Zen Alarm
I have several things to discuss today, none of them knitting related, as far as I remember -- so for those of you (I think 3 of you, max) who read this blog solely for the knitting -- be forewarned. None coming up in this entry.
Icy conditions today, but no school delay for us -- and this is good, because Sam and I are supposed to go to the Special Persons lunch at the child's school, and though we are not looking forward to the "springs with meat sauce" which we have been promised, according to the little menu we were sent, we ARE looking forward to the child's happiness in showing us around and being a child who does indeed have Special Persons. It's extremely important that somebody show up to be a Special Person. My heart breaks for the one or two kids in each homeroom who don't have any Special Person coming by to pick them up for lunch. But the child has us, and this year -- as last year -- I can go, too, not just Sam. So I will. And I'll eat the damn springs. And I'll like it.
Quick, very quick, note for those of you who were curious about the slow-cooker lasagna. Works fine. As far as I can tell from the various recipes I've messed with, you can pretty much take your favorite lasagna recipe and put it in the slow cooker -- precook meats, and maybe any chunky vegetables; make sure to use those pre-cooked lasagna noodles; cook it on low heat for about 5 hours. But if you'd feel more comfortable with a recipe created specifically for the slow-cooker, though, you can find a bunch by googling.
Now, then. The Zen Alarm. I LOVE my Zen alarm. It's only recently the company started making the Zen Phone Bells that have so intrigued Ryan -- I'd like one of those in my office, but I'm not going to be getting one anytime soon.
But I do have a lovely Zen Alarm, and indeed I have a Zen Travel Alarm -- though I didn't inflict it on my colleague-roommate when we went off to the MLA in San Diego a few weeks ago -- I ought to have, really, as it would have given her Lots to Talk about and that's one of my main uses in the department. Darn.
Anyway. Long story short, I have the Zen Alarm as part of my Holistic Embrace of Menopause.
Short story long, a few years ago I noticed that I was less well-wrapped than usual, which in my case is Not Good At All. I gather that amongst the women of my age there are a lot of hot flashes running around -- well, I didn't get them. My main symptom was Screaming Fits followed by Uncontrollable Sobbing. Not very restful for me, and rather difficult to live with for everybody else. And though that was before the HRT debacle, I wasn't inclined to go the intensive drug route anyway -- if I can fix myself up with stuff I dig out of the backyard I'd just as soon do that.
So I did many things. I lost 100 pounds, cause fat's an estrogen factory, and mine was quite literally making me insane; I started exercising regularly; I started drinking soy concentrate (which luckily is pretty tasty, though I would have drunk it if it tasted like dishwater), and I started working on making my waking up less jarring, as my work life had gotten extremely intense and it was bad enough getting up in the morning at all, without adding in alarm disjunction.
I started out with a lovely artifact that we called "The Happy Healthy Holy Lamp" -- it was shockingly expensive -- much more expensive than the Zen Alarm -- and it had a full spectrum bulb in it (I'm now addicted to those and have them all over the house), and it had an alarm in the base.
But not just any alarm. Oh, no. No, this alarm woke you slowly and naturally, just as if it was your own idea, and not some thing the clock had thought up. And it woke you by slowly, slowly, slowly upping the light, just like it was the very sun, yes, the sun itself, slowly rising over the horizon of your little world. But there was more! Yes! It at the same time ran a tape of happy healthy holy noises, which slowly, slowly, slowly got louder and louder, just like it was the world waking up.
At any rate the idea was that one woke naturally and calmly and was then less likely to have Screaming Fits followed by Uncontrollable Sobbing.
I loved that lamp. I truly loved it. I get misty even now just thinking of it. My favorite part was that you could switch sounds -- you could wake up to the sound of a clear and non-polluted stream (you could tell by the crystal gurgling that there were no beer cans in it), or you could wake up to the happy bird songs and rustling leaves of a likewise unpolluted forest; I believe there was an ocean; and then there was the Happy Healthy Holy Town, which was really creepy, sort of like a Twilight Zone town, as it was a town on some sort of endless loop, so the same dog barked, and the same car drove by, and the same door slammed, over and over and over...
Ok, well, that wasn't so great. But I really liked the forest.
Alas, the Happy Healthy Holy lamp was defective. It broke, and I sent it back (a big bother; it weighed about 300 pounds), and they sent me another, and then that one broke, and I sent it back, and then they sent me a refund, and then they discontinued making the thing.
So I had to get a replacement, didn't I? Cause I'd gotten addicted to not waking up to the alarm going BLAAAH at 5:30. Or even blaring music at 5:30, which is always a dicey proposition, cause you never know what people are going to play. It can ruin your day. Or give you screaming fits.
Hence the Zen Alarm. It's simpler than the Happy Healthy Holy Lamp was -- well, duh, it's ZEN -- and I actually miss the creepy town a little -- but it's a marvelous way to wake up. Non-invasive. Tuneful. Beautiful. I have the one portraying the inside of a spiral shell. So it's Full Of Symbolic Meaning, which sometimes I like to think about.
Too bad they couldn't get the Happy Healthy Holy Lamp to work, though, Cause it was a Hell of an Invention.
And oh, by the way -- yes, the holistic mega-lifestyle change approach worked for me. I haven't had the screaming fits for some years now. And as far as I can tell, I'm pretty much as happy, healthy, and holy as it's possible for me to get. We all have our limits.
