You can lead a horse to water

but you can't make him drink. Or so the saying goes. I'm having a bit of a quandry about a handful of recent clients that I've seen on my table. They all have varying degrees of aches, pains, symptoms, lifestyle issues in which they aren't able to do the things they enjoy because of any of the above. I ask them if they have played with any of the strength exercises I've suggested, or if they've been adjusted lately, if they drank water after their last massage, if they've done any stretching, if they've taken steps to fix the computer work station that increases their pain, if they've decreased their sugar intake (which when injested into a body that has any inflammation, is like pouring gasoline on a fire), and the answer to all these questions is no.

It's not that I don't understand not taking the time to do these things, and it's not like I haven't been very lax in the past about taking care of my own body's aches and pains. But for the past few years I've made different choices, and it's shown results and helped decrease symptoms as my lifestyle has changed. I think, in the end, it's a matter of me being a cock-eyed optimist. I see so much potential in so many people I work with. I see ability, strength, movement, and capability in their bodies, I hear it in their speech, and I want to empower them to create more of that in their lives. That's what it ultimately comes down to. I'm still working on my delivery, because sometimes I can be a big annoying Seattle bodywork hippy, but I want these people around for years to come, and some of them won't be if they don't make some changes.

Insert transition phrase here (little sister, you could help me with one of these). I seriously sit here and type and think of my English teacher little sister, my English teacher friend in Cedar City, my English major critic hubby, and well, I feel grammatically lacking. I seriously want to go back to 3rd grade, and cover basic grammar, and fractions. I feel like I was really sick those weeks during grade school.

Ly and I saw the Simpsons movie this weekend. I woke up about 3 times last night singing the choral version of Spider Pig - imagine Ly's surprise. Of course I may have only been singing it in my mind, but it makes for much better telling if I'm singing it as I sit up to pee, n'est-ce-pas? I can't get it out of my mind. For anyone with the inclination and time, I highly recommend the movie. There's a reason that they've been going for 18 seasons now.

I'm also getting a new tattoo. One of my clients has a friend who comes into town for a few weeks, and my client rounds up a bunch of tattoo clients for her. So I'm getting a tattoo on my sacrum. I figured it would be a nice balance to the ones on my feet. So this is a rough idea of what it will look like. The skull part will be much cooler, and there will be no words on it, of course. I've been learning a lot about how the pelvis and the jaw/head have a lot in common. For example, to help release my hips, and some muscles there, my acupuncturist will put needles in my jaw. The temporal bones in the head mirror the movement of the ilium(hip bones) almost directly. And well, most of my medical past has had to do with one or the other of these two areas. I just felt really drawn to this picture.



Like I said, it will be much more proportional, it will have a cooler face in the skull, and there won't be any words on it.

So after seeing the latest Harry Potter flick(I haven't read ANY of the books yet - I know, I know), I have decided that it is time for Ly and I to bite the bullet and get the books. I need to know what all the hype is about. I need to be swept up in the love and fury of the fandom. I have enjoyed the movies, I have become invested in the characters, but I need to know the intricacies of the storyline now. The movies can't do justice to those threads that can only be tied together with clever storytelling. I will say that the movie made me feel like a bad, bad man. I mean what is the male equivalent to "Lolita", because I was SO feeling it watching that latest movie. He IS legal now.

Insert another pithy transition here:

And it closing, my lovely little Beige man sent me this, and it pretty much sums up how I see the world:

SICKO anyone?

Possible liberal rant ahead, proceed with caution.

First, read this.
Salon's SICKO review

Lyam and I saw Michael Moore's movie recently. (Some minor spoilers contained - but you should still see the movie). And for those conservative family members to whom the name Micheal Moore compares to Lucifer, I dare you too see this movie. And having experienced the best and worst of the "health care" industry from both sides of the fence; patient and provider as opposed to liberal and conservative, it is clear to me that people are unnecessarily dying in this country due to a health care system that is deeply flawed.

