Shopping For A Yacht . . . NOT! November 30, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Sustainable Living, Travel & Leisure.comments closed
A few weeks ago, we went to a Big Boat Show in Sarasota. Not a big show of small boats . . . a small show of big boats.
Think the Big Red Boat!
We didn’t have much fun. The show wasn’t visitor friendly for folks “just looking.”
And it was far too hot for us to drum up the enthusiasm necessary to pretend to be interested in buying a $660K yacht.
So we left and went to the old Sarasota Convention Center where we enjoyed touring twenty or so Land Yachts in air-conditioned comfort.
Although it’s amazing to see how they fit all the comforts of home into a home on wheels, we’re not in the market to buy a “home away from home” right now:
* We don’t want to travel with Tigger or leave him home with a pet sitter.
* Gas is too expensive for RVs & boats that get 10 miles to the gallon or less.
* Wherever you go, there you are ~ we already live where we want to be.
Oh, right. The fact that we don’t have surplus $$$’s burning a hole in our pockets also factors into our decision to NOT yacht shop.
Aah . . . that’s better!
What about you? Do you long to hit the open road in a home on wheels? Or weigh anchor out of the nearest port?
What about living out of a backpack to tour the world as a wayfarer? (Or does the thought of tent camping suffice to quell any wanderlust?)
Get Rich Quick November 29, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Joke.comments closed

Gamblers in the Ship of Fools, 1494
Someone once mentioned that her dreams would come true only if she won the lottery.
Since gamblers never prosper, I tossed out some FREE advice:
“Instead of pinning all your hopes on winning the lottery, why not invest in some well-timed life insurance policies on people (not you) who are approaching death’s door?”
OMG. I did NOT say that out loud.
Yes, you did.
I did? Oops, my bad.

The Cardsharps, c. 1594
Quick with a comeback, she countered that she planned to marry money.
Old money.
Well, not “old money” exactly.
Someone OLD with money.
And no heirs!
Aah . . . that’s better!
Black Humor + Black Friday = Perfect Together!
Just Dessert November 28, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Poetry.comments closed
A long-time friend of my mom’s, Carolyn Moreau, enjoyed writing poetry ~ both thought provoking and humorous.
In 1970, she wrote this poem which seems perfect to share for Thanksgiving.
Just Dessert
Pumpkins make me think in meter
About Peter Pumpkin Eater
What kind of spouse was he?
He sounds imperious to me!
And what of Mrs. Peter P?
Was she so happy in that shell?
Or was her life a living hell?
Maybe she longed to ride the roads
To look at other folks’ abodes
Or did she dream of shopping malls?
I bet she could have climbed the walls!
And I wonder if it could be
That once there came a day when she
Made him a luscious pumpkin pie
Then let him have it in the eye!
Aah . . . that’s better!
No pumpkins were harmed in the making of this post.
Related posts: But I Don’t WANNA Be An Onion * Apologies To Mother Goose
Taking A Holiday November 27, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Exercise & Fitness, Food & Drink, Health & Wellness.comments closed
What we eat is important to health and wellness . . . but so is flexibility.
Being too rigid adds to our stress levels and creates feelings of deprivation ~ both of which can negate the benefits of healthy eating.
When we view food choices as “all or nothing,” we’re afraid to slip up. And, if we do, that momentary indulgence can result in an all-out binge. Instead of enjoying a single cookie or savoring a piece of chocolate, we inhale boxes and bags of sweet and savory treats.
By swapping our “all or nothing” mentality for a 90/10 rule, we can enjoy mini-indulgences without telling ourselves that we’ve “blown it!”
What we do MOST of the time matters more than the occasional Holiday.
Here . . . have a cookie!
Aah . . . that’s better!
What’s In YOUR Piggy Bank? November 26, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Gratitude, Happiness, Mindfulness.comments closed
Mr. Jones, a 92-year-old man, decided to move to a nursing home when his wife of 70 years passed away. After hours of waiting on the morning of the move, he smiled when told his room was ready.
As he maneuvered his wheelchair to the elevator, the aide described his room, including the view from his window.
With the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy, he exclaimed, “I love it!”
“How can you say that . . . you haven’t even seen the room yet.”
“I don’t have to see it to know I’ll love it. Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged . . . it’s how I arrange my mind.”
Intrigued, the aide urged him to go on.
“Every morning when I wake up, I have a choice ~ I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with various body parts, or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the gift of this day.”
“That’s inspiring! Especially considering you’re legally blind and confined to a wheelchair.”
