Teach Your Child How To Survive Being Arrested at School

The chances are your child will be arrested for being a child and behaving in a childish fashion at school. Behavior that once got a child a trip to the principal’s office or detention will now get them booked at the police station. Doubt me? Look it up: a 5 year old arrested for having a temper tantrum in kindergarten and a 12 year old arrested for scribbling on a desk and I’m sure you can find more.

It’s never too early to teach your child what to do if they get arrested at school for normal behavior, as demonstrated by the arrest of the 5 year old.

So what do you teach your child?

Pretty much the same things you would do yourself, but the most important one is to teach your child to teach your child to tell he arresting police officer, “I want a lawyer.” School officials and police officers won’t call the parents, because they don’t think parents have any need to know their child is being removed from the school. In the case of the 5 year old, it wasn’t the school principal who called or the police – it was a guidance counselor who felt the need to inform the mother. Teach your child those critical 4 words – “I want a lawyer” – the police by law have to respect that regardless of the age of the arrestee.

The older the child is, the more you can teach, but start with those 4 life-saving words. “I want a lawyer.” Even a three year old can learn to say that. You may need to teach your three year old to say that if day cares start emulating schools and calling the police on minor disciplinary issues. Play-act it with toy handcuffs, or even real ones – those are easy enough to find at flea markets. When the handcuffs come out, teach the child to say, “I want a lawyer.” Make it a game when they are young, and re-enforce it as they age.

As they get older, teach them the following things:

Don’t argue with the police. That’s what the lawyer is for.

Don’t run.

Don’t touch the police officer – even to catch yourself if you’re falling. Take the fall.

Don’t talk to the police. If your child is old enough to drive and they are driving a car when stopped, they must show driver’s license, registration, and insurance, but they don’t have to say anything. If the child has been reasonably detained, police will ask for a name, and the child must give it unless they are afraid giving their name will make matters worse, in which case, they can plead the right to remain silent. The police will hate it, but it is their right.

Teach your child that anything they say – anything, no matter how innocent it may sound – can be twisted against your child so silence is the best action.

Keep your hands where the police can see them. If you think you need something in your pocket or backpack or purse, you usually don’t (unless it’s lifesaving medication, in which you explain calmly to the arresting officer you are ill and need the medication and let them get it for you.)

Don’t resist the arrest, innocent or not. The police are predisposed to believe everyone is guilty of something even if it’s not the crime for which they are currently arresting your child.

Don’t complain to the officer on the scene.

Don’t tell the police they are wrong.

Don’t tell the police you are going to file a complaint.

Do not make any statement regarding the incident at all.

Remember the police officer’s name, badge number, and patrol car number.

Write down everything you remember ASAP.

Try to find witnesses and get their names and numbers.

If your child is injured, seek medical attention ASAP and have them take pictures.

Take pictures yourself of any injuries your child sustains in the arrest.

If you feel your child’s rights have been violated, file a written complaint with the police department’s internal affairs division or civilian complaint board as soon as possible.

Your child does not have to consent to a search of themselves. Police may pat down the outside of your child’s clothing if they suspect a weapon, but they do not have the right to search further. That’s one of the things those magic 4 words “I want a lawyer” protects your child from.

Your child needs to specifically ask, “Am I under arrest?” – another important 4 words. If your child is under arrest, your child has a right to know why. And the police have to tell them.

If your child is given a ticket while driving, they do have to sign the ticket. It can be fought later.

If your child is taken to the police station, teach your child to remain silent and to speak only to a lawyer. If you don’t have a family lawyer, teach your child to ask for one – they have the right to a free one and the police have to tell them how to get one.

Don’t talk to the police even at the station – use those 4 word sentences: “I want a Lawyer” and “Am I under arrest?”.

I hope your child is never arrested by the police for such spurious things as bringing a toy to school or scribbling on a desk, but we have proof that schools will call the police over these trivial things and police will follow through and arrest your child instead of telling the school this is an internal school affair and not a police matter.

If your child knows what to do, the trauma is reduced. Not eliminated, but reduced. As parents, it’s our responsibility to teach our children how to survive, and this is unfortunately yet another thing we have to consider.

 

Book

I have enough articles here now and enough interest from various people that I have caved in and will put the better articles together into a book. Since I don’t think there’s enough interest to capture the attention of a traditional publisher, I’ll probably just do it through Lulu – a Print on Demand publisher. The quality of their books rivals and even exceeds traditional publishing, and the price for any buyers of the book is reasonable.

Once I have it together, it will be ready at Lulu, too, which is another bonus – it’s done in less than the standard 12-18 months a traditional publisher takes.

I’ll post a link here if any of y’all are interested in having a print copy.

Doing this as a book does not mean I will be removing the archives here. See, the articles here are mostly rough drafts, things I whipped out as I remembered them or had to live through them again. I won’t be polishing these articles up here. The book will be polished and contain graphs and illustrations I haven’t used here – and as a bonus the book will not be random, the way this blog is. It will be organized. I am still thinking about the organization. At this moment, I’m thinking I’ll start with my philosophy of survival and then seque into the basic survival needs. After that I’ll get into disaster preparedness for critical, short term disasters like floods, tornadoes, and such. Then I’ll get into skills – that will be subdivided into food, gardening, and day-to-day living. Last, I’ll get into apocalyptic survival because, according to my Survivalist’s Pyramid, that’s kind of the order in which survival happens.

No title, yet. I welcome suggestions, but being me, I may go with something completely different. I do plan to subtitle it: “A gallimaufrey of living.”

 

Provident Gourmet: How To Host a Private Chili Cook-Off

Survival is about much more than existing. Part of survival is having fun, and I don’t know about you, but I love cooking, I love cooking for other people, and I love sampling other people’s cooking. A cook-off is a perfect opportunity to do all three.

