It goes back around the clock.

Bumpy caterpillar swims smooth

on water that hurts.

Oh no, the back becomes the front.

Some butterfly is this.

1. What sport is this?

Plastic the muscles bend.   They splay

like the fliers.  Speed for some.

Danger on the back.

Upright or prone they zing.

Back again to the beginning.

2. What sport is this?

The world is flat, avoid the edge

Fall off, cut deep or crush the fear.

The valley, not death; it feeds

the dart higher and higher.  Turn,

Come back!

3. What sport is this?

Halloween a different form,

this knows winter by name.

Fast the ghost speeds by, horns turned inward

Like the bull.

4. What sport is this?

Maureen-
OK, this, as my son would say, is awesome. You’ve outdone yourself. Just 2 questions before I tackle these.
I’m presuming they cover ALL Olympic sports, not just the winter ones we’re watching now?
You will you provide the “answers” sometime soon … right?
Thanks,
Don

No Don, we are dealing with my feeble memory here.  Summer Olympics?  What are those?  These riddles involve only the winter games. And yes, certainly I will post the answers.  I’ll do it Monday, March 1.  Good luck and thanks for playing along!

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“Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit.”  ~R.E. Shay

It turns out, luck is not so fickle.  Luck can be learned.   Richard Wiseman, a British psychologist and author of the new book “The Luck Factor”, conducted a ten year experiment on the subject of luck.  He enlisted 400 people, ages 18 to 84, and asked if they considered themselves consistently lucky or consistently unlucky.

In one of his experiments he asked the lucky and unlucky people to take a newspaper and see how long it took to count the number of photographs in all of the pages. The unlucky people took an average of two minutes to perform the task, the lucky people had the answer within seconds.

The reason is because the second page contained a printed ad large enough to cover half the page with the message: “ Stop counting.  There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.“  The lucky people found the ad but the unlucky people went right past it.

Half-way through the newspaper there was another printed ad in bold type that stated “Stop counting.  Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $300.00.“  The lucky people spotted it, but the unlucky people were so busy looking for photographs they didn’t see the opportunity to win money.

Wiseman believes unlucky people are more tense than lucky people and their anxiety prevents them from noticing the unexpected.  So focused are they on meeting a new mate at a party, they fail to make a new business connection or meet new friends.  They might search the classified ads for a particular job and not notice other openings that would suit them well.

Based on his experiments, Wiseman established four principles of luck:

1. Lucky people are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities.

2. They rely on intuition as much as reason in making decisions.

3. They create self-fulfilling prophesies with their positive expectations.

4.  Lucky people have a resilient attitude that can transform bad luck into good.

In a final experiment, Wiseman “taught” volunteers how to behave like lucky people by showing them how to notice random opportunities and to listen to their “gut”.  He told them to expect to be lucky.

Just one month later he was startled by the results.  80 per cent reported greater happiness, satisfaction and greater luck.   One of his participants, an unlucky person with a series of failures who was accident prone, was able to pass her driver’s test after three years of trying.

According to Wiseman’s findings, if you are an unlucky person, you can increase your good fortune by practicing the following:

First, break up your daily routine by traveling a different route to familiar places and by spending time with different types of people in social situations.

Follow your instincts.  If it “feels” like the right thing to do, it probably is.

Variety brings luck.  The next time you get invited to a party, wear a particular color and introduce yourself to other people wearing the same color. This will increase the possibility of chance opportunities.

Finally, look at bad luck in a new light.  Think of how it could be worse.  One volunteer in the study arrived with his leg in a cast.  Wiseman asked if he still felt lucky for falling down the stairs and breaking his leg.

The man answered “Sure.  At least I didn’t break my neck.”

Good luck, and let me know how you do.

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She is very pretty.

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On the day when twitter is big news for the war waged by obese passenger Kevin Smith against Southwest Airlines, another more intriguing tweet was sent by CNN medical correspondent and neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta to his 1,206,114 followers.  He posted a photo he shot and labeled it “medical mystery. any idea on what you are looking at, and what the abnormality is?”, and he invited his followers to venture a guess.

Image uploaded to twitter by Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Readers responded immediately.  Some seemed to have a basic understanding of anatomy and health disorders:

“Is it scoliosis??” asked reader Mbrodis.

Rcpgirl added  “Not sure. severe spinal deformity but very curious please tell us soon”.

Gupta was one of the first journalists to arrive in Haiti after the earthquake January 12th and quickly excelled at his dual roles as correspondent and neurosurgeon.  After a few days back home with his wife and three young children, on February 6th he tweeted the following:

“think it’s time to go back to haiti. can’t forget what is happening there. must maintain dedicated focus. convincing my wife to let me go.

