Tag Archives: Health

Male Menopause: How I’m Supporting My Midlife Husband

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OldageDwfsFSI want my husband to have a healthy midlife and beyond.  I believe that’s one of the building blocks to lifelong happiness and I certainly don’t want to think of a life without him.

On our radar now…

  • Paying more attention to news reports like this…A fifty-something man died while paddleboardering at one of my husband’s favorite surf spots. They think he possibly had a pre-existing heart condition.
  • A friend of mine complained to me about her husband’s purchase of that stereotypical flashy sports car and his attempt to squeeze his midlife manbelliy into skinny jeans.
  • Another friend laments the death of a sex life with her newly grumpy fifty-something husband.

How can I help him?

I’ve been throwing myself into a tizzy worrying about how my husband’s admission into the land of midlife is going to affect him AND me.  Always the Preparation Princess, I’m attempting to anticipate any issues so I can deflect and deflate them before his issues become my problem.

Cure-for-hair-loss-man-hair-lossIs he losing his hair?


The very first inkling that some shift had occurred was during this daylong conversation thread that started first thing in the morning.

“Hey Rosebud, come here. “(Pointing to his pillow) “Do you see the hair on my pillow? See it? That’s my hair.”

And a bit later in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, “Do you see my hairline? Doesn’t it look different to you? Is it actually receding? Find a picture of me from five years ago and let’s compare.”

Five hours later, “ Feel my hair. It used to be really thick, right?  And now it feels thinner. Feel it again.”

Watching television in the evening, “Get on the internet and find out what’s going on.”

“Am I sick?”

“Why is my hair falling out?”

“What’s wrong with me?”

You know how you see someone every single day and you don’t really notice minute little changes in their appearance? Well, that’s the way it was with me.

When I looked at my husband closely, I had to agree that he was right. His forehead was bigger. A LOT bigger. Wow.

Age has begun to ply its sneaky tricks on my handsome tugboat man.

He didn’t want to start using Rogaine, but I found a thickening shampoo he likes and he’s begun to grow his hair out a bit longer in front to conceal his expanding forehead.

Not a comb-over – not yet anyway. (Hee hee.)

willworkDoes he need glasses OR maybe that little blue pill?

He’s been paying a lot more attention to those erectile dysfunction advertisements (not that it’s an issue — yet) and it seems that he’s having a harder time reading the newspaper or a telephone book (who reads telephone books anymore anyway?)  but he claims it’s just ‘cos the light’s not bright enough — Riiiggghhtt. Sure, that’s the problem. You need a brighter light. AND READING GLASSES!

Denial, denial, denial.  It ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Anxiety about our financial future
Another change that’s popped up in our conversations is his interest in retirement planning with IRA and 401K talk.  We’ve invested and strategized and hopefully created a blueprint over the years for a stable retirement, but the fifty-year threshold definitely heralded a more imminent need to save for the future when that future is closer than it used to be.

Staying healthy

Knowing that other changes might be lurking on the horizon, I’ve commenced implementing lifestyle changes like a drill sergeant.

We’re already vegetarians – I’ve been one since high school and he came on board since before we were married.

But now I’m uber diligent with the amounts of food he’s allowed to eat.

The most difficult challenge I’ve had so far is convincing him that he can’t eat the same way he did in his twenties.

For instance, I dole out twenty raw almonds instead of allowing him to eat the whole bag, one cookie instead of a dozen, and try to transform baked goods to include mostly only healthy recipes –like  Lentil Cookies, Black Bean Brownies (click HERE for the recipes), and my piece de resistance…Wheatgrass Flaxseed Smoothies.

I purchased a digital blood pressure machine to record our BP every now and then. High blood pressure is a silent killer; it can sneak up on you, and it makes sense to be aware of your baseline numbers.

Support his hobby

My tugboat man has no desire for a flashy sports car – his midlife cravings tend to be focused on surfing. He has three longboards, two shortboards, and a standup paddleboard. It seems as if he buys a new board about as often as I get a designer handbag.

