Usually, Ithaca is the Winter wonderland in my life and I come home to England for my annual dose of rain and dreariness. This year, we’ve been lucky (??) enough to get some lovely snow, about three inches or so, with the promise of more to come. Perhaps this year we may even get a white christmas. I’m certainly dreaming of one. As long as it disappears by the time I want to fly back home!
Since I was about 8 years old, I have longed for a punch bag. I even had a dream of boxing for Britain at the Olympics, until my Dad pointed out that women’s boxing wasn’t an Olympic sport. Undeterred, I yearned for my bag for many years, but unfortunately for me (and fortunately for my parents) we had nowhere to hang a punch bag in our house. Fast forward 22 (!!) years, and now I have my own house, with extensive garage, I decided to treat myself to my hearts desire. Luckily, I had a friend who donated a bag for my use. Even more luckily, I had another friend Ian, who helped me (read- did all the work) to put it up. And here she be.
A beauty, I’m sure you’ll agree. Ian even erected an elaborate pulley system to raise and lower the bag, or to swing it out of the way when I’m not using it.
I just need to buy myself some gloves, and I have the ones I want all picked out…
Very “me”, don’t you think?!?! I can’t wait to get them so I can get started on the bag!
This week I had a welcome house guest (technically he’s my second house guest, but the first one is kind of a staple now-Ed!). He came in the form of 8 month old Randolph, a golden retriever/lab mix puppy I am sitting for one of the girls at Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Don’t let the puppy dog eyes fool you, he’s not so innocent! Actually, he’s adorable. I perhaps wasn’t thinking that at 3 am when he was howling. Nor at 5am either. But he is pretty damn cute. I had him for two days this week, and I’ll have him back for a few days again next week. He has taught me what a huge task raising a seeing eye pup will be, but I’m actually excited by it. We’ll see if I’m still saying that after another few sleepless nights next week!
This weekend saw my first EVER game of beer pong. Well…more correctly margarita pong. Well…actually for me it was mostly water pong, as I was driving. For those of you (mostly across the pond) that have never heard of this, here’s a little soundbite. Beer pong is mostly played by university students, too young to go out and drink legally, at parties and such. It involves a large table, some plastic cups, a few ping pong balls and of course, beer. The table is set up with cups of beer at either end, arranged in a pyramid. The idea is that your opponent tries to throw a ping pong ball into one of your cups, thus forcing you to drink the contents of said cup. The game continues until all the cups have gone on the opponents side, making you the winner. Being Prissy girls, Patty and I played with Margarita instead of beer (which guys, is actually harder, because the alcohol content is higher in maragrita…). Here’s Patty setting up our first game.
It seems both of the girls have a strange aptitude for beer(margarita) pong, and we kicked the arses of all the boys present, trouncing them and winning both our matches. I have to mention Patty taking one(several) for our team, and drinking many of my penalty drinks. This sporting conquest was followed by more success, as we followed our win by watching the Cornell (ice) hockey team win convincingly against Princeton. I have become quite the fan of hockey since moving here, and anyone who has watched a Cornell game will know why. It’s so fast and skillful, it’s definitely a sport that watching on TV does not do justice. Thanks to John for the tickets. All in all, a great sporting weekend!
I came across a placenta-based hair product in a local drug store. It got me to thinking a) Eeew b) where do they get these placentas from and c) what the hell else do people use placentas for? I never found out where this company got its placentas, however I did do a little “placenta research”, unlike that conducted down the hall from my lab, and discovered some very weird things people do with the body’s only “disposable organ”. Here are just a soupcon (a top 5) of the possibilities for this, honestly quite disgusting, organ.
Getting that lustrous hair you always dreamed of: Here is the aforementioned hair product. There’s no gimicky advertising, it just is exactly what it says on the packaging. Henna and Placenta hair conditioner. Bleck. On the back of the packet is written (and this is not verbatum, I have added a few comments of my own here): “Henna “N” Placenta. An extra-rich formula combining two of nature’s most complete hair conditioners…natural henna and natural placenta. Together for the first time [sounds almost like Elton and George Michael in concert?!] to quickly repair and strengthen dry, brittle, lifeless hair. And will not change hair color [if it did, what colour would it become, I wonder? Burned siHenna? Placenta plum?]. The result is ravishingly beautiful hair with manageability you never though possible [And no friends because your hair now smells like rancid uterine parts].”
