Sunday, January 29, 2006

Just one more reason to like Denmark

I read this in News Of The Weird today and wanted to share it with everyone.
I have loved Denmark since I went there in 1989 to visit my friend,Charlotte and this article just gives me one more reason to applaud their society.


Denmark's government ruled in 2001 that institutionalized citizens have the right to have sex and that caregivers must even take them to visit prostitutes. (Prostitution is legal in Denmark.) According to a January dispatch from Aarhus, Denmark, in London's Observer, Mr. Torben Vegener Hansen, 59, who has cerebral palsy and lives at home on government assistance, is challenging the government also to pay for prostitutes to make house calls, claiming that he is unable to have sex manually because of his illness and must be accorded this "human right" by a service similar to the government's meals-on-wheels program. [The Observer (London), 1-1-06]


I wonder how this would work in our country??

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Happy Birthday,Rich!!

Today is my dear husband's birthday.

Rich has a wonderful sense of humor even though I have to leave the room when he entertains our friends with politically incorrect impressions and jokes.

He is a great dad. He plays endless games of Monopoly and Sorry with Lillianna. (I personally hate board games!)

He rubs my back and my feet so that I can go to sleep.(I'm not as accommodating!)

He does the dishes after I have made a huge mess in the kitchen.

He is just an all around laid back,fun loving and wonderful man.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,RICH!!
I LOVE YOU.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

The family gratitude journal

You can read today's post over at Dotmoms.

If you start your own journal,please check back with me and let me know how you like it!

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Trying to keep a positive outlook

I met with Lynn,my diabetic counselor,yesterday. The last time I saw her was December 23rd so this was a follow up visit. She went over my latest blood test results and said everything looked good. All my numbers came down so she was pleased.
My cholesterol was in the 300's back in November. Now it's 130. (It was 3,000 when I was in the hospital.) That really was good news.

She was pleased with how much I have been exercising/walking and how well I have stayed on my eating plan. Just as I was about to pat myself on the back, she said my morning blood sugar was still too high and she was going to have me add an extra pill at night.

I felt deflated and my eyes filled with tears. She said,"Don't look at it as a set back. We just need to get your morning blood sugar lower." I sighed and said,"But I want to come off these pills soon,not add another pill at night." Lynn assured me that this was only temporary. I still felt like I had taken a giant step backwards.

I will keep exercising and eating properly and hope for the best. I will try not to be discouraged by this even though it does make me sad.

My dream house

It's not really a dream house,I guess,it's more like a dream neighborhood. I wish I could afford to build a complex,kind of like the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port,but not as expensive. What I want is rather simple.

I would like my immediate family and my closest friends to live in a complex all together. Why should I have to drive 30 minutes to see my mother or sister? I'd rather go next door to see them.

Actually,my friend Kristy and I were talking about this today on our one hour walk. We would love to buy a duplex and live side by side. She owns a big house which is killing her financially and we are still in an apartment with is depressing us. Who knows if such a thing would be affordable but it sure sounded good when we came up with this idea.

I loved living on a kibbutz in Israel when I was in my 20's. It was great. I often wish I could re-create that life here. If I don't hit the lottery,how can I make this wish come true?

Sunday, January 08, 2006

That Boston accent

In 1985,I was 22 years old and living in Israel. The first thing I did was to change the way I spoke. There were a few reasons for this.

#1)I spoke really fast...too fast actually for anyone who didn't speak English as their first language to understand me. In addition to the Israeli people that I lived with,I also lived with people from Denmark,Germany and Sweden. Even though my friends from England spoke English,they didn't understand my speedy babble of American English. I learned to speak slowly and so that I would be understood.

#2)As an American, born on the east coast,I had a lot of filler words that didn't make sense to other people. The word "like" was sprinkled like salt into almost every sentence. "So,like,I went to the mall and like it was so like crowded....."
If you don't live here,you'll wonder what the heck that was all about. For those that do live here,you are like probably just nodding your head and asking yourself,"So,like,what is the problem with that?"

The expression,"so's I goes" was translated as "so,I said." To "go" never meant to travel anywhere and this was very confusing in conversation. I eliminated that right off the bat.

#3) I learned to pronounced the letter "R" at the end of words and in the middle of words and to say the letter "T" instead of "D." This was no easy task but I put my mind to it.

Cah became car.
Pahk became park.
Sweddah became sweater.
Yahd became yard.
Padayda became potato.

With these changes,people began to understand me and a normal conversation did not require a translation.

When I came home two years later,my family was confused by my speech.My mom looked at me one day with a puzzled expression on her face and asked,"Why are you talking so slowly? Can't you speed it up?"
Over the years I have added some speed to my speech. I do slip up every now and then with pronunciation by swallowing my "R's" but I do my best to try to speak clearly.

That being said,the other morning I had to laugh as I listened to Rich talk to Lillianna as he packed her lunch for school.

"I packed you a peanut buddah and fluff sandwich,a bag of Smahtfood,a juice and a boddle of waddah."

What can you do? We're Bostonians after all!

What kind of accent do you have?

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Fix the old or buy new? Please vote

My computer is 5 years old. Over the past week,it has gone from slow to slowest. It takes 18 minutes just to get into my email. I am hooked up to cable so this should be lickety split quick not sloth slow.

My friend,Kristy,suggested calling her computer guy who fixed her hard drive and made her laptop speedy quick for $180. My sister said,spend $600 on a new computer.

To all you computer people,what do you suggest?