norton (ditto)

Now, if these guys and/or gals start dropping off like flies, I'm gonna be more than a little nervous...

Tissue Alert

Somewhere along the line, the "chatterbugs" at Books for Soldiers determined the need for what we call a tissue alert. That's a note we put in the title of a post/thread that is bound to be a tearjerker. Well, someone apparently needs to tell my Uncle Bob about tissue alerts - I just never imagined there would be the need. Not until I opened this e mail he forwarded tonight (consider that set-up your fair warning):

A Tale of Six Boys

Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly joy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable. On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial.... This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave Marines raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?" I told him that we were from Wisconsin"Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story."

(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing..... to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D.C., but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.) "My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.
.........

"Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game…. a game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game.

Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.
(He pointed to the statue)

"You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph... a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys… not old men.

"The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.'

"The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?'

So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 … ten years after this picture was taken.

"The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky… a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night. Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

"The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, 'No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press.

"You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.

"When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back…. did NOT come back.’

"So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time."

Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.

......... We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world. STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice.

God Bless You and God Bless America.

REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day.

Great story - worth your time. Please pass it along.


Thanks, Unc.

Presenting Jimi Hendrix for Orkin...

So there are certain song lyrics out there that are doomed to being mis-heard. A few years back there was a commercial featuring Def Leppard's "Pour Some Shook-Up Ramen." The Steve Miller Band had a huge hit with "Bingo Jed Had a Light On" (don't carry me too far away...) When Club Nouveau remade "Lean on Me," it was "we be German" heard 'round the world - except for my hard-of-hearing Daddy, who wondered why they were announcing that "we take showers." Of course, this is the same man who couldn't understand why Debbie Gibson wanted to "shake and bake your love." Just this afternoon in the car, Little Bit swore up and down that Savage Garden wanted to "sandwich you on the mountain."

But my favorite time was a couple of weeks ago. We were driving a fairly long distance, for over an hour, in the rain. We were minutes from our destination but the girls were getting cranky. And then Jimi Hendrix came on the radio, and I figured we could play a fun and distracting game, the one called, "what does it sound like he's saying?" The song, of course, was "Purple Haze" and I was eagerly waiting for the sound of merry giggles as they contemplated "'scuse me while I kiss this guy" (which is, of course, the standard misinterpretation). Well, leave it to the Clone to come up with something totally original. I am so proud to say that she discovered that ol' James Marshall Hendrix was actually shilling for corporate America and the Orkin Man. You see, apparently, Jimi was asking...

"'scuse me, where's the pesticide?"

*guitar solo*

Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35

Because of our odd little family life, my daughters aren’t exposed nearly as much as I’d like, to what I consider to be real music. Or at least, my older ones aren’t –they spend far too much time with their country-loving grandmother. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with country, I like a lot of country artists and a fair amount of country music, but sometimes I worry that they think that’s the only music there is.

Little Bit, on the other hand, spends the majority of her time with her babysitters, who are essentially hippies/surrogate grandparents. Their taste in music is much more like mine, which gives me some comfort – at least one of my kids has a more well-balanced musical diet. Still, the kind of music I like can sometimes cause a little of that weird emotion that’s a cross between pride and embarrassment. Take, for instance, this weekend…

This was Little Bit’s “Mommy and Me” weekend. Each girl, for Christmas, got a scrapbook from me, along with a homemade gift certificate. The gift certificate is for a weekend full of just-the-two-of-us time, a trip somewhere “away” to do something that is special just for that child. So Little Bit and I went to San Antonio, went on a boat ride at the Riverwalk, out to dinner, stayed at a hotel, etc. And the next day, we went to the Children’s Museum. They had a lot of different things for her to do, but one of her favorites was the airplane. They had an airplane exhibit, complete with captain’s hats, a cockpit, an aisle that ran between two single-seat rows, the whole setup. And so it was that I was sitting a few feet away from the “plane” as she piloted it, another little girl in the copilot seat, the other girl’s parents in the front seats of the passenger area – as Little Bit began to provide the in-flight entertainment. I’m telling you, you haven’t heard anything until you’ve heard a tiny, high-pitched babygirl voice, doing a pretty good Bob Dylan impression…

Well, they'll stone you when you're trying to be so good
They'll stone you just like they said they would
They'll stone you when you're trying to go home
And they'll stone you when you're there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone

and then, of course, she had to finish at full volume...

