The People Who Inspire

I got the news this week that I've been waiting and hoping for- I've accepted into my dream school, UCSD . From what I understand, even though it is a tough school to get into... that will be the easiest part. And the road to this point hasn't been easy, between juggling being a full time mom, a full time job, volunteer efforts, school and a decently healthy social schedule. Reflecting on the turn my path took, I also thought back to where it began. Obviously, I owe a great deal to my support system and cheerleaders, but I'm thinking more about the seed that was planted that brought me here.

 Last month a very important person in my life passed away. He passed away without me having spoken to him in over fifteen years and without my having a chance to tell him how he was so important in my life. Even worse is that's not the first time that's happened for me.  In the wake of that I've given a lot of thought to the strange Mt. Rushmore of  most influential people (non relative) and the way they've helped to shape my life.

The greatest teachers have no idea where their influence ends and have the ability to bring out the best in their students -(mashup credit Henry Adams and Charles Kuralt).

Several years ago, Gena, the head of my sales area took a professional interest in me and mentored me (for lack of a better word) in my sales approach. At the time I was newly licensed in life insurance although I had been a property/casualty insurance agent for over five years (I know what you're thinking- could my work be any more exotic or enthralling? It may be boring, but it is important) For anyone who doesn't know about insurance and wants to take a nap, life insurance isn't an easy sale. It's not tangible, like your home or your car or even your giant diamond ring. It's emotional- people don't want to think about dying, or their loved ones dying. And there are a slew of other objections to overcome. It takes a lot of hand holding and time- but it truly is the most important and personally rewarding thing  that I sell. Anyway, Gena put together a group that year to coach team members. I usually ended up staying late and picking her brain. She came by my office a few times as well and after the bigger regional sales meetings she'd keep me late to get my thoughts on how we would implement and execute strategies. I ended up with the highest number of sales - my first year- for our group, protected so many families and made pretty fantastic bonuses along the way. My numbers were high that year for a team member in general. Gena passed away from cancer the following year and the group dissolved. It probably didn't mean as much to her as it did to me, but I always remember the time she took and the skills she gave me.

Well before my life took for the mundane in insurance there was a teacher in my formative years whose impact I didn't fully appreciate until a decade later. Mr. Geason may have been the most well loved teacher in my tiny home town as witnessed by the response and outpouring through his struggle with cancer and final days. Before I heard that he was ill, I'd always planned to thank him.... and I don't know why I waited:

      " .... More importantly I wanted to reach out to Mr. G and let him know how much of an impact he's had on my life. He was my English teacher 16 years ago before I moved to California (and he's the only teacher I made it a point to say goodbye to when I left). Back then I was Catie B, the other BHS redhead. I was always a reader, but he defined for me a love of literature. I am still in California, a divorced mom with two kids. I work full time in insurance and volunteer in my free time. I went back to school last semester- I'm waiting to hear back from UCSD to find out if I have been accepted into their literature program (I'm hoping to transition into editing/publishing). And I have been working to find a publisher for the children's novel I wrote. I had hoped one day to be able to thank Mr. Geason for his part in my success, but for now I just really want him to know I'm making the climb. And when I get there, much of the credit will be his. Please pass that along and let him know that it is no small thing to be able to instruct and inspire the way he has for so many, shaping not only our minds, but in some cases the course our lives..."    In truth, I think I waited too long and I'm not sure my message ever reached him. He was a bright light in some tough years, making an already favorite subject even better. His interest was apparent and his attention was coveted by every student lucky enough to have him. He was the embodiment and antithesis of the ripple affect that a great educator can create. I should have said so sooner.

I feel that a teacher doesn't have to  be someone in the confines of a classroom or office.... or even the circle of people you know or have met. Anyone who knows me is well aware of what a die-hard Harry Potter fan I am. What they may not know is that above my writing desk, between my broomstick pens and Harry Potter action figure is a framed picture of J.K. Rowling. That picture went up five years ago, the day I realized finally what I wanted to be when I grew up... (I sometimes feel like the word "adult" very loosely applies to me. Am I responsible? Yes. Adult? Not so sure- in fact my kids think they're being raised by a taller kid who is allowed to drive and drink (just not together)).

Getting back to J.K. Rowling, I'd devoured her work numerous times on a loop over the prior decade. My ex-husband can attest to me ignoring him on our honeymoon to spend time with my early released audio copy of Deathly Hollows. In this instance I will absolutely and unabashedly own up to my healthy dose of hero-worship and fandom. There is no way to quantify or sum up the gift that this woman's imagination is to the world, or lessor mortals like myself who aspire to be even a scintilla as successful at such a special craft. But I'll try anyway. J. K. Rowling is the goal. Touching people's hearts and inspiring such devotion while creating  a labor of love that is so well received- that's the ultimate dream. For me anyway. Making something that people love that lasts. Which kind of segues into my final and most unlikely Mt. Rushmore candidate.

