You better hope Blue Cross doesn't consider ugly a pre-existing condition

I heard that some of the protests were getting pretty ugly but I didn’t realize that the proposed health care plan was being described as a Nazi policy. WTF?!? Seriously, what does that even mean? It seems as thought these words or catch phrases like; Nazi, Hilter, Fascism, Socialism, Communism get thrown around and they don’t have any real meaning or relation to the actual argument but there is overall connotation that these things are bad. I am no historian by any stretch and I typically steered clear of the political sciences in college, but I never heard anything about the Nazi Health Care Plan, maybe I missed something.

If I were this woman I would be embarrassed. Barney Frank was probably not the best politician to say this to. He is absolutely right though, how can you argue with her. It’s illogical. There is no basis for this argument, what could one possibly say? I am so glad that someone finally said something to these people. Awesome.

Well, Hello...

As I wrote about earlier I have recently lost over 10 pounds. And of course, I am really happy about it but I am finding that none of my pants fit me! I think because I was feeling self conscious about my weight I was already buying clothes a tad big and now I am just swimming in them. So as I was pulling pants from my closet that need to be altered and dollar signs are swimming around my head I decide that it is time to learn to sew, an idea I have been throwing around for a while. I am 4’10” and always have to have my pants altered, so this is really something that I should have learned a long time ago. And because of my height I really have a hard time finding pants that fit right and new pants will of course have to be altered too. So, today I just went for it and bought this lovely machine. Though I am not really into Hello Kitty, It is really a Janome machine, which is awesome. My favorite craft store Fancy Tiger recommends this brand. This is going to look so cute in my craft room/studio! I am so excited!

Nevernude

My husband loves loves loves David Cross. He is currently on tour and I just bought tickets. I am stoked!

Tonight I am hoping to go to this. I love this kind of stuff, but my husband hates it so we'll see.

Things I Don’t Get: Fake Bake

I am pretty hardcore about sunscreen and limiting my exposure to the sun. Despite my Hispanic ancestry for most of the year I am pretty pale. During the summer months when I tend to run outdoors, work in the yard, etc. I tend to get a little color but mostly I am pretty pale.

In this informative article I found it states that some 30 million people are tanning indoors. What?! I just don’t get why people want to look like they have been lying on a beach for the past five days in the middle of January (unless of course you really have). I just don't think it looks good and I don't get it. I suppose it speaks to a larger issue I have with a serious artificial beauty going on these days. I think women are, and men too becoming too fake; fake hair (extensions, color, perms), too much makeup, tanning, plastic surgery. I don’t think any of these things per se are bad but when you put them all together and people stop looking real and start becoming scary it’s bad. I suppose everything in moderation.

According to my A&P professor we do need 15 minutes of unprotected sun exposure per day for the proper Vitamin D production. So, happy sunning!

Book Review: Prozac Nation

I recently finished reading Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America: A Memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I wanted to read this book initially because I saw the movie and that some drama was added (like most movie adaptations), and I wanted to get the real story. What I found was that a lot of the drama was left out. I thought because of the book’s subtitle it would shed some light not only on Wurtzel’s personal experience but in the young depressed in America; stats, history, etc. It did not shed any light on depression in general.

I had a seriously hard time reading this book. I myself having struggled with (I wouldn’t say depression, because I have never been diagnosed or seen a therapist so don’t want to give an insincere impression) bouts of sadness or whatever you want to call it. For one I kept thinking; divorce – check, single-parent – check, low-income – check, absent parent (father) – check. Wurtzel leads readers to believe that her depression had everything to do with her circumstance, and I am reading and thinking that’s me and a huge portion of the rest of the country. How many poor people do you know grow up in Manhattan, attend after school programs, summer camp, go to Harvard…? I just don’t buy it.

For the most part I just thought of her as a spoiled brat. Her fits were constant and unbelievable. She went to London for a summer and spent it in a basement crying, gave an accidental blow job, only to brag about the incident later. Her friends would visit her and bring her gifts but it never seemed to be enough. She described her actions but her actions but just really didn’t describe depression well. I never really got a sense of why she was behaving so badly. Many times she repeats feeling a black wave, or not wanting to get out of bed, and I ask, who does? I just couldn’t feel empathy, and because of my personal experience this was very strange. I just couldn’t get over what an egocentric brat she was.