With his SUP, no wave is too small, so I don’t have to hear him whine about the lack of good surf when he comes home from being out to sea.

lipstickInfidelity

I don’t envision my husband’s midlife crisis to include a wandering eye — at least I hope it doesn’t happen.

Many people have referred to us as two peas in a pod – except for surfing, we have the same interests and stay active working out together, hiking, camping, skiing, bicycling.

As a merchant mariner tugboat captain, he’s often away from home on assignment for up to two months — sometimes longer. When he’s here, we’re mostly inseparable. It’s not an ideal lifestyle, but we made the decision together when he was offered the opportunity to go back out to sea instead of working in our local harbor as he had done for most of our twenty-plus years.

Open communication is our key  to success
I believe we’ll get through his male menopause the same way we deal with everything – our marriage motto is “full disclosure”.

We share everything and we have complete trust in each other.  We’re a team, we’re in this together, in good times and bad — including his midlife crisis.

Do you have a marriage motto? What works for you? Do you work as a team?

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About these ads

MORE Old Time Remedies from 1892

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Old Medical BookA beat up edition of The Cottage Physician – published in 1892 – has been around my house forever; I’m not sure where it came from but I’ve always been fascinated reading about diseases and cures.

Every so often, I’ll blow the dust off and share some of the remedies here on Enchanted Seashells, Confessions of a Tugboat Captain’s Wife. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Except for the Ginger, Arnica, and Yarrow, I can’t recommend actually using these ingredients. I drink ginger tea, cook with fresh ginger — LOVE anything ginger. My Botox doc suggests using arnica for bruising — it has a really high rate of efficacy.  I grow yarrow in my garden but I’ve never actually made a tea with it, but I know people who have.

_________________________________________________________________________

Trask’s Magnetic Ointment
Lard, raisins, fine cut tobacco, each equal parts. rolling-cigarette-and-tobacco
Mix thoroughly.

_________________________________________________________________________

oregano

Oregano

For Pain Relief

Choice Family Liniment
Origanum oil, 2 ounces; aqua ammonia, 1 ounce, opium, ½ ounce, tincture iodine ,1/4 ounce, spike oil (lavender), 1 ounce, alcohol, 1 pint. This has been in constant family use for over fifty years, and is a most excellent remedy for all general purposes, both for man and beast.

Opium poppy

Opium poppy

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Podophyllin

Podophyllin

Carter’s Little Liver Pills
Podophyllin 1 ¼ grains (used to be used to treat genital warts, too), aloes (socotrine) 3 ½ grains, mucilage acacia, sufficient quantity. Mix. Divide into 12 pills, and coat with sugar.

 

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Ginger

Ginger

Ginger, Syrup of
Compound ginger, sliced and bruised, one ounce; angelica root, sliced and bruised, ½ ounce; peppermint, ½ ounce; boiling water, one pint—infuse in a warm place an hour

Angelica

Angelica

Strain it, press off, add sugar, two pounds; simmer and strain. Dose: a tablespoonful when required. It is useful for a pain in the stomach, wind, colic, and the like. (Sounds great, but way too much sugar!)

_________________________________________________________________________

Arnica

Arnica

Arnica (Arnica Montana) Leopard’s Bane
A European plant. The flowers alone are used int this country Useful in cuts, bruises and internal injuries. An infusion or decoction of half ounce of the flower to a pint of water is the best preparation for external use. For internal injuries the tincture may be given in five or ten drop doses every two hours.
_________________________________________________________________________

Yarrow

Yarrow

Yarrow (Archillea Millefolia)
Stimulant, tonic, promotes the appetite and improves the digestion. Highly recommended for piles, delayed menstruation, leucorrhea, and flatulent colic. Administered in infusion.

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pumpkinseeds2xPumpkin Seeds (Curcurbita Pepo)
A remedy of reputation for expelling tapeworm, and if properly used they rarely fail. The patient should subsist entirely upon the seeds and milk for twenty-four hours. Eat freely and drink a limited quantity of milk to allay thirst, at the expiration of twenty-four hours, take a good dose of castor oil.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I’m merely sharing anecdotal content from a book I found interesting to read. This post contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on anything that you read here as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider.  If you have any specific questions about any medical matter you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this website.
Credit: This was created using a Contractology template available at http://www.freenetlaw.com.

