Flashback Friday – Tazo Awake Tea

Tazo Awake tea gets me through the day. They are not false advertisers. That stuff keeps me awake in class. It is the main force getting me through finals week with a sick three year old. Not only do they have an awesome website and amusing labels, but their line of teas is fantastic, and I am a tea hound. I know my Lapsang Souchong from my Oolong.

I can find it everywhere now: the grocery store, the Starbucks kiosk at the school. I remember the first time I had it, however. I was visiting Herb Pharm in beautiful Williams, Oregon. It was the height of the boom in the natural products industry. Herbal companies would fly health food store buyers, like me, out to the company for an all expenses paid training and tour.

Herb Pharm was beautiful. I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. The people were wonderful and passionate. Herbal Ed was great to hang out with, share herbs with (I have shared kava and other herbs with this man, wink wink) and learn from. He valued scientific tools to verify traditional usage of herbs and to guarantee safety and effectiveness. I was just falling in love with natural medicine, which has led me to where I am today, one day from being done with my first year of medical school.

I remember being the first one up one morning, suffering from my inability to sleep anywhere I am visiting and being accustomed to the Eastern timezone. They had a teapot on the stove and a box of tea for us. The tea was Tazo Awake. That was the most perfect cup of tea I have ever had. The house was silent. The tea was magnificent. (Tazo’s loose version of this tea won a blind taste testing at Cook’s Illustrated.) The boarding house was where their herbal apprentices slept, and it was right in the middle of the farm and gardens.

I am a very different person than I was that morning ten years ago. I am not sure if I had even decided I wanted to go to medical school yet, and I didn’t have any kids. But, I still loved a great cup of tea.

To check out another fan of tea and other Flashback Friday posts, check out CableGirl at 42.

‘Aliens are my brother’

That was the title of an article in the Vatican newspaper, written by Father Gabriel Funes, the Vatican astronomer. I didn’t even know there was a Vatican astronomer! I envision him dressed like the sorcerer in Fantasia.

He wrote about so many fascinating things, according to the BBC, anyway. I am not sure if the Vatican newspaper is written in Latin or Italian, but I can’t read either. I would have to hire CableGirl to fact check. Not only does he say there may be intelligently designed beings on other planets, but they may be free from original sin. Apparently, whatever female beings there are there might not have screwed everything up.

Also, the Vatican is going to hold a conference to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. My goodness, I bet Ben Stein’s head just exploded. We are in for more killing, I presume.

Oh, the irony

I thought it was ironic when I was studying the physiology of fertility and pregnancy on Mother’s Day. Now, Z has croup and I have a virology test, my microbiology final, on Friday. (HPIV 1 will be on the exam). Big problem is, I have an Osteopathic Principles & Practices final tomorrow. I have a written exam at 8 a.m. and a practical exam at 10:30 a.m. Coach Stu has field day tomorrow at his school.

Z has been better in the mornings and crashes every afternoon and evening. I kept him home today. He was fine, full of energy and without a trace of fever all day. He fell asleep late this afternoon on the way home from hanging out at my school with big brother S in the lounge while I was at a review. He woke up barking, crying, lethargic, flushed, and with a fever.

My mom has offered to let him hang out at her school, either in the classroom with her teaching partner during her two 40 minute classes or in the nurse’s office. Coach Stu will be able to drop him off since her school is near his school. Both are almost an hour from our home. I should be out by 11:30 or so at the latest.

I am thinking he may be OK to go to school in the morning – he has been fine in the mornings and is only symptomatic in the afternoons and evenings, then sleeps all night without any problem. I would hate to drop him off there if he was feeling sick, even though I know he is not contagious anymore. I am not sure being at my mother’s school by 7 a.m. is any more comforting. Why is it so hard to be a caring parent and have a career or education? Sheesh, wish me luck.

Music Monday – Steven Banks

I used an old VHS tape with some room on the end of it to turn in some animation as a final project in art school. Unfortunately, it also had some cool Canadian animation and a great one man show by Steven Banks. My ex never let me live it down.

Thank Maude for You Tube

I have had this song stuck in my head forever. This clip is from later on in the show – I highly recommend watching all of the segments.

Go check out more Music Monday posts.

Happy mother’s day!

Happy mother’s day! Remember, when you put down one mother, you’re putting down mothers all over the world!

Mine has had a rather unauspicious beginning – being woken up by Z with a croupy cough. Ironic, since I am studying HPIV, the most common cause of croup, for my virology final on Friday. I declare a do – over Mother’s Day for anyone else whose Mother’s Day is not to their liking. Next Sunday I will definitely get to have a mimosa or a bloody mary, and I will sleep in, damnit. Today I will be studying for my physiology final, so there will be no alcohol. Phooey.

I just registered

Ugh, I just registered for fall semester. (Which starts July 7th. Funny, I thought that was smack dab in the middle of summer, but maybe I am old fashioned).

36 credits! (Not including whatever I take for MPH). That’s a little staggering, especially since I am in the middle of finals right now. But, I am looking forward to it. Our second year is systems based learning. Women’s Health is coming up! Yippee!

Shower birth

This is an incredible story, and so is the one that the blog author tells about her own teenage pregnant patient who hid her pregnancy.

I love her quote:

“As I told the shocked and ashamed mom, this was one pretty amazing girl. I don’t think I could have accomplished what she had at age 16 while pregnant, let alone holding that secret for 9 months.”

It’s nice when a doctor treats her moms with respect.

Three in one day

Three blog entries in one day is a bit much, but I am studying in front of my computer, and I take breaks every once in a while. Well, today has been a busy blog day, I guess.

For people who love to say “The United States has the best health care system in the world!”, give this article a good read.

Some highlights:

“Somehow or other, when they hear these figures, most Americans just shrug. Indeed, “it is remarkable how complacent the public and the medical profession are in their acceptance of” our low ranking when it comes to life expectancy, “especially in light of trends in national spending on health, ” Dr. Steven Schroeder, a professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine last year.

“One reason for the complacency may be the rationalization that the United States is more ethnically heterogeneous than the nations at the top of the rankings, such as Japan, Switzerland, and Iceland. But,” Schroeder pointed out, “even when comparisons are limited to white Americans, our performance is dismal (see table below) And even if the health status of white Americans matched that in the leading nations, it would still be incumbent on us to improve the health of the entire nation.””

This ties into the post I made the other day about people who can’t stand any criticism at all about the status quo in America. How can you discuss universal health care and the crisis of our health care system with people who still believe we have the best medical care too much of our money can buy?

All of the countries that rank higher than the US have universal health care and more socioeconomic equality.

Way to go, lady!

Who says there aren’t any broads left?

This woman raised some hell when her husband wasn’t satisfying her sexually.

“When deputies arrived, the woman denied any assault had taken place, and repeatedly, without sparing a vulgar euphemism, told the deputies about how unsatisfied she was with her sex life — some of the time carrying around a half-gallon of whiskey while doing so.”

Oh, this lady doesn’t need to be arrested. She needs a vibrator and some divorce papers.

When Pigs Fly

I should wait until Flashback Friday, or even Music Monday, but I can’t.

This year at the Coachella festival, Roger Waters played “Pigs” by Pink Floyd. Well, thanks to Rachel Maddow, I got to hear about this crazy pig balloon prop. It apparently had an Uncle Sam painted on the side, holding two bloody cleavers, and a check box on the bottom with Obama’s name! Then, it got away.

Sheesh, I hope this isn’t an omen! Well, it did come back down to earth, but in pieces.