To Write or Not to Write

Posted on February 24, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Have I said this already?  If so, tough.  I have decided I don’t want to be a fiction writer.  I know everything I’m learning in this class can be useful for non-fiction, too, but I’m just about dying of “not-wanting-to-do-this” right now and I still have several modules to go and final drafts to make into a portfolio.

I’m trying to figure it out.  Laziness is probably part of it.  Why make stuff up, characters and settings and descriptions of imagined things when, as my friend Tina put it, I can just
“pontificate?”  I want to become a better pontificator, maybe even an inspirational writer, but even this crazy story about the guy who decides to shoot my poor little car snooping girlfriend that’s been finding its way onto paper just doesn’t feel like “me.”  I just can’t imagine myself thinking up characters and putting all that effort into something that will probably end up on the $5.00 pile at Barnes and Noble.   I am just not committed enough to write serious fiction.  I have quilts waiting to be sewn for heaven’s sake. Dollhouse roomboxes to be built.  Piano music to be played.  Hole myself up and write a story?  Nope, don’t think so.

I feel like I’m finding out more about what I don’t want to do in this little second-half-of-life journey than what I want to do.  I guess that’s better than never having poked around at different things at all.   I’m still looking at the rest of the writing certificate curriculum; once I get past the two required courses, this being one of them, then there are electives that sound more interesting and useful – medical writing for example.  Children’s picture book writing – I have a stack of children’s poems I wrote back in the day and there are a couple that are very universal that may have potential.  Then there’s the personal essay class – hell, don’t have to do any homework for that one – just edit this blog and hand it in, eh?  Of course I don’t have to get the certificate, I can just take a class here and there.

Mostly I’m thinking I need to just shine up some rusty skills and maybe try to learn some new ones.  I’m joining Toastmasters, something I’ve almost done for years.  I am no longer afraid to speak in front of a group, so honing that skill can only be helpful in whatever career God decides to throw into my path.  Being pretty much out of patient care now, I am already missing my “old folks” and will be volunteering with the Meals on Wheels Friendly Visitor program – which is just what it sounds like.  You visit.  You don’t have to write documentation, you don’t have to worry about whether Medicare will pay for it, you only have to control your desire to give a physical therapy tip here or there.

Who knows where it all will lead?  Isn’t life grand!

Posted in Middle Aged and Onward | Leave a comment

Snow?

Posted on February 24, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Last time it snowed in San Francisco was 1976, I was a senior at Marquette!  Now it is predicted again.  Last year we had some beautiful dusting on the surrounding hills.  We almost always get snow on Mt. Diablo as its summit is nearly 4000 feet.  Last year, however, there was snow on all the hills in our area – it was quite beautiful and for about a day it felt like we were living in Colorado.  There was, indeed, snow in Lafayette.  Our house sits under the trees so we didn’t have much, but the lowlands in the rest of the town were worthy of photographs in the paper.

Now.  They are predicting snow at sea level. Somehow those words just don’t sound right together, do they?  Palm trees at sea level, snow on a mountain. It’s like my brain doesn’t want to work that hard to figure it out.  But predicted it is.  It looks cold outside – it’s not too bad right now, and if this does happen it will be at night.  We will wake up to our California world turned upside down.  I’m getting the cameras ready.

The big worry (and my sister has already texted me and told me to be careful, since Mom is in Florida and is sort of incommunicado) is that we live on a hillside.  Our driveway starts somewhere in middle earth and rises halfway to the moon.  If we wake up to snow, or even ice – guess what?  It’s a SNOW DAY!!!!!  I’m kind of sad this didn’t happen when the kids were little and I had to fake our snow days.  Andy is living home right now so he’ll get a taste of the joy, but I’m worried he’s just going to ignore all logic and drive down the hill.  “Mom,” he’ll say, “you’re being Grandma.”  (To which I always answer “thank you.” )

It’s all very exciting.  I covered up my tender little sweet pea tendrils and pulled a bunch of wood into the house; the daffodils and primroses and crocus and hyacinths which are already up will have to fend for themselves.  In Chicago the spring flowers bloom right through the snow.  No telling what these coddled California bulbs will do, weep and fall over I’m guessing.  And the oranges.  If Mom were here she’d tell you the farmers like a little frost because it “sets” the sugar.  But snow?  This is the first year we have a tree full of oranges – Andy joked that the tree was sexually “matoower.”  We tried one the other day but they aren’t ready despite being fully orange.  They need the springtime sun.  I’ll be irritated if they freeze or something.

