Saturday, November 5, 2011

Father Leaves Screaming Kids in Hot Car - Threatens Rescuer

This news article has left me stunned and, I am not ashamed to say, weeping for these poor children.
When you leave a child or an animal in a blazing hot car the temperature quickly rises to fatal levels, and the occupant suffers heatstroke, which can lead to death within a very short time:

  • Average elapsed time and temperature rise
    • 10 minutes ~ 19 deg F
    • 20 minutes ~ 29 deg F
    • 30 minutes ~ 34 deg F
    • 60 minutes ~ 43 deg F
    • 1 to 2 hours ~ 45-50 deg F

  • “Cracking” the windows had little effect
  • Vehicle interior color probably biggest factor
  • "Parents and other caregivers need to be educated that a vehicle is not a babysitter or play area ... but it can easily become tragedy"


  • Heatstroke occurs when a person's temperature exceeds 104 degrees F and their thermoregulatory mechanism is  overwhelmed
    -  Symptoms include :  dizziness, disorientation, agitation, confusion, sluggishness, seizure, hot dry skin that is flushed but not sweaty, loss of consciousness, rapid heart beat, hallucinations
  • A core body temperature of 107 degrees F is considered lethal as cells are damaged and internal organs shut down 
  • Children's thermoregulatory systems are not as efficient as an adult's and their body temperatures warm at a rate 3 to 5 times faster than an adults.
The whole news article is here 

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/carlisle-dad-left-screaming-kids-in-hot-car-then-threatened-rescuer-1.894507?referrerPath=home

A man left two children, one of them naked, in a car in a Carlisle shop car park, in searing heat.  The man's partner had gone in to do the shopping, and had left him with the children.  He decided to go and help his partner and left the tiny children alone in the frightful heat, in an unlocked car, with the windows down only slightly.

A woman shopper saw the doors were unlocked, so she was able to get the children out 

As she opened the car door, she said, she was met by a searing heat from inside the car and a “terrible stench”.
She assumed the children needed a nappy change.
One of the children had no clothes on, she said.
Another shopper took details of the car and went into the shop and asked for a Tannoy announcement to ask the owner to come back to the car. Eventually the dad came back, by which time the children were very distressed.


When the children's father came back to the car he was abusive and aggressive to the rescuers, 
 
yelling at the women: “What’s it got to do with you?” He became aggressive towards one witness, taking her photo and saying he would get his mother-in-law to “smash her face”, and that her family would not recognise her.

What a hero eh?  Would get his mother-in-law to smash her face?  What sort of man is this we are hearing about? 
 
The woman who rescued the children was understandably shaken and alarmed.  A worker from the store, who was on her break, said the inside of her car "was so hot that she had to open all the windows and the sun roof to make it bearable".

This vile man, who tried to worm out of being sentenced by saying he only expected to be gone a little while and that the car was parked in the shade (?) obviously didn't even consider how frightened the little children would be to be left on their own, let alone in searing heat.
 
The thing that really really gets my ire up is that he has received a  suspended sentence.  Good job he wasn't in Australia, he would have gone straight to gaol, no messing.  The idiot on the bench -
 
Joe Rowe, chairman of the bench, told the defendant his treatment of the Good Samaritans was “disgusting”.
The bench imposed 20 weeks in jail but suspended it for 18 after deciding that jail would punish children who would be left without a father.
He must also take a Probation Service thinking skills course, do 150-hours of unpaid work in the community and pay costs of £85.


I don't know about anyone else, but in my opinion these children would be better off without a father like this.  

Friday, November 4, 2011

Sound and Fury and My Shame

I am ashamed of myself, truly absolutely ashamed.  It seems that my capacity for acceptance and patience has done a nosedive, and for months now my main emotion has been anger.  The only difference to the way I am feeling is that the anger either smoulders or erupts into fury.  It must be time to sit and contemplate my navel (if I could find it) for a while, and to search for the calm. 

 The greatest difficulty facing me is how to rein in the anger, to turn it around or turn it off.  Look, I understand why it has me in its grip, but that isn't helping me in the slightest.  It all started quite a while back when I became convinced that my husband was in the early stages of Alzheimers.  At that point I began an even stronger campaign to get him to think, and to use his brain instead of just vegetating in front of the television.  The latest crosswords were bought in magazine form, and I introduced him to Sudoku.  Believe me, he got such a shock because he blithely dismissed Sudoku (he is/was brilliant at maths), but when he tried to do a game he became amazingly unstuck.

That worked for a while, and then I think became boring, as did the crosswords.   You could actually see him improving as he exercised his brain.  And I am not kidding, the improvement was marked.  I bought him  a big jigsaw as he likes to do them - it is still in the box over twelve months later.  He just seemed to come to the point where he didn't want to bother.

