Sunday, February 16, 2014

Sugar-Covered-Sugar

I dedicate this blog to a very dear friend who handed me a home-made, molten-lava cake yesterday....at breakfast.

Last week, a co-worker of mine put a paper clipping of an article in my work mail box (yes, Virginia--newspapers in print still exist). It didn't have a note or name attached to it, so I wasn't sure which of my evil co-workers had placed it in there. The article was about how sugar can lead to heart disease, especially fatal heart events (read: heart attacks).

As you can imagine, this article caught my attention. After all, I live on a diet comprised of 85% sugar in one form or another. And, I actually had been wondering if my weird blood pressure readings had anything to do with that third candy bar of the day.

Unhealthy cholesterol, higher blood pressure, inflammation of the internal tidbits....according to this article, anyone who has a diet of 25% sugary substances is three times more likely to die of heart disease than those who consumed less than that.

Twenty five percent sounds like a lot of sugar.....but anyone in America who thinks they have a diet less than 25% sugar in should probably start reading food labels--mysterious paper-clipped-article man included. I hate to tell him that there is a ton of what I call "hidden" sugar in ketchup in barbecue sauce and ketchup. All that white starchy stuff is just a ball of sugar in disguise. Don't even get me started on that can of pop you just drank. 

(I can say "Man" because I have since found out the culprit. I gave him the finger.)

Now, I know that having candy for breakfast is probably not the wisest choice, especially when washing it down with a cup of coffee (oh, my achin' adrenals)....but, I'd much rather eat something made of visible sugar than of hidden sugar. I want to enjoy and see my sugar. I want to embrace it, savor it, eat it. I don't want to miss the adventure, the taste, the love.

To the researchers, I say: I happen to think there are those of us who are made to run on sugar. I'm not kidding. Some people can have the unhealthiest of habits and still live to be 100 years old. The Universe is weird like that. I may be lying to myself, but methinks I am made to consume sugar in the manner of which I embrace.

I am one of the fortunate people in the world that can safely have my cake and eat it, too.

I thought about doing a scientific test of my own--I considered cutting out the obvious sugars for a month (you know, candy bars, cookies, chocolate chips out of the bag, ice cream) and see if my cholesterol and blood pressure reflected any change.

Then, I came to my senses.

Do you know what kind of detox process I would have to go through? I'd go through honest-to-god withdrawal and life is WAY too short for that kind of nonsense. I'd be crawling up the wall, screaming at people, unable to think in any manner of which would get me through the work day. Then, I'd fall into a little puddle of angst on the copy room floor. I'd shake and I'd shiver and I'd drool, followed by my eyes rolling back into my head.

Okay, no cold turkey. Maybe I'll consider cutting back on the ice cream for breakfast. 

Or, maybe not. 

After all, life is short and there is much cake that needs to be eaten at breakfast....especially when it is home-made molten lava cake. 

A haiku, dedicated to my baking-genius friend:
Sugar-covered sugar, little volcano of love
Breakfast for all.

I ain't afraid of embracing this addiction. Are you gonna lick that hand mixer thingy? If not, hand it here.
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Saturday, February 08, 2014

Walking to So-No-Chi

For my teacher friends who also happen to be "Oprah's Favorite Things" fans....


When I saw this, I burst out laughing. This is SOOOO all about the wife. I"m not sure she will find any humor in anything about snow, but she's been on "Oprah's Favorite Things" and she is always waiting for a snow day, so I figure this has got to be the most perfect thing I've ever seen in regards to the winter she is experiencing. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hell hath no fury like a teacher who didn't get an anticipated snow day.

At the demanding 100-decibel call of the not-so-wild, I got up and let Freckles out this morning--she means business when she starts barking at doesn't stop until her minions get out of bed. It was some ungodly hour because dogs do not respect the idea that one might sleep an hour more on the weekend nor do they care you stayed up later than usual to watch that Orange/Black show. Usually, the wife answers the early-morning demands, but she had already gotten up once so it was my turn. Just as well, as I had to pee.  (Side note: One must wait to pee because Freckles does not wait. When it's time, it's time. Her barking is so loud and so insistent that peeing isn't even worth it until she's gone outside.)

And, there it was. I opened the door and was looking out at....

....Snow. 

More snow. Big, puffy white flakes falling gently from the sky.

