By now we’re sure you know that sitting all day isn’t doing your health any favors.
Spending too much time seated at a desk has been linked to all sorts of negative health effects, like an increased risk of diabetes, cancer and, yes, even death.
Link: Sitting All Day? Head-To-Toe Tips For A Healthier Workstation – The Huffington Post
Leah gets lei’d at Maui Kahului Airport in September, 2007
Leah Sharron Gibbs, nee Green, age 70, beloved wife for 50 years and best friend of Sheldon. Loving mother of David (Virginia), Daniel, Mitchell (Gloria) Gibbs. Cherished grandmother of Melissa, Joshua, Jennifer and Naomi. Dear sister of the late Seymour Green. Devoted daughter of the late Abrasha and Udasha. Fond sister-in-law of Norma and Bill Brown. Loving aunt of many nieces and nephews. Long time teacher at Serena Hills School in Chicago Heights, IL. Member of B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom. Services Thursday, 11 A M. at B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom, 1424 183rd Street, Homewood. Interment Shalom. In lieu of flowers contributions in her name to the Cancer Support Center, 2028 Elm Road, Homewood, IL 60430 would be appreciated.
A rare flower bloomed for a time, but lives forever in the garden of memory.
She lived in amazing times, from Saturday, November 8th, 1941 to Memorial Day, Monday, May 28th, 2012. She was a month old when “a day that will live in infamy” dawned. Ironically enough, that day took place in Hawaii too, but this picture shows Leah being greeted at Maui airport with 2 flower lei and a hug by my husband David. She and my father-in-law Sheldon joined us there to help me celebrate my 50th birthday in 2007.
She loved, loved, loved so many things. Purple, books, flowers, good food, good friends, and travel; most of all, she loved her family deeply and wanted the best for each of us. She welcomed me, even though we come from different backgrounds, without hesitation and with open arms. I was proud to call her a friend as well as my my mother-in-law; after my own mom died in 2006, Leah became my second mom. She also had a deep connection with my sister-in-law Gloria, who was able to spend a lot of time with Leah in the last few months, attending meetings in Leah’s home with her “Goddesses” support group.
The Cancer Support Center meant a great deal to Leah, and we will be donating in her name for as long as it takes. Please consider making a donation on their website, or check out their amazing yearly fundraiser/silent auction/talent show.
I haven’t been able to say much here on the blog or on Facebook or Twitter about what was going on with Leah, but she passed away today surrounded by friends and family. She was in home hospice care until last Monday, and then it was decided that she needed to go into the hospice unit in a hospital farther to the south from her home. For the last week we’d been making the long drive back and forth between here and a place I thought of as the “Borderlands Hotel.”
We’re grateful for the care she received, and thankful that she no longer needs it. She’s at peace now.
While all of us in the family were at her home tonight, decompressing from the enormity of losing a wife, mother, sister, and grandmother, I browsed in the pile of books on a side table by her favorite sofa. One passage, just 2 short pages, was marked by not just one, but FOUR bookmarks AND a dog-ear. I should have borrowed that book, but there will be time to retrieve it with all the to-and-fro we have to do this week. It had interesting insights on life, living with cancer, and doing it with humor and grace.
Yet another reason why Carl Kasell is awesome...
If you’re not aware of how awesome Carl Kasell is as the official “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me!” scorekeeper, you’re completely missing the point of this post and there’s very little hope for you. However, there’s still time to catch up if you get to work immediately listening to old episodes in the archives. Or check out their excellent blog, which seems to be mostly about food.
My brother-in-law Mitch pulled off an incredible coup recently; some time ago he wrote to our local public radio station (the mighty, mighty, WBEZ) and simply asked if he could get a “Carl Kasell on your home answering machine” recording as a surprise for his (our) parents’ upcoming 50th wedding anniversary, which is June 10th.
We’ve all listened to the message, and as my husband David likes to say, it’s TREMENDOUS.
It makes us both laugh and cry at the same time, which is quite a feat as we’re not that dramatic a family. It even references the name of the restaurant where the party was originally planned to be; in the meantime a much smaller and quieter gathering will happen, probably at “the folks” house. Sadly, we will be short one beloved person that day.
This change of plans does not prevent us from getting a lot of mileage out of the recording, which we can now play via our smartphones at any time –we do not need to wait for a phone call. No operators need stand by. Modern technology is a miraculous thing.
Thus, we can laugh (or what have you) at any time we wish. This is a TREMENDOUS blessing.
Carl Kasell is, quite simply, teh awesome. Sir: you rock. You helped us laugh. Thank you.
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Holy Jeebus! Time to find an alternative to PayPal ASAP!!
In the race for the Republican presidential nomination, only one candidate remains to challenge presumptive nominee Mitt Romney: Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Even Paul has said he will no longer campaign in states that have yet to hold their primaries. And Paul has always been considered a long shot to win. But that hasn’t deterred many of his hard-core supporters, including the Silicon Valley billionaire who has bankrolled the superPAC backing Paul.
Peter Thiel is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal. He hit the jackpot again when he gave Mark Zuckerberg the money to launch Facebook.
Further revelations in the article: Thiel is apparently the poster child for cognitive dissonance, as he’s both gay AND Republican, and a financial supporter of GOProud. I’d feel sorry for him, hanging out with people who hate his “lifestyle choice,” but he’s also a longtime contrarian asshole.
Link: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul : NPR
Among the alternatives: I might check out American Express’s Serve
Serve is a next-generation digital payments platform that helps you organize your money, send and receive funds, and manage payment requests — all from a single, unified online account. Serve makes paying and being paid simple.