John Cusack. Recently, I was taking a Nexflix break and picked lightweight romcom Must Love Dogs. Holy God, what a festering pile devoid of content- with the sole exception of JC's performance. Joe Everyman, fresh off of a divorce, dissatisfied and restless with the mundane  and leery of the parade of mediocrity in the singles meat market. The character was utterly relatable, so I searched for more titles and rekindled my love of 80's JC along the way (One Crazy Summer- my desert island movie, Better Off Dead- my kids' new favorite, Say Anything- can't believe I'd never seen it). Before my rapture about movies has you thinking this is a fan thing, let me tell you it's not. Cusack is emotional and intellectual eggplant parmesan-  comfort food for my soul. Yes the movies are familiar, but its really the stirring of interest and flashes of insight that I find captivating. In looking through the online bio for titles, I discovered a tidbit about Cusack orchestrating a meeting between Ed Snowden, Dan Ellsburg and Arundhati Roy- I knew who Snowden was, but had to look up the other two... and this is where my mind unfurled like an

Things That Can And Cannot Be Said

ascending firework. I try to avoid politics for the most part. Sure I have opinions, but I mostly keep them to myself as I feel like my interest is superficial at best. I spent years watching the talking heads on MSNBC and found that I came away very angry and bitter... and helpless to affect change. So I put my head in the sand, nestled into my carefully constructed apathy and focused on fervently carving out my piece of happiness within the mechanism, fighting tooth and nail to protect it. But then I read the transcripts of the JC/Roy/& Co. meeting and subsequent discussions. That loud noise was my head being wrenched back above ground. From there I went on to educate myself about topics I previously wouldn't have given a flying fig about, but that ultimately should concern all of us.... the Panama Papers, the Pentagon Papers, the relationship between Google and the NSA in relation to individual privacy, the gender wage disparity... and on and on and on. And much like the Must Love Dogs character, find myself disenfranchised and restless, but in a better way than before. I now realize that overall I may not have much global influence (yet), but in smaller campaigns I am rank and file; my voice adds to the growing numbers and noise. And the more I dig, the greater the list of people I consider to be important influences becomes, like the eloquent and succinct Ms. Roy. The point is, be and stay curious.... And all of this came from a terrible movie. I wouldn't say John Cusack is the reason, but somehow I found his interest fascinating and admirable, and through that began to care again myself. Exit apathy, enter renewed interest.

It doesn't matter where the spark comes from as long as it ignites. So I want to express a heartfelt and resonating "thank you" to the people who have and continue to shape my mind. Embarking on my next adventure of education is all the better for where I've already been.

The Raging Debate: Sugar

A few years ago, I watched a documentary (can't remember which one) about the conditions at the farms where the "fast food" comes from. Aside from the egregious humane/cruelty issue, what really got my attention was the food storage. Most of the hamburger patties and eggs are kept in large, rat-infested warehouses until they can be sent out to the chains. The rats CRAP all over it. Seeing the undercover footage, I about threw up and vowed that I was done with fast food chain hamburgers. And I've kept my word.

 I eat really healthy; mostly lean meats, definitely leafy greens and a rainbow of other fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. I am active. I don't run, or go to the gym, but my weekly schedule (aside from my sedentary desk job) keep me moving. My downfall is my RAVENOUS SWEET TOOTH. So natch, I've been hoping for something to come a long to scare me off of my Peanut M&M habit the same way I was scared away from fast food.

 I read articles about the Mars factories and found that only one in recent years has been closed due to cleanliness. I found out that people who are allergic to chocolate are really only allergic to the cockroach matter distributed throughout- as there are government regulations as to how many "biological" parts per hundred are acceptable in chocolate. While gross- it's not really "Scared Straight" material.

Things that scare me include snakes, RODENTS, cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, and being late to pick up my kids by even one minute (because their daycare charges $10 then $1 per minute after that). We all know that poor diet and excess sugar intake will cause 3 of my 6 worst fears. But that rhetoric has almost become white noise in our culture. Trying to warn people about food is like the old story of boiling a frog: it you put a frog in boiling water it will try to escape, but if you put it in water and turn the heart up gradually the frog will not sense the danger.

We are the frog and sugar is the slowly heated water.

Katie Couric put out a documentary called FED UP (available to stream on Netflix). I watched it one night while the goon squad was asleep and they woke  up to a new reality where Mommy went a little nuts and threw away a lot of the food- then made them watch the movie with me for the second time. "Welcome to a brave new world, kids- we are cutting as much sugar out of our diet as we can." I had finally, after searching for two years, been scared straight off sugar.

