The List is Growing

A few weeks ago I had to purchase a Theracane. This is not a walking stick, rather a trigger point massage device for my knotted shoulders. I highly recommend this for anyone who lives alone and needs to massage those hard-to-reach places on his back. However, in trying to find a place to keep this candy cane shaped device, I started to notice how much old people stuff I have laying around. It prompted me to make a list. Why I feel the need to share it is another question entirely, but here goes!

$500 Pronex traction unit (complete with carrying bag and 15/30 degree ramp thingy)!
Theracane
Vicodin
Flexiril
Lodine
Lidocaine patches
Neck pillow for travel
Elastic bands for PT exercises
Biofreeze
Heating Pad
Makeshift Stool in the living room for my newest exercise
Ice Packs in the Freezer
Numerous Printouts for Exercise Directives

I regularly drive to PT on my days off. I indulge in a massage once a month that feels more like extra work on my shoulder than anything really relaxing. I avoid the pills I made sure I stocked up on while the prescription was still valid, remembering the first awful weeks of this injury and my doctor's unwillingness to prescribe anything for the pain. I do PT every single day unless I'm working a 12 hour double shift. I do my traction each night, happy that it relaxes my back enough to make me tired, even. Occasionally, I do use the Lidocaine patches because they are absolutely amazing for taking the pain away.

It all feels kind of "old people"-ish to me. I know my job is exacerbating the issues in my shoulders, but I don't have a big choice at this point. The insurance is so good that it almost makes the injury worth it. I feel confident that I will overcome this in time. But some of the new products on my list I will carry with me forever. I try to view the compilation of things related to my herniated disk as learning tools. I understand a lot more about my work habits now and think I can manage the job action by being smart about how I use my physical self in carrying out those tasks.

I suppose another way to look at my list of injury paraphernalia is that they are tools in my recovery. I should be glad I have gotten the greatest care available. And I am. I have a whole 'nother post working about my amazing spine doctor. Favorite doctor ever, bar none!

So here's thanks for a wonderful care team, great insurance, a superb collection of old people stuff.... and a body that is healing.

I Love My Job!

I work at a place that revolves around the Badgers. Mostly football, but we see business improve during the college semesters, then die off for the summer when school is not in session. Barry Alvarez dines with us sometimes (very snobby). Bret Bielema comes in sometimes (seems to be the womanizer they say he is). Heck, I've even seen Mark Tauscher at work. But last night topped all of those sports heroes. What made it even better is that this time I got to wait on the star. That's right; I waited on Bob Harlan.

I have always thought Harlan was a class act who furthered the storied franchise of the Green Bay Packers as much as anyone who has ever put his passion into this team. He came in with his wife and they waited for what was obviously a child and his or her spouse. They were patient in the rush that kept me from getting their drinks for a few minutes. For those who are dying to know, Brandy Manhatten-extra sweet vermouth. Hers was a regular Brandy Manhatten. They made me explain a 'fish boil' (which she did have) to the young girl who joined them with the young man. The Harlans ate Madison's Best Fish Fry because as Madeline said, "Oh, I want what everyone comes in for!" The young man had the Perch Fry.

The funny part of this encounter was that on my first approach, I saw those sparkly pale blue eyes and happy face of Bob Harlan and thought, "This is somebody famous. Who is he? I know this guy." That thought stayed with me the entire meal. It's like when you can't think of the name of the famous actor who played in that one film!?! It drove me nuts, but I was busy enough not to be whining about it to my coworkers. Only when the woman asked for the check ahead of schedule, and handed me her credit card did I get the clue I needed. Madeline Marlan? Another look gave me that "Aha!" moment I was waiting for....Madeline HARLAN. "Oh. My. God!"

"I'm waiting on Bob Harlan!" I blurted to my boss who was bartending. "Yeah, he's here," he said very calmly. "Oh my God! I AM WAITING ON HIM!!"