Best of all, we’re provided by American Express. That means Serve uses American Express security, technology, and data protection, giving you confidence whether you’re shopping online or sending money to a friend.
Okay, trustworthy, check. I, uh, have some history with American Express ::cough cough:: so already I’m reassured. There’s a comparison chart on that page, too.
I need some method to do online payments occasionally, so Serve might serve. I refuse to let my microscopically small transactions subsidize ultra-conservative crackpots.
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Really hope this is nay-saying… I have 3 Flickr accounts, don’t relish moving them all to… where? Picasa Web Albums? Meh.
This is the story of a wonderful idea. Something that had never been done before, a moment of change that shaped the Internet we know today. This is the story of Flickr. And how Yahoo bought it and murdered it and screwed itself out of relevance along the way.
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Believe that, as President, Mitt Romney would revert to his days as a “Massachusetts Moderate?” Think again.
Every bit of evidence indicates that if he were President, the Far Right would lead Romney around by a ring in his nose.
Just last week, we saw it clearly on display. It didn’t take but two weeks for the Far Right to force the Romney campaign to sever its ties with openly gay Richard Grinnell, who it had hired as its foreign policy spokesman. The campaign itself argued that it had begged Grinnell to stay. But right wing talk show host Brian Fischer of the American Family Association, who had led the drive to force Grinnell’s resignation, declared it a major victory.
Every time I hear Mitt Romney’s voice, I cringe. He sounds so… insincere. So desperately eager to say the thing he thinks his audience wants to hear. Everything he says sounds like the political equivalent to Sally Field’s famous “you like me, you really like me” Oscar acceptance speech.
Having seen many references to his tendency to change position about as often as a windsock – in other words, wherever the political winds are blowing – the thought of a Romney presidency horrifies me. Not because I think he’s a bad guy, but because I know that he’ll do everything to court the favor and support of the batshit-insane right wing of the Republican Party. He’s completely mealy-mouthed, with convictions the consistency of lukewarm porridge.
If he gets in the White House, it’s not going to be pretty watching what happens to civil rights, the environment, privacy rights, the economy, and the separation of church and state. Not pretty at all.
It’ll be Bush II all over again, except much, much worse. Is that good for the country? No.
via Robert Creamer: If He Were President, the Far Right Would Lead Romney Around by a Ring in His Nose
Yes, yes, Ginny Who? here.
It’s been a busy and eventful few months since our vacation in Hawaii… whoa, really. There’s a lot going on in the family (can’t blog about that) and there’s a lot going on at Holy Moly (hey, Faddah Manny is our vicar now!).
My husband David had a little contretemps with a local streetlamp the other day while riding his bike, and now sports a nifty scrape on one of his legs. He pointed the lamppost out tonight on our way back from dinner with his brother Dan and said “That’s the lamppost. I’m plotting my insidious revenge.” It’s something to do with pink paint and humiliations galore.
My new computer is running pretty, okay really quite REALLY REALLY well after I stepped back from the latest nVidia driver – I was getting something called the “Pink Screen of Death” when I’d finish watching a YouTube video or log off of Second Life and had run across references to a driver conflict on a support page. So that’s all good and fine, and I hope to be doing more regular blogging and stuff inworld and outworld again.
I tried to get the old Express App working with the Woo Tumblog plugin – this is just so I can easily blog links and photos and quotes from my iPhone, all of which are possible but not easy with the “official” WordPress app for iPhone. However, the instructions for getting it working don’t relate at all to the structure of the NomNom theme I now use (and lurve, lurve, lurve).
The church website at Holy Moly looks great, needs some updating with some content stuff Faddah Manny sent me – we’ve got videos now! I’ll be doing some better graphics on the main page; what I have now was a stopgap from back when I was under… some design constraints from above (not from Above, just… above).
Family stuff… well, things proceed with all deliberate speed (both happy things and sad things). That’s about all I can say about that. David’s diabetes ride training is going pretty well except for the evil lamppost incident, and I’m coughing my head off with a stupid spring cold that’s settled into an annoying barking hackfest. Am now on prescription meds that have worked in the past to head off the dreaded “bronchitis that does not quit even for summer, nyah nyah.”
It started a week ago Sunday, suddenly; I thought it was allergies because I’d been dusting and fooling around emptying the Roomba, because I just started coughing, sneezing, and had runny nose and eyes. Nope, it was a cold. I even stayed home for 3 days last week.
Speaking of staying home, next week I’ve got the week off, and toward the weekend, I’ll be… heh heh, blogging from a magical kingdom. And later in the summer, if things go well, I’ll start working from home (using the smallest bedroom as a home office).
Whee! Well, I’m hoping that it’ll mean that some of my “allergy triggers” from the poor air circ at work will be a thing of the past. The room has a real, openable window, and a ceiling fan. So, YAY! At least during reasonable weather, fresh air won’t be a problem. And during winter and summer, there won’t be the stuffy “bad air” triggers that have been getting worse and worse for me at work the last few years.
If the technology can be installed properly (the internal structure of the house might make the install tricky), it’s going to be really great. One of my co-workers is already working from home and loves it (another co-worker actually relocated to Phoenix and kept her same position and team, she REALLY loves it).
That’s about all there is to that. This is the public knowledge part, anyway, and I don’t know much more about it than the bare bones. Looking forward to it and hoping that there won’t be any hitches or glitches.