The Cows Keep Mooving Along

There's no hope,
No holding it in
I give up
Yo cows - you win!

Beam me up, Moozy!

Bovine Queens Invade My Dreams

No matter what I
Do it seems
Bovines will
Invade my dreams

Be it day or
Be it night
Cows are ever
In my sight

Someone help me
Pretty please
I’ll even share some
Of my cheese


Twinkle, Twinkle Dairy Cow

Twinkle, twinkle
Pretty cow
Queen of Dairy
Take a bow

From your udder
Milk we squeeze
And from that we
Make our cheese

Twinkle, twinkle
Dairy cow
You’re the greatest
Take a bow

What’s Brown and Sounds Like a Bell?

The cows go marching
One by one
They leave huge cow pats
By the ton

And while they dry out
In the sun
Let’s think of ways to
Have some fun

If flying cow pats
Are your thing
The sun-dried pats are
Fun to fling

And if you thrill from
Things that SPLAT
Then catapult a
Fresh laid pat

Now if you love our
Mother Earth
Burn pats as fuel, you’ll
Cause some mirth

There’s many things that
You can do
Just please don’t step in
Fresh moo poo.

Udderly Insane

Bovine droppings
Cheddar cheese
Bovine fixation
Help me PLEASE!

Horrid affliction
That's for sure
Quickly, someone
Find the cure!

Dairy deficit is
Not the cause
Perhaps I just need
Cow's applause.

My Mind Has Gone Out to Pasture

I can't stop it,
Good gosh, I've tried.
My non-bovine brain
Has up and DIED!

Cows can make for
Charming verse,
My bovine fetish has
Gotten worse.

Now, when it comes
To writing time
All I get is
Bovine rhyme!

©2005 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.

My Third Poem - Will the Mad Cows Never End?

Bovines on the Brain

Please, oh dear Lord
Help me now
My brain’s embracing
All things cow!

Spotted cushions
Valve tranplants
Even mooing
Underpants.

Sirloin steak
And cottage cheese
Stop the mad cows
Pretty please?

©2005 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.

My Second Poem - Could a Cow Be My Muse?

Heaven help me if a book of bovine poetry becomes my first published book.

Line Dancing Hooves

Please, can someone
Tell me now
How to square dance
With a cow?

Swing those udders
To and fro
Watch the bovine
Do-si-do.

Please be careful
Where you dance
Bovines don’t wear
Underpants.

©2005 Kathleen M . Wooton, M.D.

My First Poem

I wrote this for a messageboard I frequent. I guess it's obvious, even to the most casual observer, that I'm not a poet. Oh well.

Enjoy.

My Milky Friends

Cows are friendly
Cows are sweet
Their udders squirt
A tasty treat

Milk them, Milk them
If you please
Take that milk and
Make some cheese

Love them cows with
All your might
'Cause cow's milk cheese
Is OUTTA SIGHT!

©2005 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.

Today's Column is Courtesy of the Letter "P"

My family and I were in the car, on the way to an appointment. We were discussing what makes words funny. I told them that my writing teacher had told me that some words are inherently funny, like the word puppet. We all agreed puppet was indeed a funny word.

We quickly discovered that many words starting with the letter “p” are funny. Soon we were constructing sentences, trying to outdo each other with the number of P words used consecutively -

Pudding puppets possess pickled pork pants
Pecan prune pie portends painful passage
Porcupines prance pertly past pots of perfect pasta

With two kids in the car, the discussion quickly descended into the potty realm. I will prudently pass on the part of the pow-wow pondering if porcupines possess prickly private parts.

My First Published Piece - I'm A Real Writer!

Here's my first published piece - I hope you enjoy it!

Change is A Daily Choice

I am one of millions of Americans who are overweight. I have tried dieting, and two years ago, I even lost over fifty pounds. Unfortunately, like so many others who have had major weight loss, I have regained almost all of it, mostly over the past year.

I am a physician. I counsel patients regarding diet and exercise. Yet, here I am, significantly overweight, feeling just as frustrated and defeated as any other dieter who has fallen off the wagon. Knowledge may be power, but it won’t prevent the fork from reaching my mouth when I am overeating. Knowledge, if anything, is like a thorn in my side - I know the dangers of obesity, yet that knowledge is not enough to compel lasting weight loss. For as long as I continue to succumb to emotional triggers for overeating, I will be overweight.