Who to Invite

Invite both cooks and non-cooks – you need impartial judges for those who are competing. You should have between 3 and 6 competing chili cooks and at least one judge more than cooks, so you will have a maximum of 13 people (including yourself!). More than that and it stops being fun and starts to become work. Consider the size of your home, how many power outlets you have for the crockpots of chilis, and table and seating space.

Set the Scene

Tell the chili-cookers to bring a finished pot of chili – at least 7 servings’ worth, some for judging and some for sharing – in a crock pot to keep hot, and with a ladle for serving. Unless you have a professional kitchen set up to handle 3 – 6 cooks, you don’t want them all showing up with raw ingredients and spending 2 – 4 hours (or longer!) in your kitchen cooking and leaving you the mess to clean up afterwards.

Pick a time of day so the cooks all have time to complete their chili recipes.

Pick entertainment that goes well with chili. Some people think that’s football, but not everyone is a sports fan. Music, storytelling, or movies are also excellent entertainment choices.

Ask the non-cooks to bring things like shredded cheeses, corn chips or tortilla chips, cornbread, chopped salad, beer, wine, sodas, sour cream or other favorite chili toppings or sides. They can also bring plates, bowls, glasses, and flatware – disposable or washable, although washable is more eco-friendly.

What You Should Provide

You re providing the location, the electricity for the crockpots of chili, table space, judging materials, and entertainment. Make or buy a trophy or ribbons to award the winner.

Judging materials can be as simple as blank paper and pencils or as elaborate as a pre-printed checklist and pencils; “sampling bowls” – shot glasses or small pinch bowls for the judges to taste the chili; and tortillas or crackers to eat between samples to cleanse the palate between samples.

How to Judge

Set the crockpots up in a row (numbered, so they are anonymous – or as anonymous as possible among friends) with the sampling cups (one for each judge at each crockpot – so a minimum of 12 or maximum of 42!) and bowls of tortilla wedges or crackers. Give all the judges (the non-cooks!) pencil and paper. The judges get 5 minutes per crockpot to sample and judge each chili. They can confer with the other judges if they want, but the judging should take no longer than 45 minutes total. While the judges are judging (in the kitchen, perhaps?), the cooks are in another room being entertained.

Once the judging is done – the odd judge out tallies the votes and they all go to the room where the cooks are to announce the results. The winner gets the trophy/ribbon and gets to talk about the chili they made and to share a secret ingredient or tip. The judges who voted for it can explain why they thought it was the best chili.

After the Judging

Everyone gets to get themselves some chili and top their bowls with the toppings the judges brought and enjoy the entertainment. At the end of the evening (and it’s usually an evening event since the cooks made chili all day), leftovers are bagged up for people to take home and clean up commences. And probably plans for the next chili cook-off are made.

This can also be done with soups, stews, pies, casseroles, or other one dish foods.

Here are three of my winning chili recipes. I have included my secret ingredient in all of them.

Dragon’s Breath Chili

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons bacon grease

6 rashers bacon, crisped and crumbled

2 red bell peppers, diced (about 2 cups)

2 jalapenos, minced (about 2 tablespoons)

3 Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled, chopped (optional, I don’t put it in chili I plan to eat myself, but use it for others because they like it)

3 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, chopped

2 yellow onions, diced (about 2 cups I prefer Vidalias and will freeze some in season just to have them come chili season)

1 entire head of garlic, minced (about 1/4 cup)

1 pound boneless chuck, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch cubes or coarse ground

2 pounds ground buffalo or beef, coarse grind

1 pound coarse ground ostrich or turkey

3 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons hot paprika

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dark cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 cups tomato sauce

1 cup tomato paste

1 small can petit diced tomatoes

12 ounces lager beer or ale (I prefer ale)

1 cup chicken stock

2 (15.5-ounce) cans pinto beans, with juice

2 (15.5-ounce) cans red kidney beans, with juice

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced

1 cup shredded Cheddar

Directions

In large stock pot over high heat, add butter and bacon grease. Add bell pepper, jalapeno, chiles and onion and cook until caramelized, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute a minute longer. Add chuck and brown. Add ground beef and turkey to brown and stir gently, trying not to break up the ground beef too much. Cook until meat is nicely browned and cooked through, about 7 to10 minutes. Add in the rest of the seasonings and cook for 1 minute. Add in tomatoes and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in beer and chicken stock. Add beans, lower heat and simmer for 2 hours.

Racy Chili

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 poblano peppers, seeded and thinly sliced

2 pounds coarsley ground beef (chuck or sirloin)

1 medium onion, chopped

3 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tablespoons grill seasoning

6 -8 dashes Wine and Pepper Worcestershire sauce

2 chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped, plus 1 tablespoon of the sauce

1/2 cup steak sauce

1 cup beer

1 cup beef stock

1 (28-ounce) can crushed fire roasted tomatoes

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

2 scallions, chopped

Directions

Heat the olive oil in a nice cast iron dutch oven (enameled is best) over medium high to high heat. When oil smokes, add the sliced poblanos and char them a couple of minutes and scoot them off to the side of the pan and add meat. Saute the onions and garlic until transparent, then break up beef and brown it a couple of minutes with the pobalno, inions, and garlic. Season the meat with grill seasoning, Worcestershire and chipotles in adobo. Cook until onions are tender, 5 to 6 minutes more, then stir in steak sauce and beer. Cook beer off for 1 minute then add stock and tomatoes and reduce heat to low. Add in the beans and cumin and simmer half an hour to let the flavors meld. Serve with a scatter of scallions on top.

Chupacabra Chili

3 dried árbol chiles, stemmed and seeded

1 dried guajillo chile, stemmed and seeded

1 ancho chile, stemmed and seeded

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika

Kosher salt

2 pounds trimmed, boneless goat coarse ground or cut into tiny cubes. Can substitute pork shoulder for goat

2 cups dried Eye of the Goat or red kidney beans, rinsed and picked over, then soaked for 4 hours and drained

1 thick slice of bacon (1 ounce), cut crosswise into 1/4-inch strips

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 large onion, cut into 1/2-inch dice

1 cup dark Mexican beer

2 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth

3 tablespons dark cocoa powder

Freshly ground pepper

Directions

In a pyrex bowl, soak the árbol, guajillo and ancho chiles in the boiling water until softened, about 20 minutes. Drain the chiles, reserving 1/3 cup of the soaking liquid. Coarsely chop the chiles.

