Was my spleen exploding? Or did I just eat too many seeds...

I'm sure that title is something you've likely pondered time and time again in your life, but if it isn't, let me just allow you in for the experience that I'm sure you have always wondered about, but seemed just a little out of touch.

A week or two ago I went on a nut and seed eating rampage.  I think I created more ways to get chia seeds into my body than should even be imagined, and then for good measure, I added in flax, hemp and who even knows what else.  Mmmm, taste the power of seeds.  Oh, I tasted them all right.  I put those suckers in peanut butter (because who doesn't want to do that!) with raw honey, in my kombucha, in shakes, heck, I probably just ate them like candy with the frenzied pace I was on.

Question: How long until I die?

Then, all of a sudden, I started experiencing some strange stabbing pains.  They would come infrequently at first (did I connect this with ridiculous volumes of seed eating?  No.  I just kept it up like a boss.), and then more frequently, with or without movement.  The pain was stabbing and took my breath away, under the rib cage, left side, left of heart.  I did what people usually do (or maybe it's just me), and looked up detailed anatomy diagrams to try to pinpoint what on earth in there was festering and exploding, and then, follow the natural thought progression, try to guess how many minutes left I had of life.

I was quite sure it was my spleen.  This is concerning because those little spleeny things in there seem important and my paternal grandmother died of acute pancreatitis at a very early age, and I am fairly certain that those two organs are bros, thus (logically) I was also likely on my way out.  Write up the will.  Tess gets the white and silver daisy tea cup from Lacko Slott.

Lacko Slott, sorry Swedes, I have no double dots for you.

 Bloody genetics!  

What's worse is that everyone is going to make fun of me for dying!  Right?  No, I know this doesn't make sense to you, but it really does.  Here's Ms. Daisy, all healthy, swimming every minute she can, doing organic triathlons, promoting organic tampons, drinking organic kombucha, eating all her organic bananas and rubbing organic chia seeds into her organic natural peanut butter with hemp and flax, and she dies before she's the ripe old age of 40.  See?  What good is eating that organic crap anyway, look how it worked out for the busted spleen lady!  I'm just going to sit here and suck down a bunch of Coke Zero and McDonald's and live until I'm at least twice her pathetic dead age.  Then they'll taunt my dead soul with, "YOU DIDN'T EVEN WIN AT MAKING IT TO 100."  

This will not be tolerated.  I will haunt you.

And then they'll do my makeup all horrible in my casket so I'll have to come back as a ghost and shut it so you can't look.  Do not even try.  I will spill your stupid Coke Zero so fast your head will spin.

Meanwhile, back on a different level of reality, I got to thinking that perhaps it had something to do with my ridiculously excessive consumption of every kind of nut and seed I could find in the house and maybe I should try just backing that bus up for a minute.  Huh, that's a novel idea.  I had to figure something out as people were starting to threaten me with the idea of actually going to the doctor (no).

The following day after my epiphany, I would say the frequency of my spleen explosions cut in half.  It decreased steadily after that and by the weekend, I forgot I even had a spleen.

Sigh of relief!  Who wants to think about those organs anyway!  Not me!  Back to the organic triathlons!

The moral of the story?  I am pretty sure there isn't one.  Wait, yes there is: Don't drink Coke Zero.

Peace, love, and bananas,
Ms. Daisy

Convictions and race car driving

I value speed.  Being able to do things quickly is important to me, whether it is running, swimming (I won), reading, thinking, or eating dinner, it doesn't matter - I love fast.  When I see people do things quickly (and right and well), I have a burst of joy and pride that aims in their direction.  

See how quickly my little genius is advancing through algebra?  Yay!  

Wow, look at how fast that guy is running.  Impressive!  

Did that guy just calculate a crazy multiplication problem in his head in like five seconds?  Yessss.  Awesome.  Oooh!

green stripe in hair is real

Conversely, the opposite of fast makes me feel...frustrated, impatient, and bonkers.  Is this lady purposely walking this slow in front of me to annoy me?  (And by walking, I mean waddling slowly like a drunk penguin.)  I am so glad she is taking up the entire aisle, too.  Wow.  I think she is!  I think she literally is thinking, "I am going to drive this girl nuts right now.  This is so funny.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha (evil sounding laughs, of course)!"  God, help me with patience - right now!  (Free irony.)