KNOW YOUR NUMBERS

Do you know what your daily recommended sugar limit is? Most people don't. Men should limit themselves to 9 teaspoons and women 6- less for children. But food labels don't measure the serving size that way, they use grams. There are 4 grams of sugar in a teaspoon. Easy math to figure out- being a woman I should stop at 24 grams a day. Did you know that one candy bar has almost a whole daily serving of sugar in it? I didn't, not while feeding my Peanut M&M habit. 

Looking at the Daily Value column, sugar is not required to be listed.

 

You know what else the label won't tell you? The percentage of your daily limit of sugar you are eating. And that is by design of the sugar producers, to keep consumers less educated about what they are consuming.

But eating something like M&Ms it's easy to know that it has no food value and is unhealthy. The problem is ADDED SUGAR- and nowadays sugar is ADDED everywhere.  Foods that never used to have sugar in them now have added sugar, like tomato sauce and granola. The FDA has proposed to have a line for Added Sugar on the nutrition facts. However, watching the documentary, you will learn about how many times similar plans have been thwarted by major food/sugar companies-  and how many different words for sugar can be found on a label. 

In fact, every time sugar/diet becomes the focal point, like with Michelle Obama's Lets Move campaign, these companies have effectively convinced the American public that exercise is the answer. That campaign started as a battle cry to get going on dietary change and became an exercise program after 9 major food companies volunteered to "help" promote it. In fact- those companies promised to pull over a trillion calories off store shelves in support of the campaign and instead added calories by introducing new "dietary choices."

Speaking of "dietary choices" did you know low-fat, low-cal option often have SAME sugar content as a regular label? This is why despite effort to eat better- many don't lose any weight.

"CALORIES IN VS CALORIES OUT"

Calories in, calories out (CICO) is a myth. Said again- it's simply not true. The empty calories of soda become fat in our systems immediately, while the same amount of calories from an apple

convert differently due to fiber content. "It will take a 110-pound child 75 minutes of bike riding to burn off the calories in one 20-ounce bottle of soda."

ALL CALORIES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL. Additionally, by the CICO logic- you would need to count your calories down to the one and make sure your exercise regimen is equal or risk becoming obese within twenty years. No one can possibly count calories with that kind of precision all the time. But the CICO argument keeps the blame for obesity on the obese rather than on the food- where it belongs. And the science doesn't support that. "There is overwhelming evidence of the link between obesity and the consumption of sweetened beverages, such as soft drinks, energy drinks, sweet teas, and sports drinks."

The food companies are clever- they have infiltrated school cafeterias, gaining so much power that pizza and French fries, instead of being pulled from menus, are both now considered vegetables. These companies and their immoral tactics are here to stay- so it is up to the consumer to adapt and change.

So the sugar is leaving my house. It's not just because I am fearful for myself and want to lose a few extra pounds. I want to live at least another 60 years, but beyond that my kids could foreseeably live another 90 years and I have to teach them now how to protect their health. And that is actually one of the most insideious parts ot the major food companies-  their disgusting way of preying on kids. "Kids watch an average of 4000 food-related ads every year (10/day). [98% of which are for high processed foods]." 

 I didn't just show the kids the movie- we paused it and talked about it. It was after these statistic that I asked them why they thought most CRAP FOOD has bright colors and cartoons on it. We agrees it was because CHILDREN ARE BEING TARGETTED, because "if they can get they can get you young, they have you and your money for the rest of your life." I was suddenly extremely happy that I don't pay for cable  (I'm not a sancti-mom, I'm cheap).

That is in interesting point about "catching them young." We would never allow or help our children in using something like cocaine- BUT SUGAR IS 8X MORE ADDICTIVE THAN COCAINE. It is a poison that kills slowly. Even people who look healthy are dying of heart attacks and developing diabetes- again tied back to diet, and again proof that exercise does not counter balance diet. There is a new term to describe this demographic- TOFI. Thin on the Outside, Fat on the Inside. You might be a beanpole but be full of deadly visceral fat. You daily jog won't save you. Only changing our diet will.

Kate Moss once famously said "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." I would ammend that statement to nothi g tastes as good as Healthy feels. Or there is no food I'm willing to die for. CHALLENGE YOURSELF to change.

I am challenging myself and my kids. We are going to stick to the daily recommended limit and pay attention to labels. We started last Monday. To be honest I thought it would be a lot more difficult staying away from chocolate, but knowing the stakes has made it easy. I have been without for 6 days so far (I had one day out drinking cocktails for a friend's birthday) and my mood seems level, I feel good and I can see the beginnings of change.

Tripped Over Treasure: The Ghost Army

Sometimes you stumble across something, be it art, an invention, something in nature or a story... and it burns inside you from that moment on wanting to be shared. I had just such an occurrence this week when I decided to kill a little time with something educational from my Netflix list. Enter Rick Beyer's 2013 PBS documentary, The Ghost Army.