It is unbelievably difficult to accept that the person you have known for 30+ years has changed to such a degree. So hard to accept that this isn't the man I married.   I pushed and pushed to get him to think, to even take on some of the responsibility for paying bills and managing the money etc.  He wasn't interested and would infuriate me by acting as though he was a feeble old man.   Yeah, yeah, I know he is 76 but he has never been feeble and never acted like an old man until now.  At the same time he will come across all "macho"  about things, and say totally stupid things about, for example, Sid Vicious.  He said he "should go around there" and that if he did Sid Vicious "would never know what hit him".    God, it just makes me shake my head.  This is the man that now weighs only 50 kilos (or thereabouts) which is not quite 8 stone, or 110 pounds.  I doubt whether he could take on a bandicoot and winSad smile 



His downhill slide, which is accelerating, and his severe deafness means that we don't communicate properly any more.  And whatever we do talk about he forgets faster than you can snap your fingers.  It makes him uncertain and I am sure he is afraid but won't admit it.   It also makes us both very lonely, even though we live together still.  All of this makes me rage inside as well, because I  firmly believe that most of his mental problems were so very preventable. If you use it, you don't lose it.........

Now the anger is compounded by my own illness, and that fact that I brought it on myself.  So there is anger upon anger upon anger.  Sometimes I feel I am going to fly into pieces with the fury inside me.  It is like a huge bubbling, seething, boiling sludge.  The hardest aspect of this is that whenever my poor daughter visits us I feel I can let go a little  and the result is that I tend to fly off the handle at him and generally speak to him in a nasty fashion.  Lately my poor daughter is less of a daughter and more of a referee and mediator, as well as someone we increasingly depend upon for most things in our daily lives.  This makes me angry as well.  She shouldn't have to be in this situation.  She is fine with it, but I am NOT. 




There is a book I am reading, trying to get a grip on all this.  It is called "Change Your Thinking", by Sarah Edelman PhD. The awful part of it all is that no matter how much I follow her help for anger management, I remain angry.   I honestly believe that this is more than a small part of the digestive problems I am experiencing.   If I internalise everything 90% of the time it has to made acid inside me, surely?


This is my current battle.  To accept the things I cannot change.   Gracefully or not.   To move forward instead of anchoring myself in the puddle of my own self-indulgence.  I can see it being one of the biggest battles of my life.
 

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Joys of Wearing Glasses


That magic moment when you put them down and then can't see to find them

The amazing feeling of being lost in a cloud when the iron steams up your glasses and you can't see a thing

The wonderful heart starter of leaning forward and hearing your lenses crash onto the floor

That wonderful swoop in your stomach when you have new glasses and step off the kerb ...

The attractive bump each side of the bridge of your nose, why, it even makes you look like a film star..

The attractive dents behind your ears from the legs, and the cute little red patches either side of your bumpy hooter


The thrill of going to look through a window and bashing your face on the glass... oh! it was closer than you thought!

Then there is the surprise you get when you go to the hairdressers and can't see what they are doing - until they have finished and you put your glasses on again. hmm

Oh, not to forget the zip you get when you come out of the air conditioning into the humid air and your glasses fog up - when you are right in the middle of the pedestrian crossing...

The heart in mouth surge you get when you accidentally sit on them

The tropical holiday feeling you get when they slide off your face because you are sweating like a navvy....
Oh the joy of wearing glasses!

Why Older People Judge Young Mothers

I should write this first paragraph as a disclaimer! Before you read on, please remember these are thoughts I have about why other people react as they do when they see a very young mother.  They are my thoughts about what other people seem to think!   If you know me then you know I don't judge, and that I try to take each of you as you are, and respect you, your circumstances and your life.  O.K.? Good!  Now you can read what I have been thinking!


I admit that when it was first brought to my attention about how many older people react when they see a young mother, it mystified me.  All I could think was "why would an older person frown upon a young mother?"    So the thinking cap went on, as usual, and after literally months of pondering on the subject I came to some conclusions.

 
The first thing I can think of is the attitude of many  people toward those whom they "believe" are on some sort of government assistance.  I don't know about U.K. or USA etc., but Aussies have an expression "dole bludger"  which is used to refer to someone who doesn't work, but relies entirely on "the dole"  - which is unemployment benefit.  The expression really tends to sum up the attitude toward people who are seen as not wanting to work, and who are happy to just get by on some sort of benefit, whether it be unemployment or "supporting mothers" or any other "handout". 


So, with this attitude firmly ingrained in them, there will be many who will take one look at a young mum and automatically assume that she must be 1) unmarried  2) living on benefits  3) unable to financially support a child, and 4) a single mother.    In other words they instantly make a judgement call. If the mum meets any of the criteria, she must be, quite simply, a "bad" person.  After all, this is a young mum, and she "got pregnant"  didn't she?