Afterbirth: It’s what’s for dinner: A surprising number of new mothers (and sometimes their spouses, and even nearest and dearest) chow down on placenta following the birth of their little bundle of joy. From one particular website…”There are even meal like recipes for cooking placentas, including placenta stew, placenta lasagna, power drinks with blended placenta and others. [And] some mothers have been reported to eat placenta raw.” Now, I would have a hard time with cooking a placenta, even if it was in stew, lasagna, or some other meal I actually like when it’s not made with human offal, but eating one raw?!?! I can only imagine it has the culinary texture and taste of a silicone implant dipped in bone marrow.
Medicinal purposes: On a related culinary note, I found a fantastic article online, which I think I have read in a magazine somewhere too, about one man’s journey through his wife using their placenta to make tablets, which are supposed to have health benefits to new mothers. Here’s a little excerpt…
“There is so much you can’t know about your spouse when you get married, like that one day she will want to eat her placenta. But there are two things you don’t argue about with a pregnant woman: what she eats and that being full of life indeed looks sexy. So when Cassandra told me that for $275, a woman would come to our house, cook Cassandra’s placenta, freeze-dry it and turn it into capsules to help ward off postpartum depression and increase milk supply, I said, “$275 is a bargain compared with the $20,000 I’ll have to spend to tear out our kitchen immediately afterward.”
It might sound gross (actually it DOES sound gross), but this phenomenon has a scientific and evolutionary basis. When I did a little research into “placentophagia” on PubMed, I discovered that many animals, including hamsters, rats, horses and cows, readily eat the placenta following birth of their offspring. It can induce natural opiate production in new mothers, and knocking out certain genes in rodents causes them to have impaired placentophagia, indicating this is a genetic trait. In case any of you want to try this with your own placentas (or placentae), here’s some guidelines:
“To dry a placenta you would simply dehydrate it in the oven, then using a mortar and pestle grind it up. From there you can mix it with food or ingest it within capsules.” I can only imagine what delicious smells are emitted when the cooking occurs.
In a related story last week, International football star Robin van Persie is going to undergo treatment on a leg injury using placental massage. This consists of having placental and amniotic fluid massaged into the injured area. Rather him than me.
Lotus Birth: Probably the most unappealing thing I found to do with your unwanted placental offal (and considering what has gone before- that’s pretty grim). “In some cultures it is commonplace to leave the baby attached to the placenta, rather than clamp the cord, until the cord dries up and falls off. This is called a Lotus birth and is not practiced often in the United States. The theories behind this are that it helps slow the new family down and offers them more seclusion in the first few days when a getting to know you period is in order.” I’ll say! Having a great massive placenta swinging from between the baby’s legs is probably bound to slow them down. What if Grandma wants to hold the said newborn? Do they have a baby grow to fit the placenta in? How do they fit into the car seat?!?
Placenta Art: Last, but not least, and possibly my favourite and the most creative use for the placenta. PLACENTA ART! As far as I can gather, once it shoots out, the mother (or father I guess, if she’s busy you know, recovering), slaps the placenta onto some paper to record its creative juices (ick) immediately. The blood and amniotic fluid form a pattern (“art”) on the paper, and Bob’s your uncle. The less impatient parents might wait and cover the placenta in paint at a later date, and then drop that onto paper. I guess this is so they can add a “multi-coloured” dimension to the print? Brings a whole new meaning to child’s first painting, eh?
Anyway, all this writing has made me hungry. I’m off to share recipes with my pregnant friends.
Saturday night saw the reintroduction of our famous “girls night”. The more observant among you might have spotted a boy or two infiltrating our night. That’s Nick and Paul, given special dispensation to come to girls night, provided they behave themselves, play our games and drive our drunk asses home at the end of the night. We all chipped in with food and beverages, Eva’s FAMOUS mac and cheese was on the menu, and we even managed a mojito or two. Paula was hostess with the mostess- Thanks P! Great night girls (and boys), we should rinse and repeat.