In a small, dry cast iron skillet, toast the cumin seeds over moderate heat until fragrant, about 20 seconds. Transfer the seeds to a blender. Add the chiles and their reserved soaking liquid along with the oregano, garlic, paprika and 1 tablespoon of salt. Puree until smooth. Scrape the chile puree into a large pyrex dish. Add the goat and toss to coat thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In a large saucepan, cover the beans with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 1 hour; add more water as needed to keep the beans covered by 2 inches. When the beans are just tender but still al dente, season them with a bit of salt and let stand in their cooking liquid for 5 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

In a large, enameled cast-iron casserole, cook the bacon over moderate heat until the fat has rendered, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a large plate. Add the olive oil to the casserole. Working in batches, cook the chile-goat mixture over moderately high heat, turning a few times, until richly browned all over, about 4 minutes. Transfer the browned goat to the plate with the bacon.

Add the onion to the casserole and cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened and slightly caramelized, about 10 minutes. Add the goat and bacon and any accumulated juices and stir well. Add the beer and boil over high heat until reduced by half, about 8 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Stir in the cocoa powder.

Cover the casserole, transfer it to the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, until the goat is tender when pierced with a fork. Add the beans and bake, uncovered, for about 10 minutes, until they are warmed through. Remove the casserole from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

 

Surviving Earthquakes

With the small tremors all through Oklahoma, the small quakes in California, and now the big quake in Haiti, it’s time to go over the earthquake survival list again.

There are three parts to surviving an earthquake.

Part One A: Don’t live in an earthquake prone area. This is perhaps the most important advice ever, and the most disregarded. Since many of us either have no choice about where to live or prefer living there, we’ll just move right along to

Part One B: Advance earthquake preparations. You know you need them if you’ve chosen to live in a zone that is tectonically active.

First, take advantage of modern architecture and build your home so it can handle the rattles, shakes, drops, and shifts of the earth. Even the most modern architecture won’t save your home if in the epicenter of an earthquake, so insure that house and all its contents. If you can’t afford to build a tectonic shift proof home (you live in an apartment or older home or rent), insure the contents of your home. The dwelling is probably someone else’s responsibility, but if it’s yours, insure it for replacement value. It will do you no good if you only insure for what you owe on the mortgage because the bank will be pleased, but you’ll be homeless. Go for replacement value. Keep duplicates of your policies in another city, or stored online, or somewhere out of the danger zone. It’s not a bad idea to keep duplicates of all your important papers far away – just in case.

Next, make sure your breakables are well anchored in case of the distant rattles and shifts. No sense in letting your heirlom china or your vintage collection of ships in bottles get broken if you can prevent it, right?

Then, make sure you have at least a month’s supply of bottled water, canned food, and medical supplies on hand. That’s so you can share if you need to and still have enough so you can bypass the water gougers who will rush in with exorbitantly priced water because they know you’ll be desperate for drinkable water. While you’re stockpiling stuff, have plywood and nails and hammers on hand so you can nail up broken windows or build an impromptu temporary shelter if you need to, and keep some buckets of lyme on hand for your privy (you probably won’t have flushies available anytime soon and you have to potty somewhere). Having a camping toilet and supplies is a good idea – they make excellent ones of 5 gallon buckets at most sporting goods stores – and a tent to tuck it into with a solar shower for privacy and cleanliness. A wood burning grill is also a good idea – you can cook on it and boil water on it and use the broken trees and houses and furniture to fuel it. Be careful with house and furniture materials, some may be treated with toxic chemical, and be wary of trees, some trees may be swathed in poison ivy which is highly toxic when burned, or they may simply be toxic trees themselves. Most trees are safe, but beware of yew or cedars that spark and pop.

You can get as elaborate as you want from here, but with this, you’ll have the basics covered: water, shelter, food, medical care.

Don’t rely on having this stashed in just one place, though. Have a cache somewhere away from where you live, maybe with a friend who lives on the other side of town or even in another town nearby, or hide your cache in a cave or underground or in really dense brush. Earthquakes are generally fairly localized (local being a relative term geologically speaking), so 10 miles, 40 miles away, and you’re in a better, more survivable zone.

Don’t forget to keep stashes in your car and at work (if you can).

If you’re the boss in a fast food place or retail store, keep enough on hand for your employees and any trapped customers. When the disaster is over and you’re ready to reopen for busines, your customers will be more loyal because you cared about them, and you’ll have dedicated employees ready to work for you. That’s worth a stash of bottled water, MREs, a couple of camp potties, and a good first aid kit, right?

Sometimes quakes come with little advance warning quakes, but not always. I recommend keeping a large sports bottle of water on your person at all times. Keep it full. Carry it with you, even at the office or shopping. Keep another bottle on your desk. If you’re at your desk when this happens, you can pull it down with you when you huddle as small as you can beside your desk. If you’re not at your desk, you’ll at least have your carry bottle with you. If you’re in a quake, that water may be a lifesaver. Get your kids used to having a canteen of water strapped to their body, and keep a full canteen by their beds (and yours!).

This all brings us up to Part Two: The earthquake.

It happens fast. It’s over fast. Most of the time, you either survive or you don’t. Your best bet (other than being in an airplane or helicopter in the air) in an earthquake is outside away from anything that can fall on you. You may fall into earth cracks, but you won’t be buried under rubble or crushed inside a car. Crawling is safer than walking.

If you can’t get outdoors, find something strong to hide beside, like a supporting corner, a metal filing cabinet, or heavy desk, or a doorway, if all else fails you. When the building tumbles down around you, with luck, you’ll be protected from falling debris and in an airspace so you can breathe until you’re rescued. If you live in a populated area, people will come looking for you. You can survive 3 – 4 days without water and most living people are found within that time. Do what you can to maximize your ability to survive and reduce the potential for injury, and you’ll make it through.

