Secret Santa has Arrived!

This is the Gift I sent out, and this is the beautiful Gift I recieved.

My thanks to Writermom for spear heading the effort. It's a wonderful thing to make a connection with humanity like this. I think I shall do it again next year.

If you click the link showing the gift I recieved, you will see a video of my amazing flowering tea pot. It is amazing!

When I opened the box, I was watching Maya Angelou tell of the importance of the Christmas Tree:

"The tree in our homes, and the tree of Life in the garden of Eden, they are both the same tree. They represent life, and the promise of hope."

Yes they do Maya girl, and my lovely flowering teas do too. You see, I know a little bit about the art of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It's all about preventative care, and using herbs and teas and foods for health. When I looked at the choice of herbs tied artistically together, creating these beautiful blooming flowers, I knew right away, they were not chosen simply for their look or taste, or cost effectiveness. They were put in select combinations designed for beautyAND health.

Great Green Goddess of Goodness, we in the West are such neanderthals when it comes to the healing arts!

And don't get me started, cause its 1 am and I just got back from a nightmarish trip to the ER. My hubby has been sick for three days with fever. His head is hurting so bad its about to split right open. We used up all the good pain meds, and finally made the decision to hit the hospital for a shot of Demerol, or an Rx for something...anything that might offer relief.

We waited for two and a half hours in a room full of bleeding suffering people, and never got to see a doctor. We finally realized it would be dawn before we ever got out of the waiting room, so we left in a pissed off Christmas huff.

I was not just mad for us, but for every single person in that room. Two children were sitting there for over an hour with bleeding gashes on their foreheads. Two men were doubled over with abdominal pain, a Latino woman, surrounded by her family, said she miscarried. On Christmas. Oh, can you imagine?

But none of them were sent through to the ER. We all just sat in the waiting room, watching each other suffer, like cattle in the holding pen.

Now, I know the ER was busy, but folks, there is something wrong with our model of medicine when a hospital in a major city can't handle the typical influx of patients on a holiday night.

Every restaurant, every grocery store, ever retail establishment in the world, checks their logs to see what amount of business they did on Christmas day the year before, and then they staff appropriately. They plan ahead to ensure they have the product and people to meet the needs of the customer.

If they had a good nurse practitioner in triage, she could have treated and released half of the patients in that room. BUT NOOOO. "Only the Doctor can do that. You'll have to wait until a bed opens up." Bed hell! I dont need a bed, I need some drugs! Just give me thirty seconds with the person with the pad. I can even tell him what scrip to write. Geesh.

The nurses and front desk people were like zombies. Their eyes glazed over, making the suffering invisible.

One man was called to triage. His friend took him on the shoulder to help him hobble along, as he held his abdomen in pain. The nurse stood there with her chart pointing "This way please."

She let the guy walk right past an empty wheel chair, without even offering it to him! She wasn't even LOOKING!
You call that health care?

You know, we always hear about our local politicians putting emergency plans in to place in case of disaster. Well, if the local hospitals can't step up to the plate to handle 40 people on Christmas night, how the heck do you think they are going to handle a catastrophic emergency? Have we learned nothing from Katrina and 911?
The ER's of this country must learn to function in a way that meets the demands of the populace. Cripies mate! That's what they are there for!

There is no excuse for this. We are one of the richest countries in the world, and yet the world Health Organization ranked the United States 67th against other countries in quality of health care. 67th!

Modern medicine my ass! I can take better care of my hubba hubba honey myself.

Well, with that off my chest, I take pause to thank you dear Holly. Your gift is perfect, and much needed in my house tonight.

(Actually it's morning now. I have been working on this post in between the trauma. Hubba Hubba Honey is in the shower, and we will be off to see his Doc in about ten minutes.)
When we get back, I will be brewing up some of that very special tea, and practicing the healing arts the ancient way, with intuition, healing touch, and love.

As I do, I will look at our twinkling Christmas tree, and pause for thought, remembering the voice of Ms. Angelou:

"The tree in our homes, and the tree of Life in the garden of Eden, they are both the same tree. They represent life, and the promise of hope."

I will open my heart for that promise of hope, wishing that someday, we, as a society, will learn to put compassion, caring and love back in to the art of medicine.

In the mean time, I Thank you Holly, your gift was well chosen, most thoughtful, and much needed. I also thank Erin, for participating and accepting the gift I sent, and I thank Writer Mom, for making it all happen. In the midst of all this drama, these gifts have lifted my heart, and hey, aint that what the holly-daze is all about?

A healthy happy ho-ho-ho to one and all.

P.S.
A word to the wise: Horde a big personal stock of medications so you can tell the hospitals to go to H*LL.

At my house we never build snowmen.

We did a sphinx
The guys from Monsters Inc.
Puff the Magic Dragon
A Castle (Well, several of those)
An Alligator
and one year we tried a horse, but his legs broke, so we had to put him down.

What shall we build this year?
Shoot me your suggestions. The kids will vote on a winner and build something just for you!

This is good.

Here's a good piece of political satire from Jesus's General.

It would be really funny if it were not so true.

The Question

I got an interesting e-mail today from a gentleman named Rajesh Setty

He wrote:

Dear Kelley,

Liz Strauss refered me to you...

