Tag: Lorie Sheffer

Washboard, By Lorie Sheffer, Guest Blogger

My friends seem to know that at any given moment I can be found doing something weird. A few summers ago I decided to forgo air conditioning, finally relenting in mid August, when I ran our central air for two weeks. I did it as an experiment to see just how much the cost savings would be, and to recapture some of the summer nostalgia from my childhood. Then there was the winter of the gray hair. It was a belligerent attempt to embrace my natural color, which I hadn’t seen in years. That ended with me having a panic attack at the sight of myself on a photograph, and a frantic run to the beauty supply store. This summer, I have regressed back to the days of the washboard and clothesline. Growing up, even though almost everyone had a washing machine, there were lines of laundry drying in almost every back yard. Now? Not so much.

While in the middle of a renovation of our home, we are left without major appliances, save for a refrigerator. Sure, I could go to the local Laundromat, but I have an aversion to throwing my laundry into public machines. The last time I went that route I watched a woman stuffing a washer with cloth diapers while telling her friend about her family’s recent bout with Norwalk virus, that common and very contagious illness that causes 48 hours of the worst gastrointestinal explosions imaginable. So, with that imagine seared into my memory, I decided to tackle outdoor laundry day in my yard. I’m not about to heat kettles and boil our clothing, but I did discover that, while very labor intensive, scrubbing things item by item on a washboard sure does relieve tension.

Call me crazy, but nothing makes you appreciate what you have so much as not having it. Sitting in the shade, scrubbing laundry for hours, gives you time to think. Technology has invaded us to the point of taking away some of the simple pleasures of life. My mind wondered back to when my cousin and I would think it was just the best fun ever when our grandma would get out her big galvanized washtub, fill it with cold well water, and let us sit in it. I remembered the snap of freshly laundered sheets blowing in the breeze, and the smell of them on a just made bed. I also thought back to how my grandma would be upset to see birds eating the raspberries from the fields, knowing that one flight over a fresh load of laundry she had just hung on the line would mean sure disaster.

I’m not about to claim that I will not be thrilled the day my new washer and dryer arrive. But I can also say that there are worse things than sitting outdoors on a beautiful day, hands immersed in soapy water, the sound of fabric sloshing against a washboard. There is something soothing about not being plugged in, not being connected to the Internet or the TV. Without the distractions of technology, it is easy to daydream. Most surprising of all, I have found that I have been sleeping more deeply than I have in years, waking up early without an alarm, and feeling more rested than I can remember.

Water, By Lorie Sheffer,Guest Blogger

I was faced with two major stresses last week. The first is that my kitchen is being totally gutted and remodeled. The project sounded like fun until the day I saw my kitchen sink being hauled away. Left with no major appliances and no water source on the first floor of my house except for the outdoor hoses, I was left with the realization that I was going to be climbing steps often, all day long. Even the closest toilet is at the top of the stairs, as the downstairs powder room is part of the remodel. I joked, about half, that by the time construction was complete I was either going to have the firmest butt I’ve had in over 20 years, or I would be suffering from a nasty bladder infection. Every evening I fill a huge jug with water from upstairs and bring it down to the refrigerator that now resides in the garage. I also drag a dishpan of dirty dishes, which have been pre-rinsed throughout the day with a garden hose, up to the bathtub, where they are washed in hot water, dried and toted back downstairs. Laundry is being done in a big plastic tub in the back yard, wrung by hand and hung to dry on racks and on tree branches. I have an aversion to Laundromats.

My second stress of the week came with my father’s readmission to the hospital, the result of a postoperative infection. Thankfully, surgery wasn’t needed, but an infectious disease specialist had to be called in to determine what bacteria were responsible and what the best course of antibiotics, along with drainage of the abscess, would be needed. (Ironically my previous post concerning antibiotics was written the week before my father fell ill.) Dr. Seth Quartey is the name of the infectious disease specialist. The tone of his voice is strong and calming, his laugh fills a room, and his manner is warm and very approachable. He is someone who makes a stressful situation calmer with his presence. York is not a big city, but it certainly isn’t a small town. And yet his name had a familiar ring to me. I noticed his rich accent, and pegged it as Ivory Coast. Later, when discussing my father’s condition with my daughter, she pointed out that I had indeed heard the name before. Several years before, I had met this doctor’s wife and his daughter, who was in my grandson’s preschool. That is when it came flooding back to me. There had been stories of how they and members of their church started an organization to bring fresh water to Ghana, where both had grown up.

According to Dr. Quartey, something as simple as clean water can reduce deaths from infectious disease by as much as 50%.  Mrs Quartey said that some children have to haul the water for their family 4 miles, making learning harder when they are so worn out by the time they get to class. It made me realize how fortunate I am to be able to climb the stairs or access a garden hose while waiting a few weeks for a brand new kitchen. When I drag myself upstairs to use that toilet, my flush sends the sewage through an enclosed system that ends at a treatment plant and not into an open drain at the side of the road.