My second belief about scornful attitudes towards young mothers is that there are many older people who were raised with rigid attitudes towards sex.  Obviously, if you are young and have a baby, you must have been having sex!   And if you appear to be very young (as many do!) then it is just totally disgusting that you have been bouncing around naked with your boyfriend.  To make it even worse, you obviously didn't use birth control!  They make another judgement call.   Are you with me so far?  Rigidity of attitudes, upbringing, and beliefs up to this point, o.k.?


Thought number three is that the majority of older folk (women in particular), will firmly believe that if you are young then you are not capable of caring properly for a child - after all, you are not long out of childhood yourself, so how can you possibly act responsibly toward a baby, or babies?  It is all so very judgmental, isn't it?  


Next thought, number four, is that all young people, without exception, are not only irresponsible, but also quite brainless, and without doubt most are lazy and careless as well.   This may come from their own experience with their own children, and if so then who was the parent to those children?  They make a judgement based on their own poor parenting skills, methinks.


Me?  My belief and often my worry, is that girls who have babies in their early or even mid-teens must, of necessity, miss out on so much of their youth through having a family to care for.  That just seems a shame to me!  At the same time, I seem to be seeing a swing towards women having their families much younger - which in many ways, such as mother's health during pregnancy, is probably for the better.  Not too many years ago, probably after the "women's liberation"  era, women were delaying having their babies until they were much older.


As a final note, something that intrigues me is that we don't hear much about people's attitudes toward young fathers?  After all, they must have been there at the time of conception, surely?   The only judgement I have made was toward a young father!  If I hadn't been ill at the time he would have received an earful from me - he was blowing cigarette smoke into his tiny tiny daughter's face, and saying (full of bravado for his mates)  "you wanna smoke? eh?  you wanna smoke?" - my judgement was "YOU STUPID STUPID BOY".....   My daughter remarked to me, when I told her of the incident, "Mum you should have had a quiet word with the baby's mother!".............. 


   

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

My Audience is Amazing

I guess I am not the best at the bloggy stuff!  A lot of it is a complete mystery to me really, and every time I think I have cracked it, blogger comes up with something new that totally confounds me.  What I have just found, in amongst all the complexities of design, layout, template and the rest, is a little thing called Stats.  Poking around in the gizzards of that I found that I have an amazing audience, which blogger gives as follows, which is country and number of blog views:

United States  111
United Kingdom  47
Australia  42
Canada  14
India  5
South Africa  5
France  3
Philippines  3
Portugal  3
Belgium  2 

This is astonishing to me as I have no idea who all these people are!  Just praying they have actually read a blog here and there, and liked it.  It is quite lonely thinking you are sitting here talking to yourself!
Thank you to whoever you all are, I so appreciate the fact that somebody stopped by for a visit!

Some Random Guy's Penis Just Doesn't Thrill Me

Never have I been thought of as being a prude, the opposite in fact - and I have always had a horribly dirty mind!  Not a lot about sex worries me or shocks me, probably because there is nothing new under the sun! 
What happened last night changed my views about myself, and now I am floundering a bit - all because of nude photos of some random men and their supposedly wonderful penises.  Now I really don't know what I think..

Now I blame Google for this entirely, and there is no way they are getting out of this one.  Searching on Google Images for pictures for my hair blog, I entered the search term "hairy legs".   Fine, there should be no problem with that, should there?  How wrong can you be?  Usually images come up on a search that have zero to do with what you are looking for, but it is easy to just skim past them and ignore.  Not so the hairy legs search.


The first few images were fine, men with hairy legs - nope, reject -  couple of women with hairy legs - reject because you can't really see the legs properly.  A few mega stars with hairy legs, nope. Man with hairy legs and his bag of fruit hanging down. EH? Wellll, ok I can see his hairy legs, but nope.  The photo actually made me feel ill.   I have no idea why - and I know that now Google is going to be swamped with women searching for "hairy legs", ha!   I decided the guy was a total exhibitionist and really not that nice looking anyway.   So on I went looking for my photos.

My God!  Another one?  Well Google, you have excelled yourselves this time - what on earth are these photos doing here amongst the hairy legs?  I don't get it at all.  The second photo merited a second look as well, because I am certain this bloke is either deformed or had a penis extension - like the one I am being offered by email every second day.  Now I'd like to see that!    This one is naked man with his brains in hand, about to orgasm any second. Back to the photo, take another look.  Reel back in total shock.  What in the hell has his hairy ass got to do with hairy legs?  And honestly?  He was kind of yuk looking too.  Another sick feeling.........