But no where else does it come down to rubber meets road in the speedy department like it does with driving (um, literally?).  I LOVE driving fast.  When I was in high school, I determined with my Dad that after I graduated, we would go down to Indiana and take a weekend course on how to become race car drivers (that was before Danica Patrick was on the scene).  My Dad was all over this, but unfortunately, after the cost of the insurance and other expenses, we decided it was a bit too pricey.  No problem!  I decided to drive my awesome 1994 red Ford Tempo as if it were a racecar anyway.  Awesome.  (I only got in one accident, in case you are currently tsk-tsking me.  Yes, I totaled a car, but that was because of flooded lanes and hydroplaning into walls, which obviously was not my fault.)  

fast and cute = win

Since everything in life is a race (clearly...I hope you haven't glossed over this in your own life), I have always enjoyed passing people on the expressway and getting new low times for getting to places (I reset a timer in my car to check if I can beat my old times) since it means I am winning.  (Do not ask, "Winning what?"  That is besides the point.  I am winning life.)  

Until about a week ago.  What a stupid day it was!  I was reading an article from someone I respect a great deal about obeying the law and not speeding and how if you are going to be obedient to God in everything that it also includes subjecting yourself to the (horrible) speed limit.  

WHY DID I KEEP READING?!

It was like, well, maybe if you obey God in even these menial bits of life, perhaps there will be other little blessings as a result - like perhaps maybe you will have less red lights, or have a shorter wait in line at Meijer.   Now I don't know about that, and I really don't want to obey God for the benefit of a possibly shorter line at the grocery store, but the whole driving the speed limit as a way to being obedient to God stuck in my head like an arrow to the heart.  

I have been trying to do so.  Let me tell you, it is SO HORRIBLE.  People are speeding past me on the expressway!  I feel like a dufis lame-o nooney head!  Oh, why can't the speed limit be 80 mph?!  Actually, no.  That's not even it.  I don't care what the speed limit is - I just want to be faster than EVERYONE ELSE.  And it is really hard to do that when I have this internal regulator switched on.  Listening to loud music isn't the same when you're driving slow, either.  So much trauma!  

Last week, my little was in the backseat and said,  "Mom.  Why are you driving so slow?!"  I explained my situation.  "Ugh," he said, "I wish I were driving with Dad now!  He even drives faster than this!"  (Up until this time the hubby was somewhat famous in the fam for driving like, let's say, an old grandpa - words of child, not my words.)  Double arrow to the heart.

I suppose that this too shall bring out a more disciplined aspect, even though going through it is pure torture.  

So if you see me on the road, honk and wave as you fly past.  

Peace, love, and granny driving, 
Ms. Daisy

Yep. Not the same.

I think most people operate under the assumption that for the most part, people are just like them.  No matter how crazy weird you are, you just kind of think that you're normal and yeah, sure, maybe people don't all like the same things, but we're pretty much running standard quo-ish-esque.  Right?

I have to admit that I do this same thing.

And then I am rather wildly shocked when people are not.

(See, even just typing that makes me realize how totally dumb it is.  But I can't help it!  I'm stuck in this paradigm!  Aaaah!  I can't get out!!)

The following blog will serve to prove the point about the weird people even thinking that they are normal.

Por ejemplo.  I was in Costco and I have a curious habit of looking into other people's carts to see what kinds of interesting things they are buying.  I mean, not like OCD ultra-compulsively or anything, but perhaps while standing in line and bored (since I don't have a smart phone to text/email/go into my own world away from society).  I will glance on as the person in front of me hoists up their goods upon the conveyor and THAT is the time that I have this paradigm breakdown.

It goes something like this in my head.

"Oh my gosh!  People really buy Honeycomb cereal!  (And cereal in general?  Do people actually BUY cereal?  Why?  It has no nutritional value at all.  Maybe they're making crafts with it.  He clearly needs glue.)  That's so funny.  I didn't think people bought cereal anymore.  Huh.  How about that.  Wow, what's that?  He's buying white buns?  Maybe he's planning on poisoning the pigeons or something, since that is full of high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, and various other non-food ingredients.  That guy over there has some Perdue chicken.  Maybe he doesn't know about the dark and window-less aluminum houses, the mini-backhoes to scoop up the dead ones, and the minimum waged workers who care nothing about the animals.  I suppose he does a lot of physical activity to sweat out the arsenic."