Icy conditions today, but no school delay for us -- and this is good, because Sam and I are supposed to go to the Special Persons lunch at the child's school, and though we are not looking forward to the "springs with meat sauce" which we have been promised, according to the little menu we were sent, we ARE looking forward to the child's happiness in showing us around and being a child who does indeed have Special Persons. It's extremely important that somebody show up to be a Special Person. My heart breaks for the one or two kids in each homeroom who don't have any Special Person coming by to pick them up for lunch. But the child has us, and this year -- as last year -- I can go, too, not just Sam. So I will. And I'll eat the damn springs. And I'll like it.
Quick, very quick, note for those of you who were curious about the slow-cooker lasagna. Works fine. As far as I can tell from the various recipes I've messed with, you can pretty much take your favorite lasagna recipe and put it in the slow cooker -- precook meats, and maybe any chunky vegetables; make sure to use those pre-cooked lasagna noodles; cook it on low heat for about 5 hours. But if you'd feel more comfortable with a recipe created specifically for the slow-cooker, though, you can find a bunch by googling.
Now, then. The Zen Alarm. I LOVE my Zen alarm. It's only recently the company started making the Zen Phone Bells that have so intrigued Ryan -- I'd like one of those in my office, but I'm not going to be getting one anytime soon.
But I do have a lovely Zen Alarm, and indeed I have a Zen Travel Alarm -- though I didn't inflict it on my colleague-roommate when we went off to the MLA in San Diego a few weeks ago -- I ought to have, really, as it would have given her Lots to Talk about and that's one of my main uses in the department. Darn.
Anyway. Long story short, I have the Zen Alarm as part of my Holistic Embrace of Menopause.
Short story long, a few years ago I noticed that I was less well-wrapped than usual, which in my case is Not Good At All. I gather that amongst the women of my age there are a lot of hot flashes running around -- well, I didn't get them. My main symptom was Screaming Fits followed by Uncontrollable Sobbing. Not very restful for me, and rather difficult to live with for everybody else. And though that was before the HRT debacle, I wasn't inclined to go the intensive drug route anyway -- if I can fix myself up with stuff I dig out of the backyard I'd just as soon do that.
So I did many things. I lost 100 pounds, cause fat's an estrogen factory, and mine was quite literally making me insane; I started exercising regularly; I started drinking soy concentrate (which luckily is pretty tasty, though I would have drunk it if it tasted like dishwater), and I started working on making my waking up less jarring, as my work life had gotten extremely intense and it was bad enough getting up in the morning at all, without adding in alarm disjunction.
I started out with a lovely artifact that we called "The Happy Healthy Holy Lamp" -- it was shockingly expensive -- much more expensive than the Zen Alarm -- and it had a full spectrum bulb in it (I'm now addicted to those and have them all over the house), and it had an alarm in the base.
But not just any alarm. Oh, no. No, this alarm woke you slowly and naturally, just as if it was your own idea, and not some thing the clock had thought up. And it woke you by slowly, slowly, slowly upping the light, just like it was the very sun, yes, the sun itself, slowly rising over the horizon of your little world. But there was more! Yes! It at the same time ran a tape of happy healthy holy noises, which slowly, slowly, slowly got louder and louder, just like it was the world waking up.
At any rate the idea was that one woke naturally and calmly and was then less likely to have Screaming Fits followed by Uncontrollable Sobbing.
I loved that lamp. I truly loved it. I get misty even now just thinking of it. My favorite part was that you could switch sounds -- you could wake up to the sound of a clear and non-polluted stream (you could tell by the crystal gurgling that there were no beer cans in it), or you could wake up to the happy bird songs and rustling leaves of a likewise unpolluted forest; I believe there was an ocean; and then there was the Happy Healthy Holy Town, which was really creepy, sort of like a Twilight Zone town, as it was a town on some sort of endless loop, so the same dog barked, and the same car drove by, and the same door slammed, over and over and over...
Ok, well, that wasn't so great. But I really liked the forest.
Alas, the Happy Healthy Holy lamp was defective. It broke, and I sent it back (a big bother; it weighed about 300 pounds), and they sent me another, and then that one broke, and I sent it back, and then they sent me a refund, and then they discontinued making the thing.
So I had to get a replacement, didn't I? Cause I'd gotten addicted to not waking up to the alarm going BLAAAH at 5:30. Or even blaring music at 5:30, which is always a dicey proposition, cause you never know what people are going to play. It can ruin your day. Or give you screaming fits.
Hence the Zen Alarm. It's simpler than the Happy Healthy Holy Lamp was -- well, duh, it's ZEN -- and I actually miss the creepy town a little -- but it's a marvelous way to wake up. Non-invasive. Tuneful. Beautiful. I have the one portraying the inside of a spiral shell. So it's Full Of Symbolic Meaning, which sometimes I like to think about.
Too bad they couldn't get the Happy Healthy Holy Lamp to work, though, Cause it was a Hell of an Invention.
And oh, by the way -- yes, the holistic mega-lifestyle change approach worked for me. I haven't had the screaming fits for some years now. And as far as I can tell, I'm pretty much as happy, healthy, and holy as it's possible for me to get. We all have our limits.
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