Category: Fourre-tout

Pain can be like a moody lover. It may appear and disappear suddenly without ever offering any explanations.  But it can also become a permanent, unpleasant guest. And as Benjamin Franklin once said, “a bad guest is like fish; after three days it begins to smell.” After a few months of free-loading, my guest started to really stink.

According to Medical News Today, “Pain is an unpleasant sensation and emotional experience that links to tissue damage. It allows the body to react and prevent further tissue damage. People feel pain when a signal travels through nerve fibers to the brain for interpretation.”

 But sometimes your doctor and your brain are not in synch, and he fails to diagnose your problem. He will go by what he was taught in Medical School (and by what his hospital dictates) and will propose various tests and innocuous remedies. A little bit like searching for a dime in the dark.

When everything fails and the pain stubbornly refuses to go, you will try any remedy (often not condoned by the medical establishment) to make the pain disappear.

One day, while talking to a friend, he mentioned CBD-based products. Why not after all? A little research on the Internet led me to Charlotte’s Web (FDA-registered facility) and its trove of goods.

When you log in, the site offers a little questionnaire that will lead you to some products that might help. On the site, you click on “Product finder” and it will guide you to what you want. After a little reflection, I settled for a “back and neck pain relief ointment” and it came by mail a few days after I ordered it.

This ointment (with a strong smell of camphor and menthol) was kneaded into my lower back, and after just a few days I started to feel some relief. After about 10 days, the pain decreased significantly… and strangely retreated to a small area below my right shoulder blade.  It probably did not like the smell or the discomfort of the product and tried to find a more comfortable location to annoy me. But it is not as bad as the previous discomfort, and I think that eventually, the pain will vanish.

I don’t believe that I am “cured” but I feel definitely better, and I would recommend this product to anybody feeling my frustrating kind of pain. The very cautious medical establishment has not (yet) endorsed this product, so don’t ask your doctor to prescribe it. He won’t. But I tried it and I can testify that it brought some definite relief.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Buddha

Alain

I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!
My birthday is coming in a few days and due to the crass ignorance of a bunch yahoos, I will have to forego this celebration again. Twice in a row already. If this trend continues, I might reach 100 years without ever celebrating another birthday again.

It is not that my birthday matters that much but it also happens to be the Epiphany. It is the day in France when you share Champagne and “Galettes des Rois” with relatives and friends. It is above all a nice way to start the New Year and rekindle old friendships. But unfortunately, prudence now dictates that it is unwise to pack a bunch of people in a small, unventilated area and this celebration won’t happen in 2022.

I won’t be able to have my little “fête” because of the Omicron surge and above all because a bunch of people refuses to get vaccinated and continue to spread the disease. It has been proven time and time again that vaccination is the surest way to stop the spread of this plague. But some people, invocating their “rights” (what rights?) still refuse to do so.

“Some opposition to vaccines comes directly from a mistrust of science, or mistrust of the government. Some people believe that pharmaceutical companies and scientists want to sell a product regardless of harmful consequences.”

 Where do these unlearned, unread, uninformed, unenlightened, unscholarly, unqualified people get their information? From their doorman, fishmonger, the Twilight Zone? Can these people read? Or think? Or use common sense? Watching too much Hee Haw reruns can do strange things to you…

Some parents also believe that vaccines can cause autism. This myth has been debunked a long time ago and only remains with some folks who are afraid of the prick of the needle.

And now, to make things worse, my birthdate has become infamous. It will be remembered for a long time that January 6 is “a date which will live in infamy.”

It is on this date that some “patriots” egged on by a certain Donald Trump and his cronies stormed the Capitol. An action eerily similar to the burning of the German Reichstag in 1933… with its horrific consequences.

Ignorance is a calamity worse than the disease itself, and those who ignore the warnings of the medical establishment will be the first to pay the ultimate price. And since Omicron spreads twice as fast as Delta, 2022 promises to be extremely tough on the people who spoiled my birthday celebration.

Alain

Old Man Winter (Ded Moroz) is coming and to announce his arrival, he sent a few storms our way. The accompanying wind and rain stripped all our trees from all their remaining leaves and left a thick brown blanket on our pétanque field.

You can play pétanque practically on any surface, but dead leaves are not one of them. To indulge their passion, volunteers have to roll up their sleeves, grab a few tools and go to work. And this is what happened last Saturday.

About 8 to 10 people were already at work we arrived. Luckily Saint Nick gave us a break and allowed a few weak rays of the sun to shine on the court. It was still cold, but it encouraged the volunteers to do their job. And they did excellent work. Within an hour or so, the field looked as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

The field was clean but still wet, and when you play on a damp surface, you have to adjust your playing style. You have to throw your boule a little harder and avoid the little craters created by previous shots. The best way to deal with such a surface is to use “plombés” (lobbing shots) but it is not as easy as it looks.

Anticipating the cold weather, Tamara concocted some kind of Glühwein to warm up our valiant workers. After the cleaning job was completed, everybody was invited to make merry and have a little sauce. Nothing like a little mother’s milk to keep your fighting spirit up.

Despite the chilly weather, a surprisingly high number of people showed up to play. I managed to take a few pictures before we started playing and Tamara shot a few more while I was playing.

Old Man Winter is going to stick around for a few months and certainly entertain us with some more spectacular atmospheric conditions, but you will have to pardon him. What else can an old man do to have a little fun?

I still believe that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I will let the accompanying photos tell the story.

Ta ta for now…

Alain

Look in “My Photos“