 

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Creation’s Garden Natural Products

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I’ve been looking for “more natural, less chemicals” hair care products; while browsing through TJ Maxx a few weeks, ago I found a line of products from Creation’s Garden and thought I’d give them a try.

They all contain Argan Oil. Argan Oil from Morocco creates anti-frizz and exceptional shine to the hair. This 100% pure Argan Oil from Morocco is a superior source of antioxidants and delivers instant shine and long-lasting rejuvenation.

Argan Oil naturally penetrates to moisturize each layer of the hair strand for healthier, silkier, and extraordinarily shiny hair while offering protection from environmental toxins and chemical treatments.

I’ve been really pleased with the results; my hair is soft and shiny, and the curls are softer and less frizzy. They have great customer service, too!

creations-garden-85459259

Creation’s Garden’s® proprietary, technologically advanced nutritional supplements are created with the highest quality certified organic and standardized ingredients at their  licensed cGMP manufacturing facility.

This is what I’ve been using. They’re all reasonably priced under $10.00.
Moisturizing Shampoo with Argan Oil from Morocco
Moisturizing Conditioner with Argan Oil from Morocco
Leave in Conditioner With Argan Oil from Morocco
CreationsGarden

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How To Stay in Shape if You Work On a Tugboat

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Have you given any thought to the daily life of a mariner working aboard a tug at sea?

wheelhouse

Wheelhouse or bridge on a tug

It’s a fairly sedentary life with bursts of physical labor, but mostly there’s a lot of sitting and standing, as in “standing watch”. Standing watch or watchstanding refers to the division of qualified personnel necessary to operate a ship continuously.

What is Standing Watch?
On a typical sea-faring vessel like an oceangoing tugboat, specific crewmembers keep watch on the bridge (also known as the wheelhouse) and the engine room. It’s a twenty-four hour, seven days a week job. Time is divided up as “watches” so that every one is on a rotation.

Someone has to be there all time, or else it’d be like a car rolling down the road with no driver!

On a tugboat, there is usually a team of two bridge partners, a lookout and an officer or mate who is responsible for the safe navigation of the ship. Safe navigation means keeping the vessel on course and away from dangers as well as collision avoidance from other vessels. The engineer ensures that the tug will continue to operate around the clock. A secondary function of watchkeeping is to respond to emergencies on the tug or involving other ships.

When they’re not standing watch or working, the crew sleeps and eats. They watch videos, play video games, and read books.  Most tugboats aren’t large enough to hold exercise equipment like a treadmill or an elliptical; consequently, there are few opportunities to exercise and maintain good health habits.

My tugboat man developed his own workout routine when he’s unable to go to the gym and he’s stuck on a tug for days – weeks – sometimes even months.

Neither one of us are licensed trainers but we both share a lifelong love of being physically fit and healthy. He used to be on a semi-professional soccer team, and has always worked out, lifted weights, martial arts, surfs, skis, and swims. I’ve taken ballet most of my life, taught aerobics, and work out almost every day. We hike and bike and ski as our activities together.

Not my hubs abs, sigh...

Not my hubs abs, sigh…

This is a basic but comprehensive cardio and strength training routine. Unless there are dumbbells or weights on board, he doesn’t travel with them, so this routine doesn’t use them. Because of the steel decks, there isn’t a lot of jumping around because that surface is too stressful for knees and other joints. If he can’t do jumping jacks safely; for instance if the tug is bouncing up and down in a storm, he’ll do high knees, high steps, or kicks. He brings a jump rope but can’t always use it.

Actually, this is a good routine to follow if you need a workout while you’re in a hotel that doesn’t have a gym, or even if you’re not a member of a gym. Add a five or eight (or more  – pound weight and a set of curls, triceps extensions, and shoulder presses, and that’s all you need to be on your way to good health and strong bones.

A Tugboat Captain’s Basic Guide to Exercise
Performed as a circuit; depending on fitness level: two to five times. Starting with one circuit is 100% OK. It’s important to move around and be active at any level.

