U.S. announces desert ?solar energy zones?

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Source: www.nashuatelegraph.com --- Saturday, October 29, 2011
LOS ANGELES ? The Obama administration on Thursday announced its plan for solar Energy development, directing large-scale industrial projects to 285,000 acres of desert in the Western U.S. while opening 20 million acres of the Mojave for development. The Bureau of Land Management?s ?solar Energy zones? are intended to make some of the desert?s most sensitive landscapes less desirable for solar prospecting by identifying ?sweet spots? that already have passed environmental requirements and therefore promise expedited permitting, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. ?These 445 square miles of zones are ... where development will be driven,? Salazar said. The 17 solar Energy zones in six western states ? including two large areas in California ? were identified by their absence of major environmental or cultural conflicts. ...

Source: http://feeds.nashuatelegraph.com/~r/news/breaking/~3/60u2HsAn7No/u.s.-announces-desert-solar-energy-zones.html

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Perry courts conservative media (Politico)

Rick Perry is aiming a new charm offensive at the conservative media, hoping to persuade opinion-makers - who would then help convince voters - that he?s the true conservative in the presidential contest.

The new outreach to everyone from conservative bloggers to radio talkers and Fox News reflects the campaign?s failure to define Perry in a way his staff thought would be obvious: As a solid conservative Republican, clearly to the right of frontrunner Mitt Romney. Instead, Perry has faced a competing narrative that he?s soft on immigration and on his lobbyist cronies.

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The conservative media, whose support Perry had taken for granted, often furthered that impression, and in a new round of leaks and offers of interviews with Perry, his campaign is trying to fix that.

?Gov. Perry is making the right play. His best chance to win the nomination is to have a fight over conservative principles with Gov. Romney. If he can consolidate Republican opinion behind his candidacy while marginalizing Bachmann, Cain, Santorum and Gingrich, he could make a serious run at the nomination,? said consultant Patrick Hynes, who worked for the campaign of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and said it was ?an open question whether he waited too long to reach out to the conservative media.?

?His path would be easier today had he jumped right into the conservative echo chamber and positioned himself as the ideological anchor of the GOP primary field on day one of his candidacy,? Hynes said.

The outreach effort splashed into the public view on October 5, when Perry?s campaign leaked his impressive third-quarter fundraising numbers - a much-sought after scooplet - to the Drudge Report, the opinion-setting website that had repeatedly tilted the playing field in favor of his rival Romney.

Perry also recently brought back a dedicated new media staffer, Will Franklin, who had worked on earlier campaigns, a spokesman confirmed. And the outreach has continued with a series of friendly leaks, including a first look at Perry?s first television ad Tuesday night on the blog of the Daily Caller?s Matt Lewis.

Franklin ?has been a big asset? since rejoining Perry about a month ago, Lewis said.

?Conservative bloggers and center-right journalists are never more important than when it comes to a GOP primary,? said Lewis, who noted that the right-wing media was key to Perry?s 2010 primary victory over Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. ?Surprisingly, many conservative candidates fail to build relationships with center-right media, preferring to grant exclusives solely to the MSM. This makes no sense.?

Perry also finally gave in Tuesday to Fox News?s Bill O?Reilly?s longstanding demands for an interview. He will appear Sunday for a full hour on Fox News Sunday, the network?s marquee weekend program and a basic stop for most Republican candidates.

And talk radio insiders say that while Perry has not done many appearances since conversations with Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin in the early days of his campaign, he has begun a courtship in earnest after taking a beating on - in particular - his moderate views on immigration and his jab that his opponents? stands on the issue lack ?heart.?

?The Perry campaign[?s] outreach has been more proactive in the last couple weeks, I?d say, with his drop in the polls,? said a national conservative radio producer, who said the campaign had begun to offer top surrogates, like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, to radio hosts. ?They?ve gotten better.?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1011_67104_html/43424029/SIG=11mrts0rn/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67104.html

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Post-spill, GOP still pushes 'Drill, baby, drill' (AP)

WASHINGTON ? It's still "drill, baby, drill." After the nation's largest offshore oil spill and a series of pipeline breaks, Republican presidential candidates are pushing an aggressive policy of oil and gas drilling that echoes the party's rallying cry from four years ago.

