Daily Dose

Daily Dose of Advice – Gainesville

Pet Peeves /

Here’s a little advice for folks living here, take it – or don’t.  Your life, your choice….

To the folks getting off of the bus in front of the new bank on Newberry Rd, just beyond NW 43rd, at 7:30am.  Do not attempt to cross six lanes of traffic to get to the OTHER bus stop.  Walk 25 steps backwards to the corner, where the light and the crosswalks are.  Do you not understand that Newberry in that spot runs DIRECTLY east/west and at 7:30am cars can barely see each other and they certainly can’t see you or your 10 year old son as you attemp to cross ILLEGALLY in that spot.  I know it’s cold.  I know you don’t want to walk the extra 25 steps back and the extra 25 steps foward.  Do it anyway, it’s safer.

To the woman at the corner of University and whatever that street is that the stadium is on, right there with the flashing marquee.  Just because the WALK sign lights up, that does not mean you should immediately step into the crosswalk.  You do this everyday and everyday a car attempts to HIT you by turning right.  You live in this town.  You know that red lights really don’t mean anything and green lights mean everything to drivers.  Pause and count to three before you step out.  Or better yet, LOOK BEHIND YOU.  One of these days, you ARE going to get hit.  And I don’t want to be there to see it. 

And to the people surfing here with the Mac everyday, no advice for you.  Hi.  Having fun?  Are you bored?  Would you like me to suggest some activities that might be of more interest to you?  Some blogs that you might find more to your liking?  Some volunteer activities within the community?  Are you hoping I’ll talk about you?  No?  You’d rather just sit here quietly, day after day, clicking page after page?  Well ok.  Just as long as you know that I know you’re here.  And I know what you click.  And I know why you click.

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Daily Dose of Women – VDay

2 Comments / Daily Dose /

Did you know my first "date" with TW (which wasn’t really a date at all) was to see the Vagina Monologues?  Did you know we tried to go see it again a year later but TW ridiculously thought we could just get tickets at the door, ha!?  Did you know we’ve seen it several times since then including last year with Michelle?  Did you know we had tickets to see it a couple of years ago but missed it because TW was in the hospital?  We have quite the Vagina Monlogues history.

We’re attending again this year in celebration of Vday.  The monologues do get a little stale after seeing them for about the 10th time but being part of the VDay celebration is important.  So we’re going and we’re all pretty excited about it.  I just ordered the new VDay Tshirts.  I just hope Michelle likes these as much as she liked her Value Your Vagina shirt from last year!

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Charis Books and More

6 Comments / Bookstores, Feminism, GLBT /

I don’t know why we’ve never noticed Charis Books and More on previous trips to Atlanta.  I could use the excuse that we most often go at night and it’s set just far enough off of the main road that it is easy to miss.  But we’ve gone often enough during the daytime that you’d think we’d have noticed it.  Weird.  Maybe the fact that we’ve missed it is part of what’s keeping Charis in financial trouble?  Or maybe it’s just that small independent bookstores everywhere are suffering?

I made sure we visited this time.  It was the least we could do since we all three really love our little women’s bookstore, Wild Iris and would be very sad if it closed.  We even bought a little rubber wristband to support their cause.  But, well, we weren’t really all that impressed. 

We’ve heard about how great this bookstore and what we found was a pretty run of the mill woman’s bookstore.  Nothing unusual or special about it.  I’m not sure what we were expecting – something to live up to the hype?  Oh well, that’s ok, it didn’t stop us from spending just shy of $100 in there, did it?  Charis doesn’t have to be anything other than what it is to be worthwhile to the community.  It was a nice, clean, well-lit bookstore full of interesting books.  Tons of women’s literature, lots of GLBT books, a nice children’s section and TW’s favorite item, Pussy Pucker Pots (you’re welcome, TechnoDyke). 

If you’re in Atlanta, visit L5P and be sure not to miss Charis set back just a tiny bit from Moreland, on Euclid.  The oldest feminist bookstore in the south is worth a visit. 

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Daily Dose of Blogs – Blogher

4 Comments / Daily Dose /

When I signed on as a contributing editor for Blogher I immediately began surfing various blog search engines for new blogs related to health & wellness topics.  When I found a new blog, I added it to my aggregator in the "health" category.  Sometimes I created new folders for specific sub-categories when I knew I’d want to write longer, more detailed "surfing guide" type things.  I figured I’d keep the blogs til I wrote the posts for Blogher and then I’d release them back into the blogosphere.  Oh sure, I expected to keep a few really great, new finds.  But, for some reason, I’m having trouble letting any go free!  I’ve got a folder called "dogs" for goodness sakes!  Who would have thought I would have trouble letting go of blogs about dogs, even if they are really cool service dogs?  NOT ME, that’s for sure.

But no, I can’t let them go.  I sit down almost everyday to clean out my feeds and I can’t bring myself to do it.  We’re only a couple of weeks into Blogher and I’ve increased my list of feeds by 100!  I’ve only ditched 3!  Imagine how many feeds I’ll be reading by the time Blogher arrives in July?  It’s frightening.  I need an intervention or something.