The next day came the answer:

Approval granted from wife. en route to haiti tonite. she said she wishes she could go as well –to help. 3 daughters 4 and under need her.

Since Gupta has wings on his feet, it’s hard to say if the photo came from Haiti or the U.S. but it’s easy to get caught up in his mission.

As for that odd photo, when you think twitter members are just teenagers, tech geeks or fans of Ashton Kutcher, you get responses like this:

From yasmeenrauf: “mri c spine, sagittal view. type 2, c2 fracture. congenital c4-5 fusion. multi level spondylosis with cervical stenosis at c3-4, c4-5, c5-6 & c6-7. code signal change extending between c4-c5.

Imdrwell wrote: “ipsilateral compression deformities of cervical spines, but intact spinal cord”

“Patient moved during MRI,causing appearance of fluid image? Cerebellum appears to have “bled” through foramen magnum. Perhaps a compression injury, force from top of head downward…” That was posted by tdg31.

SheiladowningRN: Klippel-Fiel Syndrome. Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL), cord edema.

I draw a number of conclusions from this.  First, unless these comments are fake, there are some real brainiacs on this social network.

Second, never judge a user’s intelligence by their user name.  Who ever thought someone calling themselves JokerOracle knew this?:

“Odontoid fx, multilevel spondylosis with spinal stenosis (max at C3-4), cord contusion at C4-5, hyperflexion injury, prevertebral edema”.

And lastly, there is enormous potential for the sharing of information on a site like this and Gupta knows how to work it. It’s not entirely clear he was stumped and looking for help with a diagnosis; he may have used the film as a pop med quiz, but I don’t think so.  I think he wants sincere input.

I’d love to help the guy, but like most of his followers, I can only sit on the sidelines for this one.  Like Seemasugandh : “Fun game… thnx for posting it. ”

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Happy Valentine’s Day.

For a fun way to celebrate with the one you love, why not write a Mad Lib love letter?  Scroll to the “love letter” option.  Click and fill in the blanks.

If you care to share your love letter with the blog, cut and paste the result and post it in the comment section.  Ignore the madglibs site directions that instruct you to copy and paste the text code.  Simply cutting and pasting the letter itself should work.

Here’s my Love Letter:

Dear Tom,

You are extremely ticklish and I sing you! I want to kiss your elbow 72 times. You make my bird bath burn with desire. When I first saw you, I eerily stared at you and fell in love. Will you hammer out with me? Don`t let your parents discourage you, they are just jealous.

Yours forever, Maureen

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It’s difficult to see the photos of emergency workers applying aid to the gravely wounded Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, and just as hard to turn away.  Crashes are what motivate some people to watch sports involving speed.

His was the most serious of several crashes on the Whistler course today which was famous for being the fastest sledding course in the world. Now it will be famous for being a killer too, perhaps due to poor design.  The icy walls of the track failed to prevent Kumaritashvili from sailing over the edge and hitting a metal pole.

When the shock subsides, friends and family may say the 21-year old athlete died doing what he loved, but I hope Olympics officials don’t get caught up in the optimism.  Even if they have to cancel events, I hope they take immediate action to improve the safety of this track. With all the padding in all the sports venues in all the world, why are the metal supports above the Whistler run not padded too?  Had they been covered, Kumaritashvili might have simply bounced back into the track and survived.

I wonder if the Olympics in general have become too risky.  I had no interest in seeing video of Kumaritashvili’s final run until NBC included it before the Opening Ceremony.  It was quite enough to see the photo of him blue and bloodied; one ear mostly slashed off and rearranged on the side of what was left of his head; his parent’s pride now turned to horror.  Like intense and violent Hollywood films, death-defying sporting events are too nerve-wracking for me to watch anymore.

Call me a wuss, but I’ve seen too many crashes through the years not to feel more anxious than thrilled.  It’s the ice. I’ve seen a young figure skater held high above her partner plummet face first to the ice when the partner tripped.  Another pair got out of sync a few years ago and as they both spun, one skater’s face was slashed by the blade of the other skater.  So I no longer watch the Pair’s competition.  I don’t enjoy it. It isn’t pretty.  They should leave the gymnastics to the gymnasts who work on mats, not ice.

I do love figure skating though, so I get my fix with the Singles and Ice Dancers.  Those skaters fall too, but not from eight feet up and not on their heads and it still looks like skating.

I’ve seen downhill skiers hit a patch of ice, lose control, become airborne, and tumble like pinwheels for several hundred feet.  You’d think I’d be relieved when they finally come to a stop, but I’m not, because they sometimes lie motionless in a crumble on the slope.  Are they dead?  Paralyzed? Just catching their breath?  It’s anguish to await the result.

And these runs on bobsleds and luges down icy tubes?  How long will it be before we see one of their crashes without worrying if they’ll die like the Georgian? The athletes fish tale and you know what happens next. You hold your breath that the injuries will not be too severe.