Sigh. It was beautiful but I didn't dare mutter a word, lest the wife have a nervous breakdown before even getting out of bed.

For her, I post this, a gentle reminder to the wife:

Touche, Captain.

I had planned on going for an outdoor walk this morning, but the snow made me re-think my plan. Oh, one can certainly walk in the snow but I'm pretty tentative these days about slippery roads & hidden ice patches. I didn't walk yesterday because it never got above zero degrees and I couldn't fathom walking in that. My boogers and eyelashes would freeze.

Now that my tailbone is very much on the mend, if not mended, I have been taking part in a work-sponsored walking program. It's part of a health initiative so we can save money or something by getting healthier. You pick the number of steps you want as your daily goal, you wear a pedometer, you walk, you enter the steps into the computer. Wa-la! Walking program.

The sponsoring health agency designed this particular walk on the now-underway Olympics and we as a group are supposed to walking to Sochi. Well, I never had any plans to walk to Sochi--the land of Putin is not exactly teeming with love for the gays. I decided: "Piss on Sochi--I am walking to somewhere gay." I'm not sure what the sponsors think of my walking page but they shouldn't have given me a journal to publicly post if they didn't want to hear about big gay walk to Key West.

I decided on 6,000 steps as that seemed doable, especially once my butt healed. I figured I could make up what I wasn't able to do in the beginning of the "competition" once my tailbone allowed me the pleasure of walking instead of waddling.  I would have much preferred 10,000 steps but there is no way in hell me and my butt would have ever been able to come close to doing that before the closing of the 2014 Winter Olympics in So-No-Chi.

For the record: I am not averaging 6,000 steps a day--yet. I plan on this week being my catch-up week. I gotta do something with all those dang walking tapes I own.

I set up my page with the following disclaimer:
"I'm not walking to Sochi. I'm walking to South Beach, Florida....then, it's off to Key West. Sochi's president equates the gays to pedophiles. Ain't got no time for that! I'm starting in Portland (gay) and heading to Key West via San Francisco (super gay), Palm Springs (desert gay), Salt Lake City (super surprisingly very gay), Denver (not so gay but I can get a tattoo), St Louis, Atlanta and finally Miama (South Beach!). After a dance at the bars, we'll head to Key West to hang out with Hemingway and his peeps. They love the gays. Happy walking."
By the way, I used a photo of Jodie Foster as my profile. Dream big, I say.

I don't think the sponsor expected anyone to be so creative. I'm not sure if they are laughing, scowling, freaking out or posting me on the agency's intra-net bulletin board.

Each journal entry gives me the chance to say something about the city I'm in--historical, factual or totally made up. I hope the humor distracts from the fact that I don't usually get 6,000 steps. I'm just entering Salt Lake City, which means I'm three cities behind schedule. I may have to take a plane from Denver to St. Louis. It also gives me the chance to talk about political things as related to the gays in the Olympics. Don't get me wrong--I didn't think anyone should boycott the Olympics. I just want people educated and want the gays safe and sound while chasing their dreams of gold.

Yesterday, since it was the opening day of the Winter Olympics, I decided to write something about So-No-Chi:
"Oh.my.goodness. I am now going to walk 40,000 steps tomorrow in an effort to get through Salt Lake City and Denver in the next 24 hours. The Olympics have started and I have to get to Key West before they end. Speaking of the Olympics, may we remember Putin's warning that the gays  should "leave children alone." I'll do my best not to be a pedophile while walking in my rainbow shorts. What's to worry about?  "We don't have a ban on nontraditional sexual relations between people," Putin said last month. "We have a ban on the propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia; I would like to underline that." Um. okay. The Russian law bans the promotion of gay rights and any public displays of affection among same-sex couples. I'll keep my hands to myself. I promise."     :-)
I'll be walking to and talking about Salt Lake City today.....

.....Until then, hands to myself, hands to myself.
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Saturday, February 01, 2014

Snow-body

There is a Dar Williams' song that is named after a certain month of which we are now in.  The story is about the slow death of a couple's love, so that kind of puts a damper on me mentioning the song in this blog. The reason I bring up this deliciously-sad song is that it talks about how it keeps snowing....and snowing....just like here in the great Midwest:

".....and then the snow, and then the snow came,
             we were always out shoveling and we dropped to sleep exhausted,
                    then, we'd wake up, and it's snowing."