Teach these things to your children, if you have any. Get outside, or get beside, not under!, something big and heavy.

And then we have Part Three: Afterwards.

The aftereffects of a minor earthquake may only require some clean up and nailing boards over broken windows, like they do in Florida for hurricanes. In a major earthquake, like the one in Haiti, water, food, and services may be interrupted for days or weeks. Your stashes of water, food, camping potty, solar shower, and medical supplies will see you through the worst times. If your home stash is intact, you’re good to go. If you can get to your other stashes, yay!

The things you have to deal with after an earthquake are the damages: fallen buildings, broken furntiure, destroyed personal items, damaged cars; the immediate injuries: mostly broken bones and cuts, maybe burns or inhalation injuries from fires set by the earthquake; drinkable water and food; the longer term illnesses that come from decomposing bodies and bad water; and the predation of both wild and domesticated animals. If your town had a zoo, you can bet some of the animals escaped. Even without a zoo, there are pets that might now be homeless and abandoned and starving.

Consider how you’ll deal with all of those.

And don’t forget – there will be looters, and desperate people who will fight you for your water, food, shelter, and medical supplies. Most people will band together and help each other out, but some will see this as opportunity to prey on others.

So, to recap:

Part One A:

Don’t live in an earthquake zone OR

If you live in an earthquake zone, be prepared.

Part One B:

Stock water, food, camp toilets and supplies, solar shower, medical supplies.

Keep duplicates of important papers in another city or online.

Have good insurance at replacement value.

Part Two:

Get outdoors – out of buildings or out of cars – and into a clear area

If you can’t get outdoors, get beside something big, heavy, sturdy, or in a doorway.

Keep bottled water on your person at all times.

Part Three:

Get rescued or help rescue others.

Do damage control (board up broken windows, immediate clean up needs, that sort of thing)

Set up a shelter if your home/office is unliveable

Begin major clean up and rebuilding.

 

How to Live Longer and Happier

Survival, in my opinion, isn’t about subsistence living and getting by, it’s about enjoying life, being happy, being pain-free and relatively healthy, and being engaged in life with a strong mind. There are lots of little tings we can do to insure we have that kind of life regardless of what happens to us and we can start today. No matter what our current health is or our current mental acuity is, we can improve it from what we have now to something better, can make our minds sharper, our bodies healthier, and our lives happier.

In no particular order are some simple and relatively inexpensive ways to make those changes. Most of them are easy-peasy

Eat salmon, herring, lake trout, or other fatty fish a week, plus a daily serving of walnuts, soybean oil, spinach, kale, or ground flaxseed to get the good omega-3 fats your body needs to be strong, healthy, and youthful.

Grow lavender and rosemary and sniff them every day to reduce stress and remove aging molecules. If you don’t have growing space for them, buy the fresh cuttings or dried version of them – either works just fine. And if that is still tough, consider using fragrances that smell like lavender or rosemary – essential oils, perfume oils, or even artificial fragrance oils. Oddly enough, the smell is what works best here, and it doesn’t matter where the smell originates. If you have the fresh or dried herbs, they also make excellent bug repellants, can sweeten linens, and are edible – all purpose herbs.

Fight fair with loved ones – no sarcasm, eye-rolling, hostile or controlling comments. These kinds of belittling behavior stress both the one who fights dirty and the one who is the target of the sarcasm, eye-rolling, hostility. There are, literally, hundreds of ways to fight fair with others because no matter how wonderful and perfect we or the other person is, friction happens, anger happens, misunderstandings happen, tempers flare, and we fight. Do it fair, and everyone wins.

Eat slowly and stop before you’re stuffed. By eating slowly, you give your brain time to register that it has nourishment, and time for your body to gently break down the food into fuel, and it places less stress on your body. You also get to savor your food. If you stop before you are stuffed, you will actually have more energy and feel better.

Maintain a stable, healthy weight. It really doesn’t matter if you’re pudgy or stringy so long as your weight remains stable and you remain active and capable of accomplishing your physical goals. A stable weight that doesn’t fluctuate wildly places less stress on your body and causes less wear and tear on it.

Vary your physical activities. Don’t rely simply on the same exercise machines – do physically active things around the house like washing windows, mowing, moving furniture, heavy gardening work, remodeling projects. And walk around your neighborhood, jog in the park, play silly sports instead of serious ones (rat pucky, The Red Queen’s Croquet, Hot Potato, etc.), and so on. Physical activity that isn’t specifically “exercise” counts as exercise, too.

Have a vibrantly colored fruit or veggie snack every 4 waking hours – in different colors for each snack. The components in the fruits and vegetables that give it that vibrant color provides you with antioxidants and immune boosters, and snacking on one every 4 waking hours provides continuous coverage, since the nutrition derived from them is water soluble and isn’t stored in the body for long.

Floss every day. Flossing removes bacteria from between the teeth and boosts the immune system so you are less likely to get sick.

Attend an in-person regular activity – a standing lunch date, movie night, or other enjoyable social activity. Humans are social animals. Even those who prefer solitude benefit from some pleasant social interaction – it lowers blood pressure, boosts the immune system, and helps you live a longer, happier life.

Go easy on red meats and other iron-producing foods or plan to donate blood regularly. Americas in particular ingest too much iron, and that causes health problems. Bloodletting reduces the problems an iron-rich diet creates, so if you must eat lots of red meats and iron-rich foods, consider donating blood on a regular basis. Or, if donating blood squicks you out, reduce the iron-producing foods in your diet: switch to chicken over beef, fish over chicken, and eat less meat. You don’t need to eat meat at every single meal or even every day. 2 or 3 times a week is sufficient.

