Every three minutes, a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room. Each year in the United States, 200,000 people require emergency medical care for allergic reactions to food. Approximately 90% of food allergy reactions occur to one of eight common foods in the U.S. called "The Big 8". These foods include Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, crustacean shellfish, wheat, and soy. And while 1 in 10 adults have a food allergy, nearly twice as many adults think that they are allergic to foods while their symptoms may suggest food intolerance or other food-related conditions. It's time to wake up to the fact that food in the United States is killing us. I am one of over 32 million Americans who suffer from severe food allergies, environmental allergies, and asthma since the age of three. As a first-generation American, I was the "broken child" of parents from hailed from India and had never heard the words "food allergy" before. My entire life had been focused on one thing: making sure my body could withstand another attack. Because there is no cure for food allergies in Western medicine, for four decades, I became a test subject, was poked and prodded to determine the best way to manage my allergies. After I found myself almost dead on the emergency room table (for the fourth time) in 2008, I knew that it might be the last chance I would get to find another way. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. I was doing life wrong. Apparently, I wasn't managing my food allergies well because I wouldn't have been back in the hospital. It was yet another traumatic event in my life due to food, and I had officially hit rock bottom. It was during that time that I made a pact: I whispered into the Universe that if it allowed me to survive that day, I would change everything. With a fire finally lit in my soul, I completely dissected and overhauled my life created the Three to Be(TM) Program, a holistic health, and well-being program that guides people with food allergies and food restrictions to Be Healthy, Be Safe + Be Well(TM) (my mantra), in order to thrive. I needed a program that I could follow daily, using small steps to reclaim my health. None of the existing health and wellness programs on the market really catered to someone in my situation, so I created my own having dealt with severe food allergies for four decades. In facing the demons that had been with me for so long, with conviction, I took charge, I worked my program, and I eliminated my food allergies. In reclaiming my health, I transformed my life. And this is how I did it.

Surly is a mischievous squirrel with a mission: to find the tastiest nuts for winter. When he discovers a whole store filled with his favorite food, he plans a heist of nutrageous proportions. But the place turns out to be owned by ruthless bank robbers, so it’s up to Surly and his furry friends to stop the nearby bank heist and save the town.

What do you do when you're convinced Satan has been watching you bend over in yoga class? Who do you turn to for help when your daughter is a heroin user and prostitute? Elizabeth Halloway, Crisis Counselor at Mission Pacific Psychiatric Hospital, tries to answer these calls at the countries' most luxurious private psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles. Elizabeth, college graduate and kleptomaniac herself was fired from her first mental health job when a schizophrenic attempted to murder a famous game show host. She now needs to prove that she's on the right side of the couch. She becomes entangled with a blood stealing Mormon, a delusional drug-addicted rock star and a handsome psychiatrist. She tries to hold onto her job despite dropping admission rates and her disintegrating marriage to Jack, a local celebrity sportswriter.

Why aren't simple jobs ever simple? All Captain Spencer had to do was drop off a new recruit to their OIL contact on Earth and gather a new supply of walnuts for the council on Mithuana for the yearly Coming of Age celebration. Simple, right? One slight problem. Spencer and his crew look less than human, which has caused problems when they've visited the backwater Sol planet before. When two of his crew get caught unaware by a human hunter hell-bent on proving the Sasquatch's existence, they are suddenly on the run for their lives-wounded crew and all. All Raijin wanted was a weekend away from all the crazy around town and his work at the library. With the anniversary of his dad's death looming, Raijin needs some alone time hiking through the forest where he and his dad used to spend time together. What could possibly interrupt him in the middle of nowhere? But Raijin should know better than anyone life does not go according to plan. A talking demon squirrel was the last thing he expected to fall in his lap. IMP UNIVERSE A Christmas Cactus for the General by Angel Martinez A Message from the Home Office by Angel Martinez The Nut Job by Freddy MacKay Publisher's Note The Nut Job was previously published as part of the anthology, Foolish Encounters: A Rainbow Gold Anthology, as a short story. It has undergone extensive rewrites and edits with over 23,000 words of new content added.

"Stupid" Seymour Klotz was a disenfranchised young individual. After all, in science lab, he mistakenly invented a substance that glued a visiting foreign dignitary's hand to his ass. And he was persuaded to rent a suit, for an hour, to a funeral parlor that needed the garment for a naked stiff. It was evident that the "gene pool" was sufficiently the culprit. Claude, his father, who was a shop steward in a nose hair clipper factory, was riddled with dysfunctional roadblocks. For example, Claude tried to return a toy male doll that had embarassing large genitalia. Also, he paid for expensive root canal for his boss' howling dog and was charged $100 for a TV service call, where the technician needed only to plug the set into the wall outlet. Through some strange law of physics, things changed suddenly. Parlaying monies earned from selling his dirty underwear, having a unique flavor, to an enterprising caterer, turning it into underwear soup, Seymour gained great wealth. He reversed the constant advice from his parking attendant associate, Bump, who had the uncanny knack of always being wrong. His mind was eventually analyzed at the University of Pennsylvania to study how a person could alway be in error.

Entry includes attestations of the head word's or phrase's usage, usually in the form of a quotation. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).