As I mentioned in a previous post, our country is 37th in the world in the taking care of the health of it's people. We rank right about Slovenia. How is it possible that a country with some of the best technology, the best advances in medical equipment, the best scientific minds can rank 37th in the world in the health care of it's citizens? When a mother has a 4-year old daughter with a 104 degree fever, is told as she gets to the ER in an ambulance, that her HMO won't cover care unless it's at one of their hospitals. So being a conscientious mother, she gets in her car, drives to the HMO hospital, and as she gets out of the car her daughter starts to have a seizure. Within minutes, she watches her 4-year old daughter have a cardiac arrest and pass away in front of her. When rescue workers from 9/11, who didn't work for the city of New York and therefore didn't have health coverage, and that volunteered their time, are denied care for their respiratory conditions because no one will insure them, something in the system is flawed.

When these rescue workers can receive care in Cuba, as they did in the movie, and be charged a few US dollars for an asthma inhaler, as compared to $125 for the same inhaler in the states, the system is flawed. I have personal experience with this last inhaler issue. One of the inhalers that I'm "supposed" to be on cost me $125 a shot when I had a "health care" policy that didn't cover prescriptions.

The French have a manditory, 5 week vacation policy. They are instructed to take one week off for their honeymoon. ?????????

Does. Not. Compute. USA, does, not compute.

We take the best technology of the world, the best scientific knowledge, the best medical innovation, and we make it better. For those of you who think that a socialized health care system won't work, why are we in the United States SO intelligent that we can improve on most anything anyone around the world can create or conceive of, but our own citizens are dying in droves due to lack of health care coverage.

In the movie they show the original teletape of Nixon talking to his advisers as they had a discussion about what would eventually become Kaiser Permanente. This was the genesis of the road to health care for profit. The health care we know now is a numbers game. If the numbers are too high, if the odds don't stack up in our favor, we can cancel your policy. There are so many stories of people getting a life-threatening illness: cancer, brain tumor, heart attack, stroke, and having their insurance policies immediately canceled in the middle of what can oftentimes be painful follow-up procedures. There are people who go back over insurance applications looking for minute details that may have been omitted, prescriptions that weren't listed, doctors visits for the common cold that weren't listed, as reasons to cancel the policy.

Ultimately this movie is an anti-lobbyist movie. It's no secret that the drug, insurance and oil companies are running this country into the ground. The big brass in Washington that received hefty pay-offs for staying silent about a National health care system is staggering. The movie lists specific amounts, and persons that were paid off. And lest ye think I'm too big a ranting lefty, Hilary was paid a nice sum for her silence on pushing through a National Health Care system. She caved even though it was one of her pet issues in the beginning. I tell ya, that Illinois bruddah is looking better and better for '08.

The last point I wish to make about this movie, is the point I think Michael Moore made best, and that is "Live together, die alone." We have become so isolated from each other, in body, mind, and spirit. We are addicted to labels, myself included (She's rich, he's poor, she's a lefty whack job, he's an uptight conservative, she's Christian, he's Buddhist, she's gay, he's straight, she's Mexican, he's an Irish drunk who's family has lived here for 150 years). People in other countries do not understand why we don't see our fellow humans as our responsibility. So just be careful when you label something worthy or not of insert noun of choice here.

/end rant

In daily news, Ly and Stine will be headed to Whiskey Beach for our anniversary in August. We found a nice little "mobile park" that rents cabins that are hooked up with cable and pots and pans in the kitchen. So all we have to bring is bedding, and food. And it's way cheap.

For the first time in seriously, 20 years, I bought one size smaller in pants. My God I felt like I was 18 again. So the ass is getting a little more sproing, in all the good ways. Been working lots, but spending a nice amount of time in our pool, which thank God we have. I have official become a weather weenie living in Seattle. I mean back in Utah, we'd have 110 degree August days that would melt your face off, and since living in Seattle, I can only handle a variance of about 50 to 85 degrees. That is where I'm happiest.

Been doing a crazy amount of cranial sessions. I'm getting some wacky results. I LOVE playing with this, and taking journey's through people's bodies, including my own. And speaking of bodies, I'm getting another tattoo. It's going to be of a pelvis with a skull in the middle of it. It's not going to be a "I'm a gun-slinging-granny-Harley-kick-your-ass" type of skull, it's going to be very anatomical with a little touch of goth. The parallels between the skull and the pelvis in construction, function, and application, are astounding. So I'm getting that on my sacrum August 6th.

Well, speaking of SICKO, I must go get an allergy shot. Hopefully it will be covered.

:)