Jeanne Faulkner

Me and Gwynneth - MyRegence.com column

      

Adventures of a Fortysomething: Gwyneth and Me

      

Crop circles aren't just for conspiracy theorists anymore--at least not the kind you get at the acupuncturist.

   

by Jeanne Faulkner, Contributor

     

Jeanne Faulkner is a freelance writer and registered nurse in Portland, Ore. Her work appears regularly in Pregnancy and Fit Pregnancy, and she has contributed articles to the Oregonian, Better Homes & Gardens, Shape and other magazines.

   

You'd be amazed how much I look like Gwyneth Paltrow these days. So, so much. It's truly remarkable, especially since I'm a little older and we're not related. Oh yeah, and I'm not blonde, or skinny or any of that. I don't have a designer wardrobe unless you count Isaac Mizrahi's Target line. Otherwise, though, I'm the spittin' image. It's because of the cupping. What's that, you say? Oh c'mon, you remember back when she was spotted at the Oscars in a backless gown with something that looked like crop circles all over her back. Well, that's me. I have crop circles, too. Me and Gwyneth.

I was at the acupuncturist's complaining that I was almost catching a cold--feeling kind of "virally." Slightly stuffy nose, tickle in the throat, could cough but didn't have to yet. I knew the cold was just a day away, but it hadn't slammed me yet. My acupuncturist, Clarrissa Smith of Jade Acupuncture, said, "I have just the thing," and she proceeded to heat up some glass orb suction cups that stuck like leaches to my upper back. She pulled them around my skin with such intense traction that it felt like a mobile hickey or a massage by vacuum hose. Clarissa says most of her clients love it, beg for it, practically fake symptoms to get it--like the cocaine of acupuncture. I thought it felt kind of weird--not painful or unpleasant, but intense, like a deep tissue massage that isn't exactly soothing. Then again, I've never been a hickey-cocaine kind of girl.

Smith describes cupping as "a method of stimulating acupuncture points by applying suction through a glass "cup" (imagine a tiny goldfish bowl) in which a partial vacuum has been created. Partial? It felt like a Hoover. This technique produces blood congestion at the site and stimulates it. Really stimulates it. It's used for breaking up fluid and phlegm stagnation in the lungs--like coughs, bronchitis and pneumonia--as well as for soft tissue congestion, such as with low-back, neck and shoulder pain. That all sounds like me in a nutshell.

An ancient Chinese practice, traditional cupping uses fire to heat and create suction in the cups. When applied to the body, the skin gets sucked into the cup. A fresh blood supply rushes up and improves circulation to the area. Again, I say, a lot like a hickey.

Cupping therapy has been further developed as a means to open the "meridians" of the body--the conduits through which energy flows through every organ, tissue and body part. There are five meridians on the back that, when opened, allow invigorating energy to travel the whole length of the body.

OK, you got all that? Good, because I'm still not clear what the heck meridians and energy flow are all about, but once again I threw caution to the wind and went on faith. With herbs and acupuncture, Clarissa's fixed me up as far as insomnia and allergies are concerned. At this point, I'll trust her with anything. If she says hickies will keep me from catching a cold, who am I to argue?

So, did it work? Darn right it did. I had to catch a plane the next day for Washington, D.C., and couldn't afford a cold. Along with chugging Airborne like a frat boy with a beer bong all the way across the country, I stayed well. The mild chest congestion cleared right up. My baseline airway constriction (lifetime asthma) went away, and all the virally symptoms went with it.

Best of all, when I wore a tank top that warm sunny day in front of the Library of Congress, some business-suit man (probably a congressman or senator or something) did a double take to check me out. Oh yeah, I turn heads. You bet I do. It's probably because I look so much like Gwyneth Paltrow.

I did it again just last week. I was whining about my hurty back and Clarissa suggested cupping. I hesitated for a moment because I was heading out to Breitenbush Hot Springs for the weekend and would be wearing a whole lot less than a tank top. Clarissa reassured me I had nothing to fear. All the hippies at the hot springs knew what cupping was. I have to admit, I was relieved to have my crop circles when I stripped down to dip in the springs. Everybody else had major tattoos, and without my hickies, I'd have felt kind of naked.

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Another column from My Regence

I write for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Health & Wellness website (MyRegence).  Here's one of my recent columns. 




Adventures of a Fortysomething: The Making of an 'EC' Mom

      

All that our fortysomething has learned about being "environmentally correct," she's learned from her kids--sort of.