I was very cool and collected on the drop-off, and went about my usual protocol. "This one is for you, and please leave this one for me." It is also my practice to stop back quickly to retrieve the slip and my pen. I stood in the back gushing to anyone nearby that I had just waited on Bob Harlan. Most of the responses went something like this: "Who's Bob Harlan?" All agreed that it was very cool that I ended up with the family since I could appreciate the presence of the former Packer CEO more than anyone else there. As time ticked by, I kept thinking of my best friend, who is fighting cancer and appreciates every single moment in life. She would positively KILL me if I did not jump on the opportunity to say something (ANYTHING!) to Mr. Bob Harlan. I mustered up my courage in light of the new information I had about this table I had just spent the last hour trying to identify, and made the walk back to pick up the slip and my pen.

When I arrived at the table, the two men had their heads huddled, talking. I picked up the slip, thanked Mrs. Harlan, then stood for a moment. When Bob Harlan realized my presence and looked my way, I said in very metered emotion: "I'm sorry, but I have to tell you that I spent the entire meal trying to figure out why I recognize you. I kept thinking, 'Who is this guy? Why do I know him?' and I finally realized who you are." At this point I extended my hand to shake his, and he graciously produced what I then saw was a diamond-studded G-ringed hand to meet my handshake. "I want you to know that I really loved it when you were with the team, and I really, really, REALLY miss you up there. REEEAAAALLLLY miss you."

He was genuinely touched and thanked me for my words. He is such a man of grace and humility. If I loved him before, I'm bowled over 100x more now. This easily goes down as my best moment as a server. And I've been doing this for 25+ years. Wow. All I can say is....WOW!

And yes, they tipped well. Almost 25%.

This is Not New!

The following article tells about "new" research that proves how very small children can learn foreign languages easily. While I give kudos to the new understanding on how we might incorporate this into teaching older students, I am disappointed that more exposure has not been given to this solid, and very old news.

You see, I learned about this method over two decades ago when I was in college learning how to be an English teacher. It's well-documented that babies can learn two languages as they learn to talk. I vividly recall my professor telling us about a family who taught their baby just this way. The mother spoke in one language; the father in another every single time they spoke to the baby. That baby had the valuable skill of speaking two languages before he could even walk. And we knew back then that learning a foreign language becomes much more difficult after the age of seven, too! Why? Why don't we teach this to first graders instead of hormone-filled teenagers?

Let this be your public service announcement for today. Parents with babies: Teach them now!

Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily
AP

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer – Tue Jul 21, 3:08 am ET

WASHINGTON – The best time to learn a foreign language: Between birth and age 7. Missed that window?

New research is showing just how children's brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier.

"We think the magic that kids apply to this learning situation, some of the principles, can be imported into learning programs for adults," says Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who is part of an international team now trying to turn those lessons into more teachable technology.

Each language uses a unique set of sounds. Scientists now know babies are born with the ability to distinguish all of them, but that ability starts weakening even before they start talking, by the first birthday.

Kuhl offers an example: Japanese doesn't distinguish between the "L" and "R" sounds of English — "rake" and "lake" would sound the same. Her team proved that a 7-month-old in Tokyo and a 7-month-old in Seattle respond equally well to those different sounds. But by 11 months, the Japanese infant had lost a lot of that ability.

Time out — how do you test a baby? By tracking eye gaze. Make a fun toy appear on one side or the other whenever there's a particular sound. The baby quickly learns to look on that side whenever he or she hears a brand-new but similar sound. Noninvasive brain scans document how the brain is processing and imprinting language.

Mastering your dominant language gets in the way of learning a second, less familiar one, Kuhl's research suggests. The brain tunes out sounds that don't fit.

"You're building a brain architecture that's a perfect fit for Japanese or English or French," whatever is native, Kuhl explains — or, if you're a lucky baby, a brain with two sets of neural circuits dedicated to two languages.

It's remarkable that babies being raised bilingual — by simply speaking to them in two languages — can learn both in the time it takes most babies to learn one. On average, monolingual and bilingual babies start talking around age 1 and can say about 50 words by 18 months.

