Mommy, I'm Not Eating That!!!!

I wasn’t sure about the Amazing Eccentrics series on Current TV.  But with the hard drive wiped on the DVR, beggars cant be choosers.  So, tonight I watched the episode about food delicacies from around the world.  I was expecting disturbing.  Some of it exceeded my expectations. 

The first clip was about a restaurant in China that only served animal penis.  Apparently eating the penis of another animal improves virility.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be with a guy that eats dead cooked penis. The penises mentioned in the clip were goat, horse, yak, ox, donkey, and deer.  The correspondent went on to describe the texture and taste of each. I’ll spare you the gory details.

Next, Las 7 Regiones de Oaxaca Restaurant in Los Angeles was profiled. Here, they serve chapulinas. Do you really want to ask what this is?  Grasshoppers soaked in lime and water roasted in oil.  Not so shocking.  As an anthropology major in college, I saw plenty of films featuring people eating insects.  Grasshoppers are seemingly nutritious and delicious.  Where 100g of McDonalds hamburger has 12g of protein and 9g of fat, the chapulinas have 20.6g of protein and 6.1g of fat. 

They traveled to Vietnam next, one of 2 dozen countries that eats dog meat.  Dog meat is said to also increase virility because it warms the body.  I wonder about the dog penis.  That must be very special.  The dog part wasn’t so disturbing, though I’m a dog lover.  I know people eat it.  When he was served the still beating heart from a snake, that was sincerely disgusting.  No further comment.

Hidalgo, Mexico was the next stop.  They went to a food festival of local food delights.  On the menu were rattlesnake soup, worm tacos, BBQ iguana with rice, armadillo stew, and skinned rodent.  The only spectacular part of that was the heads of the dead ‘rodents’.  The teeth. I don’t know how to express how much that disturbed me.

Last, curiles were eaten in Honduras.  You’re going to ask aren’t you? Live clams is the answer. Not surprisingly, they are an aphrodisiac and are known as natural Viagra.  The live clams are served on a plate and don’t look very much alive until you squirt lemon juice on them. Acid kills them, so they squrm around quite a bit. Then you eat them. Nasty. 

When you travel, you should definitely try the local cuisine.  I’m not very adventurous when it comes to food. I just started eating Mexican maybe 5 years ago.  By Mexican, I do not mean grasshoppers or skinned rodent.  More like fajitas and flautas. More power to the people out there who can go to a foreign country and eat things that are completely out of their cultural norms. I am not one of you.

MINOR Disaster

Last night we lost our satellite signal.  My husband was trying to fix the problem before calling DirecTV.  He reset the DVR. Makes sense, right? HA! Well, there are 2 different resets on the box, the soft and hard reset.  He clearly was not aware of what he was doing. The hard drive was wiped clean. Approximately 40% of the disc space was taken up by documentaries.  I would estimate that I lost about 20 hours of shows.  I can't really be angry, but I am in a state of awe and disbelief.

This morning I was able to get the signal back by hanging out the upstairs window and tearing down vines that had grown up the side of the house.  We still have a weak signal because of all of the huge trees in our neighbors yards, so we will have to get the technician to come out at some point and realign the satellite. 

So, today will be spent trying to remember and set up what season passes we had and setting a bunch of documentaries to record.  Not exactly what I had planned for the day! 

January is Schizophrenic

Though I missed most of the specials for psych week on Discovery Health, I was able to catch “Born Schizophrenic: January’s Story”.  This is the story of the Schofield family and their daughter January, called Jani, and their battle with childhood schizophrenia.  Jani is one of the youngest children to ever be diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Her family has been on a wild ride, to say the least.  An article about the show can be found here.

This scary disease has touched my life and has always fascinated me.  I had a good friend that became schizophrenic after the suicide of his mother. Though he always had emotional issues, it was confusing, frustrating, and frightening to watch him spiral downward into a world of hallucinations and bizarre thoughts.  He was a drug and alcohol abuser, so his medication was never taken correctly and did not help very much. He started out as an outgoing, oversexed, but disturbingly intelligent guy and became a violent cocaine addict, an alcoholic, and criminal that died in a state prison just a week before his 33rd birthday.

I had encounters with other schizophrenics, such as one of my college roommates that came to me straight from a stint at the institution.  That girl was the best roommate I ever had! She was the only one that could handle my eccentricities, shared common views on things, and left me alone! Plus, she had a TV. That is always a plus. 

What I have learned through the years is that this disease waxes and wanes like the moon.  It is a chameleon. It is a shark and a mouse.  It manifests itself differently in everyone affected.  If you’ve met 50 schizophrenics, you haven’t seen it all. With each individual there does seem to be a disjointed cycle of lucidity and madness. You get to know the signs and understand what they are saying in times of utter madness. You learn to brace yourself and put on your “dealing with a schizo” persona. But sometimes, like a scorpion hiding in the sand, it strikes without warning leaving you feeling panicked and paralyzed.

This is definitely what Jani’s parents are feeling.  From seven days after her birth when she completely stopped sleeping, Jani was not a normal child.  At first they thought she was just a genius, pointing to different body parts at 5 months.  From what I’ve learned over the years, it seems severe biological mental illness (especially schizophrenia) accompanies a high level of intelligence.  Here are just a few famous schizophrenic ‘geniuses‘:

John Nash, subject of the film A Beautiful Mind.
Jack Kerouac, American writer and artist
Syd Barret of Pink Floyd
William Chester Minor, creator of Oxford English Dictionary
Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist

Unfortunately, Janis illness got her removed from school permanently in first grade.  Violence towards herself and other children was the main reason for this.  She has been known to choke herself and try to jump out windows.  The family actually has two apartments so that her younger brother Bodhi is safe from her. 

After years of different diagnoses, at age 6, Jani was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Jani goes to school now an hour a day by herself, but still has trouble concentrating for that long.  Her parents have created a group for parents of schizophrenic children. As a result Jani has been able to spend time with children like herself.

I can’t imagine the hell that parents of these young children go through on a daily basis.  I have only encountered schizophrenic adults. They became schizophrenic as a result of a trauma in their teens.  Children haven’t the life experience to understand what is ‘normal’ to properly separate what is real and what isn’t.  We can only hope that someday effective treatments become available.