The Boston Marathon Bombing

Like many around the world, I was shocked!  It was one more act meant to inflict fear throughout the world.  While bombings are a sad but normal occurrence in some parts of the world, thankfully they are not in North America.  When they do happen in North America, it is a huge wake-up call.

The two homemade bombs that detonated in the last stretch of the Boston marathon left three dead including an eight year old boy, many wounded some still in critical condition and at least ten who had to undergo amputations.  Yesterday, the law officials showed pictures of the suspected bombers who were carrying backpacks.  Then the identities of the suspects who were brothers, Tamerlan Tsarnaey(aged 26) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (age 19) was released.  They had immigrated to the US and assimilated into the American culture close to ten years ago.  Despite careful planning to execute the bombings, the brothers failed to plan their get away.  So they robbed a variety store, shot and killed a young MIT police officer and hijacked a car.  Apparently, the younger brother ran over the older brother while attempting to get away.  The older brother died in which originally was being reported as a shoot-out with police but explosives were found on his person so now there is a question as to whether he detonated the explosives himself.  The official cause of death will likely be released after an autopsy.  As it stands, 5 people are dead over this senseless act of terrorism.

This morning, I turned on CNN to catch the latest update.  About ten minutes later, reporters on scene of where there was a heavy police presence in Watertown, Mass. where the brothers lived, all of a sudden were very excited.  Police and tactical units were moving into the area in droves, police dogs were on scene, a helicopter was circling overhead making tighter and tighter circles and according to the reporters, they could smell smoke.  Police were evacuating the area and moving back people.  Then they moved people back again.  This is a heavily populated area so many families are affected.  The whole scene is buzzing with activity in a surreal atmosphere.  Reporters break in with short interviews from family and friends who knew the brothers then go back to watching the unfolding drama, waiting to hear what is happening but only able to speculate in the meantime.  And the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev continues...

Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

I have been out of academia and the workforce for several years now and while I do make an income, I consider myself semi-retired.  There days I go full tilt and get nothing done.  I came across this video that really explains my condition.  It sums up my days to a 'T'!  Quite frankly I have always displayed signs of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) but have never been officially diagnosed even though it is quite apparent.  The inability to concentrate and focus on one task combined with dyslexia really made earning my post secondary degrees a challenge and then some.  The only way I got through academia was by religiously following a very rigid schedule.  That made it difficult for our home life raising kids because I was not as spontaneous but it is what I had to do to survive long enough to earn my degrees.

Folks not affected by ADD have no clue how challenging and frustrating it can be.  It has nothing to do with being forgetful although I may have a bit of that now that I'm getting up there in years but I take thiamin to help with any memory issues.  The real problem is not being able to focus on one task.  I seriously cannot sit and watch television without doing something else at the same time.  I knit, crochet, blog, and the list goes on but I never just watch television.  If a commercial comes on, I am up puttering, emptying the dishwasher or doing whatever pops into my mind that needs doing.  If I am online and this one really drives my husband nuts, I have a multitude of tabs open on the browser bouncing between them.  It could take me well over a day to write a blog post because I'm up and down puttering between thoughts or checking out tangents online.  The distractions never end and it is not as simple as telling me to focus because there is just too much sensory overload for me to focus on one task.

Having ADD or even ADD symptoms does not mean you have dementia and with proper health care mixed with good genes you may never develop dementia as you age.  ADD really is an issue that if you have it, you likely have had it from birth and have dealt with it for your entire live.  It isn't something that just suddenly manifests itself.  Many with ADD tend to be perfectionists which feeds into the ADD because you either do it perfect or you are off on tangents to find out how to do it perfectly.  Many are also high end achievers - scoring in the upper tenth percentile academically, climbing that corporate ladder and basically to the outside world, everything is perfect.  But it isn't.  Along with  ADD comes an incredible amount of frustration, a healthy dose of low self esteem, and a feeling of being somewhat disconnected or disorganized.  It can lead to those with adult ADD to alienate or disassociate from people because they are tired of being judged for being a bit different.  It can lead to self medication via drugs or alcohol which can complicate the problem.  At the same time, those with ADD tend to develop some rather impressive coping mechanisms but then that is the same of any disorder.  You do what you have to do to get by in life.  ADD is not funny, it isn't fun dealing with it but I can so relate to this video!

