Tidbits for YOU on a Friday

Yes, that's Julie McCoy from the Love Boat. I dedicate this blog entry to all of you who know why the hell I would put a photo of her in this entry. The rest of you will just have to sit and wonder....

I'm "vacationing" at the 'rents house while the wife attends a P.E. conference down the road. Go figure--a P.E. convention! When I went to pick up the wife yesterday, I had a few minutes to sit in the parking lot. I'm here to tell you that a P.E. convention is a VERY casual ordeal--I've never seen so many sets of warm up pants in my life! You know, I hate to stereotype, but I could tell these people were P.E. kind of people--from the clothes to the hair, from the walk to the gymshoes. I was impressed that this lot of people looked to be in above average shape. Thinking back to my days in high school--my gym teachers (that's what we used to call them--they weren't PE Teachers yet) were not in such good shape. In fact, Miss Semen (I swear to God that was her name, poor thing) was built like a shit brickhouse. She was one big mama...thankfully so, with a name like that.

As I am lounging around, I thought it best to buy a book, so I went to Barnes & Nobles and purchased "YOU Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty" by Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz--yes, the Dr. Oz of Oprah fame. (I also bought Joel Osteen's new book for the wild mama, but I'll leave that one to her, as she is in God's favor.) I love their books--funny, informative and AWESOME illustrations by Gary Hallgren. If you've never looked in one of the YOU books, you have got to do it--it's worth it for the illustrations, as well as for the great information.

Part of the YOU book scares the piss out of me--that would be the chapter on "Glycosylation." What that big word means is that all that sugar I consume in a day is making my insides a big glob of goo and that it is much worse than I ever anticipated. I admit to my chocolaholic, sugar-filled ways, but I never thought it would lead to major health problems....here I thought I was doing a good job of keeping myself alive: a baby aspirin a day, walking at least a mile, no alcohol, no soda (diet or not), vegetarian, using soy milk, eating all that dark chocolate...but no. As the docs put it, this is dangerous stuff. I feel my blood start to curdle while reading the words on the page.

This gets me thinking--the information presented in YOU is along the exact same lines that Dr. Christian Northrup (another Oprah favorite) talks about in her book, "The Wisdom of Menopause." (Do you see a theme here about these books I'm reading? It's the -jesus-I-don't-want-to-age- gracefully- get-me- a-thyroid-level STAT" theme. Guess how old I am? And, don't say Sporty Five, cuz that saying now gives me hives.) This glycoslylation has the potential to mess with your connective tissue, gobbly-gook up your lungs, raise that blood pressure, lead to diabetes--it's pollution for the organs. Yikes!

So, what do I do?

I put the book down, get my sorry ass off the couch and go get some Hershey Kisses, that's what I do.

I can't stop cold turkey, for pete's sake. One must work her way into non-glue-co-sill-eation.

The recommendations are rather simple, if I am to understand it correctly (and, since I was only skimming the book while eating the Hershey Kisses, I make no guarantees I got this right), I need to consider adding ginsent, cinnamon and green tea to my diet; drink coffee (YEAH! I already do that one); eat sp,e good fats (aka add those Omega-3s to my diet); eat more veggies; cut down on all that sugar consumption; and, eat a chia pet. No, wait--that's eat Chia the whole grain product.

Where the heck does one find Chia?

Don't even get me started on the information on hormone replacement treatment-related things....

Speaking of hormones....the nieces are getting older & thus their hormones are a-raging, as evidenced by the moodiness of Eldest Niece, now a freshman in high school. Ah, youth! Eldest Niece spent much time threatening to slap Youngest Niece: "I'm gonna slap your head so hard....blah blah blah...when we get out of this car." Youngest Niece, not to be outdone, stated that she would not be getting out of the car. The slapfest threats contined throughout the night, quite to both my delight and horror. The wife turns to my mother and asks if my sister and I were like this. Wild mama says "no" but Father Taco Juan reminds her of how my sister and I would argue about "you're touching me!" and other such nonsense in the back seat. (We won't mention how my sister hit me in the head with an alarm clock.)

This evening will be spent once again with the Nieces, with the wife telling tales of her adventures of the P.E. Convention. Hopefully, no one will slap anyone and we will have plenty of Chia for all to eat. On second thought, I'm thinking that Sees candy looks awfully tasty.....