Once again, I bitch and moan long enough – this time about missing Chicago winter – and I get what I want.  I’ll post photos.  Very cool.  Er – cold.

Posted in General Musings | Leave a comment

The Setting

Posted on February 23, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Hi again – this week we’re supposed to work on “setting.”  As I was walking with Al yesterday in town I commented “It happened right here.  This is where “I” was shot.”  It’s funny how the imagination just takes over.  I don’t think I will ever walk past that spot on the sidewalk now without thinking how that was where I imagined the ugly incident took place.  Why there?  Who knows?  Like the old song says “Imagination, is funny…”

Here’s a background setting, again for my assignment…

I am feeling content walking to BART today.  I feel grateful that I have a good job in an upscale town where, if bad things happen, they only happen behind closed doors.  The dead patches of ground between the trees that separate the sidewalk from the parking lot are proclaiming that the winter sun now teasing us with strong heat is not a fluke – here and there tiny spikes of green poke up through the dirt, and the first bulbs of spring that were planted by the town maintenance crew in October have made their brave debut.   The blue sky has chased away the rain and fog and welcomes instead an occasional cauliflower cloud to soften the introduction of the hot sun once again.  In the summer we might consider this a cool day, but today I bask at the corner stoplight like a lizard on a log, my light sweater draped over my shoulders to capture the warmth.

As usual when I begin my afternoon commute, the seductive smell of garlic from the pizza parlor tempts me to forego a healthy meal at home and grab a slice before catching the train- in the morning it is the sticky sweet smell of Jimmy’s Donuts and coffee vying for my attention.   I am considering today whether I want to risk my life for pizza.  It would require wending my way through the parking lot, which was never intended for the amount of people and cars that populate this once private enclave for UC Berkeley physicists.  SUVs almost backing into tiny sports cars is a common occurrence.  Horns toot frequently as frazzled mothers who are late to pick up their kids from after school sports become impatient with the little old men picking up prescriptions who can barely see over the steering wheel of their Lincoln Continentals.  The strip mall is vintage 1960s but the storefronts explain why the parking lot is always so busy – Trader Joe’s, CVS Pharmacy and Roger’s Foods anchor smaller stores that have kept the mall alive for forty years:  Billington’s Toys Est.1960,  Helen’s Travel Treks, Rospenda Jewelers and the tiny US Post Office.

The sky blue 1966 Plymouth Valiant sits in stark contrast to the other cars in the parking lot of this strip mall, which might be mistaken for a used car lot of high end vehicles – Mercedes sedans, BMW convertibles, shiny new hybrids and Smart Cars .  I see the bumper sticker on the parked car and laugh out loud: “I’m Married…not Dead.”  There are other bumper stickers on the car – “Hungry? Eat an Environmentalist!” and “Hang Up and Drive!” and “I’d Rather Be Workin’ on the Railroad” plastered haphazardly on the back bumper…

That’s it.  You know where this is going.  This will all be put together by the end of the class.  I never though I’d be writing a piece of fiction but there you go.  Learn something new every day – about yourself, if you’re paying attention…

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…He Shot Me

Posted on February 18, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Remember the bumper sticker story?  For this assignment we had to take a line from something written previously and write a little fiction using some of the things we learned in this week’s module about telling a story – conflict, crisis, denouement, resolution. Again, anything I post here is pretty much first draft, to be edited into submission and included in a final portfolio for the class.

You might remember we left our car-snooping heroine at the street corner:  “I put the hula doll in my purse and walk towards the BART station.  At the corner I push the button for the walk light and as I glance back towards the car,  I feel my face go numb and panic surge through my body – he is standing on the sidewalk, looking right at me, with the gun in his hand.”

This is what I decided happened:

It was truly out of character for me to open a total stranger’s car door and start poking around as if it were a museum of my past.  I was a professional woman, a para-legal, and I always followed the rules. I admit this was more out of fear of getting caught than anything else.  From little on I was scared of getting in trouble – I didn’t like being yelled at or hit, and any form of punishment at school meant trouble at home later.  Stealing was out of the question – my parents would have “killed” me.