And then I'm driving home and I look and see that there are cars at McDonald's.  People really still go there?  I thought that was so like, five minutes ago.  No,  seriously.  I am genuinely surprised that it is still in business.  I mean, if I think outside of my box, it could possibly be a business running in the black.  Why?  How is this possible?  What are those people DOING there?  Do they seriously NOT KNOW?  There are only two people I know who say they go to McDonalds - my mother (for their coffee and to torture me), and Julie when she is pregnant for the Angus burgers.  (Now wrap your head around the fact that SHE LOSES WEIGHT when she does this.  Julie, seriously.  How do you do it?) 

Why is this person buying flour?  Did their grain mill break?  Oh.  Wait.  Maybe they don't have a grain mill.  They should call me!  They could totally come over and grind some flour. 

And then I will be in a conversation with someone and they nonchalantly mention that they took Tylenol/aspirin/prescription meds/Nyquil/Advil/etc.  Do you know that scratched record sound?  Umm...what?!  Whyfor would you do such a thing?  (Maybe you've been watching the twenty thousand commercials on TV that suggest they will solve your problem.)  Once they suggest that their primary care physician suggested it, I begin resisting the urge to scratch my own eyes out.  This is closely followed with the feeling of resisting the urge to scratch the primary care physician's eyes out.  That is followed by the urge to poke the AMA in the eyeball.  With a Tylenol.

Sigh.

So, as you can see, everyone is different. No two people are not on fire. Awww.

Gotta go.  Time to drive round trip 50 miles to get local, free-range chicken eggs and get over to the farm for the milk.

Are you saying you don't do that?

Sigh.

Peace, love, and don't worry - I've got this corner of Weirdlandia covered,
Ms. Daisy

Rake Your Leaves, Bozo

My dear peeps,

I have been so busy, as you can perhaps guess with my absence from writing.  With what, you may ask? 

Let me put it to you exactly like this.  I have been ultra-busy writing plethoras of love letters to my neighbors whose main life goal is to never ever ever ever ever rake their leaves, especially after I raked mine for three hours.  This is especially wonderful as yesterday the winds were only 60 mph and I could layer the entire back and front yard with the deciduous litter they have spread my way.

What do to thank neighbors like this, really?
 

Obviously I was thinking of a few things.

First, perhaps I would submit a secret letter to them that says, "Please pick up your disgusting leaves, bozo.  Love, Hardworking Caring Neighbor"

Then I thought that they would probs notice it was me since I have been prone to stand out in the front yard glaring at them with red laser beams coming out of my eyeballs shooting at their faces, shaking my fist at the sky like Palpatine getting zapped into a crispy wrinkle by Mace Windu.  That might be a giveaway.  Wouldn't want to take it out of the DL flava, now.

So then I thought maybe I could just bag up all of their leaves that they allowed to blow upon my lawn and march them over, walk to their fenced backyard and dump said leaves upsidedown in a wild display of floppy armage while screaming, "How do you like that?!  How do you like it all over your lawn, lazy pants?!"  After the initial satisfaction that this would clearly cause, I seemed to ponder a slight flaw and see that I would be exactly in the same place I am now since the dears wouldn't bother about raking it up anyway and it would all just end up in my front yard again anyway.

The only real thank you could really come in the form of a brown flaming paper bag.

(Don't put it out with your boots, Ted!)

Yeah, well, I wish.  I guess this is just the fodder that bounces to and fro as personal entertainment in my mind as I once again go outside and rake up five more lawn bags.

Peace, love, and I guess the T-shirt with the "Stop Being A Lazy Slob and Get Out Here and Rake" might be a bit over the top, too, (sigh!)
Ms. Daisy

Coffee with...

Have you heard?  I'm like one of the eleven people in the United States who don't drink coffee.