Plotting Revenge on Telemarketers

I don't know what it is about nearing the end of winter that brings all the telemarketers out from under their rocks.  We are getting bombarded with their calls on our land line and a few on our cell phones.  Not only are they irritating but they do cost us money especially the minutes on my cell phone.  Unfortunately, the CRTC has about much power as a wet noodle when it comes to telemarketers so these cretins are allowed to pester us anytime they please.  So, I'm plotting my revenge.

Don't get me wrong, of things to be doing aside of plotting revenge against telemarketers but my mind tends to wander a bit when I'm knitting or puttering around the house.  NCC (newspaper call centre) has been calling daily even though I told them to remove our number so that's a good one to start the revenge on.  Now, they are worse than any debt collection agency and when I asked them to remove our number he told me he couldn't.  So, I came up with several plans of attack, some of them a bit less likely to get me in trouble than others.  Finally, I went above his head and called the newspaper he was pimping, told them what happened and why I would never subscribe to their newspaper or any others owned by their head company as long as they were associated with NCC.  I declined leaving my phone number under the circumstances but did leave my name.  Then, I put NCC on call block on our phones.  Then as the final touch, I blogged about it because everyone should know they have the right to privacy in their homes, free of telemarketers interrupting whatever they may be doing. 

If you are suddenly getting a rash of telemarketing calls, it means your phone number somehow got onto a telemarketer list that is being sold to telemarketers.  Don't panic!  This does happen from time to time.  Telemarketers do not have the right to cost you time or money or even get your knickers in a knot.  If you are being bothered by a telemarketer, always go above them.  Complain to the company they are selling for and tell them why you won't be buying from them.  Call block them and if they get through by changing the number, block them again.  Note that call blocking won't work for telemarketers using a voice over system (eg. the number starts with VO) or systems like Skype.  Use caller ID and don't answer their calls although this does tend to encourage them to call back at a later time.  Do not put your phone number on the national do not call list as that list gets sold to telemarketers so the number of calls actually increases.  Pester the CRTC and file complaints.  My husband frequently gets telemarketers at the office.  His policy is when they start their sales pitch he says no thank-you.  When the go into the second angle, he says no thank-you again.  When they start the third angle, they hear the click.  I, on the other hand, tend to play around with them if I'm in the mood and if not and I recognize the number, it goes unanswered.  It's hard to not answer especially on the cell phone because you never know if it may be someone frantically trying to get a hold of you from another number. 

A Couple of New Tactics Telemarketers are Using

Oh my gosh, I so detest telemarketers!  For years, they have bothered us on our land line even though we were on the Canadian Do Not Call List which is a total joke.  The CRTC really muffed this one up.  So when we moved, we got a new land line phone number.  Within 24 hours we started calls from a debt collection agency looking for the previous owners of our new phone number.  Man, they were beyond nasty so I blocking the calls.  Apparently our number went out onto Canada 411, something I quickly corrected.   Then as part of our move, I switched my cell phone to a pay as you go so now I had the great pleasure of paying for a debt collector to call my cell so I finally reported them to the CRTC.  The problem is all these phone numbers are recycled so if you happen to get one where the previous owner didn't pay whatever bill, you will get calls, very nasty calls even if you tell them you don't know that person but it does cost you money.  The simple solution is to not answer if you don't know the number.  Now I only answer my cell if I know the number. I set up a system with our kids that works well.  But now the telemarketers have a couple of new tactics they are using.

First, according to the CRTC newspapers can contact you for subscriptions.  It doesn't matter that we live in an electronic age where we can get information at our finger tips without ever using paper, apparently they can.  So, NCC (Newspaper Call Centre) has been pestering the living daylights out of us, calling multiple times daily as late as 9:30 PM.  I asked them to remove our phone number from their call list yet they persist.  Finally, I call blocked them.  This is really easy to do with our built in call block on our phone system and doesn't cost us anything.  All I have to do is hit menu, call list, save number to call block.  Easy, peasy. 

So, today I get a call from caller ID VO3081250500041 Out of Area.  I answered it an it was a telemarketer!  The guy went into his script then I interrupted and said I don't talk to telemarketers.  He said he wasn't a telemarketer.  I asked him if he was selling anything?  He answered yes.  I told him to quit wasting my time and hung up.  Now, this call is obviously from a Voice Over through the internet which means you cannot call block it by conventional means (eg. phone service, onboard features).  Now, I just heard of a popular online service that lets you make all the free calls you want in Canada and US in addition to the popular Skype.  If this is the case, the telemarketers have the upper hand for the time being.