Dieting is difficult. Numerous diet programs and diet products claim to make the process easier, even fun. These programs and supplements do not alter the fact that dieting involves altering eating patterns that have taken a lifetime to establish. Avoidance of entire food groups, taking supplements to kick-start metabolism, substituting shakes for meals - admittedly, these may work in the short run. But, as they don’t address two of the most critical problems dieters face, they are not likely to be successful in the long run. Without seriously and repeatedly addressing emotional triggers for overeating and portion control, even the most sensible diet plans are destined to fail.

Emotional triggers for overeating are numerous. Sadness, loneliness, stress, anger, frustration, low self-esteem - there are many triggers for which food provides comfort. Identifying the triggers and learning new coping strategies, this requires effort and commitment, as well as as a support system. And it takes time. My trigger is the sheer amount of weight I need to lose. If I dwell on it, I become so nervous that I crave food, any food, to blunt the anxiety. Talking about self-defeating.

And then there is portion control. Portion control after almost two decades of unlimited portions is not easy, no matter how you slice it. Implementing said control takes planning. Portions listed on the package or in recipes are smaller, sometimes far smaller, than an “eat until I’m full” portion. The standard now becomes eat until just satisfied. That takes learning, especially when one is a fast eater -its easy to miss just satisfied when one shovels down ones food. Like I do, for example.

Controlling emotionally-triggered overeating and exercising portion control, these are lifestyle changes that need to last a lifetime. My fears are standing right behind those changes.

So, just for today, I will choose to diet. I will not think of the enormity of the task in the long term, I will think of what needs to be done for these 24 hours only.

Just for today, I will choose to change my lifestyle. I will eat for nourishment, not for comfort. I will eat enough to meet my nutritional needs, not to fill my belly.

Tomorrow, I will be faced with those same choices. But, just for today, I choose not to worry about tomorrow.

©2005 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.

Please, If You're Smoking, QUIT, If You Don't Smoke, DON'T START

Peter Jennings died of lung cancer yesterday. Dana Reeve, the widow of Christopher Reeve, a young woman in her forties, has just announced that she has lung cancer. A luminary in television journalism has been extinguished too soon, from a disease caused by years of cigarette smoking, and a young mother and widow is now waging war against a killer. That his death, and her disease, were entirely preventable makes this all the more tragic. They put a face on a disease that is the number one cause of cancer death, for men and women, in the United States.

Most smokers start smoking when they are young. Often, it starts as a desire to be nonconformist, to stand out from family and peers, to be unique. Please, if you feel the need to be a nonconformist, get a tattoo, get some decorative body piercings, find a way to express yourself in the arts, just DON’T SMOKE! Body rings can be removed. Tattoos can be lasered away. Contributing to the arts is a way to insure immortality. Smoking, due to the addictive effects of nicotine, will stay with you far longer than the need to rebel.

It is estimated that there were 170,000 new cases of lung cancer in the US in 1999 (*1). That is a staggering number, but for as bad as that is, there are other causes of smoking-related mortality that claim far more lives. If the threat of lung cancer is not enough incentive to convince smokers to stop, and nonsmoking teens to abstain, maybe these facts will be more compelling motivators (*2). Note - all of these are nicely outlined in the Surgeon General’s Report : The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General - May 27, 2004

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/smokingconsequences/

1. Cancers caused by smoking : Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in smokers, but it is not the only cancer caused by cigarette smoking. Cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, stomach, kidney, bladder, cervix and pancreas, as well as myeloid leukemia, these are all linked to smoking.

2. Lung disease : Chronic bronchitis and emphysema (collectively known as COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) are devastating diseases caused by smoking. Pneumonia, which can be life-threatening, has also been linked to smoking. Accelerated loss of lung function from age, childhood asthma, reduced lung function in newborns - all of these are smoking-related.

3. Cardiovascular Disease : Coronary heart disease (heart attack), cerebrovascular disease (stroke), atherosclerosis, abdominal aortic aneurysm (Lucille Ball died of this), these devastating killers are linked to smoking.

4. Other diseases, such as osteoporosis, peptic ulcer disease, cataracts, hip fractures in the elderly, all are linked to smoking.

5. Fertility and Reproductive Issues : decreased fertility, fetal growth impairment, premature birth and low birth weight, also linked to smoking.

Even more discouraging is the fact that all of these diseases that afflict smokers can, and do, strike the nonsmokers who live with them.

The take home message? If you’re smoking, QUIT; If you’re not smoking, DON’T START! Smoking is not a lifestyle, it is a killer. And cancer is just one of many ways smoking claims its victims. Please don’t let it take you.

8/23/05 - I did not state or imply that Dana Reeves was a smoker. I did state she had lung cancer. 85% of the cases of lung cancer occur in smokers, 15% occur in non-smokers. Studies have shown that a large percentage of these patients have had exposure to second hand smoke. The Surgeon General's paper cited below addresses this.