Forge ahead girl, get the photos, don't be sidetracked o.k.?    Forging ahead I came across a THIRD photo of a nude man with his untidy bits going dingle dangle, and there wasn't a lot there either.   I guess he has a nice smile though.  By this time I am bewildered, worried and not a little frightened, you know?  It is like I am being stalked by a pornographer, and it is definitely not good for my aging heart.

So, still no decent photo of a woman with hairy legs,  but yet another naked, penis flapping pic of a guy who looked as though his biggest fan was himself...... hmm.   Keep scrolling Carol, don't let it bother you.  Down another few inches (pardon the pun) and what do I find?  More of the same!


One guy on there, well I am sure he too had one of those extension things.  Babe, I tell you that if I had ever seen some of these men coming for me with those bits out in front I would have either laughed myself silly, or run for the hills.   Still haven't got a photo for my blog either.  Trouble is, it is starting to get really boring, ooops, unintended pun there.

I decided to go and search again today and am so maaad - the one decent looking bloke out of the whole lot doesn't appear on my new search.  The upshot of all this was that I decided to abandon a pic of hairy legs on the blog, and just go peeking around on some porno sites for some naked men! I'm kidding, honestly.  I just went and had a fruit yoghurt instead!
And no, there are NO pictures of the men on here, for obvious reasons - you don't want to frighten the chickens, do you? HA!



You Hairy Git!


I think Saphire is to blame for this blog!  One of those random thoughts that we usually let fly out of the other ear - why on earth do we have hair?  I mean, what in hell is the point of hair after all?  Yeah, ok you need hair if you live in a cold country - but I guess about half the population of the world lives in a hot climate anyway, so why haven't we evolved to the point where we don't grow hair?



We seem to be obsessed with the hairy stuff - just think about the baby who is born with lots of hair, and how excited and happy everyone is about the little tyke and his/her baby fluff!  No, BABY fluff, not bum fluff!  If baby is bald as the proverbial egg everyone waits impatiently for that hair to grow, and wonders what colour it will be,  if it will be straight or curly,  coarse or fine, thick or thin.   We cannot bear to take our kids for their first haircut! 


When we are growing and developing we can't wait for the body hair - chest hair, pubic hair, underarm hair, even rotten leg hair (see?  there I go with the leg hair).  Why have hairs on your legs when all we want to do in our culture is shave the flaming stuff off, or even worse, wax it off?  oww!  Not to even THINK about underarm hair. We seem to think we have struck the pot at the end of the rainbow when we finally grow body hair - and then try to come up with about a hundred ways to rid ourselves of it!  I don't even want to consider bikini waxing and the like, my eyes water and cross!  Eyebrows?  We have to wax, tweeze, or have some sadistic woman yank it out with sewing threads while we shriek and moan.



And men?  They generally shave their faces, and often have their chest and back waxed (it is the fashion!), which must be excruciating to say the least.  I have only tried waxing once, at home, and didn't take off one single hair.  I had wax strips everywhere but in the right place, even stuck to my ear - and when i did pull a strip off I almost left the planet in shock!  Guys, I don't know how you can do it.  I was about to say 'hats off to you' but thought better of it - after all, who knows what's under the hat?  If the facial hair isn't shaved guys can grow amazing beards and moustaches. 


Think of the awful awful things that can live in hair as well - we have lice (yuk), fleas (yep, I kid you not), crabs (as in pubic hair) - and that's just a start!  The cure is often worse than the bug as well!  There is cradlecap, and dandruff and plain old dry scalp, as well as things like sebaceous cysts and dermatitis.
  • Dermatitis
  • Dandruff
  • Pruritus
  • Pityriasis
  • Seborrhea
  • Folliculitis
  • Psoriasis
  • Lichen simplex
It really doesn't sound like a song, does it?  What do people do with the hair on top of their head?  We torture it, and ourselves!  It is cut, and shaved, and razored, and dyed, spiked, gelled, teased (well maybe not so much nowadays), permanently curled or straightened, braided, dreadlocked, bleached and goodness knows how many other things.   Somehow head hair seems to remain on top of the fashion stakes, and at the head of the attraction stakes throughout history.  All puns intended, by the way!  Many men shave their heads as well - and isn't it strange how sexy most of them look with no hair?


What happens when we age, as far as hair is concerned?  It all goes ass backward - even women find their hair thinning, and some go bald.  The leg hair, the pubic and the underarm hair tend to disappear, BUT the stupid facial hair grows longer and often darker, to the point where women can grow a mustache.  What do we do with it?  We shave it, wax it, tweeze it, bleach it...........  seems we could sure do without it!


I am no good at mathematics, but would surely love to know how much each of us, both men and women, will spend throughout a lifetime on just getting keeping hair clean, fashionable or under control!

And just for fun?  Here are some hairy mary from the dairy type pics, which I hope you enjoy!