Initially in the book her therapist is adamant about her feelings are psychological and not biological. That with enough therapy, etc. she could be cured for a lack of a better word. In the end she ends up with a prescription drug remedy, which I just didn’t get. She never went into how the doctors changed their mind about her depression and the cause.

There was a prologue and an epilogue. In the epilogue (written after the publication of the book) she mentions that she received many letters about why she read this book. That in her words; why would twenty-something that hasn’t really accomplished anything. I never did get a clear answer on that one.

All roads lead to the kitchen

Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) are featured in writer-director Nora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends...until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible. From IMD

Last weekend I went with a friend to see Julie and Julia and absolutely loved it! Meryl Streep was so amazingly funny and lovable. The movie was heartbreaking and heartwarming, my favorite movie combo. I must say that I thought the Julia part of the story was much more interesting that the Julie part but unlike some reviews I read I thought they did a good job of mixing the two. I am a bit too young to have grown up with Julia Child so I really didn’t know anything about her. It was so amazing to watch such an adorable, friendly woman love and be loved. Her relationship with her husband was so beautiful. I think it says a lot about her determination that she was able to work pretty much exclusively on cooking and writing for several years, especially when you consider the woman’s place in the world at that time. A feat, I believe, largely accomplished because of the support of her wonderful husband. I would love to say that the movie inspired me to go out buy the book and cook beef bourguignon, unfortunately, I don’t think that is going to happen, although, I do love butter…. something to think about. I did however add a le creuset dutch oven to my Amazon wishlist. A must for every kitchen, I have been told.

I wholeheartedly recommend this movie, don’t go hungry!

Salt of the Earth

The other day I was cooked some edamame and my husband said these need Sea Salt and I said we only have Kosher and table Table Salt and he said we need Sea Salt. So this made me really want to know the difference between the salts. So today I found this:

Table Salt and Iodized Table Salt

This is the type of salt that most of us use at home and the type that we find on most restaurant tables. Our basic table salt is made by sending water into salt deposits then evaporating it – only the salt crystals will remain. The salt goes through a refining process that removes the other minerals from it. Table salt has a fine grain texture which makes it ideal for baking – it can accurately be measured. Iodine is not naturally in table salt – Morton Salt Company started adding it back in 1924 to decrease the chance of goiters. The majority of table salt is iodized in the United States these days, and, indeed, the occurrence of goiters has gone down greatly!

I learned about Goiters (inflammation of the thyroid) in my A&P class, and we do need iodine in our diet in order to not get Goiters. Very interesting.

Kosher Salt

Kosher salt is made in a similar fashion to table salt – the difference is that kosher salt is raked during the evaporation process. This type of coarse salt is generally evaporated from brine. This creates grains with a block-structure, this structure better allows the salt crystals to absorb blood (Jewish law states that you must extract blood from meat before you consume it). Kosher salt is less salty than table salt.

Sea Salt

Sea salt is harvested by evaporation, also. Sea salt is not quite as salty as table salt is. You can find both fine grain and coarse grain sea salt. Many sea salts include trace minerals like potassium, magnesium, and iodine – these minerals are naturally present, not added.

Fleur De Sel

This is a type of sea salt – to harvest fleur de sel, you must take the early crystals that start to form across the surface of salt evaporation ponds – this is generally done during the summer months, the time when the sun is strongest. Fleur de sels have a higher mineral content than basic table salt. Fleur de sels can smell like the ocean, and it tends to be grayish in color. Other types of sea salts include sel gris, esprit du sel, and pink, black, and brown sea salts from India.

Rock Salt

As its name implies, rock salt is not fine-grained. In fact, rock salt is unrefined and therefore has a grayish hue. It is sold in large crystals. This is what people use to make ice cream in traditional hand-cranked ice cream makers.

This is a really basic explanation of a few salts that I found here (what I was really looking for), but in my search I found that there are a lot of different types of salts. I thought this website was particularly comprehensive if you are looking for more.