And now I’m trying to un-see this.

It’s a brain tapeworm, of all god-forsaken things.

Brain tapeworms?  Who even knew they existed?  I sure didn’t…until an innocent web search invited that knowledge into my head.

Hopefully not the tapeworms.

They can enter your system if you eat undercooked pork, since the larvae often attach to pig muscle.  And once there, they flow through the bloodstream and get stuck in cavities in the cranium.

I don’t want to know this!  You don’t either!!

But misery loves company.

Happy Monday.

I read.  Go to the movies or a show.  Often just hop online.

Clearly that wouldn’t work for this guy.

Kudos to him for raising money for charity!

Probiotics, don’t you know — the ‘friendly bacteria’ that Jamie Lee Curtis gets all giggly about.

But my dog is a picky little shit.  You change his food one iota, and he won’t touch it…which makes any change in his diet a real pain in the probiotic.

There are some animals, though, who are real fans of the yogurt cure.

Maybe Rory will listen to the bird.

No more pastel buds of spring, no more varying shades of color — just a solid canopy of green.

As I was walking Rory Dog this morning — and gazing upward at all those green leaves — I was reminded of the day I got my very first pair of glasses.

I was in the fourth grade.  My teacher Ms. Laws had noticed I was squinting at the chalkboard, and ratted me out to my mom.  When the optometrist did the eye exam, it turned out —

I was pretty blind.  Who knew?

I wasn’t very excited about getting glasses; I was the first in my class and would be teased for months.  But I still remember wearing my new glasses on the ride home from the eye doctor, and staring in wonder up at the trees.

“You can see individual leaves?“

Scientists in Britain say yes.

Meet Florence Colgate.

She won Lorraine Cosmetics ‘most beautiful woman in Britain’ contest, and researchers say it’s because her face is almost perfectly symmetrical.  Using The Golden Ratio*, researchers determined the 18-year-old girl’s face has the strongest chance of attracting the most people.

Guess she didn’t need cosmetics after all.

Wondering if your mug is symmetrical?  SymFace allows you to upload a photo and calculate your own ratios.

* The Golden Ratio is roughly 1.6, which means a beautiful person’s face is about 1 1/2 times longer than it is wide.

Today I got my answer.

After a particular bumpy plane ride to Kansas City, I was not only nauseous but in the throes of a full-blown migraine.  And my meds?  They were in my checked bag.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Migraine Barbie’s aura might look like candy, but she and I know that it hurts like a mother.  And when I didn’t get the meds within the first 30 minutes of the headache, I just had to ride it out.  Lie in the dark and sleep it off.

Which is what I did.  Hence today’s really late post.

So, what did we learn?  Well, I do still need my meds.  I can still get air sick from time to time, too.  And probably most importantly…

Keep your damn headache pills close at hand, sister.

Only this time, it will be doctor recommended.

The American College of Chest Physicians released new guidelines that suggest sitting in a window seat is a risk factor for DVT (deep vein thrombosis), dangerous blood clots that can develop in your legs on long plane flights.

People who sit in window seats have the potential to move less than those who sit in the aisle.  And it’s really the lack of movement that raises your risk factor for DVT, not your seat.

Now, I sit in aisle seats whenever I can simply because I don’t like to be closed in.  And in my experience, passengers in the window seat have no problem asking me to get up and let them out. Repeatedly.  Several times a flight.  It’s like the people with bladder issues choose the window seat.

On purpose.

So I think they’ll be fine.  And I will, too.  Because they’re there to keep me on the move.

Thanks loads.

But what if the very floor could give you vertigo?

Don’t laugh.  It’s happening.

Researchers in Jersey City, New Jersey have found that high contrast black-and-white carpeting is making people sick.

We’re talking headaches.  Visual distress.  Even seizures in epileptics.

Man…that boat trip is sounding better all the time.

They aren’t exactly sure why a high contrast repeating pattern can give the illusion of motion and make viewers sick.  But based on their findings, researchers do recommend that you give carpet more than a quick glance before you make any purchase for your home.

Your home?  I think this information is even more important for all the planes, trains, and automobiles out there.

Talk about a double whammy!

Hint: it’s not a pill, an exercise routine or the now ubiquitous green smoothie.

It’s the hug — that simple (and simply wonderful) one-on-one human contact between friends and loved ones.

Fantastic, huh?

Lucky for all of us, today is National Hug Day!  The holiday was established in 1986 to encourage PDA-phobic Americans to ‘reach out, reach out and touch someone.’ So now’s your chance to get out there and improve your health, your happiness and your overall state of being.

You’ll probably freak out a few people along the way, but hey — that’s just a bonus for feeling so gosh darn happy!

(See you out there.)

I’d like to add another to the list:

The felt tip pen

One such pen swallowed by a woman in Great Britain 25 years ago was recovered by doctors from her stomach intact and ready to write. Stomach acids had eaten off the pen’s brand name — darn the luck — but not the ink inside. In fact, upon removal, doctors wrote ‘hello’ with the pen.

Find that hard to believe?

The woman supposedly swallowed the pen using it to check spots on her tonsils in a mirror while standing on a ladder when she fell, leading to the accidental ingestion.

Heck — forget the pen company.  Buy the movie rights!