Avocado, oils, nuts, and seeds all contain an important antioxidant: vitamin E. The vitamin E found in food is more digestible and accessible for the body to use, far better than taking supplements. Eating avocado, nuts, seeds, and good oils provides you with the essential Vitamin E to keep your skin elastic and your body healthy.

Spend 20 minutes 3 times a week doing something new or searching online. Take a class, learn a new language or game, spend some time Googling stuff online, follow the errant thread and let yourself get distracted for a bit. This keeps your brain flexible, your wits sound, your observation skills sharp, and memory firm – all important to survival and living a longer life. What you learn can also lead to things that will make you happy.

Read more, books, newspapers, magazines, even online fiction. Reading does as much good for you as learning something new, plus it gives you time to focus on one thing. We spend too much of our lives being distracted and not pondering things and allowing them to permeate our subconscious mind and this constant distraction and short attention span habit leads to dissatisfaction and an addiction to more. By engaging in activities that allow us time for reflection, we develop skills of observation, deduction, and reasoning that will help us live longer and be happier.

Drink a caffeinated beverage daily – between 300-400 mg of caffeine (an 8 ounce coffee has 100 mg). It protects the brain from aging and increases alertness.

Watch TV at a low volume, the lower the better. Better yet, use closed captioning. It increases your concentration and observation skills and helps you focus better. Start at the normal volume and gradually lower it. This engages your attention, helps you focus, and teaches your brain to tune out background noises so you aren’t distracted by that loud-voiced guy two rows over in the cubicle farm where you work or can better hear your kid in the fall concert over everyone else’s kids. You also pick up lip-reading skills, excellent for your eavesdropping sessions at the family reunion.

Doodle when you are listening to others – it increases your recall by as much as 30% than if you took notes or simply listened because it allows your body to deflect the urges to move and fidget without distracting you.

Choose crunchy snacks like celery, bell pepper, and carrots because the crunch satisfies primordial urges within you that make you restless and unhappy. These also satisfy the vibrantly colored snack needs.

There are obviously other things of similar nature you can do that will provide you with the same survival and well-being benefits, but these are a good starting place. Try some or all of them and add your own. You’ll be happier. And barring an accident or a devastatingly acute illness, you’ll live longer and healthier, too. I hear so many of my contemporaries say, “If I’d known I was going to live to be 60 (or 70 or 80), I’d have taken better care of myself when I was younger.” If you are younger, start now. And if you’re one of my contemporaries, it’s not too late.

 

Surviving a Hangover

New Year’s and the festive drinking most commonly associated with it will be here soon. That means some people are going to have hangovers.

I am not among those people. I have never had a hangover. In talking with various friends, family members, and acquaintances in the medical field, I discovered why I don’t get hangovers even though I sometimes over-indulge.

Let me share with you how to prevent a hangover first, and then what I have learned are the best hangover cures.

Even on my heavy drinking nights, I alternate alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic ones. I prefer orange juice, V-8 juice, and Dr. Pepper as alternate drinks, occasionally sipping hot tea or hot cocoa if it’s cold outside My favorite bar foods have always involved bacon – bacon wrapped cheese filled cherry toamtoes are one of my favorites, but I also like bacon sliders, bacon guacamole, and bacon cheese dips. I prefer white wine over red, and this, apparently, is a good thing because the compounds in red wine that give it the rich ruby color also increases the chance of a hangover.

If you have over-indulged and not alternated your alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic ones and have a hangover, here is the absolute best hangover cure ever: bacon. A bacon sandwich speeds up the metabolism, boosts blood sugars, provides fuel, and is full of the amino acids that restore brain neurotransmitters to quickly banish the symptoms of a hangover. Add a sports drink to your bacon sandwich, and you may find you suffer ever so much less. The combination of the two is the best possible hangover remedy. If you know you’re going to over indulge, pre-cook some bacon and stock some sports drinks, then, when you wake with a hangover, all you have to do is warm the bacon and slap it between some bread and pop open a sports drink.

The only real way to prevent a hangover is to avoid alcoholic beverages altogether. If you are going to drink anyway, my style of drinking appears to be a good one – alternate an alcoholic drink with a non-alcoholic one: orange juice, V-8 juice, water, coffee, soda. Eat bar food. There’s a reason bar foods are so popular, they really do reduce your chances of getting a hangover. Eat them. If it’s your party, prepare bacon-oriented snack foods; bacon does a lot to reduce hangovers. Take prickly pear cactus pills before starting your party drinking. Prickly pear cactus reduces dry mouth, nausea, and loss of appetite so you’re more likely to enjoy those bar foods, plus it halves your chances of getting a hangover.

A monkey smoothie can also help – a banana, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, and whole milk – by restoring electrolyes, providing antioxidants, increasing depleted blood sugars, soothing a queasy stomach, and replacing some of the lost fluids.

Vitamins B6 and B12 taken before you go to sleep with a full glass of water can also reduce hangover symptoms.

Water is neutral – you need it, but it doesn’t really cure hangovers, only the dehydration. It does nothing to calm the pounding headache, the aversion to light, or any of the other symptoms of a hangover. Drink water anyway, you probably need it.

Milk thistle tablets are also neutral – they don’t help regular drinkers because they aren’t strong enough. But if you rarely indulge, milk thistle does improve your liver function and helps you metabolize alcohol a little more quickly – not as fast or well as a bacon sandwich, but anything’s better than nothing when you suffer from a hangover.

The things you need to avoid for a hangover are the black coffee and Tylenol cure – that one is deadly. Black coffee makes your headache worse, and Tylenol (or any pain reliever with acetaminophen is toxic to your liver. You don’t want to be taking them together when your liver is already stressed from too much alcohol. It could be fatal. If you need a pain reliever, take real aspirin; it’s the least toxic. Exercise simply makes your dehydration worse, thus making your hangover worse. Taking the hair of the dog only masks and delays the hangover, it doesn’t cure it.

As for those other hangover “cures” – like swallowing a raw egg, eating honey, persimmons, raw cabbage, or kudzu or globe artichokes – does nothing for hangovers.

