Monday Morning Musings

This picture has nothing to do with the post today. I just thought we could all use a reminder of summer on this cold, January day. Lots of really frigid temperatures across the country, and even here in Texas it has been below freezing at night.

And now just a bit of trivia to get Monday started on a light note. You know those little white bumps we sometimes get on our tongues that some of our mother’s referred to as “acid bumps?” Well, several have plagued me over the past few days, enough so I went online to see if there was some advice for dealing with them. (Translation, get them gone!)

These are not the same as canker sores, which can flare up in several areas of your mouth. These little devils are primarily on the tip and sides of a tongue, and my Google search gave me some information. Most of these little white, painful spots are caused when taste buds become inflamed or irritated. Most causes of the irritation are from biting our tongue, not that we purposely do so, but sometimes, well, the old tongue just gets in the way.

I did find some suggestions for easing the discomfort, applying peroxide followed by Milk of Magnesia. Unfortunately, it takes several days for them to go away. I’m on day five and counting.

In my search on the Web, I also found out that some folks have a problem called geographic tongue. I kid you not.  When I saw that pop up on the list of “sores on tongues,” I had to hop over to see what it was all about.

Wouldn’t you?

According to WebMD, “Geographic tongue occurs when parts of the tongue are missing layers of small bumps called papillae. They normally cover the entire upper layer of your tongue, but this layer of skin is not shed evenly.”

So how many of you are going to check your tongue to see what country or state you have there? Come on, aren’t you even a little curious?

Please, no pictures in the comments. I’ve seen waayyyy too many pictures of tongues in my research on this important topic.

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Dave Lieber, who writes The Watchdog column for The Dallas Morning News announced his candidacy for President in last Sunday’s paper. When I read the headline, I thought, yes, I would vote for him. Unfortunately, he’s not really running, but what he is doing is asking the real candidates to get pro-active in fighting the thousands and thousands of scams that bilk unsuspecting consumers out of, too often, their life’s savings.

Under a Watchdog administration, if you’re in a call center in Albania and you’re hassling grandmothers in Wichita Falls for their life savings, we’re coming after you.

If we can toss a destructive software virus into Iran’s nuclear program, we can disrupt overseas call centers in which criminals work to deceive Americans. We can make it hard to be a crook.

Lieber’s bid for the White House may be in jest, but his efforts to help folks who have been victims of these scams are not in jest. And his campaign video is fun to watch. He takes the GOP candidates to task, inserting himself into the last GOP debate, and how he interrupts the bickering is worth seeing.

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Today’s strong woman is Janice Hensley, a Dallas woman who graduated for the first time in her life. Not from high school or college, but from Dallas LIFE, the largest homeless shelter in North Texas. Dallas LIFE evolved from the Dallas Rescue Mission started by the  Reverend Robert J. Key, one of the founders of the Union Gospel Mission in 1949.

Janice Hensley and her husband, Kenneth Davis, are two of the the people who completed the the 10-month New Life Program along with about 25 others. The program is geared toward building a foundation for a successful future by guiding the participants through an evaluation of their past and their future potential. Classes are offered in addiction recovery, anger management, job readiness and more.

Successful completion of the New Life Program culminates in an exciting graduation ceremony and celebration of those who are ready to begin life outside the shelter as self-sufficient, productive members of society.

Janice’s story is told in full in The Long Way Home by Steve Thompson in The Dallas Morning News. The journey home for Janice and her family started in April 2014, and still continues. They completed the New Life Program, graduated, got jobs and their own apartment again, but they continue to struggle. The world has beat them down before and Janice knows how quickly it can beat her down again. She just continues to pray for the strength to continue on this new path.

And I say, kudos to her! Keep praying Janice, and keep working the programs, one day at a time.