This time around, the calls for more drilling are sometimes running into another conservative ideal ? preserving wild places for future generations. The millions of gallons of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico last year and the crude that flowed from pipelines into Montana's Yellowstone River and Michigan's Kalamazoo River have put a spotlight on the environmental risks of energy production.

But with jobs and the economy in the forefront, nearly every GOP White House contender has a plan to harness the nation's resources as a way to create employment by getting rid of environmental rules and opening up vast areas to drilling.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry says we are sitting "on a treasure trove of energy in this country." Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has said "we're an energy-rich nation that's acting like an energy-poor nation." And since former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2008 published his book "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less," he has touted more drilling in Alaska and the West to create jobs and drive down gasoline prices.

Some of the ideas sound like they're inherited directly from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee who popularized "drill, baby drill."

At the party's national convention that year, Palin told the crowd, "We need American energy resources, brought to you by American ingenuity and produced by American workers."

Perry, announcing his jobs plan at a steel mill in Pittsburgh this month said, "The quickest way to give our economy a shot in the arm is to deploy American ingenuity to tap American energy."

For some, no place is off limits.

Romney thinks the country can drill safely off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann says she would consider drilling in the Florida Everglades, if it could be done responsibly. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who also wants to open up the Arctic refuge to drilling, has accused President Barack Obama of putting caribou ahead of "something good for our country and our economy" because he said he won't drill there. And businessman Herman Cain believes the idea that high energy consumption and conservation are at odds is a myth peddled by liberals.

Voters will face a bright-line choice next year on the presidential ballot between the GOP nominee and Obama, who has taken a much more cautious approach to expanding oil and gas production ? so cautious that GOP critics accuse him of intentionally locking up resources. His administration did give BP the go-ahead this week to drill a new deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico, the company's first since its catastrophic spill last year. The administration also has granted other companies deepwater permits in recent months.

Romney has said that the spill provided Obama "political cover" for policies to limit drilling, such as the six-month moratorium on new deepwater exploration put in place after the spill. Perry has called the spill "just an act of God" that could not have been prevented. Investigations by the federal government and the companies involved have blamed a series of faulty decisions for the blowout that killed 11 and sent more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

In an interview in September, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, defended the administration's approach.

"I don't think we should be drilling anywhere and everywhere, and I think those who propose it are wrong," Salazar said. "Drilling for oil in Everglades is not going to resolve the energy challenges we face as a country. What we need to do is to have a broad energy portfolio ... that does include oil and gas, but it has to be done in the right places and it has to be done with the right kind of review and the right kind of regulatory oversight."

Even within the GOP, not everyone shares the view of the primary contenders.

After Bachmann's comment on the Everglades, for example, Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., sent her a letter arguing that "the Everglades represents one of the most cherished treasures of the United States, and should be off limits for exploration of any kind of natural energy resource."

Conservation-minded Republicans have invoked President Ronald Reagan and the late conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater in arguing for the protection of natural resources.

"It's like the value of having a little extra oil trumps every other value that Americans have had throughout our history," said David Jenkins of Republicans for Environmental Protection, who told a House panel in September that it was disingenuous to claim that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ? originally set aside by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower ? could be done with minimal impact.

William K. Reilly, the top environmental official under President George H.W. Bush, and a member of Obama's commission on the Gulf oil spill, has warned about the risks of a spill in waters off Alaska.

Public support for drilling dropped after the Gulf oil spill, but the change was temporary. In February 2010, two months before the spill, a Pew Research Center poll found 63 percent of adults favored more offshore drilling in U.S. waters, with 31 percent opposed. Support for offshore drilling dropped as low as 44 percent by June, after the spill. But by March of this year, it had rebounded to 57 percent in favor and 37 percent opposed.