So it was somewhat like waking up from a dream when the old man caught me with my head in his car, snooping around.  I didn’t even remember making a conscious decision to open the rear door.  He seemed nice at first, grandfatherly even, but then he got kind of creepy, as his smile disappeared from his face and he showed no emotion until I mentioned the photograph.  It was only then he perked up to tell me the story of his living arrangements with his wife, at which point I took the opportunity to say goodbye, accept his gift of the hula doll, which had been my excuse for being in his car at all.  He apparently believed my story that on a ridiculous impulse I had wanted to swipe the hula doll on the dashboard. Perhaps my $100 haircut and office attire had convinced him that I meant no harm, and was just a goofy young girl.   I shook my head slightly and rolled my eyes at myself when I walked away, realizing as I had in our last few moments together that the dude had a gun in the car.  What was I thinking? Oh well, I got caught, but it was okay.  As I walked to the BART station I went on to berate myself for not remembering to take the salmon out of the freezer for dinner and decided to just have popcorn for dinner, since I had missed the first BART anyway I would be later getting home.

When I stopped and pushed the button for the walk light, I looked back and felt my face go numb and panic surge through my body.  He was standing on the sidewalk, looking right at me, with the gun in his hand.  My stomach imploded into a tight knot and I immediately felt tears forming behind my eyes and quickly started to walk towards him, the hula doll now out of my purse and in my outstretched hand so I could give it back.  He just stared straight ahead.  I spoke: “Here!  I’m sorry!  Take the doll!  Are you okay?”  No answer.  I approached closer, and by this time the one or two people in the parking lot had stopped walking and were creeping backwards, crouching down behind cars. I heard the beeps of cell phones being dialed and knew everything would, as usual, turn out just fine, just fine.  “Look I’m really sorry, here’s the doll” I whined like a little girl who left her homework at home and was about to be sent to the principal’s office.   I don’t know why I kept walking towards him, but I couldn’t believe he’d really shoot me – over a hula doll – and I certainly didn’t want to turn my back on him.

As I approached him he grabbed the doll out of my hand and glared at me, his eyes on fire, and started yelling at me that it had been given to him by his wife, and who did I think I was.   I started to back away, apologizing over and over, my voice becoming more desperate.  A rock hit me on my thigh about the same time as I heard a strange “pop” and then I fell.   What they say is true – it takes a minute to realize you’ve been shot.  I seriously could not believe it. I looked down at my tan linen pants and saw the  a bloody mess.  My thigh felt like it was on fire and then no feeling at all. From out of nowhere people were surrounding me, some kneeling, some standing, a man took off his shirt and started blotting my leg.  One woman was screaming “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”  “Someone call 911!”  “Miss, are you okay?”  I couldn’t speak;  I only looked at the pretty puffy white cloud straight ahead in the sky and started drifting along with it.  It’s white edges against the blue sky became increasingly sharp, I was aware of voices now but not what they were saying.
The crowd around me fell away and the white cloud was replaced by the snarling face of the man, the gun pointed right at my face.  I knew then that I was going to die on that beautiful day.  I smiled and almost laughed at the absurdity but couldn’t muster the breath, and closed my eyes, not wanting to look at that face anymore.  I felt a thud across my body and opened my eyes, the big man was lying on top of me like we were making a human cross, and over him stood two men, one with his foot on the man’s back and the other putting on cuffs.  I watched as the white cloud became dotted with little black spots and then disappear completely.  (OK, this needs to be reworked  – I didn’t mean to die, only pass out…but it turns out it was confusing to my classmates.  Also, I’m going to change the cops into regular people somehow)

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Writer’s Block Schmiter’s Block

Posted on February 17, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Came home from work today.  I’m really behind in school right now – hey it happens.  This assignment was due Sunday,  I did the rest of the homework last night and left this for today, figuring a decent effort too late was better than a lousy effort on time.  Well, not on time, but less late.  This is not Santa Maria for heaven’s sake.  It’s okay, Mary.  The following is what I wrote when I came home from work.  Sat and looked at the empty screen.  Damn.  Nothing.  So I just started to write.   The next thing I knew I had to stop myself from writing any more.  I think it’s probably too much for the assignment.  What did I really learn from this ?  Writer’s block.  Schmiter’s block.  Just write.  It will come.  Enjoy.  The beginning is a description of the assignment.  By the way, this is in no way a finished product.  The stuff I write on this blog is pretty much off the top of my head.  This character description, setting, imagery stuff is a whole different story, no pun intended.

