Comments (0)

By jamie, October 28, 2011 10:45 am

I have had a few people tell me they could see my aura. One was a woman at the ABA BookExpo, the annual booksellers convention I have luckily been able to attend a few times (lots of fun, and tons of free book!). If I remember correctly, she said my aura was green – I haven’t read her book, so I have no idea what that means for me – I hope it’s good. The other people who said they saw it were watching me do a kata at the time, which is kind of like a slow karate dance. They used to be my favorite part of karate class (American and Chinese Kenpo) and I really used to concentrate while I was doing them – one day someone told me that they saw a light all around me during one of the longer forms, which they interpreted to mean I was releasing energy through my movements.

I really don’t know about all of that, but I read chapters 3-4, and some people tried photograph auras of humans and animals (and even a leaf). Mary Roach seemed surprised by the idea that a leaf might have an aura, but it sort of reminded me of The Celestine Prophecy. Have any of you read this? It was shelved as fiction, but the author was more in the “New Age” category (which is probably where you will find this book today if it’s still in bookstores**). People did all sorts of interesting things in that book like making plants grow by putting their hands over them and concentrating really hard. Which reminds me, did you know that banana trees can grow a noticeable amount (a lot, like half an inch) in a single day. I can’t tell you how tempted I would be to try to sit and watch a banana tree grow all night, to see if I could witness it growing (maybe give it a little Celestine Prophesy action to help it along), so it’s probably best that I don’t have one.

This section covers experiments where very sick people (they had consumption; animals were also used in later attempts) were placed on scales to see if they would lose weight when their souls left their bodies. I had thought there was stronger evidence of this, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. Roach interviews a scientist who wants to repeat this test using far more sophisticated methods than the original ones (and not with humans) – he has spent the past several years unsuccessfully trying to get funding to design special equipment, etc.

Other scientists have tried to use various different kinds of equipment to photograph the soul. Mary Roach mentions her surprise that more of this was not considered “fringe science.” This got me thinking – a lot of science from yesteryear was what we would now consider “fringe.” I mean, why not try to weight the soul – it makes a lot more sense than some of the other things science has attempted before we had IRBs, ethical standards, etc. (I was tempted to include a link here, but I’ll let you Google it – please let me know if there is something I should know about, though.) Some of the science from the past is now widely recognized to be crap non-science (I’m pointing at you, eugenics).***

*This post is an homage to Mary Roach and her fun and informative footnotes. Really, if you read this book, don’t skip them. Also, lots of people have been watching Ghostbusters this week in honor of Halloween, in case the title of this post made no sense to you.

**Evidently you can find The Celestine Prophesy in the film section as well. Huh. Also, I read this book a hundred years ago – long before I was blogging – so my memory might be a bit sketchy with regard to the book’s contents.

***If you Google “eugenics,” you will find that there are some who still believe in it. Word to the wise – with few (if any) exceptions, these people are commonly referred to as “racists.”

Comments (0)

By jamie, October 27, 2011 5:21 pm

Did I ever tell you about the time I fell down the cellar stairs at my great grandma’s house? I was two at the time, but I still remember it in a hazy sort of way (I know – people aren’t supposed to be able to remember back that far, and our memories are not too reliable anyway, but I stand by my words – I remember). I was trying to take myself to the bathroom and I accidentally opened the cellar door instead. I stepped inside and kind of just flew down in the dark until I landed. I don’t know if I screamed. I looked up and saw the shape of a man in the doorway high above me, and then before I knew it I was being carried up the stairs and I was safe and unhurt. They said I did not get injured probably because I didn’t know I was falling, so I didn’t brace myself. Still, and I remember this far more clearly, for years after that, whenever I entered a room, I would carefully put one foot through the door first and poke around with my toes to make sure I didn’t accidentally step into a “room with no floor” ever again.

I finished the book. The last few chapters weren’t as fun as some of the others, because she gets into some more serious types of accidents (burns, etc.) and God forbid any of us have to go through the kind of things ER doctors see on their (I can imagine) sadder days “at the office.” At the same time, I am really glad I read this one – I learned so much about medical matters in general, and I think I feel a little more confident about making decisions to call or not to call the doctor when my child has a fever or the tells me her eyes are itching or some such.

She mentions that swimming lessons are not an acceptable substitute for putting a fence around your swimming pool, which caused me to feel all sorts of parental guilt. Especially since we skipped Little Mama’s refresher swimming course this year and I’m not sure her swim teacher is even in the pool any more this late in October. Note to self – call and find out, as soon as possible. Oh, and the fence – I’m not sure what we should do about that – we have some fencing, and heavy doors with deadbolt locks, but little kids are super quick when they want to be.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of safety, I think I need to call and see about getting my first aid/CPR certification updated – again, God forbid we ever need it, but it’s nice to know how to do things like wrap a twisted ankle correctly or NOT put butter when someone gets a burn from touching the handle of the cast iron skillet. (Does anyone still think this is the right thing to do? It’s NOT.)

