Mind, Body and Spirit

I have been quiet on the blog front for a few weeks…I do apologize.

It has been an interesting few weeks in Amanda-land. In the big picture, things are dandy. Work is good but busy and busy in a good way. Life with family, friends and the wonderful boyfriend are great. I finally lived a dream and went to Fallingwater in Western PA. Next weekend I am going to Florida with my dearest girlfriends and then in June Mr. Wonderful and I are going to Vegas Baby, Vegas for a 4 day trip. Life is really good.

I did hit a blip in the road about 2 weeks ago when I found out that someone I counted as a friend didn’t really extend me the same courtesy. The details are really unimportant but it has really gotten me to think about my friends and how I treat them. Being a good friend is very important to me and I think that on the whole I am a very good friend. But I am not perfect and I have been thinking of the ways in which I am not the friend that I want to be. I am nosey by nature and that may lead me to be a bit of a gossip. If you ask me to keep something in complete confidence, I do. No questions asked. But I do talk about my friends with other friends but I really try to not say something I wouldn’t mind getting back to the other person – at least in sentiment. I may say about friend x “gosh, she is making some crazy headed choices” and to that friend I may say “I am worried about you and your choices” but the sentiment is consistent. But I am trying to be aware of those times and be as honest about that policy as I can. That’s all one can do.

I am also back on the wagon of taking care of myself. I am eating better, exercising more and putting some bigger events on my calendar for the year. Philadelphia Distance Run, anyone?

At the end of the day I just want to feel good – in mind, body and spirit!

A Friend Who Would Help Move A Body

I feel like I need to find a new, springy blog template. While I like this one a lot, it feels very winter to me and spring is starting to arrive in Philadelphia. The pink and white of the cherry trees is appearing, forsythia is leaving pops of bright yellow along the landscape and there are buds on trees. Very soon the world will stop being so brown and will be full of colour and light again.

Which is how I am feeling myself.

I am doing the read-along profiled on the right side over there somewhere (imagine cool graphic arrow here) and it is amazingly profound. It’s one of those things that I feel has found me at the right time. I love when right place and right time line up!

One of the things that Brene talked about was “a friend who would move a body” and I LOVE that. I have always defined a good friend as one who doesn’t ask why the hell are you calling so late when you call at 3 am but rather “what took you so long to call?”. I am blessed to have a few of those in my life. But I like the idea of a friend who would help you move a body. Brene tells the story of a friend of a friend whose mother is struggling with alcoholism and winds up passed out on her couch one afternoon. This woman comes home from work and finds her mother and wants to get her to the bedroom before the kids come home so that they don’t see their grandmother that way. So she calls her friend and says “I need you to help me move my mom” and her friend does. And she chose this friend because she knew that there would be no judgment, no telling tales of this gossipy scene and the next time she saw her mother there wouldn’t be a trace of this situation on her face or in her presence. I LOVE THAT. And I strive to be that kind of friend – one who would help a friend move a body and the one that would be called upon to do so.

A week is a long time

I owe the world a real blog post and one will happen because I have much to say but for now...I leave you with my Hannie.

Just say NO! to Twitter?

I’m saying NO to Twitter and I encourage you to do the same as well. Ok, I’ll be real for a moment here – I think about 6 people read this blog so I highly doubt I am going to bring down the empire that Twitter.com has become but that being said – I encourage my readers to say no to Twitter.

It seems like the last few weeks have been all atwitter (HAR!) about Twitter and how people are using it. Members of Congress were “tweeting” during the President’s address to Congress. Reports have segments about what people are “tweeting” to them during the broadcast so that they can answer them on the spot. People say that they follow companies and organization’s tweets to know what is going on there. Just this morning, Joe Scarborough talked about how he used Twitter to understand how people on the left, right and center were responding to White House press conferences. Ok – so Twitter gives us instant access to people’s thoughts and actions. Is that such a good thing?

I really and I mean REALLY loved that Obama responded to a question about why he took a few days to respond to the AIG bonus crisis by saying “I like to know what I am talking about before I respond.” Your damn right you should know what you are talking about before you respond to stuff – particularly when your words can send the stock market into a tail spin. I think we, as a nation, have become so insistent on instant access and instant response that we have forgotten that sometimes it takes time to formulate the response that you want. And it is that formulation of response that begins a conversation and the best conversations of my life have definitely happened in bites of more than 140 characters.