“A long time ago, my grandfather taught me that old age is like a bank account of memories ~ we withdraw from what we’ve put in. As long as my eyes continue to open each morning, I’ll focus on the gift of a new day and enjoy all the happy memories I’ve stored away for this time in my life.”
As they reached his room, Mr. Jones touched the aide on the arm and said, “I’ve learned five simple rules that have increased my happiness. Would you like to hear them?”
“Absolutely!”
Mr Jones beamed at the aide’s enthusiasm before reciting these 5 simple rules:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.
As the aide turned to leave, Mr. Jones said, “Thank you for your part in filling my Memory Bank. I am still making regular deposits.”
Aah . . . that’s better!
Source: e-mail from unknown author (sent by Joe M.)
What A Miracle! November 25, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Magick & Mystery, Nature, People.comments closed
The Human Body is a treasure trove of mysteries, one that still confounds doctors and scientists about how it works.
It’s not an overstatement to say that every part of your body is a miracle.
The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm. The egg is actually the only cell in the body that is visible by the naked eye.
Every human spent about half an hour after being conceived, as a single cell. Shortly afterward, the cells begin rapidly dividing and begin forming the components of a tiny embryo.
Three hundred million cells die in the human body every minute.
It’s possible to survive without large fractions of your internal organs. Even if you lose your stomach, your spleen, 75% of your liver, 80% of your intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from your pelvic and groin area, you wouldn’t be very healthy, but you would live.
In like vein, a human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it has been decapitated.
The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue and the hardest bone is the jawbone.
The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades. The reason it doesn’t eat away at your stomach is that stomach wall cells renew themselves so frequently that you get a new stomach lining ever three to four days.
The human lungs contain approximately 2,400 kilometers (1,500 mi) of airways and 300 to 500 million hollow cavities, having a total surface area of about 70 square meters, roughly the same area as one side of a tennis court. Furthermore, if all of the capillaries that surround the lung cavities were unwound and laid end to end, they would extend for about 992 kilometers. Also, your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.
Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph, while coughs clock in at about 60 mph.
Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil. Your body has enough iron in it to make a nail 3 inches long.
Everyone has a unique smell, except for identical twins, who smell the same.
Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born. This is why one out of every 2,000 newborn infants has a tooth when they are born.
The tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself.
A baby’s head is one-quarter of its total length, but by the age of 25 will only be one-eighth of its total length. This is because people’s heads grow at a much slower rate than the rest of their bodies.
A human baby acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.
Like fingerprints, every individual has an unique tongue print that can be used for identification.
Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206. Some of the bones, like skull bones, get fused into each other, bringing down the total number.
Human feet have 52 bones, accounting for one quarter of all the human body’s bones. Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day.
Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing.
The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels.
Human lips have a reddish color because of the great concentration of tiny capillaries just below the skin.
There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee.
The life span of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. Every day the average person loses 60-100 strands of hair. But don’t worry, you must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone.
Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. This is true for men as well as women.
The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger.
The human brain can hold 5 times as much information as an encyclopedia. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream, and is itself made up of 80% water. Though it interprets pain signals from the rest of the body, the brain itself cannot feel pain.
The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb, even while you are sleeping. In fact, the brain is much more active at night than during the day.
Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons.
Humans can make do longer without food than sleep, provided there is water. The average human could survive a month to two months without food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived people, however, start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes after only a few sleepless days.
The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 11 days, at the end of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words, hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.
It is a fact that people who dream more often and more vividly, on an average have a higher Intelligence Quotient.
The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first trimester are frogs, worms and potted plants. Scientists have no idea why this is so, but attribute it to the imbalance of hormones in the body during pregnancy.
The colder the room you sleep in, the higher the chances are that you’ll have a bad dream.
By 60 years of age, 60% of men and 40% of women will snore.
We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening, because during normal activities during the day, the cartilage in our knees and other areas slowly compress.
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools. Actually, Saliva is more important than you realize. If your saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.
By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds.
Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents. If you are a woman, you are a better smeller than men, and will remain a better smeller throughout your life. You might also smell better.
About 32 million bacteria call every inch of your skin home. But don’t worry, a majority of these are harmless or even helpful bacteria.
Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears.
It takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 muscles to smile.
Aah . . . that’s better!
Source: e-mail from unknown author (sent by Granny1947).
Commotio Cordis November 24, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Health & Wellness, Life Balance, Nature, People.comments closed
Although the title of this post sounds like an incantation uttered by Harry Potter and his cohorts at Hogwarts, it’s not a magic spell.