The good news is that hangovers usually only last 24 hours, so you’ll feel much better tomorrow, as long as you don’t drink again between now and then.

 

Life’s Too Short

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581026,00.html?test=latestnews

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581077,00.html?test=latestnews

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/22/MNOR1B7N7F.DTL

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/23/ap/strange/main6015359.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.10

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/23/ap/strange/main6015360.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.10

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/quadraplegic-mother-fights-maintain-custody-son/story?id=9403163

Killed over bread, beaten over ice cream, 911 called over excessive gaming, hacking up cars over a bit of road-rage, firebombing an ex-lover, trying to deny custody to a handicapped mom – these are just a few of the reasons I dislike winter. The cold seems to bring the worst out in people who already don’t know how to cope.

They don’t know how to cope because they were over-protected as children, and now, as adults, they lack the crucial skills to survive that they needed to get as they grew up. For many of these people, violence is the only solution they have. Temper tantrums and angry fits worked for them to get their way when they were children, and they expect the same inappropriate and childish methods to work for them now they are adults.

What we need is a “How to be an Adult” Class or school or something. My blog tries to address the common events we, as adults, need to navigate to get through life comfortably and happily. I’ve covered such things as driving on ice, coping with weather extremes, how to clean up your home after a flood or water-main break, organizing a home pantry, how long food is edible, and other such day-to-day and seasonal things. Maybe I need to address how to deal with various stressors without the need to resort to violence. I don’t like that people are so mannerless and rude and greedy as to casually kill someone over a loaf of free bread, even if it has dried fruit in it, or to even contemplate firebombing an ex-lover’s house, or beat someone up over spilled ice cream or to even think for a nano-second that a handicapped woman is incapable of loving and raising her child (if she was competent enough to have sex and give birth and raise the child to this point, what makes anyone think she suddenly can’t do it anymore?) .

I want to gather all these clueless people up and show them how to be clued-in and responsible and mannered and happy and how to successfully (or at least non-violently) resolve their stresses and problems.

Life is too short to be mean.

 

It’s a Plane! It’s a Train! It’s a – Survivor!

Let’s face it: we live in an extremely safe society. Too safe. We aren’t regularly exposed to danger, and we do our best to reduce such exposure for our children. The thinking appears to go “If I remove this dangerous object, and this one, and this one, and demand that manufacturers make this product safe and that one, and add child-proofing to everything, then everyone will be safe.” And that’s a false sense of safety that can get us killed that much faster. Worse, we ignore drills and practices as false alarms, or assume we have more time than we really do. Our society is so safe that we are our biggest threat.

There are a number of things we can do to increase our chances of survival – and ignoring alarms is nowhere on that list. It takes 90 seconds for smoke from a fire to fill a house or a huge office complex – 90 seconds! And yet, the average response time to a fire alarm is 8 minutes. The whole place could be enflamed by then and guess what? You’re dead or dying.

We’ve lost our respect for fire because we don’t live with it everyday as we did back when fireplaces were our primary sources of heat and cooking. Now, we get fire in the special outdoor barbecues or maybe, once in a while, out camping. There are people who go months or even years without ever seeing an open flame. We’ve forgotten just how devastating fire is. Even when fires are all over the news, like the California wildfires or apartments fires or house fires, it doesn’t really impact us – we didn’t experience the fire first hand, weren’t damaged by it, and so it doesn’t affect us beyond sending some token aid or sympathy to those who were impacted by the fires. The reason people die in fires like the one in that Rhode Island club is because they don’t respect the fire; ignoring the alarms and reacting slowly when it finally dawns on them they really are in danger. By then, they’ve gone beyond danger and are dead.

The point of drills is to teach us to respond immediately, without having to process each step of the way and think about what we need to do next. Drills take us through the steps until we can do them without wasting time figuring out what we have to do. Respond to drills as if they were the real thing. Even if you know for a fact that the drill is just that, move as if it were real. If you’re drilling your children, reward the first one to respond, and make the response times shorter and shorter until they all move the moment the alarm sounds. Teach them that it’s much better to look foolish and live than to be fashionably late and hurt or dead because of it.

As the “drill sergeant”, you must respond even quicker to the drill because you have to make sure everyone under your care got out safely. If the emergency is real, you don’t want to have to risk your life going back in to get someone who was goofing off instead of responding to the drill.

Respect fire. It kills quickly. It can kill before flames are visible. When it doesn’t kill, burns are among the most painful and disfiguring injuries. Smoke inhalation injuries can cause permanent breathing problems. Of all the things we need to survive, air is the most important one – and smoke and fire can reduce our ability to get air, and thus our chances of survival.

Always have a plan. Always check the places you go for escape routes – and walk those routes. Count how many doors or seats are between you and nearest emergency exit, and know what the second and third exits are in case the first one is blocked. Consider these your personal mini-drills. If you’ve practiced the escape route and safety drill even once before, if an emergency happens, you’ll be prepared. You won’t dither about wondering what you are supposed to do, or going through drawers looking for the building’s escape plans, or trying to read the exit map on the hotel door in the smoke. Those maps are always posted up high and not sensibly near the ground as they should be. You don’t want to find out there’s a problem with your escape route when you’re in a desperate need to use it. Also, in a hotel, try to get a room below the 6th floor because few fire ladders go above the 6th floor.

You may think surviving a plane crash is not possible, but so far, 95% of the people involved in plane crashes in the US survive. So you have a 95% chance of surviving. One important tip is to not inflate your life vest until you are actually outside the plane. Inflating it before you escape may trap you inside, which means you will probably drown. There is no magic sweet spot for survival in a plane, although, like a hotel, the closer you are to an exit, the better. Aisle seats are good because you don’t have to struggle over unresponsive passengers.

In trains – above or below ground – avoid the first and last cars. When a train crashes, it most likely involves these cars. Sit with your back facing the direction of travel because when the train or bus stops quickly, you’ll be held in your seat, not thrown out of it. Make sure overhead luggage is either not present or is well secured so it doesn’t fall on you if the train stops quickly.