And did you know that scrapes and scratches should be kept out of the sun while they are healing? And that it can take up to six months for the new skin to grow in fully? I did not know these things.

Comments (0)

By jamie, October 24, 2011 4:11 pm

Write down this number: 1-800-222-1222. Memorize it too. It’s the number to call if your children ever ingest anything that they shouldn’t. As you may recall, we successfully called U.S. Poison Control when my daughter ate an adult decongestant when we were in the Bahamas. Dr. Zibners (I read chapters 11-12) declines to give a comprehensive list of potential dangerous poisons, which I think is wise, because it can be really important to get you child to emergency help, or if you call Poison Control they can give you immediate advice based on what your child is actually experiencing (for example, a sip of rubbing alcohol might just make your kid act drunk, or it might be a major emergency – I’m sure there are a lot of variables).

She does talk about locking up the dangers, but we have to be aware that little kids can eventually get into almost anything. I had to laugh because we “baby proofed” the kitchen as soon as Little Mama learned how to walk, and we basically protected her from the trash can and the pots and pans. Good looking out, Mama and Daddy. Now when she wants to throw something away she opens the cabinet door as far as she can (an inch or two) and can usually stick her hand down inside to dispose of whatever it is she is trying to get rid of. The other night was an exception. She had insisted on a caramel apple, but then I guess it was too hard to eat, so she changed her mind. (Note to self – the little girl still needs caramel apples cut into bite-sized pieces). Without telling me, she tried to throw away the treat. It took me forever to scrub the caramel off of the floor and the cabinet where she tried to shove it into the trash. (Immediately afterward, I made a new rule – no throwing away food without consulting a parent first.) In our defense, most of the chemical cleaner type things are stored in a high cabinet in the garage, along with enough spiders to deter curious Little Mama (for now, anyway).

Reading this book has me fixated on allergies. “Of the people who believe they are allergic to penicillin, less than 2 percent of them have a true allergy when tested at a doctor’s office.” I have believed for some time now that I am allergic to a certain family of antibiotics (not penicillin), and my only evidence is that I broke out in hives the day after I finished up a bottle of them. I have avoided this type of medication ever since, and always list this as a medicine allergy on any health forms. I wonder if I should see an allergist to find out for sure.

Oh, and here’s another one – mosquito bites. I have a terrible reaction to mosquito bites, and Little Mama seems to be following in my footsteps. One time I counted something like 80 bites on my body – they were oddly shaped hot, red welts, very itchy, and I called the emergency nurse line at my HMO at the time. The nurse I spoke with did not believe my bite count, and suggested that I might be allergic to the anti-coagulant the mosquito injects you with before she sucks your blood. She said it would be very odd unless I had been truly swarmed to have that many actual bites, and especially doubted that I had been stung numerous times through a pair of thick denim jeans. I later spoke with my doctor about it, but the reaction is worst in the first hour of being stung, so I couldn’t really present her with fresh evidence – her response was that I might be breaking out in hives as a result of coming into contact with a mosquito (even if I catch the mosquito and it doesn’t splash blood when I smash it, I break out in a cluster of red welts). I think I probably really am allergic to mosquitoes though, even though I have not consulted an allergist – this has been a major problem since I was a little kid.

There is a lot in these two chapters, but I will share just one more thing. She talks at length about pets and the potential dangers they possess. One that surprised me is her explanation of cat bites – I didn’t even know cats bit (they were the one animal aside from fish that I wasn’t terrified of – bummer). Their bites are very likely to become infected, so antibiotics are often prescribed.

Comments (0)

By jamie, October 23, 2011 12:16 pm

Mary Roach is a science writer. She is also pretty funny. I knew, when I read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, that would have to read every book she writes, so, in honor of Halloween, I am reading this, which delves into ghosts and other paranormal activity in an effort to find scientific evidence of an afterlife.

The first two chapters are about reincarnation and the old-timey practice of scouring the inside of bodies (thankfully most of them were dead) in search of a soul. To give you a glimpse into her style, she seems to be fairly respectful of believers (she accompanies a man in India as he tries to verify alleged cases of reincarnation, and they manage to get along cordially enough), and at the same time she manages to sneak several fart jokes onto page 72 (most of them she kindly footnoted, so I could have been spared – too bad I almost always read the footnotes).

