Category Archives: Satisfaction

June 4, 2017 · 0:00

Warning. Do not try this at home. Or anywhere else.

Yes, I realize that it’s been a while since I granted you all the benefits of my fake medical expert advice.  Sorry.

It’s just that poop news has been rather crappy lately.  What’s a specialist to do?

So for this post, I’m going to go out on a ledge.  Write what I don’t know.  Venture into a whole ‘nuther area of specialization.  I feel qualified because this area of specialty is in the same, errrr,  ball park.  Geographically speaking.  Certainly based on adolescent conversation, anyway.

You see, I read an article recently that inspired me to post after a pretty long hiatus

Doctors warn women against putting wasp nests in their vaginas

Now I don’t know about you, but this particular insert isn’t one I’ve personally ever considered.  Maybe I’m just weird.

To be fair to the women who have done this mind-bending medical procedure, the procedure does not involve vaginal insertion of a wasp nest that looks like this one, with buzzing wasps going in and out:

Wasp nest.jpg

Image by ABC Wildlife

On the other hand, maybe something buzzing and going in and out is the whole idea behind the procedure.  But I digress.

Actually, the procedure involves ground up wasp eggs called “galls.”

170601-wasp-nest-vagina

This is a Getty Image, copied from the article

These are Oak leaf “galls” in case you want to make your own.

Galls are wasp larvae, left on the bottoms of oak leaves.  They are ground up and inserted into the vagina to tighten it and to cleanse it.  Okay …

As a fake medical expert, I think I  can safely say that this sounds like a particularly shitty idea.

You know, it never occurred to me that there might be a need to warn women to not put wasp nests, even ground up wasp nests, into their vaginas.

Then again, I never thought it would be necessary to tell women to not vote for a man who believed he could grab their vagina because he was famous, either.

My bad.

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May 19, 2017 · 0:00

My New-ish Expertise

Being a fake medical expert has become a bit passe, frankly.  And that expertise came after my rarely discussed time as environmental science expertise honed as a lowly paralegal/legislative & regulatory assistant/lobbyist.

So I figure I’m ready for a new challenge.  And just in time for World IBD Day, I’m takin’ on physics!

The Physics of Poop, of course.  And I think you will agree that I do have the expertise.  And the, ummm, credentials.  And I don’t have to go far for sample collection.

You see, there’s an article I read.  (Of course there’s an article.)

The Physics of Poop

You know it’s a good article, because this is the photo that accompanies the article:

Elephant Poop

This critter has nothin’ on me.  Except maybe on my shoes  Credit: Barry Kusama Getty Images

The authors, David Hu and Patricia Yang, studied poop every which way but Sunday.  Well, maybe Sunday, too.  Because there are some chores that simply must be done 7 days a week.

They discovered that herbivores produced “floaters” and carnivores plopped “sinkers.”  And apparently “stinkers” too, as tigers apparently have the stinkiest poop and panda poop is positively precious.

Bigger animals, not surprisingly, are more prodigious poopers, but interestingly, the speed of poop production is similar regardless of the size of the animal:

Assuming a bell curve distribution, 66 percent of animals take between 5 and 19 seconds to defecate. It’s a surprisingly small range, given that elephant feces have a volume of 20 liters, nearly a thousand times more than a dog’s, at 10 milliliters.

In all honesty, the attraction of the article wasn’t the significant increase in my already vast knowledge and understanding of poop.

Nope. There were two reasons.

First, it’s the fact that this article alerted me to the existence of NASA’s

Space Poop Challenge

I think you will admit that I should be an automatic contender.

More importantly, this article gave me something to write about to celebrate World IBD Day.  And while I personally celebrate every day, you, personally can have fun with poop on World IBD Day.  Don’t say I never gave you anything.

***

But WAIT!  There’s MORE!  After this post went to press, I found this article.

When Birds of a Feather Poop Together

Golly.  Studying poop has become a 24/7 commitment for me.

You’re welcome.

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December 15, 2016 · 0:00

PICK UP THE PHONE, PLEASE

What the hell.  Do this.  It is just one of the ways we can express our feelings about the fact — yes FACT — that the Russians influenced the 2016 American election.

The entire reason that the Electoral College exists is to protect our nation from an unqualified candidate.  Sooo….

 

From the Daily Kos:

Call the White House: Brief the Electoral College on Russia’s sabotage before December 19

The CIA has said that the Russian government sabotaged this election with the express purpose of aiding Donald Trump. Such foreign interference is exactly what the Founding Fathers feared when they set up the Electoral College—as a final buffer before electing the President of the United States.

Before the Electoral College meets on Monday December 19, President Obama must declassify any and all relevant intelligence to Russia’s interference—and officials must brief the electors before they make this decision.

Please call the White House at 1-855-999-1663 and leave this message to President Obama:

I am requesting that President Obama declassify any and all intelligence related to Russia’s interference of the presidential election—and to brief all members of the Electoral College before they meet on Monday, December 19.

Daily Kos wants you to let them know how it went.  But frankly, I’m only asking you to make the one call to the White House.

Do I think this will work?

Do I think that enough electors will change their votes?