The auditoruim was dark. The instruments on stage, ready to be played. A tall, skinny guy steps up to the mic. He’s strange looking; pigeon-toed, awkward, goofy and with wild hair. The lights go up ever so slightly. He begins to sing. I’m expecting a cross between Kermit from the Muppets and Chunk from the Goonies. Instead, I am staggered by the gravelly, yet harmonious, voice that escapes the permenantly downturned mouth. Before this week, the only thing I knew about Lyle Lovett was that he was once married to Julia Roberts, and he sings music vaguely in the realm of country (definitely not on my top 5 list of genres to listen to). I have never (knowingly) listened to his music, nor seen him speak on TV. The only pictures I have seen were years ago, during his aforementioned marriage. My good friend Amy had some spare tickets to his show last night in Ithaca, one of which she offered to me. “What the heck?” I thought, and tagged along with her, Patty and John. I must say, I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the show. Not only is he a marvelous singer, but he interjects the music with some comedy; witty remarks and anecdotes. The songs are some of the most haunting and original music I have heard, without being too “country”. Some titles include “She’s no lady (She’s my wife)”, “Choke my chicken”, “Penguins” (apparently they are “so sensitive to my needs”), “Fat babies have no pride” and “Keep it in your pantry”. I did laugh out loud at some of the lyrics and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The set lasted a mammoth 2 and a half hours, which is great value for fans.
Excuse the bad picture, it was taken with my mobile phone in the dark! Check out Lyle, if you fancy listening to some truly alternative music! And huge thanks to Amy for including me!
The bridge over the Firth of Forth in Scotland is over eight thousand feet in length, and in England a never ending task is known colloquially as “painting the Forth bridge”, due to the urban legend that as soon as maintenance crews finished painting the bridge, they would immediately start again. Well, painting my house kind of feels the same! The night before I moved in I painted the majority of my bedroom, but a recent re-think on furniture placement forced me to complete my paint job over the weekend. However, the results of both furniture placement and paint colours, are very pleasing. Here’s what my room looked like when I moved in. A delightful shade of tangerine. Niiiice.
And here’s what it looks like after (several) licks of paint and a bit of TLC!
Massive thanks to all those who have helped me! Now I just need to put my mirror up on the wall (Davey?!?!) and I’ll be all set!
While my good friends Billy and Joe are out of town in San Diego, I am watching their little dog, Olivia. Imagine the cutest, most well behaved puppy, and that’s what I’m dogsitting for! Here she is cozied up inside her blankets. Believe me, she is a lot happier than she looks 
I tend to think that adjectives such as “awesome”, “stunning” and “amazing” can be over used in every day conversation. Are burger king fries really “Awesome”? The dictionary definitions of awesome are as follows:
1. inspiring awe: an awesome sight
2. showing or characterized by awe
3. Slang. very impressive: That new white convertible is totally awesome
Even the colloquial slang term insinuates that the subject of the sentence is in fact mildly wonderous, not just the norm. I myself have been known to incorrectly use this terminology from time to time, so let me set the record straight, and tell you about something that I feel is TRULY awesome.
Many of you may be familiar with Eddie Izzard, a transvestite and comedian from the UK, who has recently dipped his toe in the acting waters. He’s a normal looking bloke (sans make up) and to look at him, you would think nothing out of the ordinary.
When I was in the UK recently, I happened to find myself on the tube with nothing to read and therefore picked up a stray free newspaper someone had left behind. Hidden away on page 12 or something was a story that made my eyes pop. Slightly chubby transvestitie Izzard had just completed 43 marathons in 51 days. Yes you read that correctly. That’s a marathon every 1.18 days. For seven weeks. Here’s the route he took around the UK and him finishing the last marathon.
That’s 1,105.6 miles in total. That’s like running from here to Nebraska. All along the way getting blisters the size of dinner plates, losing toenails, improving his time from 10 hours per marathon at the start of the journey to around five by the end of it and raising over 200,000 pounds (around $370,000) for charity. Now that, my friends, is AWESOME!