Everybody must get stoned

What could I do but laugh? And pray that nobody called CPS on me...

Public Service Announcement

18-wheelers are, in fact, subject to the laws of physics. Therefore, PLEASE do not pull in front of one, particularly if you are moving slower than it is. They just can’t brake that fast.

This message brought to you by the granddaughter of one truck driver and the niece of another four, who is a Houston driver but not a stupid one.

My Funny Valentine

I had never really had a special Valentine’s Day (my husband didn’t count and we won’t even go into the issue of Little Bit’s father), so last night was just about the time of my life. A few weeks ago, my unboyfriend – that’s probably the most accurate way I can describe the situation – mentioned that he expected to be spending the 14th with me. Since then, I was fussing more than he would think is necessary, I’m sure, over exactly what to get for him that wasn’t overly sappy/romantic/emotional, not overly attempted-seductive, but still not too little. At the last minute, on the night before, and only because I got out of school early, I managed to get him something that I think really fit the bill. I’ll brag about that in another post, I’m sure, but I want to get to the fun part…

So first of all, I show up at his place after school, which made it already almost 9 and we had dinner reservations. (As it turned out, we should have had reservations about the place, not for it, but no matter.) We had to do the gift-giving quickly. Laid out on the table was: a big box of chocolates for me, heavy on the dark chocolate; a fluffy white teddy bear, also for me, with UnBoyfriend’s signature on the red heart on the bottom of his foot; three little candy-filled hearts with Snoopy keychains for the girls; and three little stuffed animals (an elephant, a bear, and a puppy), also for the girls. That right there absolutely made my day –whenever anyone includes my girls in special occasions, it’s the best gift of all. I gave him his gift, which he really liked as well, and then it was time to head to the restaurant.

I’ve never gone out for German food before, though I’m at least moderately familiar with it – Hurricane Miah’s mom is German and I used to eat her cooking fairly often. This restaurant has apparently been in Houston forever, so you would think it’s really, really good. Well. Not so much. We ordered the combination plate for two, which comes with a little bit of everything – weinerscnhitzel, sauerbraten, spaetzle, sauerkraut, and a bunch of other stuff I can barely pronounce, much less spell. The waiter was… ummm… shall we say, not really an expert in providing excellent customer service – and UB and I got to the point where we were baiting him.

Me: What’s the spaetzle, anyway?
Waiter: I don’t know. I think it’s the white stuff. Or maybe it’s the brown stuff.
Me: No, I mean what IS spaetzle?
Waiter: I don’t know. Hold on. (walks away, comes back) Okay, he says the spaetzle is white, so I guess it’s either that (pointing) or that (pointing).
Me: But what IS it?
Waiter: I don’t know. Let me see.
Me: And what’s that? (Pointing at something red or brown)
Waiter: I’m not sure. Just consider it a bonus, I guess. (walks off – at this point, UB and I are snickering merrily – and then comes back) Okay. He says the spaetzle is flour and spices and water and egg, all kind of scrambled together, so… (contemplating the two “white things”) I guess that’s it (pointing at the spaetzle).

And to top it all off, the food wasn’t very good. UB apologized for the quality, but to me, it was certainly tolerable – and since the overall experience made for a good story, and we were able to laugh and enjoy ourselves so much, I didn’t really mind at all.