___

Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter (at)dinacappiello

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111027/ap_on_el_ge/us_gop_candidates_drill_baby_drill

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Marie Osmond Is Rushed To the Hosptial in Las Vegas

Marie Osmond was rushed to the hospital Wednesday night after her regular show with brother Donny Osmond at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/marie-osmond-rushed-hosptial-las-vegas/1-a-396938?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Amarie-osmond-rushed-hosptial-las-vegas-396938

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Kirsten Dunst, Orlando Bloom re-team for "Cities" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom will co-star in Roger Donaldson's "Cities."

The pair teamed up once before for Cameron Crowe's critically maligned "Elizabethtown," with decidedly uneven results.

They join a previously announced Clive Owen and Anil Kapoor in the thriller, a genre that Donaldson, the director of "No Way Out" and "Thirteen Days," has had success with in the past.

Matthew Metcalfe and Chris Curling will produce.

Lisa Wilson's Parlay Films is handling international rights to the film that is set to shoot in Spring 2012. The film will shoot in multiple cities, including London, Mumbai and New York.

After a post-"Spider-Man" career hiatus, Dunst has been re-establishing herself in the industry with a series of roles in independent films such as Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" and "All Good Things."

Bloom is currently filming Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" and has a supporting role in the box-office disappointment "The Three Musketeers."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111029/film_nm/us_kirstendunst

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Avon under SEC investigation; shares drop (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Regulators subpoenaed Avon Products Inc over its contact with analysts, and the company is under a formal investigation over whether it failed to comply with bribery laws in China and elsewhere.

At the same time, the world's largest direct seller of cosmetics also said it was reassessing its long-term strategy after reporting lower-than-expected quarterly sales.

Shares of Avon, already under Wall Street's scrutiny after a string of restructurings and management changes, plunged 17.7 percent to $18.93 in morning trading.

Avon said on Thursday that it got the subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. The SEC is investigating the company's contact during 2010 and 2011 with certain analysts and other representatives of the financial community, Avon said in its quarterly filing.

The SEC issued a formal order of investigation of that and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matter that Avon itself has been investigating since June 2008. The company has been cooperating with the SEC and the U.S. Justice Department on that matter since 2008.

"One inquiry is bad," said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Mark Astrachan, who downgraded Avon shares to a "hold" rating. "Two is a major headache, and we believe the formal order relating to the FCPA investigation indicates a significant step-up in activity, with a resolution unlikely to come any time soon."

Under Andrea Jung -- chief executive officer since 1999 and chairman since 2001 -- Avon has turned in poor performances in Brazil and Russia, poured tens of millions of dollars into its international bribery investigation and struggled to stem declines in a sluggish U.S. market.

Avon, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, changed its corporate structure and shook up management in February in an attempt to fix problems that had led it to miss earnings expectations. It already had overhauled operations and cut thousands of jobs under a restructuring laid out in November 2005 and updated in February 2009.

"The CEO is responsible for the overall outcome of a company, and she has to be under pressure with these results," said Bernstein analyst Ali Dibadj. "It would be unfair to shareholders if there weren't pressure on management at this point."

On Thursday, Avon blamed a decline in sales in Brazil on a difficult implementation of a new computer system and said a tough economic environment in several regions had hurt revenue growth.

The company no longer expects revenue to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage rate this year.

Avon's third-quarter profit fell to $164.2 million, or 38 cents per share, from $166.7 million, or 38 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 5.7 percent to $2.76 billion.

The results missed Wall Street estimates of earnings of 46 cents per share and revenue of $2.83 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Avon also sold 5 percent fewer products in the quarter.

In North America, sales continued to slide, falling 8 percent in constant dollars as more sales representatives dropped out, while operating profit fell 85 percent.

Blaming rising product costs, Avon said gross margin fell 0.4 percentage points to 63.9 percent.