Italian researchers wondered why there wasn't a delay, and reported this month in the journal Science that being bilingual seems to make the brain more flexible.

The researchers tested 44 12-month-olds to see how they recognized three-syllable patterns — nonsense words, just to test sound learning. Sure enough, gaze-tracking showed the bilingual babies learned two kinds of patterns at the same time — like lo-ba-lo or lo-lo-ba — while the one-language babies learned only one, concluded Agnes Melinda Kovacs of Italy's International School for Advanced Studies.

While new language learning is easiest by age 7, the ability markedly declines after puberty.

"We're seeing the brain as more plastic and ready to create new circuits before than after puberty," Kuhl says. As an adult, "it's a totally different process. You won't learn it in the same way. You won't become (as good as) a native speaker."

Yet a soon-to-be-released survey from the Center for Applied Linguistics, a nonprofit organization that researches language issues, shows U.S. elementary schools cut back on foreign language instruction over the last decade. About a quarter of public elementary schools were teaching foreign languages in 1997, but just 15 percent last year, say preliminary results posted on the center's Web site.

What might help people who missed their childhood window? Baby brains need personal interaction to soak in a new language — TV or CDs alone don't work. So researchers are improving the technology that adults tend to use for language learning, to make it more social and possibly tap brain circuitry that tots would use.

Recall that Japanese "L" and "R" difficulty? Kuhl and scientists at Tokyo Denki University and the University of Minnesota helped develop a computer language program that pictures people speaking in "motherese," the slow exaggeration of sounds that parents use with babies.

Japanese college students who'd had little exposure to spoken English underwent 12 sessions listening to exaggerated "Ls" and "Rs" while watching the computerized instructor's face pronounce English words. Brain scans — a hair dryer-looking device called MEG, for magnetoencephalography — that measure millisecond-by-millisecond activity showed the students could better distinguish between those alien English sounds. And they pronounced them better, too, the team reported in the journal NeuroImage.

"It's our very first, preliminary crude attempt but the gains were phenomenal," says Kuhl.

But she'd rather see parents follow biology and expose youngsters early. If you speak a second language, speak it at home. Or find a play group or caregiver where your child can hear another language regularly.

"You'll be surprised," Kuhl says. "They do seem to pick it up like sponges."

Lunchables

When girls get together for lunch, you know it's going to be a gabfest of the highest order. It's not like a business lunch, or a lunch date, or even the quick lunch that girls who work together might share. It is an event to be anticipated, and finally enjoyed upon its arrival. Just this sort of treasure occurred today for me and one other friend.

The woman with whom I shared lunch with today has done so many kind things for me that I insisted upon buying the food today. And when the lunch is set up to catch her up on the astounding events that have made your steps lighter and your heart more hopeful, well then I think it's mandatory that you feed the poor girl.

I suggested Chinese, and she agreed. I picked it up to bring home so that we could enjoy some private time without interruption or distraction from our intended intent conversation. And so it was that we sat at the kitchen table, me starving, she saying she was not that hungry. Her blue eyes were lit with curiosity and the smile said she knew something good was going on with me. As I picked at my rice and she ate voraciously, I tried to contain my story to some kind of chronology and sense. But that's not how it went. I fluttered from one thing to the next while she grew to understand just how surprising my life had become.

She knew when to impose her thoughts, when to listen, and when to assure that the wings I have kept tucked under me are still in perfect working order. She took my compliments to her through the course of the telling graciously. She poked fun at me when I needed that. She did all of this while the weight of her own world sat heavily on her shoulders. Friends like this cannot be bought. Lunches as fabulous as that won't be happened upon. And the encouragement that is given in those precious times of friendship cannot be replaced. A friend who celebrates with you even as her own world wobbles forward is a rare gift.

As we ended our lunch with a hurried goodbye because of appointments I had to keep, we promised to catch up even more very soon. I'm thrilled to know that it thrilled her for me. And I'm happy to have friends like this to invite over for such warm sharing. Thank you, friend. Thank you.