We took a break from hassling the waiter, to privately heckle (as in, we were heckling, but not to the point where they heard it) the musical act – and I use the term loosely. Two ladies singing, and a keyboard player. They began shortly after we were seated, and the one gave UB the eye, looking very interested, as he walked in the door. Then she saw me – and looked even more interested. Yikes. So they were singing, soft stuff, some a little jazzy, some a little easy-listening, some a little elevator, and most of it just a hair off-key, out of pitch, etc. More than once, UB and I commented amongst ourselves that we didn’t recall those songs being as long as they were. The ladies must have been doing the 12-inch-single, extended dance mixes. Still, there are certain songs that just shouldn’t be done by anyone who can’t get a record contract. There’s a reason you’re singing in a bad German restaurant at 9:30 at night on Valentine’s Day, honey, so Sarah Maclachlan’s “Angel” is a summit you shouldn’t attempt to attain. Then she tried to sing “Desperado.” Now, there’s bad, and there’s wrong. And then there’s sacrilege, which is what it is when you butcher “Desperado.” It’s like a four-year-old with finger paints let loose on the Sistine Chapel. It’s not even that hard a song to sing, to be honest, and that makes it even worse when it’s done that badly.

I’m just hitting the high points here, though there were many more moments that had us laughing, not the least of which was when UB and the waiter began verbal sparring that ended in the waiter holding four forks in his hand like weapons, and UB asking the waiter just how good the health benefits were at this restaurant. It was all in fun… I think. Still, I don’t ever recommend being too much of a smart-aleck with UB. First, because he can out-smart-aleck just about everyone I’ve ever met who’s not a member of my family, and second, because he’s not the kind of guy you want to tick off. He’s not violent, not that I’ve ever seen. He’s just… intimidating. (Which, by the way, makes my fluffy white teddy bear even more special!)

Oh, and the best part of the night? When UB said that the two best parts of the restaurant experience, were the $25 coupon he had, and me. Awwwwwwwwwww...

So all in all, the best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had, with the best unboyfriend I’ve ever had. Some days, I really do enjoy my life!

Into the Forest We Go

One of the many “joys” of being a mom, is all the movies I have to watch that I would never watch otherwise. And the more kid movies you watch, the more often you realize that they must all take place in the same basic geographical area – because it seems like they all have a place called the Forbidden Forest. Why “Forbidden Forest”? That seems like a very rigid statement, a very black-and-white thing, and as anyone over the age of 21 knows, life is just not black and white. (Okay, except for religious fundamentalists of any denomination, they seem to have not gotten the memo on that.) Yep, today there is no day or night, today there is no dark or light, today there is no black or white, only shades of grey. Man, that was one of my favorite Monkees songs ever. Peter Tork and Davy Jones on vocals – Peter always my second-favorite Monkee, Davy my early favorite (but he has NOT aged well) and now Mike Nesmith in first place, as the Monkee with the most actual talent. But I digress. Back to the Forbidden Forest.

See, I think we should be more honest with children. So, not Forbidden Forest, but “Highly Inadvisable Forest,” or maybe “Forest-of-Last-Resort,” or “Forest Where You Don’t Have To Go Home But You Shouldn’t Stay Here.” “Imposing Forest.” “Forest Full of Scary Beasties.” Maybe if they’re really committed to the whole alliteration thing, it could be the “Foreboding Forest,” but “forbidden” is just going a little too far.

Speaking of scary beasties and religious fundamentalists, take a look at the Republicans running against Rick Perry in our Goober-natorial primaries next month. I mean, nobody really stands a chance against Governor Goodhair for the nomination, but the scary thing is, these people honestly believe they should be in positions of power:

http://www.larrykilgore.com/Biography.htm
http://www.starovertexas.com/bio.html
http://www.rhettsmithforgovernor.com/

YIKES!!! When I read that in an e mail last night, I promptly curled up under the covers with a book by Lawrence Sanders ("The Tomorrow File, " pretty good book, though scary in a "1984" kind of way) and whimpered for a while. Maybe we should gather these three up and drop them in the "If You Were Smart You'd Just Stay Away Forest."

*Yawn*

The Olympics begin today.

I don’t really care.