Start with three to five minute stretch.

  • 25 jumping jacks
  • 25 squats
  • 25 burpees
  • 20 lunges (alternate legs after 10 lunges)
  • 25 jumping jacks
  • 50 sit-ups
  • 25 jumping jacks
  • 25 squats
  • 25 jumping jacks
  • 20 lunges (alternate legs after 10 lunges)
  • 25 burpees
  • 50 push-ups (5 sets of 10)
  • 50 sit-ups
  • 25 jumping jacks
  • 50 push-ups (5 sets of 10) Alternate regular push-ups with triceps push-ups.
  • 50 sit-ups
  • If he can use his jump rope, he’ll end the session with a three-minute jump, or a count to 500.

Don’t forget to always end with a series of stretches.

Check out this video for some great chest exercises:

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A mom is a mom forever

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I’m an A to B kind of Princess, black and white like the colors of a Chanel Boutique.  Ziggy zaggy paths or gray areas…not so much. I had a clear-cut idea about how I was going to approach my topic du jour but like an annoying kid pulling at my shirt while I’m on the telephone, other ideas were poking at my consciously unconscious subconscious and I had to put aside my wonderfully witty post about vacuuming (!) and take a detour.

Listen up, moms!

Our children are ours to love and protect no matter how old they are — newborn, two years, sixteen, twenty-one, or even in their thirties, like my own Angel Boy.

The fragility of life smacked me in the head a few days ago. You just NEVER know when that call will come that stops you in your tracks.

I wrote a post last week about getting Botox and Juvederm with a couple of my girlfriends.
On Friday, my friend C and I stopped by the Chanel boutique inside Macy’s so she could get her makeup done. She’s doesn’t wear a lot of makeup but she’s going to the Dominican Republic with her boyfriend  for a couple weeks and would be attending a formal event and wanted to be glammed up.

While she’s being pampered and beautified, her iPhone rings. It’s her son, thirty years old, a really sweet boy, her only child. He was sick and didn’t know what was wrong with him. He sent her some pictures. His left eye was completely swollen shut and it looked very puffy and angry. He was in a lot of pain and had a headache. He told his mom (I’m having her repeat everything to me) that he woke up that way a few days before, had gone to an urgent care facility, and they sent him away with some antibiotics (I don’t know what kind) thinking perhaps it was a spider bite. The alternative diagnosis was herpes zoster (more commonly known as “shingles”). The headache was becoming unbearable.

My mom was a Registererd Nurse, and I have a pretty fair medical background because I listened to her a lot and I worked for my doctor cousin back when I thought I wanted to be a doctor myself, but I was no brainiac in math and science. I’m the one people call when they have a medical issue and want advice, and I always tell them to go to a doctor, but try to help them become educated patients or caregivers or parents.

I asked her to ask her son if he had a fever. Of course, he didn’t have a thermometer, (come one, everyone needs a digital thermometer!!) but he was having chills and his girlfriend said he felt warm.

I told my friend to tell her son to go back to the doctor immediately. If it was a spider bite, I was concerned that the location of the bite was near his eye and brain and needed more aggressive treatment. If it was shingles, he needed a more educated diagnosis and a different approach.

At this point, my friend was becoming really freaked out. We’re sitting in two makeup chairs and she’s worrying about her only child, her baby boy. She asked me what I would do if it were my son. I didn’t hesitate. I told her I would be on a flight to him right that instant. Sometimes the most random medical things can deteriorate at an alarming rate and she needed to be with him in a worst case scenario. I would. In a heartbeat.

We left the store and she promised to keep in touch.  He went back to the doctor, had a temp of 101 and a persistent headache. They told him it looked like he had shingles, gave him a steroid injection, and sent him home.

He had a bad night with a severe heachache that kept him awake.

My friend drove to the next state where he lives, a six-hour drive.

She emailed me that he had suffered a seizure and was in intensive care. They were doing tests to try and figure out what was wrong. Along with his other symptoms, a grand mal seizure in an otherwise completely healthy young man is very troublesome.