In a piece you’d like to include in your portfolio, pick two characters who interest you and brainstorm how they meet. Under what circumstances? How would they feel about each other? What do they want from each other? Is there a story in this confrontation?

Bob is riding a motorized cart in a grocery store.  It is mid morning on a crisp and sunny October Wednesday.  He is hunched over in his red and blue plaid flannel shirt, his windbreaker unzipped, his hands trembling as they rest on the handles of the cart. Under his watchcap, his face has no expression at all, appearing as if frozen, his eyes wide.  His hands stop trembling as he pushes the forward button on the cart, turns the corner too quickly and almost runs into a young mother pushing a stroller with a big plastic car in the front, in which are sitting a red headed toddler girl and what appears to be her identical twin brother.  They are each holding a box of animal crackers, and are in the process of comparing their tiger and elephant cookies when they almost crash into the old man’s cart.  They look up in surprise, their eyes as wide as his.  The woman is dressed in white sweatpants and a turquoise sweatshirt with clean tennis shoes and turquoise socks.  Her baseball cap is white and a brown pony tail tumbles out from the hole in the back of the hat.  Her lips clamp together, then she takes a deep breath as if to scold the old man, until she sees his masked face and hands, which are trembling again now that the cart has stopped. Parkinson’s.  She knows the signs.  Her father looked just like this.  His eyes reflect fear and apology, he looks at her as if he will cry.  “So sorry” he whispers quietly, his lips not moving.  The woman sees him look at her children, who are still staring at this gnome of a man in wonderment, and notices the very slightest dimple appear on his left cheek.  Without moving his face, his eyes begin to sparkle as he looks at the twins.  He widens his eyes even further and their faces awaken from their staring contest with the old man, and they smile.  The woman’s shoulders soften and her irritation lifts, and she laughs as she says “you need a new driver’s license!”  He looks away from the children who are now getting antsy to get the car moving again – they beep the little horn and they grasp their fingers firmly and move the steering wheel back and forth to make the car “go.”   “Cute – how old?” he mumbles. The woman leans down a little closer to him and with a kind smile tells him they just had their third birthday.  “Have a great grandson who’s three” he offers through lips that barely move.  “But he lives in New York, don’t see him.”  The woman feels her eyes aching, her shoulders fall even lower, as she thinks of her children’s grandfather, dead just six months ago.  He was their only grandfather, and she cannot bear the thought of her little ones growing up without knowing him.  She blinks quickly, swallows the urge to cry.  She asks the man if she and her little ones can help him shop, as she is happy to do if he will be a little more careful of his driving, and suggests he can learn a few tips from watching them.  As he looks back at the children he is able to show some teeth when he smiles and his shoulders move up and down ever so slightly with laughter.  He turns the cart around and they head down the cereal aisle together.

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Humanity Revisited

Posted on February 16, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Remember way back when after my silent retreat the big question was how we will bring humanity forward as technology continues to progress?  Remember when I mentioned the Singularity movement?  Humans + machines = superintelligence?

TIME Magazine’s cover story this week is on Singularity if you have any desire to have the bejesus scared out of you.  I haven’t read the whole mag but intend to buy it today and learn more.  I try to be positive about all this.  I try to think “it will bring the whole planet together, peace will reign, illness will cease to exist, etc etc.”  Scares the hell out of me nevertheless.  The same disturbing questions remain.  Oh the humanity!  Will there be emotion?  Will there be love?  How will art manifest itself?  What will happen to the poor, the ignorant?  Will there be a super race?  Will choices be made not on ethics but on utility?  Will machines take over the world?

Maybe everything will just be very cool, pollution will end, the Earth will return to it’s Garden of Eden state, but with us still living on it, served by the machines (how will they be powered without continuing to destroy the Earth?  Oh well, the machines’ll figure it out).   Maybe it will just take us to another planet, now that would be awesome.  Maybe they will run silently, maybe music will be piped right into our ears, maybe noise pollution will end.  Maybe we will have lights implanted in our foreheads so that we don’t need major lighting in our homes at night, maybe light pollution will end.

Such a Pollyanna.  I hope it all ends well.  Let’s see, they are talking 2045.  I’ll be 91.  I remember when I was a kid we’d sit around and talk about how old we’d be in the year 2000.  46.  Whoa.  Really old, we thought.  Lucky to be alive in the year 2000.