The company no longer expects operating margins to improve between 0.5 percentage point and 0.7 percentage point this year.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Additional reporting by Brad Dorfman in Chicago and Phil Wahba in New York, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Lisa Von Ahn)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111027/bs_nm/us_avon

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Eminem Gave Yelawolf Priceless Input On Debut Album

Em's ideas and opinions are 'worth more than I can pay for,' Alabama MC tells MTV News.
By Rob Markman


Yelawolf
Photo: MTV News

It's been a long road for Yelawolf, but on November 21, the Gadsden, Alabama, MC will finally release his official debut album,Radioactive.

The Southern rapper first signed to Columbia Records in 2007, but never got to release his LP. After that deal fizzled out, Yela hit the mixtape scene and became one of rap's most anticipated newcomers, eventually linking up with Eminem's Shady Records. For Yelawolf, Eminem's input during the making of Radioactive was priceless.

"His ideas and his opinions are worth a lot," Wolf told MTV News on Tuesday. "Artistically, it's worth more than I can pay for — for him to even say what he thinks about a record."

In February, Yelawolf talked with us about the significance of being signed to Shady and working with Eminem. "I mean, it's a huge deal being able to have a mentor who's done this for so long and [has] been through so much," Wolf said. "Also, artistically, [he just pushes] me to be better. Being around them dudes will make you better naturally. So we're excited, man."

Yelawolf also told us this week that Em was present every step of the way during the making of the album. The first official single, "Hard White (Up in the Club)," features Lil Jon and it's the perfect mix of crunk and rowdy rock. Many of the album's tracks mark a departure in sound from what fans would expect to hear on a Slim Shady record. Even the one record that Yela's boss appears on, the hyped-up "Throw It Up" with Three 6 Mafia co-founder Gangsta Boo, is sonically different from anything that has appeared on Eminem's Relapse or the Grammy Award-winning multiplatinum Recovery.

Still, Yela insists that the living rap legend's value stretches further than a single appearance. "I've been in the studio with him when I was writing a couple of records for this. He mixed, he did arrangements, he was fully involved," he said.

Yelawolf wraps up his Hard White Tour on Friday in Las Vegas.

Are you looking forward to Yela's debut album? Tell us in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1673293/yelawolf-eminem-radioactive.jhtml

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Rainbow of religious leaders join pope for peace (AP)

ASSISI, Italy ? Pope Benedict XVI joined Buddhist monks, Islamic scholars, Yoruba leaders and a handful of agnostics in making a communal call for peace Thursday, insisting that religion must never be used as a pretext for war or terrorism.

Benedict welcomed some 300 leaders representing a rainbow of faiths to the hilltop town of Assisi to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a daylong prayer for peace here called by Pope John Paul II in 1986 amid Cold War conflicts.

While the event lacked the star power of 1986, when the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and others came together to pray, Thursday's peace meeting included some novelties that the original lacked. Buddhist monks from mainland China were on hand as were four people who profess no faith at all ? part of Benedict's efforts to reach out to agnostics and atheists who nevertheless are searching for truth.

Thursday's meeting also included Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and representatives from Greek, Russian, Serbian and Belarusian Orthodox churches as well as Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist leaders. Several rabbis were joined by some 60 Muslims, a half-dozen Hindus and Shinto believers, three Taoists, three Jains and a Zoroastrian.

Traditional Catholics condemned the meeting ? just as they did in 1986 ? saying it was blasphemy for the pope to invite leaders of "false" religions to pray to their Gods for peace. The Society of St. Pius X, a breakaway traditionalist group that Benedict has been working to bring back into Rome's fold, said it would be celebrating 1,000 Masses to atone for the damage done by the event and urged the pope to use it to urge others to convert to Catholicism.

The pope did no such thing.

But Benedict too objected to the 1986 event and didn't go, disapproving of members of different faiths praying in the presence of one another. His 25th anniversary edition stripped away all communal public prayer in an attempt to remove any whiff of syncretism, or the combining of different beliefs and practices.