My last email from her was that the doctors had no clear answers, but he seemed to be feeling better and might be released in a couple days.

Did you think this was going to end with a story about every parent’s nightmare? I really thought it was going in that direction. I’m hopeful he will have a diagnosis and he doesn’t have any more seizures and this was simply a random, aberrant episode in his otherwise happy life. I haven’t heard from her today. Fingers crossed.

But it made me sit back and think. Being a mom is immutable, enduring, never-ending — and that’s the way it should be. The days of changing diapers and nursing them to sleep might be over, but they will always need us to be the one constant in their lives–the one person they can turn to who will run like the wind to wherever they are.

That’s what a good mom should do. That’s a mom’s job.

You never know when it’s going to be the last time you see them. The last I love you. This is a reminder for us all to treasure all of their precious moments, no matter how old they are.

(Before I hear from any dads out there, this is MY perspective and MY opinion as a mom.)

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I confess to having a love affair…with…Botox

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i-love-botox-by-wam

Yup, I got Botox today.  I confess. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Why do I love Botox?

Without those little injections, I’d look like a Sharpei.

Cute for a dog, not so cute on me.

shar-pei

I’m not ready for a rocking chair.
I’m unashamedly fighting, kicking, and screaming before I succumb to that abyss.img-thingrockchair

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (Dylan Thomas)

I’ve read it all — boomer this and boomer that– and the resignation to the inevitable expanding waistline of the post-menopausal.

Not me.

I won’t throw in the towel and accept defeat.

MV5BMTUyMzYwMTQxMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODU2NDE1Mg@@._V1._SY314_CR16,0,214,314_lisarinnaI organized an event at my doc’s office, Dr. Nagi Ibrahim, for two of my girlfriends and myself.

We have realistic expectations.

We don’t want to look like Lisa Rinna or one of the Housewives of Anywhere; we’re hoping for a natural, fresher, enhanced version of ourselves.

We’re not doing this because we feel insecure or because we feel inferior.

We want our outside to match how we feel on the inside. We work out and eat healthy; like getting a mani-pedi or a facial, this is another way to feel pampered and well cared for.

I’ve had Botox several times and I’ve been really pleased with the results.

This time I added a little Juvederm to the menu. 

Juvederm is a clear, smooth gel made out of hyaluronic acid (HA) – a natural substance that adds volume and hydration to your skin. Juvederm is used to restore or add volume anywhere on the face. It’s a   favorite product for enhancing and sculpting the lips, and terrific for filling in folds, wrinkles and creases.

We chose  the newest version, J3,  which can last approximately eighteen months.  We all had the same areas “enhanced”– lips, nasal labial folds, and chin area. It takes a while to see the effects of Botox, but the filler was immediate gratification; plumper lips, no saggy cheeks, it’s amazing! It’s not really that painful, either, but you know what they say…no pain, no gain!

syringeAre you satisfied with your aging process or do you want to hold back the sands of time as long as possible?

 

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How a gall bladder attack helped me lose weight

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gall bladderThe backstory
I’m about the same height as Danny DeVito. He’s MUCH, MUCH wider than I am, but you get the picture. I’m only five-feet-zero-inches. Every extra ounce on me looks like ten extra pounds on a normal sized human. There’s no place for any extra weight to hide. A lifetime of dieting and starvation adds up to one screwed up metabolism, that’s for sure. I’ve been a vegetarian (pescatarian) since I was in high school. I’m the undisputed queen of counting calories, fat grams, carbs, and protein. I don’t smoke, don’t drink (a lot), don’t drink sodas, don’t eat processed foods, don’t eat fried foods except once in a while. We eat a lot of brown rice, beans, lentils, tofu, and veggies. I make broiled, grilled, or seared ahi and salmon. Most of the time all of our desserts and breads are home baked. I have a terrible time losing any weight at all. It just doesn’t go away, no matter how much I work out, go to Boot Camp, walk, lift weights, or use my elliptical. We turned our third bedroom into an office/craft/workout room with an elliptical, weights, rubber bands, jump rope, and a big ball. When I used to teach aerobics, my class combined high intensity aerobics with core training and weights. I’ve got all the tools to know how to effectively burn calories and build lean muscle, but it just wasn’t working on ME!