Sometimes footnotes are where you find the most interesting information. Did you know (maybe Catholic readers knew this) that you can’t just throw away stale Communion bread? The priest has to eat it unless it is too far gone to be safe, in which case it has to be burned. There are even special rules for disposal in the event that someone vomits it up. I wonder if the priest has to drink the leftover wine too, or if it can keep until the next time it is needed (does wine keep?).

I learned something about the common belief in reincarnation. I thought there would be a waiting period, you know, like how they don’t reassign a cell phone number for a few months after someone disconnects it. It doesn’t look like this is the case – I guess a person can die and go right back into another body. Somehow this makes me a little bit sad to think about.

The chapter on finding the soul inside the human body is plenty morbid – think about people rooting around in dead animal parts (at least most of them were dead) and humans whenever possible looking for a particular body part that could be identified as the soul. It seemed so ridiculous to me, and I realize that this is ethnocentrism on my part, since I have such a strong belief in the soul and and understanding (based on faith) that it cannot be found in a toe bone or in the spine somewhere. I think of the body as a glove. It is tangible, but on its own it cannot move or function (no zombie jokes, please). Then if we imagine a hand placed into the glove, suddenly the glove can move, but only because something else is maneuvering it, something that can’t be seen from the outside, but which inhabits the entire glove – that’s the soul, and when the soul is inside the body, the body is alive. Take away the soul, and it’s just a body.

On faith – it’s hard for a scientist/science person to understand faith. Mary Roach says the following: “But can you prove that, Dr. Crick? If not, then it’s no more good to me than the proclamations of God in the Old Testament. It’s just the opinion, however learned, of one more white-haired, all-knowing geezer. What I’m after is proof. Or evidence,anyway–evidence that some form of disembodied consciousness persists when the body closes up shop. Or doesn’t persist.” She talks of proof as being “comforting.” Of course she is right about this, but faith is hard because you have believe anyway in the absence of proof and its comforts.

I am enjoying this book, and am still enthusiastic to read everything Mary Roach has ever written, but I’m pretty sure she isn’t going to get her proof in this book.

Here is a song for you, a 10,000 Maniacs cover of an Iris DeMent song called “Let the Mystery Be” (special guest, David Byrne). I tried to embed it, without success, but it’s worth a click [After you follow the link, you have to click "start"]: Let the Mystery Be

Comments (0)

By jamie, October 22, 2011 10:10 pm

I got the chicken pox in eighth grade, and it was horrible. I had them in my throat, so swallowing was excruciating, and all over the bottoms of my feet, so I couldn’t easily walk. I missed two weeks of school. I got them from my sister, who got them from her classmates. My face was covered in scabs, and I tried to be so careful to let them fall off by themselves so as to avoid scarring – when all was said and done, I ended up with a large scar at my arm pit and another, sadly, on my cheek.

I read chapters 9 and 10, which covered skin conditions (think rashes and, obviously, chicken pox) and fevers. Today there is an immunization for chicken pox, and I know some people remember their experience with this “childhood disease” and say that the immunizations are unnecessary. Dr. Zibners has this to say: “before children in the United States began routinely receiving the varicella [chicken pox] vaccine, hundreds of children and adults were hospitalized every year with severe infections that could even, rarely, be fatal.” I have ranted about this before – immunize your kids. The risks of not immunizing far outweigh the risks of the shots.

Have you ever broken out in hives? I have. Many times. Little Mama has gotten hives once that I can recall. Dr. Zibners says hives are not always indicative of an allergic reaction (I guess she means this for adults as well as kids) and that sometimes there is no identifiable reason for them. I wonder how much Benadryl I have needlessly taken over the years. There is one time in particular that still bothers me – I randomly broke out in terrible hives one afternoon. We frantically tried to figure out what I could be allergic to (usually it’s obvious) and narrowed it down to some cherry tea (which I haven’t tasted since, but had enjoyed a few times previously) and orange oil, which was in an organic bug repellent I used for the first time that day. Orange oil is in some organic cleaning products, and I have avoided them because of that bout of hives. Maybe I’ll try out those potential offenders sometime soon to see if I really am allergic – I’ll have some Benadryl on hand just in case.

I am particularly grateful for these two chapters. She describes several types of rashes kids get (without photos – you have no idea how happy this makes me – Googling rashes is a terrifying experience). As for the part about fevers, I predict having this book in your library will prevent at least middle of the night call to the pediatrician. I called our pediatrician recently (during business hours) about a low grade fever that lasted longer than I thought it should – I wouldn’t have called if I had read this first (and I ended up cancelling the appointment I made because she was just fine the morning we were scheduled to take her in).