The Stigma of Mental Illness

It was with great sadness to hear of the recent death of Mindy McCready at the age of 37.  This troubled young person took her own life just a couple of weeks her boyfriend, David Wilson, took his life.  Her life  aside of being a country music star was in turmoil.  There were accusations that she had actually killed her boyfriend and McCready felt the investigating sheriff was on a witch hunt.  The underlying problem in this case was mental illness and addiction with the failure to seek help due to the embarrassment and stigma of mental illness.

Addictions are in some ways a coping mechanism for dealing with mental illness.  Folks learn from a very early age that self medication via alcohol, OTC or prescription drugs, or illicit drugs eases the pain enough for them to function somewhat in society.  In fact, substance abuse is the number one way to deal with ADHD, ADD or OCD without having to tell any doctor you have a mental problem because there is a stigma with having a mental illness.  Even the doctors look down on those with mental problems!  Then it becomes a vicious cycle because once addiction kicks in there is the stigma of admitting you have an addiction and we all know an addiction is a mental disorder whether or not you have another mental disorder complicating the issue.  

The natural human response is self preservation so even thoughts or acting on suicide is abnormal.  The question is, it is simply abnormal and a sign of desperation or is it a mental illness.  Well, by definition of a successful suicide, the person can't keep repeating the behaviour or be cured from the result so I would not consider the act of suicide itself to be a mental illness.  Now, some have said only the insane would commit suicide.  True, as that goes back to the self preservation argument, but drugs and alcohol can cause a person to hallucinate or hear things that aren't there which could cause them to act on their suicidal thoughts when normally they wouldn't which only means they had addiction problems not necessarily a mental illness.

Society really is to blame, if you ask me.  Society asks too much of the individual but doesn't provide the support yet is quick to judge when the individual cannot meet those expectations.  Society constantly bombards a person with you are too fat, too thin, too ugly, too whatever come to mind and essentially never good enough.  Even if a person knows they have a mental illness, the chances of getting help is slim because if it goes on their medical record they could lose their job.  Good gosh help them if they are a celebrity like McCready if the news of a mental illness gets out to the fans or worse yet to the bloodthirsty, do anything for a dime paparazzi.   Child protective services could be called if a parent has a mental illness that could harm a child and let's face it the legal system is far from a friend to anyone with a mental illness.  Friends and family do treat those with mental illnesses differently.  They become judgmental, critical and even holier than thou because they are better than the one suffering as they aren't mentally ill.  They may become enabler as part of their unmentioned mental illness to keep their family member ill because it does feed into their own mental illness and dependency.  Heck, bullying even at the school age has become so common that kids are committing suicide regardless whether a mental illness has ever been diagnosed.  

Really, the label of the mental illness is just another way to keep people oppressed.  It is a way for society to get rid of the weaker while not taking blame for creating the problem it the first place.  At the same time for this to function for society, society has to convince those with mental illnesses that they are inferior.  They cannot seek or accept help and the only way out is suicide of which society will again judge.  Therein lies the stigma of mental illness...

Traveling in In Climate Weather

We live in beautiful Ontario, Canada.  February and March are always pissy months especially when it come to traveling.  Heck, you can have sunny skies and dry roads easily turn into freezing rain and black ice.  Right now we are getting freezing rain.  This is the time we love to avoid driving if at all possible.  Now, we live in a community without public transit but hubby can walk to the office in about 5 minutes.  I can walk to the grocery store in about the same time.

If we have to travel out of town, if the weather is bad we just post pone it unless we have vacation plans.  Then it is onto plan B.  Most of our traveling to the sunny south is via air BUT we also enjoy traveling by train.  Granted we have to drive to the airport or train station but once there, travel is usually problem free.  We can grab a bit to eat and relax until we meet our destination.  It's a win:win situation that leave us not exhausted from fighting weather conditions when we arrive at our destination

Onto Round Two

Well, I really shouldn't say round two as round one is still hanging in there.  There is a horrid cold strain going around and I managed to catch it despite avoiding people like the plague, frequently washing my hands and not touching my face.  This is what at best I can describe as being a cold/flu hybrid as it has symptoms of a cold, the worst coughing fits ever producing a burning searing pins and needles sensation, mild gastointestinal upset, overall achy and yet no fever.  There's been some night sweats but that's it as far as fever and since I've had them before, I doubt they are related to this illness.  My cheeks are a bright red and according to others I look sick (nice complement) and the best compliment ever is I look pasty.

I am taking a tremendous amount of dietary supplements so now we wait and wait for this blasted illness to break..................