   

by Jeanne Faulkner

     

Jeanne Faulkner is a freelance writer and registered nurse in Portland, Ore. Her work appears regularly in Pregnancy and Fit Pregnancy, and she has contributed articles to the Oregonian, Better Homes & Gardens, Shape and other magazines.

   

Apparently, I suck. My carbon footprint is as big as Sasquatch's. I'm a gas-guzzling, plastic-hogging, carbon-spewing fiend that should be banished to the landfill for all eternity. This is what my environmentally correct (EC) high school- and college-aged kids have taught me about environmentalism. Everything they've learned about being EC they learned from their oh-so-enlightened friends and college instructors and, of course, from Al Gore. That's right--they've seen his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." And I haven't. Therefore, I'm an idiot and they're brilliant. But, then, anyone raising teenagers knows that.

Frankly, I'm surprised at how lame I am. I thought I was doing pretty well. Sure, there's room for improvement, and as soon as I can afford a new car I'll buy a hybrid. But in a family of six, (two parents, two "adult" kids and two little kids), we only own two cars.  We also own six bikes, carpool, cluster errands and walk as much as possible. 

Recycling? We have six bins that we fill up every single week. We've been recycling long enough that we've worn out a bunch of them. It's true that once in a while I'll toss a dog food can inadvertently, but ever since my EC education--brought to me by my children--I've been working on that. My EC kids are all about recycling. They check the bottom of every box, bottle and can for the little recycling triangle and faithfully place them in the recycling bins. That's their part. Our part--since we suck--is to sort all the recycling every Sunday night and drag it to the curb for the garbage collectors to haul away. I can't remember more than once per kid when they've helped sort and haul, and that was only under duress. They certainly wouldn't volunteer for that particular recycling duty. But, then again, we suck and they don't.

This year I've purchased six water bottles--the good ones that can be reused countless times and withstand dishwashing. This was an attempt to decrease the number of disposable water bottles we pitch in the recycling bins. They're gone. All of them.  Where? Heck if I know. They went to that mysterious place socks wind up. Gone.

How about that carbon-spewing? Some of the biggest sources of global-warming gases come from animals raised for meat consumption. Methane (cow gas) and petroleum products used for grain production to feed these rootin'-tootin' cows (and to feed chickens, pigs, etc.), and transportation of said critters accounts for a whole lot of ozone-scorching trouble. Methane is reportedly 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Anybody who's driven past a feedlot or dairy will attest to the truth in that.

I've been a vegetarian since I was 12. I've raised all my kids as vegetarians. My husband is a vegetarian. We do consume some dairy (except me and my husband, who eat almost none), eggs and fish. We eat whole grains, lots of fruits and vegetables (I buy locally and organic whenever I can afford it), and rarely do we buy processed foods. My kids have never eaten Hamburger Helper. I thought that raising them with a high level of meat consciousness, awareness of the food chain and teaching them that the products we buy and consume have an impact far beyond our home, was pretty EC. But since I'm not vegan, I suck.

My college-girl decided to "go vegan" for her first year in college. OK, I'm mostly supportive, especially since she eats most meals at the college cafeteria. There aren't that many times in your life when you can make a big statement about your diet and totally stick to it. For most of us, once we get busy with jobs, homes, families--y'know, lives--we forgo some of our idealism for practicality. I pointed out that if we boycott all products that come from animals, we fail to support EC farmers--the ones who do dairy right; the chicken farmers who treat their little egg-layers humanely and recycle the chicken poop. Another daughter intermittently declares herself "vegan-for-a-week." That means a whole lot of special shopping, meal planning and extra cooking. But hey, what do I know? I've only been a vegetarian for 30-odd years. Veganism is way more EC. Even if it does cause a lot more household methane with all those lentils and other legumes.

Let's talk about energy consumption. We buy the gas for the cars they use. We're the ones buying the florescent light bulbs and following the kids around the house turning off lights, unplugging appliances and turning down the heat. I got up in the middle of the night once this week, having gone to bed hours before the teens did. Sure enough, the family room, kitchen and porch lights glared away. I clicked them off and made a mental note to pay the electric bill--the one where we pay a little extra for "green" energy.

There's no doubt about it, I've got a ways to go until I'm totally EC. It's my goal, really it is. It should be all our goals. If you need any ideas as to how to be greener, try to find a couple of hours to watch "An Inconvenient Truth"--it's on my list of things to do this week. If I don't find the time, I'll just ask my kids. They'll tell me how it really is. 'Cuz they're EC and I suck.

 

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