Commotio Cordis is a rare, and usually fatal, heart condition caused by an abrupt blow to the heart during a specific window of time:
In a recent article in Live Science, the author, Douglas Main, explained:
Commotio cordis is caused by an abrupt blow to the heart, usually by something small like a baseball, that strikes at a very specific time, said Dr. Emile Daoud, professor of internal medicine at the Ohio State University Medical Center. It typically strikes kids who have less muscle and fat than adults to shield their hearts.
The condition results from a blow during the brief period of time after the heart contracts, when the organ is recharging itself. During this time — a span of a few milliseconds — one part of the heart has repolarized and is ready to fire, while the rest of the organ is not yet ready. If an abrupt, focused blow strikes during this time, it can cause part of the heart to fire, but not the rest of it, Daoud said.
“This throws everything into chaos,” Daoud told LiveScience. The heart goes into ventricular fibrillation, a name for the uncoordinated contraction of the ventricles (the lower chambers of the heart), and the patient usually dies from cardiac arrest.
To read the rest of the story: Young Woman Dies of Rare Heart Condition After Falling on Beach, Live Science.
Timing is everything.
If the woman in question had fallen a millisecond earlier or later, she would have been fine ~ her heart would have continued beating on its ordered rhythmic course.
Instead, her untimely fall on the beach transformed order to disorder in a heartbeat.
Talk about a tenuous thread between living and dying.
With all that can go wrong, it’s amazing how many of us are still walking and talking and laughing and singing and playing today . . . propelled by hearts kept chugging along by all manner of minor miracle behind the scenes.
Aah . . . that’s better!
A Celibate Marriage November 23, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Joke, People.comments closed
Celibacy can be a choice in life . . . or a condition imposed by circumstances.
At a Couples Retreat, the instructor in a workshop on communication stressed that couples should learn about things that are important to each other.
To illustrate what he meant, he asked the men, “Can you name and describe your partner’s favorite flower?”
Frank leaned over, touched his wife Mildred’s arm and whispered, “Gold Medal-All-Purpose, isn’t it?”
Thus began Frank’s life of celibacy . . .
Aah . . . that’s better!
Source: e-mail from an unknown author (sent by Joe M.)
Rapunzel, Rapunzel . . . November 22, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Health & Wellness, Life Balance, Mindfulness, People.comments closed
Asha Mandela’s hair no longer has a monitored category in the Guinness Book of World Records ~ on December 10, 2010, the Guinness Book of World Records rested its “longest dreadlocks” category after investigation of its first and only female title holder, Asha Mandela:
“Following a review of our guidelines for the longest dreadlock, we have taken expert advice and made the decision to rest this category. [I]t is difficult, and in many cases impossible, to measure the authenticity of the locks due to expert methods employed in the attachment of hair extensions/re-attachment of broken off dreadlocks. [T]he dreadlock can become an extension and therefore impossible to adjudicate accurately. [F]or this reason Guinness World Records has decided to rest the category and will no longer be monitoring the category for longest dreadlock.”
World Record or not, Asha’s dreadlocks are a massive endeavor, measuring more than 25 feet long and weighing 39 pounds. Washing her hair takes a long time. Drying it takes even longer ~ as long as two days.
Over the years, her hair has taken on a life of its own.
IT has its own seat in the car. She cuddles with IT, uses IT as a pillow, and talks to IT. She packs IT into a fanny pack to toot around town . . . or has friends and family carry IT for her.
And IT has a name to go with its claim to fame ~ Asha calls IT, “Mr. Cooper.”
“He’s my baby.” “I love him.” “I’m happy to have him in my life.” “It’s like I’ve given birth to a child who will never leave home.”
Now “Mr. Cooper” may be threatening her life.
After surgery for colon cancer, Asha refused chemo because she didn’t want to lose her hair. “The Doctors” had her on the show and offered to find her a doctor who would work with her so she could follow up on the colon cancer without sacrificing her hair. Asha appeared dubious, at best.
Imagine being held a prisoner . . . by your own LOCKS.
Aah . . . that’s better!
What are your thoughts on this story?
Artwork: Wikipedia ~ Rapunzel (in the Public Domain)
A Cracked Pot Parable November 21, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Life Balance, Mindfulness.comments closed
An elderly Chinese woman had two pots, hung on opposite ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the walk from the spring to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”
The old woman smiled, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day while we walk back, you water them.”
“For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”
Each of us has unique flaws and cracks.
These flaws make our lives together more interesting and rewarding when we remember to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
So, to all of my cracked pot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!
Aah . . . that’s better!
Source: e-mail from an unknown author (sent by Joe M.)