Boats and ships have so many ways to go down that your best bet is to know where the life vests and flotation devices are. You are marginally safer in a cabin or below decks during a storm because at least you won’t be swept overboard by the weather. If you must be on deck, make sure you are secured to a lifeline. Stay calm, storms pass and most ships weather them quite well. If your ship does sink, grab a life vest or a flotation device or a get in a life-boat. If nothing else, grab onto floating debris. Most countries track ships and when one goes down, rescue crews are generally on their way quickly. If you’re in a pleasure yacht or small craft, make sure you radio in your position regularly so if you get into trouble, help will soon be on its way. If you establish a routine and tell the dispatcher when you will be checking in again, if you don’t call at the appointed time, they’ll come looking for you.

Like I said – we live in a very safe society. Rescue crews are there, but you’ve got to do your part until they arrive. Only you can save yourself at least long enough for rescue crews to get to you. Whether you’re in a car, a hotel, a train, plane, or bus, you are the first responder. Drill yourself on your own rescue in as many situations as you will be in so you’ll still be alive when rescuers do arrive.

 

Make Your Own Cranberry Juice

Making your own cranberry juice is delicious and very easy.

six 12-ounce bags of fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed and stemmed as needed

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 cups water

Have a chinois or fine-mesh strainer or several layers of cheesecloth at hand.

Combine the cranberries, sugar and water in a large bowl; toss to coat.

Working in several batches, transfer the mixture to a blender and liquefy briefly, then strain through a chinois into a separate large bowl, pressing to extract as much juice as possible. Repeat to blend and strain all of the mixture, discarding the solids. Transfer to tight-lidded bottle and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days. Makes 2 quarts.

Do not apply heat at any point during this process. Cranberries contain a high amount of poectin and will gel when heated. If you’d rather have cranberry sauce than cranberry juice, by all means heat gently until thickened than allow to cool until it gels.

This juice can be drunk as is, used as a flavoring for teas, as a mixer for cocktails and mocktails, fermented to make a lush cranberry wine, or added to an ale for a tangy ruby brew. Since cranberries are bitter on their own, they don’t do as well (in my opinion) hopped, but an unhopped ale or mead loves cranberries.

 

Surviving Bad Neighbors

We all know what I’m talking about – the nosy neighbor who feels compelled to report every single thing she (it’s usually a woman) finds offensive to the condo association, the home owner’s association, the code enforcement officers, or even the police. She is constantly knocking on your door to tell you it’s time to mow your lawn or that she doesn’t think the purple pansies you planted fit the “scheme of the neighborhood” or that you have a box on your doorstep. She peers in your windows to see if she can complain about something inside your home, and if you have visitors, she’s watching them and you.

But she’s not the only bad neighbor. What about the neighbor whose fence is falling down and won’t repair it? Or the family that thinks playing their music at 11 or louder all hours of the day and night is their God-given right? Or the garage band that doesn’t use mufflers on their instruments and can’t carry a beat if someone put a handle on it for them? Or the neighbors who stand in the middle of the street blocking traffic and won’t move because “they aren’t going anything illegal” and it’s their “right to stand in the street if they want to”? How about the neighbor who lets their rambunctious dog roam the neighborhood and poop where it would – preventing you from letting your children play in your own yard? Or the neighbor whose cat digs up your garden and poops in your child’s sandbox?

These are just a few of the bad neighbors we encounter. Living in a condo, apartment, tenement, or a large subdivided house is worse than living in a single family home simply because your neighbors are that much closer to you.

What do you do when your neighbor dumps their trash in your yard, peers in your windows, plays their music too loud, vandalizes your car or house with shoe polish or eggs? What do you do when it’s the president of the HOA or condo association who’s harassing you and making threats or spreading lies about you?

How do you survive a bad neighbor?

There are steps you can take that don’t involve violence or vandalism.

First, you have to realize that bad neighbors fall into a few categories and how you handle them depends upon the category they are in.

First, you have the oblivious neighbor who genuinely doesn’t realize what they are doing is a nuisance and an annoyance.

Next, you have the neighbor who doesn’t realize their children are being nuisances. Point here: never, ever talk to the children who are being a nuisance other than to locate their parents. Address your concerns to the parents, not the children. Talking to or yelling at children can get you in trouble, even if the children are the ones causing the problems. Always, always, always, address any problems you have with ill-behaved, nuisance children with their parents/guardians.

Third, you have the busybody who thinks they are “helping” you. They may be drama queens (of any gender), and may be self appointed “police” of the neighborhood.

Fourth, you have the rude, brutish, just plain don’t care neighbors.

And lastly, you have the neighbors who are doing something illegal.

Each category requires a different approach.

Let’s start with general tips first, then move on to dealing with each category.

1. Know your neighbors. Don’t wait for a neighborhood welcome wagon to visit you. Lots of neighborhoods don’t have welcome wagons. Do it yourself. Go door to door and introduce yourself. Leave a nice card if no one’s home. Host an Open House or a Barbecue or a Block Party. This helps establish a congenial rapport so if a problem does arise, you’ll be better able to resolve it peacefully.

2. Bring problems up as soon as they happen (new puppy that barks all day or all night, a neighbor who keeps parking in your space, new drums for a neighbor’s kid…). Offer to help with things that are problems – pruning a tree whose limbs may threaten your property, halves in repairing or replacing a fence. And if a neighbor plans an add-on that will block part of your property or limit your access or invade your privacy, bring it up before the add-on is built.

3. Ask around to see if other neighbors are bothered. If it’s just you, maybe you’re too sensitive. If several of you are bothered, approaching the neighbor as a group may be more effective – and safer.