I remember when the Olympics were a big deal. Back when the Winter Games and Summer Games happened in the same year, and only took place every four years. Everyone would gear up for them. It was exciting. Shelly, when she was little and before I was born, gave my mother a heart-stopping moment when she stood up in her high chair and did a tumbling forward roll, her best imitation of Nadia Comaneci. Me, I was just excited when McDonald’s would have the game pieces, where your prize would depend on what medal, if any, the US got in a particular event. I remember waiting for the diving, ice skating, swimming, gymnastics events… I remember big moments. And I think the IOC made a huge mistake when they decided to split the games so that they stagger every two years. Yes, I understand there are some athletes who may have wanted to compete in both Winter and Summer games, and may have needed the break in between to adequately train. But it had the effect of diluting it, so that instead of one big event that you waited for every four years, held your breath, and built up to… you just get a bigger-than-usual sporting event every couple of years, often with the same athletes going after the same medals. It just took away the special-ness of it all. And so, yes, the Olympics start today. They start in beautiful Torino, Italy. And I don’t really care.

Take This Job and...

I can’t even begin to count how many people I know right now who are in really screwy positions, work-wise. First, the people I know who are miserable in their jobs, overworked, underpaid, underappreciated. Every time I turn around, someone is feeling dissatisfied in their current location, and I can just see a mass exodus coming that will shock a few employers out there. The sense of unrest is palpable.

Then, there are the friends of mine who are finding another line of work involuntarily. We met last night to finalize the details about our care package drive this weekend, and I was the only one of the four of us who isn’t in a tenuous position at best – two of them are parts of major layoffs where they work, and the last one was terminated this week. (I suspect she will have the last laugh, once her now-former employer realizes that they will NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS find an employee who does and gives so much.) So what, exactly, is going on?

Well, personally, even though it all sounds bad, I think it’s really about good things. Good changes, good shake-ups. For a lot of people I know or know of, 2005 was just a brutal year. Lots of changes, and not good ones. Lots of negative energy, lots of unease, lots of disharmony. Think back a little bit – did you notice feeling out-of-sorts more often than usual last year? Did you start thinking, “I can’t wait for this year to be over” as far back as July or August? Did the natural disasters in your area seem more severe than usual? Y’all know, of course, how bad those got out here. Mother Nature, apparently, has been quite PO’d. But this year, though it certainly feels like another year of transition, feels more like a year of positive transition. Maybe I’m biased because of the positive changes I’m seeing in my own life, but I really don’t think that’s all of it. I really think good things are starting to happen, and the people I know who are going through these struggles, are going to come out of it better than ever. Mouse-hole doors are closing, and huge picture windows are opening…

Fire

So in class last week, we’re talking about “Family of Origin Scales,” which in a nutshell relates to how the family you grow up in, influences everything you do later in life, and how you deal with different situations. Dr. A made mention of one of those estate-planning workshops that he’s gone to, and was telling us that while his wife was talking to someone about something else, he and the woman next to him were discussing songs they would want played at their respective cremations. (All of this, to illustrate that there are many ways to deal with death and loss, and that humor can be a coping mechanism.) the following are the three examples he shared with us:

“Light My Fire” – The Doors
“Great Balls of Fire” – Jerry Lee Lewis
“Proud Mary” – Tina Turner (as in, “Proud Mary keep on burnin’”)

Now me, I can get into this type of thing. In the near future, if I haven’t done it already (I desperately need to scan my own archives) I’ll tell you all about how my family handles death. Suffice it to say, Dr. A and I are on the same wavelength. So I’ve added to his list of Cremation Theme Songs:

“Fire” – Jimi Hendrix (as in, “let me stand next to your…”)
“Ring of Fire” – Johnny Cash
“Burnin’ For You” – Blue Oyster Cult
“All Fired Up” – Pat Benatar
“Fire Down Below” – Bob Seger
Any song from Def Leppard from the Pyromania album, or with the word “pyromania” in it
“Disco Inferno” – The Trammps
“Through the Fire” – Chaka Khan
“Standing Outside the Fire” – Garth Brooks
“Fire” – The Pointer Sisters (or better yet, Robin Williams as Elmer Fudd)
and of course:
“You Light Up My Life” – Debby Boone

As usual, I welcome all suggestions in case I may have made a glaring error of omission. Now go about your business… and keep the home fires burning!

Twenty Bucks and I'm On the Floor

I swear, it’s not as bad as it sounds. No, really, it’s not.