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Daily Dose of Travel – Atlanta

9 Comments / Holidays, Kid Talk, Money Talks, Travel Log /

We’ll be heading to Atlanta soon.  We being me, TW and Michelle.  This weekend will be part of Michelle’s 16th birthday celebration – woohoo!  (Did I sound properly enthusiastic?  Let me try again WOOHOOOO!)

We’re staying at the Beautiful Mid-Town Wyndham.  We’re going shopping at the Junkman’s Daughter (or whatever it’s called) in L5P.  We’re going to hit the bookstore, Charis, that I recently blogged about.  I think we’ll take Michelle to Mary Mac’s ’cause everyone needs to go to a southern tea room, once.  Besides there are tons of vegetarian choices!  The most important part of this trip though is…

IKEA

Michelle is getting a grown up bedroom for her birthday so we’re hitting IKEA in order to do that.  This will be her virgin IKEA visit and only the second visit for me and TW.  Someone remind me to bring the camera!  We’re excited!  WOOHOOOO!

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Daily Dose of Starbucks – #52 #60

3 Comments / Coffee & Tea, Pet Peeves /

Every morning TW and I stop at Starbucks.  We generally stop at the Starbucks where everyone knows our name and the baristas know our drink.  Sometimes we have to go to the Starbucks downtown but that’s just once a week or so, we don’t like that as much.  Lately though, there’s been a problem with our morning Starbucks run and it doesn’t matter which Starbucks we visit.  Two problems, actually.

The Way I See It #52 and The Way I See It #60

I was really excited to lose the holiday cups and get back to the traditional white cups with inspirational discussion worthy "The Way I See It" quotes.  That excitement has turned to frustration and dare I say, loathing?

I am sick to death of both #52 and #60.  Teddy Roosevelt is not the most inspirational of our presidents, in my opinion – I’m sure some of you adore Teddy and that’s fine – you can have all of the cup #60s if you want them.  Eavesdropping on baristas is something I do everyday and believe me I could write better cups from my eavesdropping than the little tidbit on cup #52.  The big problem though is 30 straight days of those two cups.

It appears as though all Venti cups in this town (is it the southeast? the country? the world) have those two "The Way I See Its".  (We’re going to Atlanta this weekend and I am hoping to prove it’s not the entire southeast!) (We went to Atlanta last weekend and unfortunately the #52 and #60 problem occurs there as well!)  The other size cups have different "The Way I See Its" and I’m tempted to change cup sizes just for something NEW to read and look at and talk about.  Won’t that make Starbucks sad?  If I stop spending $11 a day and spend $8 instead?  And after I get sick of those Grande cups, because I’m afraid I’ll get trapped with two new numbers, then I’ll have to switch sizes again, to a Tall,  and spend $5 a day.  And after that, I’ll have to stop going to Starbucks altogether.

Something had better be done about this cup issue, and quickly.  At this point I’d be thrilled with the Christian message "The Way I See It" cups that we read about last year.  At this point I’d be thrilled with quotes from the current President Bush.

**Updated after the trip to Atlanta**

I’m just that sick of cups #52 and #60.

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Daily Dose of Health – Women – Heart Disease

1 Comment / Health and Wellness /

On February 3, 2006 people all over the country will be dressed in red to support the campaign to reduce the risk of heart disease in women.  (I’m thinking about turning my blog template red, care to join me for the day?)

Visit the Go Red for Women website to learn about local events, shop the go red store and find information about the #1 killer of women, heart disease.

On the morning radio show I heard a college professor, about my age, describe her heart attack almost a year ago.  She was a professor of dance, she had no history of health problems, no risk factors and no heart disease in her family.  Yet she had a heart attack.  She did not have any of the signs you generally think of when you think about heart disease.  Instead she felt sick to her stomach, she had severe pain in the middle of her back and her arms were weak, like noodles.  That’s it.  No chest pain, no shortness of breath, no pain in one arm.

You may think it can’t happen to you, but you would be wrong.  My old friend Milindoe found out she had a mild heart attack years ago, and she never even knew:

About 6 or 7 years ago, I had an ecocardiogram (ECG) done and it was found that, at some point in my life, I’d had some sort of cardiac "episode" that caused some slight scarring around the heart. A mild heart attack, and I never knew it. Scary, isn’t it?

Laura’s life has been touched by this, too.

Last night, he told me a dear friend (and his boss) was going to have heart bypass surgery today. She is in her early 50s. Cathy and her husband, Joe, are very dear to us. Their office is a lot like family so Bill and the rest of the staff are understandably worried. I sat with Joe and his kids this morning in the hospital as Cathy underwent quadruple bypass surgery.

Zuzu on of the new Feministe bloggers shares this comment to Jilly’s post asking "What’s Your Biggest Health Concern".

When my mother had her heart attack, she didn’t even recognize that that was what it was, because the symptoms didn’t fit the “classic” model — shooting pains in the left arm and whatnot — which is derived from studies of men.
As a result, she didn’t seek medical help for three days, because she thought she just had the flu. She’d probably be alive today if she knew what the common symptoms in women were.

Dr Helen talks about her three month check up, linking to her post about her heart attack, at the age of 37.

Join the Go Red For Women campaign. Spread the word, spread the education.

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