References :

(*1) Oncology Channel : Lung Cancer :

http://www.oncologychannel.com/lungcancer/

(*2) The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General - May 27, 2004

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/smokingconsequences/

©2005 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.

Cute and Cuddly Capitalism

The video gaming system, a.k.a. THE CUBE. My son had been begging and pleading for it for months. I had held out for as long as I could, for I knew he would be hopelessly addicted to that sucker the moment he lifted it from the box. My husband decided it was high time for our son to join the new millennium, so for his eleventh birthday, it arrived. Well, a gaming system is nothing without games, and the game we got him was an animal homeowners simulation. It had great graphics, cute little animal denizens, and it offered the opportunity to buy a house and live amongst the adorable woodland creatures. It was only later that I learned that what we had given our son was essentially venture capitalism meets Sesame Street.

At first, I was pleased that my son was enjoying himself, building a virtual home alongside the impossibly cute little creatures. After a while, though, it became obvious that this game had him under a spell. The game was all he would talk about, to anyone who would listen. He would protest, sometimes angrily, when he was told it was time to get off the game. He and his sister would fight over whose turn it was to play, and the length of time each of them devoted to the game. My husband and I found ourselves trying to referee their many fights, and I was secretly imagining the many ways I could destroy the game disk and then afterwards, fake total ignorance of its demise.

After one particularly heated struggle, my son and daughter issued a challenge - “You try the game, Mom, and see how easy it is for YOU to stop”. Talk about a bet I couldn’t lose. I knew I could resist the charm of saccharine-sweet village inhabitants, and I had no interest setting up a house amongst them. I accepted the challenge. I was MOM and I was immune to the spell which had ensnared my children. Yea, right.

The premise of the game is as follows. You arrive in a picturesque little town by train, with nothing more than the clothes on your back. You seek out the village shop keeper, who sells you a house and then employs you, so you can pay back your mortgage. He has you deliver things to different townspeople, who give you gifts for your trouble. After paying off a portion of your mortgage, you are free to find other ways to make money. This shopkeeper will buy anything you care to sell him. Anything you can catch, pick, or otherwise acquire can be a source of income. As a homeowner, making lots of money to pay off a mortgage appealed to my very core. Without trying to, I found myself enjoying this foray into cuddly capitalism.

Now, when you pay off your mortgage, you can choose to have your house enlarged. Doing so incurs ever larger amounts of money. Higher ticket items must be acquired and sold to pay off the house. Okay, this introduces a stress element here, as loans are bad and solvency is good.

Oh, and did I mention there is a town committee that judges, and award points, according to how creatively you maintain your house? And that, while paying off your debt, you are penalized for furnishing your house improperly? Forget having eclectic taste - your floors, walls, furniture, and decorative items need to be of the same series or point deductions are made. Certain items can be bought, other items must be given or won,therefore,acquiring all the items in a series takes time and perseverance. Remember the Pokemon craze? Well, this is poke-decorating and you’ve gotta get it all to win. Collecting the required items before the other kid did, that was the hook for my kids. The compulsion to pay off my mortgage and all the expansions, before my children did, is what hooked me.

Soon, we were all fighting over the game. That was when we learned two secrets that turned our obsessions into full-fledged addiction : time travel, and secret codes. If we missed an item, we could go back in time and retrieve it. We could have everyday be (insert holiday of choice here). Soon, though,time travel just wasn’t enough, we wanted the items without the work. My son went on the internet and found the key for us to be the ultimate video slackers- the item codes. With these, we could go to the village shopkeeper, enter a code, and get the items we needed to complete home decor series. Not content to just complete the series, now we wanted scads of money for rare items. We would enter the codes, get the items for free, and them turn around and sell them back full price. Now, we were video-fencing. This couldn’t be legal.

Soon, arguments ensued amongst the children over house size, decor, and money. And both children were sore that Mom paid off her loan first and had a big shiny gold statue in the center of town commemorating that achievement. This wasn’t fun anymore, this was competition and it was getting ugly.

And lest I forget, those cute and cuddly animals were not as nice as they appeared. Some were catty, some were jealous, and some were just plain rude. There is enough of that in real life, we didn’t need computer-created soft toys insulting us.

By unanimous decision, this game is now in cold storage until further notice. Until a patch is developed to counteract the games effects, I will not be revisiting these animated venture capitalists. Frankly, I don’t want to be scolded for my long absence by a video Muppet.

©2005 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.