How the other half lives, my vent.

WARNING: I'm about to tell you the other half of my trip that I've been desperately waiting to get off my chest. There's a huge amount of honesty and venting about conventional society below. Please don't read it if you don't wanna look at how a lot of our society is ragdoll'ed into chemical submission:

The trip was shocking. Shocking in that, many of my friends don't look like they used to. Even with balancing my body, I still looked a lot more vibrant than many of them did. It was a little saddening. Me with my herb boxes (2 in fact, in boxes from RK studios, lol, I repackaged tinctures in one and dry goods in the other) and my friends with their sodas. I bought ball jars the first day I got there at Hobby Lobby and smaller zip locks to apportion out dry herbs for traveling. I shook my herbs and stayed on them but watching how many of my friends have gained unhealthy weight and are eating crap was soooooo sad.

But the most interesting fun-house mirror that I experienced was this: the dear friend I went to stay with had to move unexpectedly after I'd already purchased my ticket a month in advance. Long story - but there was a hang up in transferring to her new house and she ended up (me included with timing as it was) in her sister's enormously gorgeous and huge house on the 2nd floor, where no one else is.

This is where the fun house mirror was. Her sister, one year and one week older than me, is an agent-orange baby and had ovarian cancer by the age of 17. They have a decent amount of money but eat horribly. All meat products, all gmo, no veggies, all sugar, all diet-coke all day long after the pot of poor-quality coffee is totally gone. And with that coffee - she drinks powdered creamer and fake sweetener. :( Ironically enough, there is a $4,000 water distiller in the house so that's what I drank the whole time. I cried several times. My dear friend, who eats heads and tails above her sister but has come to throw her hands up in the air on trying to change it, watched me cry and asked me why it was a big deal at all. It was too much. It was obviously supposed to happen or the weird timing wouldn't have ended it up that way. We spent 3 days there, then road tripping to see friends, then 3 days, then road tripping again, then back for 3. In those several day long stretches, I watched her sister be up for many hours with her baby, take breaks to smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, then diet-coke, then take 5 valium and/or some oxycotin to take a nap when the baby sitter got there for a few hours each day. The drugs make her itch - so she took 5 benadryl. Then she would ask me lots of questions about why she was constipated and only pottying ONCE a week. THEN she'd take a whole card (ya know, the tin-foil cards) of laxatives. This is a daily event. She has a dozen scripts in her house, for seriously strong stuff -and- takes a box of benadryl a week. It made me SOOOO sad. With a 5 month old baby (who was a miracle with fertility treatments and such and is very beautiful) - the mother feels so poorly. She has horrible restless legs, bipolarity, Depression - and I'm watching all of this while I have the education (thank you Unyquity, I owe you my first born) to help this woman. But she can't hear me. I got tough and talked to her about symptoms, masking them, drug intolerance and dehydration (she doesn't like water) - and she pretended to listen to me. Shook her head yes. On the last day, I sat down and asked her if she really wanted to get off these scripts and she looked up at me, totally out of her gourd and said 'no.' :( It was so sad. From the birth, the beautiful baby didn't want mother's milk. The doctor told the pregnant mom it was ok for her to stay on vicodin and the bipolarity meds - and she could smoke up to 5 cigarettes a day while PREGNANT(at least all the smoking is done outside). What was this doctor on??? What happens at 6 cigarettes? How do they decide these things?

And yet, the baby *seems* healthy. She wouldn't take mother's milk (a good thing, I imagine), and drinks....Similac. Pause for shock...and it's microwaved before she drinks it. I was texting the man as a form of sanity. He was stunned. If gmo soy couldn't get any worse - microwave it - that's sure to help.

Those around us are stoned. They're stoned on false sugars, chemicals, plastics, gmo food, prescription meds and misinformation. I experienced a sadness for man kind that I haven't in a while. I live in a subculture of different ages that all eat relatively well to ridiculously well, are studying permaculture and tincturing - and much to my sadness - it is a subculture. I really don't know how to reach out to someone that takes Valium, Vicodin, Oxycotin, Benadryl, laxatives and bipolar meds E.V.E.R.Y.D.A.Y. How does that work?? I mean, my dear friend, held my hand as I cried and told me that this is not super unusual. And - the city of San Antonio doesn't even recycle. With all the Similac containers and milk containers and more plastic than we could produce in one year in my house - I watched 2 full kitchen trash bins get emptied DAILY. Daily!!!!! With no recycling. And over a dozen diet-coke cans daily. OMG. I...just...don't know. I had to diatribe to the man when I got home to help myself level out I was so beside myself. The breaks in between to see friends was amazing and...I hope that cooking and making salads in that kitchen got some attention. There was no juicer, no vitamix - with all that money in a 250K house...no juicer. How does that work? And...the television was on all day with the baby to watch it. The baby would get put down in the floor to watch quickly moving images on a HUGE flat screen tv.

:(

We went to the grocery store (the one I miss actually) that has conventional and clean food. We went to get popcorn and my friend reached for the microwave popcorn and I looked at her. She said, 'I don't know how to make it the old fashioned way.' I gave her holy hell for eating gmo corn when the rest of her diet is much cleaner. I bought organic popcorn and made real popcorn while I was there. The sister tried it and made a horrible face and said, 'what's wrong with it?? There's no butter flavor!' but at least I made headway in that the last day I was there - her sister said she'd missed my popcorn when we'd gone on the road trips. Hey - that's something.

Again, I know there was a huge education in this for me. I now don't have a fear of how good a mother I'll be - and I don't mean that disparagingly toward my friend's sister. It just helped me understand how differently we all think than that.

Thanks for letting me get this out - I really appreciate it.