In his remarks, the German-born Benedict noted that in the 25 years since the landmark peace day, the Berlin Wall had crumbled without bloodshed and the world was without any great new wars. But he said nations are still full of discord and that religion is now frequently being used to justify violence.

"We know that terrorism is often religiously motivated and that the specifically religious character of the attacks is proposed as a justification for the reckless cruelty that considers itself entitled to discard the rules of morality for the sake of the intended 'good,'" he said.

But the pope said it was wrong to demand that faith disappear from daily life to somehow rid the world of a religious pretext for violence. He argued that the absence of God from people's daily lives was even more dangerous, since it deprived men and women of any moral criteria to judge their actions.

"The horrors of the concentration camps reveal with utter clarity the consequences of God's absence," said Benedict, who as a young German was forced to join the Hitler Youth.

A leading Islamic scholar, A. Hasyim Muzadi, also lamented that a misunderstanding of religion was often to blame for the onset of violence, when followers only have a "partial understanding" of their faith.

"A mistake in understanding religious comprehension no doubt has caused a misapplication of the religion itself," he said.

Benedict's relations with Muslims got off to a rocky start when in 2006 he delivered a now-infamous speech in which he quoted a Medieval text that characterized some of Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

Amid post-Sept. 11 tensions, Benedict later said he regretted that the comments offended Muslims and he has sought ever since to mend ties with moderate Islam.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and one of the first speakers at the peace meeting, said the delegates weren't gathered there to come to a "minimum common ground of belief."

Rather, he said, the meeting would show the world that through their distinctiveness, different faiths provide the wisdom to draw upon "in the struggle against the foolishness of a world still obsessed with fear and suspicion, still in love with the idea of a security based on active hostility, and still capable of tolerating or ignoring massive loss of life among the poorest through war and disease."

And there was a lot of distinctiveness on hand. Standing on the altar of St. Mary of the Angels basilica, Wande Abimbola of Nigeria, representing Africa's traditional Yoruba religion, sang and shook a percussion instrument as he told the delegates that peace can only come with greater respect for indigenous religions.

"We must always remember that our own religion, along with the religions practiced by other people, are valid and precious in the eyes of the Almighty, who created all of us with such plural and different ways of life and belief systems," he said.

The presence of the Chinese Buddhists in Assisi was significant given the recent Sino-Vatican tensions over the appointments of Catholic bishops in the country. They came from Henan's Shaolin temple, famous for its kung fu-fighting monks.

One of the nonbelievers, Julia Kristeva, spoke to the delegates about humanism, feminism and a shared commitment to save the world.

All the delegates traveled together to Assisi on a special papal train that left early Thursday from the Vatican's train station. The delegates ate a small lunch together and had time for silent, private prayer before coming together for the joint call for peace. They are to return to Rome together via train Thursday night and have a special audience with Benedict inside the Vatican on Friday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111027/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_peace_meeting

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Lee Woodruff: Colonosco--What?

Like a good doobie, when I turned 50, I made an appointment for my colonoscopy. A cancer you can totally prevent? I'm in. Let's set aside for the moment that the general area of the colon is NOT my favorite body part. And the idea of someone excavating down there -- well, let's just say I'd rather prepare income tax returns for my entire cul de sac.

I happened to schedule the appointment the day after a girlfriend weekend at a Wisconsin lake house to celebrate turning 50. It's important to note here that my in-laws had decided to plan a last minute visit to our house that same weekend. My husband would be hosting alone.

On the day before the procedure, I woke up like Henry the Eighth, bloated with gout-like symptoms from massive amounts of Wisconsin cheese, wine and food from the girl's weekend. The instructions called for me to fast the day before, so I took the pills and chugged the prescription bottle of colon cleanse, (think Dead Sea with a twist of Lemon Pledge.)

Bed time Sunday night. Nothing yet. The combo of cheese, bread and pasta that I had consumed all weekend had fastened itself to my innards like grout. I somehow managed to fall asleep--but it was a sleep of the wary, a one-eyed kind of sleep, like a sailor in a crow's nest. By 2 a.m., small rumbling things were happening somewhere in my digestive tract. I thought grimly about all the times I snickered at the phrase "explosive diarrhea." The price of that smugness, I suddenly understood, would be coming home to roost. Soon, I would literally be the butt of my own joke.