I don't need the Weather Channel or even to look out the window to know if it snowed over night. I have the wife. I sense the soft glow of the iPad, open an eye and wait.....

....if it has snowed over night, a guttural, injured-animal sound emanates from the wife. This is my cue to put my boots on and go shovel. Again.

.....if it hasn't snowed over night, a growl of disgust rolls across the room, meaning it hasn't snowed yet but it is coming.

.....if I don't hear anything, I know it hasn't snowed and that it's not predicted it is going to snow in the next 72 hours and that she is reading the Milwaukee paper (I know--we don't live in Milwaukee), which means she will soon be talking about "another co-sleeping death" in Milwaukee.

I kid you not.

The poor wife. She hates winter and she hates snow. She says it's "messy," which I suppose it is, especially if you are trying to keep your car exterior clean (impossible), the car interior clean (semi-impossible), the driveway clean (super impossible), the floors clean (teeters on semi-impossible), the dogs clean (completely impossible since their bellies touch the snow when they are outside, even though we did a trench for them). She disdains over the disgusting grey snow on the side of the road. That's certainly messy-looking.

I asked her why we live here, considering how much she hates winter. As the words are falling from my mouth, I remember that she is no fan of summer heat. We'd need to live in San Diego where the temperature is 72 degrees all year round. I think she could handle 72 and sunny. She says she doesn't hate summer. I reminded her how much she hates hot weather. She denied this, reiterating that she doesn't hate hot weather.....

I need to point out this post to her in late August, when she is melting on the sidewalk, cursing how hot it is.

For the record, her answer why we live here is because of family. I concur.

I swear, every time I check the weather, the weatherman says we are going to get "1-3 inches" of snow.  Just about the time the driveway is clean and dry and ice free (which it now always is, thanks to my tailbone), it snows 1-3 inches. That's not much, it's not worthy of a snow blower and it's very easy to shovel but it's still 1-3 inches more than we already had and that needs to be shoveled again. We've decided to view shoveling as our aerobic activity. We'd prefer to go snow shoeing but that has yet to happen, thanks to my tailbone and the painfully frigid temps.  There's still time because I don't think we're gonna run out of snow anytime soon.

I don't remember a winter where there was perpetual snow on the ground for months at a time. I am used to seeing dead brown grass now and then through the snowy months. I really like snow, so I am all good with it. I am not a fan of below zero weather, though. That means this hasn't been my favorite winter during my tenure on the planet.

The wife says if we make it until March with perpetual snow on the ground, we will break a record. Gee, there's something of which to look forward.

I go out there and shovel any time the wife deems it necessary, which she does often. I drive my car so she doesn't have to drive hers. If she does drive, I make sure to keep my shoes on the floor mat at all times. I try to remember to kick the snow boogers off my car before I pull in to the garage. I take my boots off before tromping through the house. I point out how the new stow covers the ugly grey snow. I point out how the ash borer babies might be killed by the ungodly cold. I do what I can to make snow a little less painful for her.

I don't think it's helping but I'm trying.

The good news is that no matter what the weatherman says, we only get 1-3 inches of snow every time the white stuff falls from the sky. Last night's snow was originally set to be a winter storm with 10 inches....then 4-6 inches....then 3-5 inches....before you know it, it was 2-4 inches. I told the wife not to worry about the forecast, assuring her that we would be getting 1-3 inches.

Guess who was right--me or the weatherman?

The wife is already fretting about next week's predicted a total of 17" of snow within the week. I told her not to worry because the two snowfalls will consist of a total 2-6 inches: 1-3 inches + 1-3 inches = 2-6 inches. That's nowhere near 17.

I may have been an art major but I can compute snow totals.

And yes, it is snowing as I type. We are expected to get.....

.....1-3 inches.

Was there a doubt? I think not.
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The wife lamented....the snow, and then the snow came,
                   .....the snow plows came and blocked in the driveway,
                              .....the salt messed up the exterior of the Mustang.
The wife was always out shoveling. She dropped to sleep exhausted,
        .....asking, "Why? why do we live here?"
                  .....she checks her iPad and sees it's snowing......
                            ......yes, she wakes up, and it's snowing."
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