4. Be proactive. If you are having a party, let your neighbors know that parking may be tight and the noise level may rise but you’ll do your best to keep it down. Invite them if there’s room for it. Nothing defuses anger at a loud party better than being invited to attend said party! Deal with conflict on your own first before taking it to the next level. Unless you are truly afraid for your life, calling the police is a last resort in a neighbor conflict. If you are part of a HOA or condo association, ask if you can have community building speakers come in and talk about being good neighbors. Even if you’re not, maybe inviting such a speaker to a block party might be a good idea, or inviting the police to come and talk about neighborhood safety.

5. Be nice. If you do something that might annoy or offend a neighbor, apologize before they complain. Or if they complain before you get a chance to apologize, be quick to offer that apology. Bring your neighbor cookies or a bottle of wine or nice card if you have a conflict – after it’s resolved, usually but maybe even during it if it’s a long drawn out process.

6. If necessary, write a polite, detailed letter spelling out what you think the problem is and what you feel would be a fair solution. Do not get personal or threatening. Keep the tone dull and humorless because humor can be misinterpreted and used against you.

These tips will work excellently well with the oblivious neighbor and often with the neighbor who has rampaging children, and may help control the “helpful” neighbor. The best way to have good neighbors is to be a good neighbor. If you know your neighbors, you might learn that the sidewalk that didn’t get shoveled after a storm belongs to an elderly person with a broken leg or the overgrown lawn belongs to a single person who’s been very ill, or the family with the barking dog are as exasperated as you are only they don’t know what to do. A little niceness resolves these issues beautifully.

Neighbors who “police” your neighborhood, who threaten you with “turning you in” for violating rules that exist only in their heads, who harass you to force you to please them, who pounce on everything they think might possibly be an infraction require a sterner approach. These people are usually prevalent in HOAs, condo associations, high rise apartments, and possibly in apartment complexes. Most often, they are female, but not always.

A. Learn the HOA/condo rules and keep a copy handy so if this person tries to tell you that you are violating some code or other, you’ll know if you really are. Whether you rent or are buying, this is vital for your own peace of mind.

B. If you are renting, let your landlord know as soon as you identify this person so as to forestall any trouble with your landlord.

C. If you are an owner, attend the HOA/condo meetings so you can know about rule changes immediately and can be prepared if this person launches a new attack.

D. Document the actions and write a formal letter to her. Be explicit and detailed, factual, and cite codes or regulations. Do not threaten or talk about lawsuits or police involvement. Be polite. Spell out what you think would be a fair solution.

E. If that fails, file a formal complaint with the HOA or condo association.

F. If the busy body neighbor spreads rumors or lies about you, don’t shrug it off, let her know you will not hesitate to sue her for defamation of character. If she persists, follow through.

G. If this person peers in your windows, alert the police as this is a criminal offense. Don’t have her arrested the first time, but do let her know you’ve spoken to the police about your legal rights and you will call them next time she oversteps her boundaries.

This is usually enough to keep her off your back, but she will mutter and complain about it to anyone who listens. You just have to have a tough skin and ignore all that muttering. Only act when she is violating your privacy, spreading lies about you, or otherwise behaving in an actionable way. She has the right to mutter and complain as long as she isn’t causing you harm. If you ignore her whining and complaining with good humor, she may eventually leave you alone, especially if she finds a new target. Share these tips with that new target; you’ll make a friend.

Neighbors who are rude, threatening, or just plain don’t care require a different approach.

I. First of all, if you feel threatened (usually if you are elderly or female), don’t ever confront these people alone. Bring another neighbor or friends with you. This is when Step Three above is useful.

II. If there’s a HOA or condo association, speak to the board members about how to resolve this problem. They may suggest mediation – take it.

III. If it’s an older neighborhood and/or there’s no HOA or condo association, if you’re renting, speak to your landlord. Your landlord may already know about the problem and know ways to handle it. If you’re an owner, talk to neighbors. They may have dealt with this person before and can offer suggestions.

IV. Suggest mediation. Most cities have a mediation center and all states have at least one. Sometimes, they can suggest things before it reaches mediation, and if that doesn’t work, mediation may help. This is particularly useful if the neighbor is rude or just doesn’t care.

V. If the neighbor is threatening, don’t hesitate to ask for police advice or back up.

VI. If the issue is verbal harassment and verbal rudeness, take the kindness approach: visit them with cookies and speak to them calmly. “I noticed you seemed unhappy last time we met so I thought I’d come over and see what I could do. Is something wrong?” Be calm, concerned, and curious. Each time they verbally abuse or harass you, visit them and inquire about what’s wrong calmly, curiously, and with genuine concern in your voice and attitude. Never retaliate or argue with them. Pursue the issue in great and excruciating and polite detail. One of 2 things will happen: they will eventually reveal why they are being abusive so you can work it out or they’ll avoid you in order to avoid another calm, concerned, and curious visit.

In all cases, if the nicer, personal requests to resolve the problem don’t bring results, document the issue and take it to the next step. The next step is usually the local Code Enforcement officer or the city police.

If the person is conducting illegal activities in your neighborhood, contact the police immediately.

I realize that in some of the not-so-nice neighborhoods, police presence and responses are less than optimal. Document the illegal activity. It is possible to file a nuisance suit with the city or county for something that is substantial, continuous, and violates a law. Visit sites like http://nolo.com or http://www.videojug.com/tag/neighbor-law for tips and suggestions on documenting nuisances and how and when to involve the police and authorities.

For people who let their dogs roam and poop on your lawn, or who walk their dog and don’t scoop, animal control is the next step up if speaking to your neighbor doesn’t work. They are also the place to go for barking dogs.

For lawns that are badly overgrown and the resident just doesn’t respond, the local Code Enforcement officer or city hall is the place to start. The same holds true for junk cars, trash piled up, and other eyesores.

Remember, litigation is a last step. It’s lengthy, expensive (a minimum of $10,000 in court costs and fees unless you go to small claims court, and even there, it can be $3,000 or more), and will usually destroy any chance of being good neighbors afterwards. Unless the damages exceed $50,000 (and some tree damage can do this), it’s usually not worth suing over.