Well, yesterday we had our super nice, rather serious and thoughtfully practical pastor over to our house for some coffee and a muffin.  We have never had him over yet, so of course it began with a frenzy of cleaning (where OF COURSE the vacuum broke - and you do know I have a dog who sheds her weight in fur per day all over the ground like a flower girl strewing petals left and right in utter abandon.  Pure classic.  Had to happen, really.  Visualize a pink-clad me broom-sweeping every carpet and floor in a fury enough to have a bit of sweat lining my head.  Now turn up the spaz-notch like four levels and you have a good picture of what the early evening looked like.)

So, in he comes, we are pleased to have such an honored guest in our home, won't you please sit down?

Oh!  Yes.  Do you prefer the tea list (categorized by tea type, of course - and level of caffeine) or are you more of a coffee person?  Ah, coffee.  Let me get that started for you.

Problem.

We have no cream.  We have...milk.  You know - real milk.  From a cow.  Like on a farm.  Some people freak out at this.  Um...

So we cross our fingers and hope he'll say he'll take it black.  Or maybe we'll get lucky and he'll say something like "organic cane sugar if you've got any".  Maybe.  Please.

How do you take your coffee, pastor?

Oh. My. Goodness.  Do you know what he said?  (If you guessed "black", you are way wrong-o.)

My poor pastor asked for...he asked for...oh, I can't even SAY it!

Okay, I will.  He asked for...powdered creamer and Splenda!

Now, yes, inwardly, I am this person whose eyes are wide open and I'm freaking out and yelling at myself inwardly - DO NOT WARN HIM HE IS ASKING FOR POISON, DO NOT DO IT.  HE DOES NOT KNOW YOU WELL ENOUGH.  STOP YOURSELF.  REMAIN CALM.  SAY SOMETHING APOLOGETICALLY ABOUT NOT HAVING EITHER.  GO!

"Um, oh man, I'm really sorry.  We don't have any of either of those."

Do you even KNOW what my husband starts doing?  This is pretty much turning into some kind of weird comedy in my head at this point.  My husband OPENS THE TEA CUPBOARD and starts pretending to LOOK FOR powdered creamer.  I say, "Honey, we don't have any."  He is straining his neck to check every place - I'm just looking to make sure, dear, says my darling husband.  Yeah.  Okay.  It's probably right there next to the Doritos, spray cheese and the Jif.  If he could have seen my face (which I am rather sure he avoided at the time on super purpose), he would have seen me giving him a what-the-crap-are-you-thinking look and you-know-that-stuff-is-like-feeding-someone-rat-poison, but he continued to pretend to look for it.  Yes, really.  POWDERED CREAMER.  Which is made of what - crack and GMO corn or something?  With powdered high fructose corn syrup and TBHQ?  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have a whole stinkin' VAT of that laying around in the back of the cupboard behind the organic lemongrass green tea - maybe you'll get lucky and you'll get into Narnia or something honey and you'll find some there and bring it back without any of us noticing you were gone.

So after what seems like an eternity (maybe he was hoping Peter and Lucy would hand some out to him), he stands up and confesses that he can't find any.

"Well, I'll just take some milk."

Okay.  We have to explain now that we are people who have a cow and get milk from it.  This is going just smashingly.

Okay, um, yes.  About the milk.  We do have that, but I think it right to tell you (as some people feel strongly about this) that our milk comes straight from a cow.  On a farm.  And...it hasn't been boiled or strained, so, uh...

"Oh.  Yes, that's just fine.  We used to live near a farm and we used to have that all the time."

Finally - an itsy splinter of relief in what I was pretty sure may have been the Twilight Zone.

Besides that, the evening went along just fine without a hitch and it was all lovely and sunshine.  And if you see Aslan, Peter or Susan, just let them know that my hubby was looking for them.

Peace, love and just imagine if I would have served the kombucha instead,
Ms. Daisy

Spike, your favorite GMO seasoning

Have you ever heard that I am into reading labels?

Oh.  Yeah.  That.

Anyway - today I was mixin' up a mean batch of some homemade chicken soup and I was seasoning it - a little sea salt, a little cracked black pepper, gotta have some garlic and onion, but, hmmm...it's missing something.

Aaaaall the way in the back of the spice cabinet stood the little old red-capped bottle of Spike seasoning.  Now this sucker has a list a mile long of ingredients.  It pretty much is like the kitchen sink of seasonings.  It seriously has everything.  Think of a spice, yes.  It has it.  It's in there.  Yep, that one too.  YES!  In there.  Yep.  Keep going.  You can keep this game up for like 55 guesses and you'll be about halfway there.  Yes, that one too.  No, I'm totally serious.