I maintain a blog called Life Beyond Code where I get about 400,000 page views a month. I have always believed that it is not always the answers but sometimes asking one good question is what is required to make a difference in a person's life or business or both. So as we approach the new year, I am posting a series of questions that people should consider asking themselves in 2007 to get more out of their life or business or both. I am reaching out to several influencers like yourself to get those questions.

So, what is the ONE important question a person should ask himself or herself in 2007?

****************************

Wow. This is a real brain stretcher to start the day off! Let me just climb up to the top of a mountain and get some advice on that...Hold on just a sec Raj. Be right with ya.



(Huff Puff, Huff Puff, Huff Puff...)

O.K.
I'm back. Hows this grab ya:

Dear Rajesh,

Thank you for the opportunity. Liz speaks quite highly of you, so I am honored to participate.

I do not believe one can find a complete answer from any single question, any more than one could fill an entire ocean with only one cup of water.
I do have a theme of which I think would be a good start, but it would lead to many questions, as all theories do:

Imagine you are at the very end of your life, looking back on your hopes, dreams and accomplishments. If you could go back, start over, and write the script for your life, what would you dream it to be?
To answer this, you must ask, "What matters most?"
And from there, the real question is;
"What steps must I take, right now, today, in this very moment, to make that dream awaken?"

If you can answer these questions, everything else in life then flows, like a crystal clear river.
For then the only question is, "Am I doing what matters right now?"


********************

Now please exuse me while I go find my golden meditation tunic. LOL

(Just kiddin. Actually I think this is cool.)
Raj sounds like a great guy.

Liz says:

"He's quite an author an entrepreneur...I've interviewed him about his book, Beyond Code, at Successful Blog.
He's a rich and deep thinking man."

At Last...Fame and Fortune!

WOW! I'm Time Magazine's Person of the Year!
and YOU are TOO!

From CNN.com:

"You are Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. You were chosen over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korea's Kim Jong Il and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Congratulations."

I Got Tagged

The Fat Lady Sings has tagged me for one of those delightful MEME's:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Name of the book and the author.
5. Tag three people.

The book closest to me is The Cloud Spotters Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society. It's an ARC (Advance Review Copy) and I am trying to finish it and write my soon to be forthcoming review.

But I suppose it's sneak peek time, so here goes:

The fifth line on page 123 begins:

HAMLET: Do you see that cloud that's almost in shape like a camel?
POLONIUS: By the mass, and it's like a camel indeed.
HAMLET: Me thinks it's like a weasel.

I tag:

Writermom
Garnet
Xavierism

No Good Deed...

This morning I babysat for breakfast, and got four merry munchkins off to school. Three on two busses, and one I drove to private school.

Then I headed out on my brave mission to find the elusive Nintendo Wii.

I pulled into Gamestop and barely beat another woman into the store. We both knew we were in competition before our feet hit the pavement.

I flew thru the door and approached the counter with her hot on my heels.

"Did you get that shipment of Wii's yet?" I asked with my new Stephen King novel in hand. (I came prepared to wait.)
"We did. I have one left."

I was thrilled. I have been trying to get one of these god forsaken electronic whiz boxes for over a week. Yanno, ya do what ya gotta do to see the smile of happy children on X-mas morn.

But nothing is ever that easy, now is it?

Before I could quick draw my credit card, my nemesis, (clearly an Ivana Trump wannabe) starts in with her argument.

"I called ahead! I was in here last night! YOU SAID 10 am, and its only 9:13! My husband walked in the door before SHE DID! He was just waiting for me!

"This lady asked first. Sorry." The clerk shrugged.

Ivana was ready to go to the mat with me, and it was clear the men watching were titillated with expectation of the foreboding cat fight.

Sorry to disappoint, but I was just not in the mood.

"You can have it. I'll come back another time. Merry Christmas." I said as I backed away from the register and left the store. The looks on their faces were priceless. You would think they had never heard of the spirit of giving.

I'm not gonna tell this to my son, but you know what, even if he gets a rain check on Christmas, and we don't get the darned thing until later, well, so be it. The spirit of Christmas is much more important to me than frenzied consumerism. If my boy has to be patient so that I can avoid being manipulated by some corporate marketing scheme, well, I guess that's the price I will have to pay for my principles.

So, I goes on across to The Wallmart. (Yea, even I bend my principles on occasion) I figured they might have gotten a Friday morning shipment too.

No good deed goes unrewarded right?

Hmmph.

I found a crowd of about twenty people in the electronics section like vultures, waiting for the boxes to be wheeled out from the back.

"Sorry. No Wii's came on the truck today folks."

I went out to my car, only to discover I was the victim of a parking lot hit and run.





Life lesson for today: No good deed goes unpunished.

My hubby said "I can't believe you let that woman intimidate you! That's not like you."
"I was not intimidated. It was a matter of principle."
"Oh, so it's all YOUR fault. If you would have been a prick, we would have a Wii and your car would not have gotten smashed up."
"Thanks honey."
"You should blog about that."
"A Christmas lesson?"
"Yup. Be a prick cause good gals finish last." He Chided.
"By the way, our deductable is five hundred dollars." (Laughter stops.)

Merry flippin X-Mas everybody.