Cheating, Politics and Magic

Today is parliamentary election day in Taiwan.

And here's the real reason I haven't blogged for 3 days, one word, facebk. I joined Facebk a while ago, I never got into it but Cathy’s enthusiasm for the thing revived and sparked my interest. So much so that as I was poaching friends off of Cathy, Mary and Leonie’s friends lists, the Facebk administrator came on and told me STOP SPAMMING PEOPLE OR WE WILL DEACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT! SETTLE DOWN AND STOP SPAMMING PEOPLE!

Spamming?

Idiots!

Thus chastened, I reluctantly turned off the computer… wondering about all the people I hadn’t found, all the applications I haven’t explored and kinda still wondering what is so great about a funwall and why do I have to see every time my friends make friends with 3rd parties I don’t know, and, let’s face it, obviously I’ve got enough friends, I don’t plan on knowing…

I’m still stupid at it but if you wanna facebk me it’s thehoneybees@gmail.com - This is my secondary email address, so if you already email me (Mom, Gail, Nic…all the people from playgroup that we never go to…) don’t change my address.

I feel like I’m cheating on my blog…

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Acupuncture is Magic – and - Taiwan Parliamentary Elections.

I love magic – I didn’t even know there was a pain relieving kind. I usually go to a Chinese medicine chiropractor when I’ve got muscle pain in my back/neck or sciatic nerve-y pain. It works well, the doctor does joint-cracking manipulation, massage, suction cups to draw out toxins and applies topical menthol-y red medicine patches. I like it but I’ve always been curious about acupuncture and thought my newest neck pain from picking up and carrying a 10kg squirmy Burl might be perfect for acupuncture.

I went in and asked the people in the waiting room if this is a doctor who uses needles – cuz I can’t read and I’m fairly cavalier about getting by on my kindergarten-level vocabulary. They said yes and told me what an acupuncturist is called. My national health insurance covers acupuncture (but not twai na - chiropractic). While I was waiting the staff started squealing “A-bian, A-bian!” A parade of noisy “candidate number 1” open trucks passed by and there he was, the back of his head, anyway, 20 police motorbikes, a truckload of cameramen. Kinda exciting to see the president! Kinda amazing that he still does open air drive-by’s after he got shot in 2004.

Anyway, then it was my turn to see the doctor. I told him where my aches were and a little about what I think caused them. He took my pulse in both wrists for about 5 minutes then asked me to say ahh. He said, “You drink cold stuff. Don’t do that.” I said ok and he said, “You eat sweets?” I nodded. He said, “Eat less sweet.” He asked if I’d had acupuncture before and then asked if it was ok to use needles. Sure. He stuck 2 long super flexible needles into my hand. One between the metacarpal bones of pinky and ring finger and between the middle and ring finger of my left hand.

The doctor told me to stand up and move around. NO PAIN! I’d say miracle but magic seems more accurate. And lots of endorphins!!!!!!


Also Burl ate brown rice in chicken broth - lots of it - for dinner tonight!