This was yet another adventure from the Hurricane Miah & the Apartment Series. We had some neighbors, a married couple, and we would hang out with them and play cards. We were cut-throat Phase 10 players. We were also the type of people who were forever saying things that, taken out of context, could sound… mmm... inappropriate. Hence the title of this post. We kept a notebook, for a while, of the things we would say that made sense if you heard the whole conversation, but sounded really, really bad on their own, and of course, I came up with the King (or is that Queen?) of all missteps.

The actual conversation started, as usual, during a card game, when we were playing the radio as we played. It was during the holiday season, and there was a commercial on for one of those New Year’s Eve parties, you know the ones, in the hotels… the ones where you pay a flat fee that includes the room, the party, continental breakfast in the morning, and of course, alcohol. Then we started debating about prices of those – there are some parties that only include the champagne toast, others that include a specified number of drinks, and a very few that include unlimited drinks. (Obviously, those run a little higher.) Then we tried to decide what was a fair price for that. You see, for some people, all you can drink for, say, $100, is still a good price, because they can easily drink that much in a night. After all, have you seen the prices of drinks these days? On the other hand, there are people like me, lightweights when it comes to alcohol, for whom it’s not such a great deal. We can’t really drink enough, for the $100 to be worth our while. Or, as I blurted out without thinking, “Twenty bucks and I’m on the floor.”

The game was pretty much over for the night at that point; none of us could see straight for laughing.

Therapy in Various Forms

I spent Wednesday in two different, but equally interesting and exciting (to me anyway), forms of therapy. The first is one I've done for years. You see, I spent the entire day cooking. The entire day. Technically I had started the night before, having made the first of three lasagnas. Then on Wednesday I made the other two... tons of angel hair pasta with homemade pesto... sauteed zucchini and summer squash with cheese... and chicken picatta. Which, incidentally, did not turn out as well as it usually does; this is the first time I've tried to do it in bulk, and, well... bad idea. At least without more practice. The occasion? Really... nothing. I mean, we were going to have a luncheon at work, and one of my coworkers had the responsibility for it thrust upon him. I had been looking for an excuse to cook like that for a while anyway, so I told him to just bring salad and garlic bread, and we'd be fine. And then spent all day cooking. By the time the last dish was washed and the counter wiped at my friend's hijacked kitchen, it was 2 a.m. But it was worth it, because for me, cooking is therapy. There's something about working with your hands, and working with all your senses - does the sauce smell right, does the cheese look melted and browned as it should, can you taste the fresh basil and garlic, does the consistency of the sauce feel right as you stir... and do you hear the silence as people are too busy eating to talk? A good meal, well prepared and served with love, is its own reward.

In the midst of the cooking, I also had the chance for the second form of therapy. First, let me back up and say that I commandeered a good friend's kitchen to do all this, and she had another houseguest as well at the time. And so it was that, during a much-needed break, I gave her other guest a Reiki treatment. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-reiki.htm) Now, when my sister, an accomplished practitioner herself, first taught me to do it, she actually taught me how to do it without the laying-on-of-hands part, which is actually the only part of Reiki that many people even know about. She later sent me a book, though, that also goes over the hand positions and such. Still, I had never actually given a treatment like that before. So. This friend-of-my-friend, we'll call him Todd, was actually in town as part of a circuitous trip that included medical appointments for his bad back. Knowing that he had at least one serious health issue, I had offered to do the treatment. I warned him that I was new to that part of the treatment, and he promised to bear with me. We went through the cycle, probably faster than I should have, but the more I practice the better I will be. The odd thing was, I think in giving him the treatment, it actually did some good and some healing for me. Now, I shouldn't be surprised over that, it's not a rare experience within the practice of this particular art, but I was surprised at how easy it was, how quickly I took to it. I even managed to identify a health issue about which he had not spoken (and which he initially denied because Mr. Precision claims I asked the question wrong LOL). But overall, the whole experience was peaceful and cleansing for me, and I got positive feedback from him as well. I plan to continue the treatment in its long-distance form, and hopefully it will do him some measure of good.

Meantime, I spent a long day and am now pleasantly exhausted. On one scale of measurement, I didn't get a whole lot accomplished in that time. On another... well, on another it was a very productive day indeed, and I couldn't be more content. Even if I could stand to be more awake.