Friday Night Miscellany

Actress Jessica Alba described an "attack" by a "ghost" when she was 17. Sounds like sleep paralysis. I’ve had it happen several times (although not recently, thank goddess), always upon awakening – it’s an absolutely terrifying experience. The feeling of not being able to move, of "something" seemingly pressing down on you or sitting on your chest, of not even being able to utter a sound. The phenomena is often accompanied by hallucinations; thus, in addition to the feeling of your chest being sat upon, one time I smelled what I thought was a man’s aftershave lotion, heard heavy breathing and felt the other side of the bed "give" as if someone was sitting down on the bed; one time I saw a gigantic spider slowly crawling toward me from the foot of the bed; one time I saw a ghostly female figure dressed all in white float down the hallway – but that was impossible because my bed did not face the door looking out to the hallway! Some years ago, in discussing this with an acquaintance who had a great deal of knowledge about various esoteric traditions and sects, he said it sounded as if I was experiencing paralysis caused by the stirring of the kundalini "serpent" that – metaphysically speaking – sits at the base of the spine, down by one’s tailbone. There also might be some connection to this feeling of paralysis and the "out of body" experience. I leave it to you to figure it all out – I never have – I’ve been too busy the past several years trying to solve the mysteries of chess! Ah ha ha ha ha ha! These should be the best of times for Venezuela, blessed with the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and oil prices near record highs. But this country’s economic and social problems have become so acute lately that President Hugo Chávez is facing an unusual onslaught of criticism, even from his own supporters, about his management of the country. Lead paragraph of an article at The New York Times "In Venezuela, Faith in Chávez Starts to Wane." The goof! His kind of economics just does not work - If it did – there would be NO FOOD SHORTAGES! Duh! It's even stupider than Reganomics and "trickle down" - and we now know that Regan had Alzheimer's disease even then! Irony: Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat. Oh crap! They’re thinking of doing more tinkering around with human embryos. What’s the matter with these people – haven’t they ever heard about the horrors of the eugenics wars that Earth suffered in Star Trek? And here's the real question: if it's been tinkered with, is it still "human?" Geez Louise! Oh – and here they are – creating Borg insects! Implants Create Insect Cyborgs. Egoddess! I’ll take sleep paralysis anytime, honest! Darlings, since the blizzard that wasn’t a blizzard of Wednesday (it technically wasn't a blizzard because we did not have sustained winds of 40 mph, only "gusts" that blew every five seconds or so for eight hours), I’ve been a shoveling fool! I haven’t stopped – except to eat, sleep and go to work. We got about 14 inches of snow here – about 20 in my driveway due to drifting. Wet, heavy snow, that has gotten even wetter and heavier since yesterday and today, as the temperature hovered in the mid-30’s and the sun was out for a couple of hours yesterday, increasing the melt-off rate. My painful left shoulder is now numb, but I figure whatever I did to it can’t be too bad since I still have full range of motion. I have visions of developing Popeye arms... As a consequence of the achy shoulder, I’ve been trying to throw the snow over the right shoulder – and now have boulder size hunks of snow sling-shot all over my lawn, lol – or what would be my lawn if it wasn’t buried under all that blankety-blank-blank snow! Tomorrow, though, it all ends. It’s supposed to start out mild enough but by early afternoon the temperature is forecast to start dropping – all the way to well below zero by evening with windchills in the 35 below zero range. Oh great, just great. So, I will be out with the sunrise shoveling as much as I can, and then off to the supermarket for one last shop before the deep freeze hits. I will then come home and continue shoveling until my shovel goes ‘BOING’ and bounces off the frozen solid foot plus of soon-to-be-ice that is still covering more than 50% of my driveway. Oh – did I mention – its snowing again. We’re supposed to get 2 more inches tonight. Last night I got wine and goodies for me; tonight I stocked up on goodies for my good buddies the squirrels and the birds - and I have 20 pounds of peanuts to be delivered on Sunday. Tomorrow's shopping trip will stock up on more wine (an absolute necessity in this household) and lots of red meat. I crave protein and practically raw meat these cold snowy days - yes, darlings, I admit it, I'm a direct descendant of Neanderthal man (and woman, har!) - there seem to be several hundred thousands of us hanging around Wisconsin. Good thing those pesky scientists don't know about us, don't cha know. 'night...