So okay.  I look at it.  I haven't used it in a long time because of the second and third ingredients: hydrolized soy protein and soy granules.  Alarms should be going off in your head.  These alarms are saying "GMO" in a loud and alarmy kind of robotic voice and making you want to cover your ears.  But you are no ostrich, so you pull your head out of the sand and face the music.

Inside your head, the dialogue may go something like this:
The good one: Meh, stinky poo.  This totally is GMO, I just know it.  If it weren't, they'd have broadcasted it all over their label.  Crappy.
The bad one:  But maybe not!  It's so tasty.  It's exactly what this soup needs.  You have some gone out of the bottle already so hey, it can't be that bad, can it?
The good one: You're going to serve this to small people who trust you.  You can't pillow your ever-increasingly-darkening-non-highlighted-haired-head tonight in peace if you know you're serving something to small folk who you're going to sterilize with crazy GMO science experiment crapola.
The bad one: But it tastes good?
The good one: You are a total idiot.  I'm calling the hotline.
The bad one: I knew you would.

So after a little searching, I found their hotline number.  A real human being answered the phone right away, I didn't have to press one or zero or oprima la estrella or anything.  It was a real live human female.  The convo went like this:
Me: Hi, how are ya?
Woman: Fine, how can I help you today?
Me: So okay, I have a question about one of your products.  It's original Spike and I have it here in my hands.  My question has to do with the ingredients.  The second and third ingredients contain soy.  Can you tell me if the soy is from a GMO or a non-GMO source?
Woman: Um.  (long pause)  Well.  (pause)  I...I...am unsure.
Me:  Okay, could you please tell me how I might be able to find out that information?
Woman: (long pause) Well.  Hold on...(I hear background noises.) Whispering - it's...it's GMO, yeah.
Me: Thank you very much.

At this, I opened up the GMO jar and dumped the contents into the garbage can.  My good side was smirking at the bad side.  After a few minutes, I thought of how thankful I was that this woman told me the truth.  As you can see, she clearly did not want to, maybe someone told her not to disclose that information.  She WHISPERED IT for crying out sideways.  But this sweet lady risked I don't even know what so that I could follow my convictions in not poisoning my family and self.  She was like Daniel in the lion's den out there.

So this post is dedicated to her, for telling the truth.

All a ya'll, three cheers for the Spike lady!  Hip hip hooray!

Now go and do likewise.

Peace, love and tell the truth,
Ms. Daisy

I Struck Again

Hello there, me lovies!

Okay, I'm going to come out and just say it.  No beating around the bush.  I mean, I don't know why I would hold back from saying it.  I should really just tell you straight out.  Right?  I mean, after posting about politics, religion, Crackoween and maple syrup armpits, if you're still here, you're either  just straight up baffled that such a person truly exists and you're here to see what else kind of thing would be next out of my mouth/blog or you are actually my friend (if so, HI!!  And I love you.  Not if you're a boy, though, ew!  I only like you, like - "friend like".  Unless you're my hubby, then hey, hotsauce, what's the haps!)  

That seems to clear everything right up.

Now where were we?  Ah, yes.  I was about to make a confession.

Oh man, okay.  I'll say it.  I know that I sort of may have said I might not do this again, but I did.  I can't help it.  I did it!  I...cut my own hair!  Again!  And all of the people trained in the art of cutting hair wince, sadly shake their perfectly cut tresses and sigh.    Then they say, "See you in the salon soon!"  I know, I know.  I had to hide my hair from my sweet friend and ex-hair cutter (she moved away, shock) when she came for a visit because LIKE OH MY GOSH, I totally know she is going to inspect it.  But she is one of those people who are so super kind and would never even think a rude thought, much less say it.  And then there's me.  Not quite exactly like that.  Plus I cut my own hair.  So, yeah, kinda different.

So it started like this - my sweet friend moved.  ARGH!  That was like the twelveteenth-hundred person to move away from me, but the first hair-cutter friend.  So this was doubly sad. It was time for me to get something done with my hair, namely, cut off the two inches of chlorine that was Medusa-ing my head in such a lovely fashion.  Being "frugal" (that's the word that people use when they are kind but really mean "too cheap to care about haircuts"), I decided to do what any person usually does when they don't exactly know how to do something but figure they might want to look it up and try:  I went on youtube.