Sure enough, at 3 a.m., my abdomen began to emit Orca whale-like sounds, calling from one end of my intestines to the other. I sprinted for the bathroom and grimly spent the rest of the night running between bed and bowl, hoping against hope that there would be no damage to the new bedroom carpet. Suffice it to say that the "cleansing process" as they call it--something that evokes gentle loofas and essential oils, had the vengeance and frothing rush of an airport automatic flush toilet. I will note here that I received no comfort from the thought that legions of other 50-somethings had also endured the Old Faithful-geyser experience in the name of cancer prevention and detection.

The next morning, starving doesn't begin to describe it. At breakfast I had reached hunger levels critical enough to munch my own back fat. And this made me grumpy, snappish even. Mean as a pole cat. I might have even been churlish with my in-laws, who were still hanging around on colonoscopy day.

At the doctor's office, once I was gowned up and on the table, the anesthesia brought sweet, liquid sleep. I would have endured five colonoscopies in a row if I could have just stayed under a little while longer. Hormones, kids, schedules and work..... what low point was I at in my life that a medical procedure where I got to be unconscious sounded like a spa visit?

But when I woke, abruptly, with a nurse shaking me, the misery and reality of my situation hit me. My first hazy thought, as I looked at my paper gown and realized grimly that things were still "cleansing," was that I had fast forwarded in life. I was certain that I had been admitted to a state-owned nursing home, and was now lying in a pile of my own excrement. As my head tried to clear itself from the cloud of anesthesia, I looked at the nurse suspiciously. Were they going to feed me cat food next?

"Boy, you have a long colon," the doctor said to me in our little post-op chat where I was dressed but still slightly out of it. I was getting the bum's rush out the door. My easy access to drugs and the "twilight state" had been hastily cut off.

"Really?"

"Yeah! A lot of colon packed into that abdomen." I'd be sure to remember that fun fact for my next job interview or cocktail party.

"Does that mean I'm full of crap?" I asked. Ooops. Had I said that out loud? Clearly the anesthesia was still affecting my filter. He smiled lamely. He'd heard it all. But Mother of God I wished and hoped for this man that he got to do other, fun things with colons; surgeries maybe, transplants, research, anything but being elbow deep in other people's poop all day.

Exhausted and back at home after the procedure, I tried to sleep. But sleep would not come. My in-laws, who were staying an extra day beyond the weekend, were downstairs all alone. I began to channel the universal, low-level anxiety of the hostess, the same kind of nervous feeling I'd had about crating our new puppy. Like all older people temporarily displaced from their own homes and towns, they had absolutely nothing to do while their son was at work. I could hear them below me, ricocheting off furniture like a pin ball machine. I rose and went down to visit with them.

"Let's go to Costco," I offered with false cheer. The excursion would serve two masters. My mother-in-law loves to shop. And the fridge was empty. That was how I found myself, hours after my first colonoscopy, loading grosses of Gatorade, pounds of grapes, frozen sausages and massive boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats into my giant cart, lurching and wobbling down the warehouse aisles.

"You're like the peasant women in Pearl Buck's The Good Earth," my husband joked to me on the phone later when I told him about my afternoon. He was referring to the part where the Chinese woman squats and gives birth in the rice paddy and then goes right back to work picking. Yes, I thought with the Celtic pride of my immigrant ancestors, it was a bit like that, minus the placenta.

"So that's a relief. " My husband said later that night. "No cancer. You got that one behind you for ten years."

"Well, not exactly," I recalled the little post-op chat with the doctor.

"Why don't we make it seven, just to be safe," he had offered. Ten seems like such a long time."

I'm already counting the days.

?

Follow Lee Woodruff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/leemwoodruff

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-woodruff/colonoscowhat_b_1027745.html

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