What in the World is an Alimentary Canal?

     Well, the alimentary canal is the system in your body that takes the food in and eliminates what isn't absorbed. So from mouth to butt and everything in between is the alimentary canal.

     So why am I telling you about this? I'm certainly not an expert. I heard a very interesting interview on the radio this morning with Mary Roach who has written Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal.

     The interview began with the topic of hot dog eating contests and how such enormous amounts can be consumed without damage. Answer? The whole system can stretch enormously. 

   Roach got interested in the system when she was a little kid and didn't wan to eat her vegetables. She told her mother that the Inuit didn't eat veggies because they couldn't grow any. They researched the topic. Inuit survive because they eat all the organ meat which is rich in vitamins. Roach didn't tell us that Inuit eat the stomach contents . Many animal the harvest eat vegetation so in this way the Inuit do get veggies. One caution. Don't eat polar bear liver as it's so high in vitamin B content that it's poisonous.

    The forty minute interview continues with all kinds of off the wall info about the alimentary canal.

     At one time people believed that stomach noises were caused by frogs. They thought that the water they consumed contained eggs that hatched in their body.

    Study of the alimentary canal has gone on for ages. Only recently have they been able to see inside the canal and understand what goes on. At one time bags with food were consumed so that the contents had to be eliminated. They then tried to find out what happened to the food. 

    They found out that contents could be removed and digestion continued as the amazing number of chemicals kept on with their work. 

   So it was a very humorous and informative interview... so much so that I had to do a blog post on it.
     

Ghost # 1

     I've found a few new blogs to follow lately. Some of these blogs have been showing some very fine statues in their cities. I like art, I like sculpture that decorates the  city landscape.

    Now I envied these people with the great sculpture in their cities. I thought my small city didn't have much.   I knew we had a series of statues called a ghost project. I have seen all of them but never taken a good look at them. I decided to photograph the ten ghost statues. This series was made to represent various figures which have been important in the history of our city.

    People in the community get an idea for a sculpture and they fund raise and get the piece produced. The city then finds a good place to locate the statue and also looks after it.

    Then I got the idea that they would make blog posts. So here I go. I will be including a ghost statue every once in a while. When I researched the ghosts I found much more art. Some of it I had forgotten about and some I had no idea that we had it. 

    The first statue that was produced was of the man who started our city. So Leonard Gaetz sits at the corner of Gaetz Avenue and Ross Street which is the center of the city.

Pitching a new idea to promote the city.

Thoughtful

Think about it

I Was Zinged the Other Day

     A few days ago I met my 89 year old friend coming into the grocery store for his weekly supply of groceries. I meet him and his wife every couple of months doing their grocery shopping. Our wives love to chat like there's no tomorrow. In two minutes Howard and I have talked about all we know and we're ready to continue and pick up our groceries. So fifteen minutes, twenty minutes and their conversation seems to be not close to an end. Howard has a sense of humor so he says , "Watch this. I'll get them moving." and he snaps his fingers. Nothing happens. We are the only ones who get the joke.

    So the other day when Howard came into the store , he saw my wife had her back turned to them and Howard knew his wife didn't see my wife so he was going to hustle things right along before they saw each other. As Howard's wife was being guided away she said, over her shoulder to me, "Patience is a virtue, seldom found in women and never found in men."  It knocked my socks off! It was a very apropos quote for the moment.

    A day or two later Quoteflections had quotes on patience. I copied them out and sent them to Howard's wife as I know she loves quotes.

   So I was zinged a few days ago and had to honestly think about patience.

Personal Letter Writing.

     I am a regular listener to Vinyl Cafe which is a CBC radio program which I get every Sunday at noon. It consists of music and stories. They travel and do shows on the road. Usually they have a theme for the program and today's theme was letters. So all the music and stories were about letters. The story was about the host writing letters and then getting interested in stamp collecting. It's surprising all the music you can find about letters.

     This got me thinking about my personal letter writing. First of all, personal letter writing, where a letter is written by hand and sent through the mail is almost extinct. I started to think about the last time I wrote a personal letter and I couldn't remember the last time I wrote a letter.

   I do remember when I did write letters on a regular basis . I also received letters regularly. As a child I wrote letters to my friends and Grandma. My letter writing hey day was when I first left home. I usually wrote home once a week. I used a fountain pen and unlined writing paper...the kind you put lines under so you could write in a straight line. I think the postage was four cents. We don't even have a penny anymore! I would put dear Mom and Dad on the greeting but in my head I was writing to Mom. I thought of Mom because she was the one who always wrote back to me. 