Health history and numbers
My cholesterol is textbook perfect. My blood pressure is normally 105/60-ish, resting heartrate about 60. The only medical problems I have is asthma, allergies, and a bit of a sluggish thyroid. I use Advair for the asthma and .50 mcg Synthroid for hypothyroidism.

Except for a lot of sore throats, I’ve never really been sick. A few months ago, I got a super bad stomach ache, like the worst one ever, I mean like rolling on the floor and moaning, that kind of pain. It’s a good thing the captain was here, ‘cos I thought it was almost ER time. With a mom who was an RN, I immediately imagined my abdomen separated into four equal quadrants. If you’re in the medical field, you know what I mean. I knew that pain in the lower right quadrant could have meant appendicitis. My pain was in my upper right quadrant near my ribs. It was tender to the touch. I thought I exhibited all the signs of a classic gall bladder attack. I made an appointment with my doctor and he agreed with my tentative diagnosis and suggested an ultrasound to be sure. The US revealed a healthy liver, pancreas, kidney, and bile ducts, but there was either a cyst or one small 4.5 mm stone in my gall bladder that seemed to be the cause of my pain. Removal of my gall bladder is not a good option for me; I like to work on things homeopathically first. My doc suggested I keep a food diary and figure out which foods cause a problem and eliminate or avoid them. That was a great idea. As Dr. Oz says, “Do you think that’s something you can do?” I learned that peanut butter, cheese, chocolate, and alcohol are my trigger foods. What a load of crap! Those are the things I love the most. I love to eat spoonfuls of peanut butter from the jar. I love chunks and chunks of cheese.

chocolate

I’d like to take a bath in this chocolate.

Can you imagine not being able to eat chocolate? It’s just not fair! What did I ever do to deserve the “no chocolate” karma?? It was kind of fun to sample a variety of alcoholic beverages to determine which ones are off limits. I can now cross gin off my list–no more Tanqueray martinis or gin and tonics. Vodka is OK, but only about two ounces. That’s hardly worth it! Chardonnay and champagne pass the test, not so much red wines.

Silver lining: losing weight!
My last “attack” was in April. After that, I eliminated all fats from my diet except for olive oil. In case you didn’t know, dietary fats are a causal factor in a lot of gall bladder situations. It definitely is my problem. I have had no cheese, no peanut butter, and no chocolate. Not only have I been symptom free since then, that stubborn weight is falling off. It’s not like I had a lot to lose-but even five pounds makes a huge difference in the way clothes fit. I dropped two sizes in Joe’s Jeans. (I won’t divulge the specifics, but trust me, it made my day.)

joes jeans

This is NOT me, well, maybe in my head it is…

I’m certainly not recommending that an inflamed gall bladder should be a weight loss tip. What I’m saying is that I learned that reducing or eliminating the fat in my diet helped me shed those last few stubborn pounds and it might work for you, too.

The Mayo Clinic says:

Gallstones are hardened deposits of digestive fluid that can form in your gallbladder. Your gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped organ on the right side of your abdomen, just beneath your liver. The gallbladder holds a digestive fluid called bile that’s released into your small intestine.

Gallstones range in size from as small as a grain of sand to as large as a golf ball. Some people develop just one gallstone, while others develop many gallstones at the same time.

Cholecystitis (ko-luh-sis-TIE-tis) is inflammation of the gallbladder. Your gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped organ on the right side of your abdomen, just beneath your liver. The gallbladder holds a digestive fluid called bile that’s released into your small intestine.

In most cases, cholecystitis is caused by gallstones that block the tube leading out of your gallbladder. This results in a buildup of bile that can cause inflammation. Other causes of cholecystitis include bile duct problems and tumors. Cholecystitis signs and symptoms usually occur after a meal, particularly a large meal or a meal high in fat.