I wanted to learn more. We have easy access to information through Google. It led me to https://www.buildingsolidfoundations.org/activity/news.html, where I found the rest of the story. I was able to see photographs that ran the gamut from heartbreaking to spectacularly beautiful. I saw what we take for granted. I was reminded that even though we are in what is, by our standards, a slow economy, we are still incredibly wealthy and incredibly spoiled by what we take for granted. We live in a country where there are water parks. We render our water undrinkable so we can swim in it and slide down giant slides into it and ride in log shaped boats on tracks that plummet us into it. We wash our cars with it and we hook up sprinklers and saturate our lawns with it and we keep our golf courses green with it. We clog our landfills with discarded plastic bottles that we drank it from. We allow it to run from our faucets while we brush our teeth, and we take extra long showers and give our laundry that extra rinse to keep our whites white and our brights bright. When we don’t have what we consider easy access to it, we feel like we are roughing it. I will be happy when I get my sink back. I will be thrilled to have a dishwasher and a washer for my laundry. I have also double-checked to make sure those new appliances are as energy efficient and conserve as much water is possible. I will remember the faces of the people I saw in the photographs from Ghana, and I will be so thankful for what I have. Sometimes all we need to do is open our front door and take a look at the world around us to realize how very fortunate we are.

The Popcorn Was The Best Part Of The Movie, By Lorie Sheffer, Guest Blogger

Last week the movie Titanic was on one of my cable TV channels. I thought back to when I saw that movie in a theater, just after it was released. It was torture for me to sit through it. I thought the computer imagery looked fake and ridiculous, the love story was stupid and the theme song was like fingernails on a chalkboard. But I sat there through the end credits, realizing that the movie lasted longer than it did for the actual Titanic to sink.

There have been times when I have started reading a book, only to realize early into it that I don’t like it. It may be the style of writing or the story itself. There are several about which I have commented about having to slog through.

At what point in our lives can we give ourselves permission to walk out of a theater, hit the eject button on the DVD player, or close a book and not open it again? Unless it’s something we are later going to be tested on for a class, who cares if we finish it or not? If we are renting or going to a movie to be entertained then why sit through something that bores us? If we’re reading for pleasure, then why slog through something when there’s a whole world of books out there that we can enjoy?

I have also had the experience of thinking I was going to hate something, but agreed to sit through for someone else. My husband just had to see the movie Glory. I thought I would just use the cool, dark theater for a chance to take a two-hour nap. I left the theater sobbing, knowing I had just seen what would always be one of my all-time favorite movies. I had a similar experience with Apollo XIII. It was released during my son’s obsession with all things NASA.  “Oh, this should be a real nail biter! Wonder if they’ll make it back to Earth alive?” was my sarcastic comment while waiting in line for tickets. Nobody was more stunned than me when I found myself perched on the edge of my seat, waiting for the crew to contact mission control upon re-entry. Again, I knew I was seeing what is still one of my favorite movies.

I suppose what I’ve learned is that while the payoff for trying something you think will not interest you can, in fact, turn out to be an unexpected wonderful surprise, it’s also OK to admit you just don’t like something. Even if a movie ends up winning more awards than any other movie in history, if you don’t enjoy it then why sit through it? Life is too short for sappy movies and boring books. Life is too short to be filled with meaningless junk in general. We can’t change things that have happened in our past. Time machines don’t exist and there are very few, if any, do-overs in life. All we can do is decide what we allow into our life from this second on. We can try new things, discover new things about ourselves, and sometimes even surprise ourselves by finding joy in unexpected places. We also have the power to let go of the worthless stuff that is weighing us down. We have the power to put it down and step away from it so that we can better fill that precious time with happiness and things that we find worthwhile.

Going Viral, By Lorie Sheffer

As baby boomers, not only have we had to learn about new technology, we’ve also had to learn about new threats to our health. As teenagers, we never heard of HIV/AIDS. Just as we have now hopefully become more educated about that virus, a new threat has emerged. MRSA seems to be the new word that sends folks into panic mode. When my father contracted MRSA during his long hospitalization, I saw first hand the panic reaction that people had in response and realized that most of this panic came from misinformation. While MRSA is serious, it is most times treatable. That being said, there are some basic things we should all know.

MRSA: Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, are bacteria that are highly resistant to antibiotics. According to the Mayo Clinic, these bacteria are “the result of decades of often unnecessary antibiotic use.” Antibiotics first became widely used in the 1940s. Often people would demand them for viral infections such as a bad cold. Sometimes they would stop using them when they began to feel better, saving them for the next time they or another family member became sick. The problem with this is that while antibiotics can kill bacteria, they do absolutely nothing to kill or even weaken a virus. In fact, not only do they not help, they actually cause harm. How? By setting evolution in motion by creating a classic “survival of the fittest” with the bacteria.

Bacteria are living organisms that live on an evolutionary fast track. They learn to survive the antibiotics and become resistant to them. Bacteria exist everywhere, and some types are beneficial. For example, the bacteria found in yogurt help with digestion by aiding in the breakdown of food. Other bacteria are harmful because they invade our bodies, where they then grow and multiply. An example of harmful bacteria is streptococcus, more commonly known as strep throat. Since strep is a bacteria, antibiotics would be a reasonable treatment. There are also viral throat infections, and treating them with antibiotics would be useless. Many patients, however, don’t realize this and react angrily if their physician refuses them antibiotics for a viral throat infection.

Viruses are not living organisms and cannot exist on their own. They live, grow and reproduce only after they invade living cells. Some are fought off by our own immune systems, some run their course, and some, like HIV, set up camp in our cells. People don’t die from HIV; they die because the virus attacks the immune system. When the immune system is compromised then secondary disease has a chance to wreak havoc.

The bottom line is, while antibiotics are wonderful drugs for treating bacterial illness, there is danger of too much of a good thing. Because of overuse of them and because of the use of antibacterial soaps and cleaning products instead of the just as effective soap and water or bleach and water, we have created stronger bacteria that have learned to resist our arsenal. If you use these things when you really don’t need them, they are not going to work when you DO need them.