Do I think that Hillary will become president?

Sadly “No” is the answer to all of these.

But I don’t know about you, but I must speak up (while I still can).  For all the things that are important to me that I yammer on about all the time on this blog.

Again and again — we all must speak up.  It’s time to get used to using our loudest, most effective protest voices — not our inside voices.  We’re going to be calling this number a whole lot in the next few years.

the-russians-are-coming

Image from IMBd.  I’m pretty sure that Putin and his Pals are not the nice Russians that arrived on our shores in this 1968 movie.  Positive.

UPDATE!!!  The phone lines are very busy.  You can also email, but calling is better:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact.  Or do BOTH!

Please share this so that as many people call as possible.

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December 7, 2016 · 0:00

Only I Would Call It “Poop Week”

In May 2012, about a year after I started blogging, I came out of the closet here on FiftyFourAndAHalf.  Out of the water closet that is.  I fessed up.

I posted this:

My life is shitty.

No, no, no.  I can’t say that, they’ll think I’m suicidal.

My life is in the toilet.

Ditto.

Saturday, May 19th is World IBD Day.  World Irritable Bowel Disease Day.

That’s it!

Recently I learned about this, umm, holiday.  It is a very personal one for me.  Way more personal than I want to admit.  But of course it’s not my fault.   I blame my sister, Judy.

You see, some time in the late sixties Judy pasted a picture on the front of the medicine cabinet above the toilet in our one bathroom.

*

Little did I know at whatever tender age I was that that picture would illustrate my life.  Because in 1972, not long after it went up, I found out that I had ulcerative colitis.  An inflammatory bowel disease.  The bloody flux.  I was in and out of the bathroom and the hospital for much of my teens and early 20s.  What a blast!

Long story short, it ended up that I didn’t have colitis!  But we only found that out when a bunch of men (led by Dr. Herbert Hoover) came at me with knives, removed my large intestine and reorganized my plumbing.  That was when they found out that I really had Crohn’s Disease.

Crohn’s Disease, is, well, worse.  Partly because I can’t for the life of me spell it.  But also because it means I still spend way too much time in the bathroom (although I am very well read).  Oh, and it can affect the entire rest of your body.  Trust me when I say it’s nasty, and that there is no cure.  I would be delighted if that were to change in my lifetime.

*****

Fast forward to now, today, December 7, 2016.  Today ends Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness Week.  There will be a Thunderclap of posts, and tweets, blogs, and Facebook postings to call attention to Crohn’s and Colitis — to Irritable Bowel Disease — diseases that are often “invisible.” Because unless a person goes onto the Internet and proclaims that their life is in the toilet, well, nobody knows.  Unless perhaps if they are in the next stall.

In all seriousness, 1.6 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from Crohn’s or colitis.  These diagnoses are life changing — they cramp not just your gut, but your life.  Your life really does revolve around the toilet.

So I have a favor to ask of you guys.

You’ve all been wonderful, supportive friends, who have laughed with me about my poop problems.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Or maybe just from my bottom.

But here is the favor.

I have been working with the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America to get member of the House of Representatives to join the Congressional Crohn’s and Colitis Caucus.  These Representatives will, hopefully, help direct funding into research towards a cure.  To, in fact, get me (and 1,599,999 others) off the pot.

Please send an email to your Congressman/woman (you can find their information here:  http://www.house.gov/representatives/) and ask them to join the Caucus.  In fact, just cut and paste this into the email/form:

PLEASE JOIN THE CONGRESSIONAL CROHN’S & COLITIS CAUCUS!

Led by Representatives Ander Crenshaw (R-FL-4) and Nita Lowey (D-NY-17), the Congressional Crohn’s & Colitis Caucus is a bipartisan group of Members of Congress dedicated to educating their colleagues and the American public on Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The Caucus works together to raise awareness, support IBD medical research, and protect patient access to care. The Caucus also works to assert the patient perspective in regulatory decision-making, including the development of a biosimilar regulatory pathway. To join or to learn more information, please contact Matthew Moore in Rep. Crenshaw’s office (matthew.moore@mail.house.gov; 202-225-2501), or Dana Miller in Rep. Lowey’s office (dana.miller@mail.house.gov; 202-225-6506).

Thanks.  You guys are the best.

be-idvisible

 

 

 

 

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November 6, 2016 · 0:00

What’s Your Plan

I promise I’ll shut up.  Soon.

Today I spent the day calling strangers and asking them if they’d made a plan to vote.

You see, scientific studies say that folks are more likely to actually go and vote if they tell somebody what their plan to vote is.

  • Do you plan to vote in the morning?
  • The afternoon?
  • Evening?
  • How are you going to get there?

Bring your ID.

I figured there were no stranger strangers, so after all my posts on the election for all these months, I figured I’d bore you one last time:

Make a plan for when you’ll vote.  And go vote!

*****

My bloggin buddy, NTexas99 sent me this link.  It is to the pictures of women, born before the 19th Amendment was ratified, who waited all their lives to cast this vote.  It’ll make you smile.  And perhaps forgive me for all these political post.  Maybe.

http://www.iwaited96years.com/

 

 

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