Health and mortality

I'm working with my doctor on cholesterol. I've got too much. There's good and bad cholesterol. Three months ago, my good cholesterol was up, but so was the bad. Now, the bad cholesterol is down, but so is the good. Gotta figure out how to get the bad down, good up. I strongly suspect that what I eat has a huge impact on both.

And I need to exercise more. Don't know where these extra pounds came from, I didn't have them 5 years ago. Truth is, I can't take my body or health for granted. I'm getting older, I have risk signs for heart attacks, and someday there will be dying. The healthier I can be right now, the better off I'll be in the long run.

Mortality is a frightening thing to contemplate. Particularly for the single person. Who is somewhat disconnected from her family. Who will care when I'm sick? Who will take care of me? And now that I'm no longer convinced of the afterlife/an afterlife, what we do now here with THIS life matters so much more.

Eat better, exercise more. That's what they say. Why is it so hard to do?

Caucus!

Today I attended my first ever caucus.

The numbers:
My precinct: 110 voters came (estimate 1/3 of total voters for precinct)
Obama: 78 votes, 4 delegates
Clinton: 31 votes, 2 delegates
Undecided: 1
2 hours

Impressions:
We were at a school, and about 10 precincts gathered there. It was very crowded, and a little chaotic. I heard probably double from the last caucus. I wish I had brought my camera! Sadly, no pics from me.

One of the guys in my precinct challenged the delegate assignment math. He was well heeled, young, wife and child, obviously successful and used to taking leadership.

Delegates turned out to be actual people from the precinct. We asked who wanted to be a delegate, who wanted to be an alternate, and had the right number volunteer. These folks get to go on to the county convention? and cast the votes for the candidate.

It was cool to see neighbors I'd never seen before, all crammed into a small room with small chairs, making democracy happen.

CSA

I just signed up for a CSA. Small box, delivered every other week. I'm only one person, after all!

I'm a little worried about how far away they go to get stuff, because not all of the box content is from the farm running the CSA. But the website was easy and I can modify box contents online. And there is a pick up near me!

Full Circle Farms

Just Ask

I took a risk today, bolstered by such platitudes as "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and "The worst that will happen is they'll say no" and "when in doubt, do it". And it worked out!

So, I got a Christmas present that was almost but not quite. I have a Settlers of Catan game, and my brother (also a fan) got me the Knights and Cities 5-6 player expansion. The only kicker was that you need the Basic 5-6 player expansion and Knights and Cities to use it - and I have neither. It was just a bit of miscommunication, no big deal - I could hang on to it until I get the other sets.

However, this was my thought today - what if I take it to a game store, and ask them if they'll do a straight across swap? My expansion set for a Basic expansion set? No receipt, not even bought there - just a swap. Why not? Then I'd have a gift that was immediately usable!

So I ventured out, stopped at a little independent game store downtown, asked, and voila! Basic expansion pack for me. The barter system still works!

I'm feeling immoderately pleased with myself.

In other news, the snow and ice has finally melted off my car after nearly a week - just in time for, you guessed it, more snow. This is not the weather I'm familiar with for Seattle.

Weather

We had a big windstorm, accompanied by record rainfall. Over a million people without power! I myself was without power for about 12 hours, most of which was while I was either sleeping or at work. So not really a big deal for me.

My mom's house almost had a tree fall on it - it was stopped by other trees that were in the way. Luckily for her, no house damage. Hopefully she will get out of there an into a smaller, safer place before to long!

It's interesting to see how people react when life is disrupted. Can't cook, can't heat, no gas, internet, or TV. Fear sets in. Survival mode kicks in. And it was just a 24 hour period (or a week, maybe, depending on where you live) with reasonable confidence that the power would come back on shortly.

What if it didn't?

It's winter now, but here's a photo from Fall!
I just got a dawn simulator, and I'm excited! I hope it helps me get up in the morning.

So far this week I've met my goal of doing some amount of exercise every day (since Saturday!) but on the flip side I've been driving instead of taking the bus.

Christmas shopping is upon us, and I will admit to being a little perturbed when I'm out just doing my normal weekly shopping thing and there's all these frigging people around in my space! However, I'm right there with the shopping procrastinators. Since my family didn't draw names till Thanksgiving I have an excuse!

White

I recently read a book entitled Learning to be White. It was an interesting and thought-provoking look at how white consciousness is formed, and the history of "being white" in America.

Here is a very simplified summary of some of her ideas. These were backed by examples, studies and more fleshed-out reasoning in the book.

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The price of being accepted into the "white" community is to disassociate with those who are not white, and do dissaociate with the part of yourself that would like to be friends with everyone. Social pressure and the desire to belong exert psychic strength to enforce racist attitudes and behavior; often at high cost to those who comply. This often takes the form of shaming the person who exhibits opinions or behavior that don't conform to the white community.
"We don't play with people like that"
"How could you think it would be ok to be friends with them?"

White racism is built on the shame of being different from the white norm (wanting to know/befriend non-whites) and fear of being rejected by one's own community. Self-hatred and shame manifests outwardly as vilification of the other.

Much of fostered racism has its roots in classism: "racial strategies devised to hide and thereby to promote or protect economic class interests." Upper-class, wealthy whites used racial language and rhetoric to divide the poor into white and non-white interests. This kept them from uniting and demanding social change that would benefit their economic class, and saw poor whites voting for wealthy white interests over their own.

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I happened to catch an interview with a strongly anti-immigration polictian while reading this book, and was immediately struck by how what I was hearing was upper class, weathly white rhetoric. And racisim, disguised. "Keep them out because they are not like us."