Luckily, most of the time they are not.  These finest human specimens are muscular and young and they’ve crashed many times on the road to Olympic competition.  But the accidents do seem to be more serious in recent years, as evidenced by U.S. Snowboarder Kevin Pearce who hit his head on a practice run last month and was critically injured.

That tumble from the 1970 Olympics where ski jumper Vinko Bogataj fell on his way down and bounced like rubber to the ground was played for years in the opening of ABC’s Wide World of Sports.  Knowing he wasn’t badly hurt made it tolerable to watch.  However since then, athletes have pushed themselves to go higher, faster and farther on increasingly unforgiving surfaces.

The International Olympics Committee owes it to the memory of Nodar Kumaritashvili to give serious consideration to the safety of the Whistler run.  In fact, they would do well to up their game of better monitoring the safety of all venues so that these remarkable young men and women compete in the Games and make it home safely again.

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One of my top five favorite websites is epicurious.com.   It holds a database of hundreds of thousands of recipes from cooking magazines and cookbooks and because of that, it has virtually replaced every cookbook I own.  It says something that even my favorites are inconveniently stored in the cabinets above the refrigerator, while my laptop computer sits on the kitchen desk ready to show me dozens of recipes with a couple of clicks.  For a particularly involved project, I take the laptop right to the cutting board and reference it as easily as the old cookbooks that collected stains from heavy use.

Every recipe includes a “review” section where people can go back and comment on the dish after they tried it.  Most people don’t wish to reveal their email addresses, so the website substitutes “cook” and adds a location, so I am a “cook from Syracuse, N.Y.”

Often the reviews go something like this …” I made this for my husband and even though he doesn’t like olives, he asked for seconds!  It’s  a keeper!” Or, “This is a new family favorite.  I didn’t have time to make my own bread crumbs so I used the ones in a box and it came out just fine”.

Occasionally epicurious.com becomes a source of mild comedy for me because some “cooks” make significant substitutions such as …“I made this recipe exactly as described except I added garlic, omitted the cheese and switched the peppers with zucchini from my garden”.

Then the “cooks” are invited to rate each recipe with forks; one fork isn’t so hot, but four forks means it is outstanding.

With millions of recipes to chose from, I often eliminate the ones without at least a three fork rating.  And then, before deciding whether to try it, I read the comments.  Sometimes the advice is consistent such as…“Next time I’ll double the amount of sauce”, or “it was way too salty, like others have suggested, I reduced the salt by half”.

Today I stumbled across a review that was borderline hilarious and annoying. Here are the ingredients for “Modern Macaroni Salad”:

• 2 1/3 cups elbow macaroni (about 10 ounces)

• 2/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/3 cups chopped drained bread-and-butter pickles
• 1 1/4 cups chopped celery
• 2 4-ounce jars sliced pimientos, drained
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

I read through all the favorable comments and came to this one, from a cook from Connecticut:

I made this yesterday and it was good…I did however make some changes …I omitted the sugar and the bread and butter’s and added chopped dills…instead of pimientos I roasted a red pepper …and instead of green onions I used a red onion…I also added dried oregano,thyme,dill& red pepper flakes…also a tad bit of relish…chopped blk. olives and a few chopped sundried tomatoes….and diced green bell pepper….So basically I used this recipe as a base …and a good one it is…just needed a little sprucing up

I’ll say you used this recipe as a base!  By the time you got done with it, it was a completely different recipe!  You might as well have called it something else.

And here’s the punch line.  By the time this person finished tampering with what other reviewers said was a perfectly good way to prepare a modern macaroni salad, she didn’t even give her own creation four forks.  She gave it three.

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I was in the dentist’s chair today discussing how well we all survived my last visit two months ago.  I had a crown placed on the very last tooth in the back of the top of my mouth.   If the Occupational Safety and Health Administration does not list this location as one of the most hazardous work sites in America it should, because the stretching, reaching and bending into positions not usually seen by professionals was impressive.  Picture Cirque du Soleil performing in your refrigerator.  That’s kind of how it was.

Along with that nostalgic trip down Memory Lane Dr. Dell’Uomo said it’s a funny thing, but a difficult job like that comes in bunches.  In 25 years of practice Dell’Uomo has seen it again and again.  He gets two or three of those tough cases in a week but doesn’t get another for a month or two.  I was not at all surprised to hear that.  But why?

It’s subtle, but life does this all over the place.   How many times have you heard celebrities die in threes?  When one famous person passes on you know number two and three will follow quickly.  It’s a fait accompli. Not “maybe” just “when”.