Now, let me just say this.  I watched this video and this girl did an AMAZING job.  She got a ponytail, pulled it down in the back of her head and then straight in the middle of her back on her spine (so she knew it was centered).  Then she simply measured how much she wanted to cut off, and SNIP!  Off it went.  She took out her ponytail and her hair was great!  It was totally straight and good!  Wow, I thought.  That totally looked SO EASY.  I mean, HOW COULD YOU MESS THAT UP?

Let me tell you how.  

Let's see here.  Well, let's start with the fact that the woman/girl in the video was African-American.  Her hair was oh, just a teensy bit different than mine.  Her ponytail at the end was like a pinkie-finger in diameter.  It came off in ONE snip.  My ponytail at the end is like...eight pinkie-fingers.  Or four. (Even though eight totally sounds better.)  So, can you imagine the amount of sawing cuts I had to make to get through Medusa's maze?  Try 10.  Ish.  

Then, I took it out.  Remember how hers was all perfect?  Yeah.  Mine resulted in screaming in a mirror, slight crumpling to the floor and I had to make a split decision whether to cry or hysterically laugh.  I chose laugh.  Second, I chose the ever clever "Phone A Friend".

Me: Whassup, girlfriend!  OHMYGOSHDOYOUKNOWWHATIJUSTDID?  You are not going to believe it and by the way are you doing anything right now because I may have a diva-mergency and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!
Friend: What did you do?
Me:  I. cut. my. own. hair....I learned it from watching a youtube video...aaaah!  Help!  
Friend: I will help you.  What possessed you to do that?
Me:  I do not know.  

She spared me the going out of the house even.  My friend came over, stood in the bathroom with me and fixed my jagged little haircut.  Then I was pretty sure that I owed her like two bazillion dollars or at least some kind of trophy.  Or if I sang, I'd sing the theme song to Golden Girls to her (except with my idea of singing, it would be more like another punishment or sick torture), but I just resorted to hugging her as one desperately hugs land after being adrift at the shark-ridden sea for weeks.  

Then it was over and I was fixed.

Until I struck again the second time.  This time, I got a little better and I let my hubby fix up my straggling ends.  I decided to put my hair into about 4 equal ponytails to cut them so they were smaller and easier to saw through.  It worked.  Mostly.  Except for my bangs, which were about 2 inches shorter than the rest of my hair.  Cool, I'll pretend I did it on purpose.  And that's how I roll.

This third and most recent time, I modified what I learned.  I put two ponytails pulled backwards over the spine (less to cut through, and will prevent the shortening of the bangs).  I carefully measured and cut, and VIOLA!  I took it out and it looked halfway normal!!  

I must be a genius.

So this is totally hilarious (and timely!).  Another friend came over to borrow some jewelry for a fancy schmancy benefit she was going to on Saturday (and the dress she had - you guys, oh my gosh, seriously, it was so gorgeous.  It was a sea of purple sparkling gorge-osity.) and she says to me, "So I cut my hair..." and then she did it a wee bit at an angle and she got in to her hair lady for a fix.  She TOLD her hair lady that she cut her own hair (and that I do it) and of course, the hair lady nearly stabbed her eyes out with her scissors (of course, it's what they're trained to do - her own eyes, of course, not the eyes of my friend) and made her promise never to do that again (or to be friends with me anymore).  But IIIII told her, no, it will be just fine, I've done it three whole times and lookie me' harr!  So, anyway, I showed her my newfandangled way of doing it and I'm sure it will be just fabulous.

Hopefully.  (We're going to have to keep secrets from those hair people, though.)

But you know what?  It's just hair.  And I feel great about paying zero dollars and knowing how to do it myself so I say, hey - it's worth it.  Even if it is a little addictive.  Okay, no, I can set the scissors down. 

Step away from the scissors!

Okay, I'm good now.

Well, I should go.  I think I saw a split end I need to tend to...er, I mean, I need to go practice Latin...or read Shakespeare...er...um...

Peace, love, and make sure you get sharp scissors,
Ms. Daisy