If left untreated, cholecystitis can lead to serious complications, such as a gallbladder that becomes enlarged or that ruptures. Once diagnosed, cholecystitis requires a hospital stay. Treatment for cholecystitis often eventually includes gallbladder removal.

Signs and symptoms of cholecystitis may include:

  • Severe, steady pain in the upper right part of your abdomen
  • Pain that radiates from your abdomen to your right shoulder or back
  • Tenderness over your abdomen when it’s touched
  • Sweating
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Fever
  • Chills
  • Abdominal bloating

The following factors may increase your risk of cholecystitis:

Gallstones. Most cases of cholecystitis are linked to gallstones. If you have gallstones, you’re at high risk of developing cholecystitis.
Being female. Women have a greater risk of gallstones than men do. This makes women more likely to develop cholecystitis.
Increasing age. As you get older, your risk of gallstones increases, as does your risk of cholecystitis.

Chicks on Tugs – Part One

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Every so often, a WOMAN, a FEMALE —  will be part of the crew on my tugboat man’s assignments.

tugboat annieWhile I’m full of admiration for a sistuh who enters what has typically been a male-dominated field, I – kind of – have a bit of a hate on her,  if I can be completely honest.

I’m a woman, right?  I obviously feel a tribal kinship BUT on one basic — uh, primitive and  primal level, I don’t trust women.

I’ve seen some of them in action, targeting a man THEY KNOW is in a relationship.

Yup, I’ve even sat by and watched a couple of ‘em put their lame ass moves on my very own tugboat man. Sometimes he was too naive to pick up on the vibes — “Oh, they just wanted to be friends..” RIIIGHHHT–that kind of stuff, but I knew what was going on.

Sometimes they were bolder, drunker, stupider, touching his huge biceps and gettin’ all giggly while I was in the same room, geez, y’all don’t wanna get a Princess pissed off, ya know what I’m sayin’? I just observed, simmering, and never had to unleash that inner beeyotch ‘cos my hubs handled it appropriately. And was rewarded…positive reinforcement…ahem.

We all have stories of women who go after someone’s man; is that really necessary?

Aren’t there enough single guys around? Or does one who’s taken just look better, are you a proponent of the “grass is always greener” philosophy?

Honey_Boo_Boo_eyes_on_you_animated_gifWhatev… Although I have no reason at all to question this one’s motives, I got my eyes on you, girlfriend!

(BTW, I totes trust my husband –I have no reason NOT to, but Gmail’s Mark as Unread is a good thing, am I right, girls? Trust but verify is my motto.)

I asked my captain where she sleeps; does she have her own room, her own bathroom?

He said no — on this particular vessel, she’ll share a room with someone — but not him, we got that clarified IMMEDIATELY.

On a smaller tugboat, there are more crew members than there are private rooms.

How is this obvious predicament solved? Well, they don’t share a bed, which is what I asked.

Since they work in shifts, they sleep and eat in shifts, too, so whomever is NOT working will eat and sleep while their roommate is working.

Not my hub's tug, just a pic.

–Not my hub’s tug, just a pic.

They each have their own bunk, but they share the room.

Hubs explained that it’s not “hot bunking” or “hot racking” which is when you sleep in shifts sharing one bed–that sounds disgusting to a hygiene junkie like me.

I don’t know how often they change their linens, but I can tell you that I would NOT want to sleep on anyone’s dirty sheets. Yuck. No way. Not me. ICK. Double ICK.

Off topic, sorta...While I was writing this post, Huell Howser’s on PBS doing a story in San Diego about the Sea Shadow, an experimental stealth ship built in 1984 by Lockheed for the United States Navy to determine how a low radar profile might be achieved and to test high stability hull configurations which have been used in oceanographic ships. According to Wiki, in 2006, the U.S Navy began to try to sell the Sea Shadow to the highest bidder; after the initial offering met with a lack of interest, it was listed for dismantling sale on gsaauctions.gov. The U.S. Government requires that the buyer cannot sail the ship and is required to scrap it. The ship was finally sold recently. That’s pretty interesting. It’s too bad they couldn’t even take it out for a sunset cocktail cruise!

From geekosystem.com