    So I wrote letters home for nine years after I left home. Why did I stop? I got married and somebody else took over the letter writing. 

    Letter writing today has become quite rare. Long distance phoning has become much more comparable in price to sending a letter in the postal system. Phoning is much more immediate. Email is also super fast and efficient. Now texting has become almost continuous.

    Now I would say that I am an elder in the blogging world. I think I'm older at 73 than all my followers as well as the people I follow. So most of my readers will probably be pretty hazy about personal letter writing! Writing was an excellent form of communication at the time but modern technology has given us easier and faster more direct contact.

    Just out of curiosity, does anybody out there write personal letters?

My World is White.

   We are getting a super spring storm in Alberta today. We've had snow, blowing snow and it's about minus 5 C(plus 22 F). It's supposed to clear out tonight.

   There was a major traffic pile up just south of Edmonton with 20 vehicles ...many of them semis.

   Sunrise today was at 7:32 and sunset is at 7:51. That's about 12 hours and 19 minutes with the sun shining.

   At this time of year we can very quickly get warm temperatures to the high teens. That means that the snow can disappear rapidly. Most people are hoping that happens very soon.

I'm being a softy and I took this out the window

The air is full of snow

Dull and poor visibility

What you see driving down the street.

F

I Have a Pulse

     This morning I went for my annual medical checkup which was a year late. I found a different Doc and was much impressed.

    This doc sent me for my lab work about six weeks before the checkup. So the first thing he did was to go over the lab results and tell me what they indicated. All test results were in the normal range. He set up a detailed chart by asking just about everything in my history. Then he started a very thorough methodical physical examination. I've never had a blood pressure cuff put on so carefully. He checked my skin for any spots which may indicate skin cancer. He checked my lungs and put the stethoscope on three positions on each side. So you get the drift. This guy did a super check up. I told him that I was pleased with his thoroughness and he told me that he liked to do a check up the way he would like to be checked.

   I've had annual check ups since my mid forties. Things were done today that had never been done before. There was communication with each action. My liver was checked! My abdomen well palpitated. My spleen was found and checked. Pulse was taken at my ankles as well as wrists! This never happened before. I appreciated the whole procedure and felt that this Doc really knew what was there and how it was.

    So after I was finished I began to think about conditions. I have my own knees, hips, liver, heart, lungs, kidneys. Some people do not have their own of these things. I'm missing some teeth and have some fake teeth. I have some loss of sight but I have my own eyes! I have some loss of hearing but I still have ears! 

   So I had a very good day. My tests were fine. The examination was well done. I went away happy. 

    I still have a pulse!

My Limited Perception of Future

    I finished high school in 1957. I'm planning to write a letter to my classmates(all five of them.) I wrote them in 2007 which was fifty years after we finished. I was impressed with the feed back I got from them and they were amazed to hear from me. Our teacher and one class mate have died as well as two spouses. It just feels like a good time to write them again.

   One of the parts in my letter will be about us being young and our perception of our future. How did we ever get so old?

   It got me thinking about my limited ability to see the future.

   In 1957 did we see computers? Modern technology? Modern transportation? 

    In 1957 I was 17 years old. I could not envision being 21 years old. In fact I had trouble seeing the next week in my mind. I had trouble seeing what I wanted to do with my life . I just accidentally fell into teaching. I had no concept of settling down, being married or having a family. I couldn't dream of being 30! In one teacher inservice the topic must have been pensions. I remember being told certain figures and calculated that I could retire in 1995?  This was in 1958 ! 1995 seemed like forever. 

    So I have to stop and think about our perception of the future. I'll admit that mine's not very good. I can't seem to remotely visualize what the future will look like.   Now I'm sitting here and trying to think about being 80 if I make it. What changes will occur in the world in the next few years? What changes will happen to me by the time I reach 80? 

    In my head I feel myself as no different from 1957 when I was 17. Life goes on. We have experiences. We change. ..sometimes more than we think. I am and have been happy. Maybe that's why I didn't think too much about the future.

    I think I'm going to have fun writing another letter to my classmates!

    At this age I don't think I will ever get the hang of seeing the future. I'd have made a very poor fortune teller!