Toke Up Baby!

Yay US Justice Department.

YAY YOU!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/19holder.html

I am not a pot smoker. You could hand me a bong right now and I’d pass it on to the next guy. It just doesn’t interest me. But the fact that we have made it illegal is just silly to me. You can get liquor and cigarettes legally, I don’t get why you can’t get pot. Making marijuana legal would do so much more positive in the world than negative. It would empty our jails, it would help us raise much needed tax revenue and it wouldn’t make folks like Michael Phelps a big story for anything more than being the greatest swimmer of our time.

But even if you don’t want to legalize pot. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let’s legalize medical marijuana. It is SUCH a no brainer. We give people poison EVERY DAY to fight disease. I wanted someone I loved very much receive radiation and chemotherapy and I saw how sick it made him. We’ll do THAT to a person to help them “get better” and we won’t allow someone with migraines or MS or …oh, I dunno … the horrific side-effects of chemo to smoke something that will make them feel so much better?

Oh yeah, that seems fair and logical.

Please let me remind you....

Dear Citizens of Philadelphia,

I would like to talk to you about the difficult situation that we as a nation, state and city find ourselves in right now. To put it bluntly and simply, we’re broke. We aren’t poor – poor is a state of mind, but we are broke and just like with your family, when we are broke we have to take a second look at how we are doing things.

I know that you don’t want your libraries to close. I don’t want mine to close. I also appreciate the fact that in the latest poll, you have expressed that you don’t want services to children, the elderly and the homeless cut. Good for you for knowing how important it is to take care of those who can not care for themselves. I know you don’t want to lose police officers or firemen. I know you don’t want to pay $5 per month for trash pick up and I know you don’t want your taxes raised. I get that. Were I you, I’d feel the same way.

But let me remind you of a very important fact here, we’re broke. The city is estimating a $1,000,000,000 deficit in the next 5 years -- for those of you math challenged folks, like me, that’s $1 billion.

Yes folks, we’re broke.

And when we’re broke, that means we have to tighten the belt a bit. In my life that means not going out to eat as much or not buying that sweater I have my eyes on, or cutting down on how many zillions of cable channels I have or getting a part time job.

For a city it means cutting services or raising revenue. And the way we raise revenue is to raise taxes. The talk of which caused you to boo Mayor Nutter today when he mentioned some short term tax increases.

Or we could cut services – which means that we close say 11 of 54 library branches. Yes, that is 20% of the libraries and that is a lot but would you rather have to walk a few more blocks to the library (by the way, my closest library is 2.6 miles away) Or would you rather not have a fire station in close proximity to your house?

Again, let me remind you. We’re broke.

You can complain all that you want about not wanting to lose services and not wanting your taxes raised. I get wanting 2 things at the same time but unfortunately, those 2 things are not currently compatible wants – so you pick.

Again, let me remind you. We’re broke.

Sincerely,
Amanda

The Real Thing, Part 1 & 2

It doesn't taking knowing me very long to know that my favourite actor of all time is the one and only Michael J. Fox. I have loved him since the days of yesteryear when "Family Ties" was the #2 rated TV show in the country (#1 being "The Cosby Show"). I watched Alex P. Keaton -- the embodiment of damn near everything I am against and yet I adored him and I adored Michael J. Fox. I used to see all of his movie as soon as they came out. I had 63 pictures of him on my bedroom walls circa 1986 and when I ran out of pictures, I used to take pictures of the TV so I'd have more pictures. I was a 13 year old girl with a very serious crush.

A few weeks ago, I found out that reruns of "Family Ties" was on FamNet channel so I started taping them. I knew I was getting close and today -- after a few less than fabulous days -- FINALLY - my 2 favourite episodes were on. For those of you who aren't in the know -- these 2 episodes are when Alex meets Ellen Reed (Tracy Pollan) and falls in love. When I was 12, this was the HEIGHT of romance. And it's funny -- I'm watching these episodes now and I still remember the dialogue, I still remember what they characters wore - it is all so familiar. I must have watched these 2 episodes over and over again until the VCR tape wore out and then I'd tape them again and again.

It is nice that some things -- even 23 years later can still bring such a huge smile to my face and a big tear to my eye.