Pain, Pain, Go Away!

...I've had it backwards all these years. I'm not exploiting [chickens]. They're safe, happy, warm and fed. I'm the one who's miserable....Chickens have gotten humans to work for them. -Lierre Kieth on feeding her chickens on a frozen January morning For seventeen years, my garage has been accumulating spiders, dust and junk. I've been dodging nails sticking out of the wall in near darkness. Yet after all that time, I spent the weekend cleaning it out and refurbishing it. I'm not moving, I haven't gotten more stuff to store in there, and it hasn't become a rat's nest (not literally, anyway). No, I'm getting it ready for chickens: chickens exploiting humans, indeed. When the chickens move in, they'll need a way to get from the garden into their new condo. To that end, I took off the north window, ripped off two layers of screen with a hammer and smashed the louvers off. (It was just as well--the sill and part of the window framing wer

The site of my possible future chicken jungle: Driveway reclamation area. Plants don't grow well here; maybe livestock would. Chickens' ancestors were from jungles. I'm seriously thinking about fencing in this area of my yard--the part where nothing but holly and old garden roses grow well, the part I hate taking care of--and making it a home for some chickens. It's next to the garage (far right in the photo), which has electricity and room for some nests. I don't think moving the car in and out once or twice a week would hurt chickens. They'd probably do better staying outside in the summer since the garage gets very hot. Risks of the birds being free-range: predators and hail. I live in the middle of a large city, and the only predator I know of here is cats. I have a setup in mind to deter them (3" PVC pipe strung on clothesline atop the fences and gates--the kitties shouldn't be able to get a foothold). I haven't seen a fox around her

Did I just wake up in another city? Three years ago, people here in Denver looked at me like I had two heads when I told them I limited carbohydrates. When I was a kid, my parents' fussy neighbors complained about the roosters crowing, even though they moved into a house adjacent to an agricultural lot. But maybe in a city that loves meat and attracts health and fitness buffs, it had to happen: more people want real food and real solutions to their health problems. I just spent the morning at a chicken exchange, where people also had goats, ducks, rabbits and turkeys for sale. The exchange was in an urban neighborhood of Denver between Broadway and the tracks, five minutes from downtown.  Chicken Swap . Image from http://www.denverchickencooptour.com/ From there, I went to Vitamin Cottage, a health food grocery store, where some of the vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free books and magazines have been replaced by paleo, anti-sugar and pro-cholesterol books. T

A recent injury left my toe pink and black. I called the color palette "Step into Danger," but Too Faced calls it "Romantic Eye." In fairness, my toe is much brighter. Really, I slathered on the eye shadow. Sometimes a mishap shakes us out of a routine and inspires something new. Viva antifragility !

Rat chow: that's what Ensure and Enterex Diabetic drinks remind me of. I'm not into protein drinks anymore--haven't been in years--but my parents are elderly and it's hard for them to cook. They're also diabetic, and yet my father's doctor recommended two Ensure drinks per day. That's 80 grams, or 18 teaspoons, of liquid sugar. The main ingredients in Ensure: Water, Sugar, Corn Maltodextrin, Milk Protein Concentrate, Soy Oil, Soy Protein Isolate, Cocoa Powder (Processed with Alkali), Pea Protein Concentrate, Canola Oil.  Seriously--the second ingredient is sugar. (Corn maltodextrin in a starchy food additive.) Isn't that a big ol' clue that this isn't suitable for diabetics? A pharmacist recommended Enterex Diabetic . It has fewer carbs, but 24 grams of liquid carbohydrate is too much at one sitting for many diabetics. The ingredients: Water, Maltodextrin, Sodium Caseinate, High-Oleic Safflower Oil, Calcium Caseinate, Fiber (Soy Fib

I feel like I've awakened from a dream. The past few days have been spent crowding out pain signals with music, like sending an avalanche down a mountain gulley. I wondered if some people could manage pain with a Wii or a karaoke machine even better than with music alone. But the music came to be a distraction about the time my foot stopped hurting today. I promised some coworkers more work than I could deliver, which I never do, so I'll be back at work tomorrow. Some studies say that music that you love can make your brain release dopamine. I did feel like something was different, and that I was myself again once I was able to work in silence. Dopamine is a reward neurotransmitter, but I'd had enough music, even though it was rewarding. My foot, whose problems started this, is doing better, so much so that I was able to run for the bus tonight after a former coworker saw me at the bus stop and we started chatting while my bus drove by. I didn't just trot, I ran. M

It's been almost a year since my bike wreck. I'm happy to say that there are no lingering effects from my fractured arm or dental injuries, and in another five months, I'll have replenished my emergency funds. I'm not quite as pleased to say I'm observing the near-anniversary with a badly stubbed toe. A day and a half ago, I was watering the pots when I tripped over the old, rotted steps I disconnected from the house and stubbed my toe on the brand new steps I built. It still hurts. It hurts more than the fractured arm did. It's almost as bad as turf toe . It really hurts when I stand. It hurts a lot less when I elevate my foot and rub the bottom of it or elevate it and listen to music. I was at work and in too much pain to go down and get coffee when I put on Alice Cooper and suddenly--no pain. It's just one more reason to love Alice Cooper. I noticed the same thing back in 2007 when I was infected, recovering from a car wreck and had GI problems. S