 This video is a clip from the documentary

There are really two fascinating stories here: the death defying cat-and-mouse game of deception and the artwork that immortalized it.

 

The Artists' War

During WWII, a special unit comprised of artists was put together to camoflague bases on the East Coast for fear of German planes raining blitzkrieg on American soil. These men were chosen by application only.

 

In 1944 this special unit was reassigned to the battlefields with new orders: staging a fake army. While this subterfuge is a genius move in the time before drone surveillance it did present one real problem- a FAKE  army is a REAL target.

 

 

 

 

 

How would a company of 1000 men create a realistic enough decoy to fool Nazi intelligence?  If you guessed inflatable tanks you'd be right. Well, mostly right. A combination of inflatable machines, sound trucks and fake radio transmissions were used and intended to be intercepted. There were three units- the play actors staging the scene, the sound guys and the radio detail.

 

 

Setting the Stage

These men had to not only set up hundreds of tanks, trucks, jeeps canons, etc., but they had to make it look real- they couldn't be obvious. That meant camouflaging their FAKE machines, occupying towns and talking the talk. At 20 different staging sites between Normandy and the Rhine, they strategically placed ordinance, made tire tracks and set up  mannequins. They took turns pretending to be ranking officers and set up phony headquarters- camouflaged in plain site- out in the open meant to be seen, while giving the illusion of the contrary.

 

The Noise

 

Stateside, before deployment, hours and hours and reels upon reels of  "military noise" was recorded. The sounds of trucks driving, men yelling, bridges being built and whatever else they could think of were recorded. These sounds were blasted from massive sound trucks for hours in the middle of the night to give the illusion of troops on the move.

 

Video clip of "sonic deception"

 

A  radio division was trained in code and given scripts to seamlessly take the place of the actual radio transactions going across the airwaves, monitored by the enemy.

 

And it worked. The 23rd- the Ghost Army, a band of artists, managed to trick the Nazis and offer vital ground support with minimal numbers and tons of ingenuity.

 

Gallery

 The artists of the 23rd often took time while stationed at various posts to capture the scenes of war. These pieces tell the story of the Ghost Army.

Watercolor of resting soldiers by John Jarvie

 

Sketch, Arthur Shilstone

 

  

Watercolor, by Arthur Singer

 

 

 

 

Arthur Shilstone

by George Vander Sluis

Many other young artists of the time captured the grit and chaos of the war from the other side of the world. Here are some links to other moving pieces, not related to the Ghost Army.

For stories from the men themselves, visit the Ghost Army Website.

 

11 Things you didn't (need to) know about Groundhog Day

February 2nd is a day when grown men don their top hats and show off captive groundhogs "Pride Rock" style to predict the coming six week weather forecast. But it may surprise you to know that this non-holiday has its roots in both Christianity and Pagan culture. Here are at least ten bits of Groundhog Day trivia you could have done without knowing for the rest of your life.

1. Groundhog Day is the 'merican bastard child of European folklore surrounding weather prognosticating badgers.

I vote to bring back the badgers and let hilarity ensue!

2. The date February 2nd is actually the Catholic festival of Candlemass, 40 days after Christmas, brought to the US by German immigrants.

3. "Punxsutawney Phil" is a character birthed by a Pennsylvania Newspaper man in 1887 in Gobbler's Knob. It now draws crowds of up to 40000 to celebrate- the largest G-hog crowd in the world.

4. The Groundhog Day report has a 75-90% accuracy record- although USA Today reports 13 wrong/15 right since 1988.

5. Jour de la Marmotte is the French Canadian term for Groundhog Day.

6. In New Orleans, a copyu named T-boy predicts the arrival of Spring. Other notable rodents of February include Gen. Bearegard Lee of Georgia  and 'Pothole Pete' of New York City.

7. In 2009, an uncooperative groundhog named Staten Island Chuck bit New York's Mayor Bloomberg and drew blood during the celebration.

8. In 2010, the new mayor of New York dropped Chuck, who died 7 days later. (The 2010 Chuck was actually the granddaughter of the Chuck involved in the mayoral nibbling incident).

Texas mayor bitten 2015- don't mess with Texas

9. Inexplicably, it has been claimed that there has only ever been one Punxsauawney Phil- which makes him more than 130 years old. Non-famous groundhogs only live about 8-9 years on average.

10. Despite the legend of Punxsutawney Phil, the first written American record of groundhog related weather prognostication dates back to 1841.

11. Punxsutawney Phil's reports are a matter or Congressional record.

Family Activities to help you get into the spririt of this NONHOLIDAY: (the pictures are links)

 

Crafts

Bring back the badgers