My phone is another example, albeit a trivial one.  It can be strangely silent for half the day, but when I do take or make a call, two, three or four more come in during the ten minute conversation, like a force field of sudden interest in me.  I wouldn’t have thought a thing of it once or twice, but it happens so consistently that I now joke about it.

Perhaps it’s related to the study published last year that said happiness is not only determined by the happiness of your friends, but by their friends, and their friend’s friends.  Our own happiness the researchers said, is less affected by a spouse than by the friends of the spouse, and by neighbors, whether we have any contact with those people or not.  It makes absolutely no sense, yet I don’t doubt that it’s true.

Is it metaphysics?  The Mirriam-Webster Dictionary defines this as:

“the physical study of the ultimate causes and underlying nature of things”.

It doesn’t precisely cover it, but my interpretation is if you can’t explain something that keeps happening, chalk it up to metaphysics.  Or just find a party of 11-year olds and get out a Ouija Board.

Do you have metaphysics in your life?  What keeps happening to you that you can’t explain?

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One of the questions asked most frequently when I worked at WTVH was if we had makeup artists at the station to make us beautiful before the nightly news.  Hardly.  In a city the size of Syracuse, we were lucky when all the lights in the rest room had bulbs so we could apply the makeup ourselves.

My 20 year old hair cutting tools are ready

One perk I did enjoy were the free haircuts we received in exchange for a mention of the salon at the end of the news.  Every five or six weeks I made an appointment at the chosen salon and had my hair colored and cut.  It was so easy.  In fact, because I never paid for a haircut in 26 years, my whacky perspective about haircuts grew faster than the hair could grow on my head.

Scene of many dramas in life: the kitchen table

Until I was dismissed in December of 2007, I had free haircuts for more than half of my life, and I don’t think the first half really counted because my mother provided all the early hairdo’s and when I was in high school and college, no one cut their hair. Hair was straight, unbleached and in a  race to the waist.

Now though, those $100.00 styles really hurt.  They hurt so much that I don’t go every five weeks anymore.  It’s more like every two months but by then, I can actually see the natural color of my hair for the first time since 1981 and trust me, it isn’t pretty.  Picture a mouse in the corner of the kitchen.  On his last legs. Covered in dust.  In dim light.  That’s the color of my hair.

The homemade "foils" are in place.

Enter the do-it-yourself-er from New England where people recite on a daily basis “God helps those who help themselves”.  OK, maybe they’re not referring to hairstyles, but why not?  Today I bought my first box of $9.99 hair dye and announced to my daughter Natalie that I had total faith in her abilities to give me a great dye job and haircut in the kitchen, the same kitchen were my children regretfully received their “kitchen haircuts” from me until they were so big that not even my precision scissors from the beauty supply store could overcome them and I had to start shelling out the cash for their real haircuts.

Amidst the dozens of boxes of brunette filling the shelves, my blonde “highlights” were mostly sold out.  I had two from which to choose;  “really light blonde” and “dark blonde”.  I was hoping for something in between but chose the latter to be safe.

With the operation underway at home, there were a bunch of items in the box I chose not to use, such as the cap with holes in it designed to pull strands of hair for a more natural streaked appearance.  Natalie and I instead took a box of tin foil from the drawer and mimicked what we’ve seen the stylists do with us through the years.

Little by little, Natalie grabbed chunks of hair, “painted” on the bleach solution with an old toothbrush, wrapped the sections in foil and moved to the next section of hair.  It took about an hour.   By the time the project was finished, the earliest sections were really “cooked” and Natalie panicked when she removed the foils.  She thought I went platinum on just one side of my head.  I told her not to worry.  I don’t have to be on TV anymore and the worse thing that would happen would be I’d buy another box of dye for $9.99 and go dark all over to fix it, but I didn’t have to. It worked.

I washed out the bleach, shampooed and conditioned my hair and came down for the piece de resistance, the kitchen table haircut in reverse.   Here Natalie worked like a pro, following the line of my last haircut and removing a half inch all around.   She worked with confidence around my whole head, lifting hair here, pulling hair there.  Snip, snip, snip.  All done.

When she was in high school Natalie was in demand for the various prom nights in the area, as girls who could not afford a salon visit for the big night came to Natalie for a dramatic and fabulous look.

I'm still alive! And not even bald!

You might not think I look particularly new because I’ve worn my hair like this for years and years and that’s what makes it so special.  Natalie nailed it.  And now I can take the money I used to spend on haircuts and apply it to travel to visit Natalie for a weekend when she moves to the New York City area in search of her new career in the summer.

I’ll probably get a professional haircut once or twice a year to establish the “line”, but for now, with a ten dollar box of bleach, some tin foil, my trusty bag of scissors and clips, and confidence in my most talented daughter, I think I’ve found the downsized answer to looking polished after a career on TV.

Pretty good for a mother and daughter who didn't know what they were doing

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