Watercooler Stories

MENINGITIS DEATH REPORTED IN PENNSYLVANIA

A Philadelphia-area family is being treated with antibiotics after the death of a 23-year-old woman from meningitis. Police tell WPVI news the woman was an employee at a Hollywood Video Store in the Olney section of Philadelphia.

The girl's mother tells the station her daughter, Maria Crespo, had only become ill last Thursday night, returning from work, not feeling well. Within hours of first showing signs of illness, the woman had lapsed into a coma.

Doctors say that Crespo's body simply shut down from the rapidly spreading infection.

Meanwhile, health officials are telling customers of the video store and employees there they likely are not in any danger. Only people who come into intimate contact with an infected person are at high risk from meningitis.

SORE TOES? DIP YOUR FEET IN CHOCOLATE

Strange as it may sound, a leading spa says soaking your feet in a bath made of chocolate can do myriad wonders. According to health.com, a New York City spa -- Just Calm Down, A Jewel of a Spa -- has come up with a recipe for a foot-soaking bath that relies heavily on the healing powers of lactic acid, long thought to be a skin softener. Remember the movie stars' penchant for taking costly milk baths?

A chocolate foot soak is made from the following ingredients:

-- 8 tablespoons of cocoa powder

-- 6 tablespoons of powdered milk

-- 4 drops of cinnamon essential oil

-- 4 drops of peppermint essential oil

-- 1 teaspoon of vanilla

-- 8 large marshmallows

-- 20 chocolate kisses. (The spa recommends that 21 be used, but one is saved for snacking.)

-- Enough warm water to cover to the ankles.

After mixing the ingredients, except for the kisses, soak in the mouse-like mess then drop in the chocolate kisses and use them as a lumpy massager.

Scrubbing with 1 cup of sugar mixed with half a cup of olive oil is the capper.

Makes you wonder what Dr. Scholl's might have in the wings.

WOMAN SUFFERS CRISIS ON EVE OF SENTENCING

The Indianapolis woman convicted of embezzling money from a local YMCA was hospitalized the day before her sentencing. The Indianapolis Star says Laura Jordan faces a possible eight years in prison for her part in stealing more than $167,000 from local YMCA funds.

She was convicted of intercepting checks meant to go to the agency's healthcare provider and pocketing the money.

Deputy Prosecutor Karen Johnson told the publication Jordan's calling in sick just hours before her court appearance is "manipulating the court." Jordan claimed she was dealing with "an emotional crisis."

In earlier court action Jordan had admitted when she was benefits coordinator for the Indy YMCA group she manipulated the funds. Back in 1987 she served two years on probation for financial dealings in Iowa. Her husband is a well-known Indianapolis attorney.

JOINT TOWER SITE WILL DE-CLUTTER SKY

A plan has been approved to allow for construction of a "consolidated" broadcast tower in the Rockies in Colorado above Golden. With the landscape being increasingly marked with all kinds of communications towers, particularly the new wave of cell towers, several television stations have opted to combine their transmission facilities in Jefferson County, Colo.

Joint towers are nothing new. One good example was the former broadcast site on one of the World Trade Center towers. It housed numerous TV and FM stations' transmission towers. Many stations actually shared the same "elements" through a complex, constantly monitored system of broadcast "combiners."

Another example is the massive transmission array on Mount Sutro, high above the city of San Francisco.

The Colorado consolidation will mean the construction of a 135-foot tower atop Mount Morrison. Exact details are being hammered out by local zoning regulators. An existing 60-foot mast will be removed as well as a tower on Lookout Mountain.