I just hope that at age 91 they haven’t figured out how to keep me alive forever with my intelligence intact.  I couldn’t take much more of this.  Even an eternity of beauty too beautiful to comprehend would get to be too much after awhile, I would think.   I will want out of this machine eventually, whether it be plain ol’ me or computer enhanced.  Take me to your leader out in the universe, dude.

Posted in Oh My God | Leave a comment

Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Best Friend

Posted on February 14, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I got to thinking about Valentines I’ve gotten over the years. One year in college when I was expecting something wonderfully romantic from my steady beau, I was presented with a record album entitled “A Child’s Garden of Grass” which was a comedy album with marijuana as the theme. I think he may have given me a chocolate bar, too.  I just looked that album up and apparently it was pretty funny but I don’t think I listened to it more than once.  I was not amused.

Then one year Al gave me an electric boat motor (or was that Mother’s Day?).  I have never used that either but that’s just because of laziness.  I need to get a ready-to-go battery and a way to lug it and get over to the reservoir so I can rent a rowboat and tool around the water on gorgeous days.  The reservoir is almost always windy by the end of the day, which means you can row yourself to the west end, float back to the dam, but then getting 100 yards over to the boat dock takes the strength of ten rowers.  It’s good exercise, I’ll say that.  I think I’d go fishing over there more often though with the motor.

Regardless, for some reason my men have never considered that I would want romantic stuff for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day or my birthday.  Actually, they are right.  I mean, I do like diamonds and flowers and chocolate (no chocolate!  still keeping food journal!) but I’m a practical gal for the most part.  One time Al got me  a “bunk out” for the trailer, that turned the awning into a second room – heavenly and doubled the size of our travelling home.  One year when we were in the thick of child rearing Al got me a real live referee shirt.  I wore it a lot.   There was only one time, again during those crazy years, that Al took my “oh I don’t want anything for Valentine’s Day” line seriously, and there was NOTHING.  Not from the kids, not from him.  NOTHING.   I was crushed and he was confused!  That never happened again, of course.

Al has long since stopped getting me clothing.  He thinks I’m 5’10” and 130 lbs.  I’m not.  Never was.  But when he sees the gorgeous model in the catalog he is sure I will look just-like-that, bless his heart.  The Christmas he got me the winter blue and white sweater from LL Bean with a giant snowflake pattern right across the bosom was when I kindly asked him not to buy any more clothes for me.  I joked that he should stick to diamonds.

Which worked out rather well because, as he knew I wasn’t a diamond bling girl, he was worried that I wouldn’t like the rock that awaited me in my stocking the next morning.  He had even showed it to a few of my girlfriends before Christmas and asked them with concern in his voice if they thought I’d like it.  This made my girlfriends question his sanity.

He’s created a monster now.  I had the pendant made into a ring, and because the wedding ring looked so sparse next to the rock I had a few diamonds put into the wedding ring.  I think I’m done with all that now, which is a good thing because we’re broke and the mechanic told me to “start thinking about” a replacement car for the Subaru.

Wonder what he got me for Valentine’s Day?  He just got home. There might be flowers, but he gets those even on non-obligatory days.  As a matter of fact because flowers are so expensive I tend to get a little peeved when he buys them on V-day.

I bet it’s just him, and that’s just fine!

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California Dreamin’

Posted on February 11, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

What is the deal with my dreams?  The last few weeks have been seriously wacky.  A few nights ago I had a dream that we had some visitors here and they were as surprised as I was to see four full grown moose in our front yard.  Turkeys yes.  Moose?  We were just barely getting over that shock when a California quail family wandered into the same dream in the same front yard.  Quail usually have at least ten chicks, which by the way are the cutest little things you ever saw.  They are like little buttons toddling along behind Mom and Dad.  This particular couple had apparently been to a fertility clinic because there were at least fifty chicklets in my dream.   My visitors were quite impressed.  I woke up wondering what that was all about.

I had barely gotten over the moose and quail debacle when my dreams found Jeff and I hiking in a woods.  Our path was through the bushes and on one side about 6 feet away was a barbed wire fence.  On the other side was a chain link fence.  Surely we were safe between two properties, right?  Wrong.  A rustling in the bushes startled us and out came a young bull with a full grown pair of horns.  It walked right up to me, and at this point he got kind of Ed the Dog-ish, gently nuzzling me but I was so scared and like any watchdog worth its salt, the bull got a bit tense.  I was saying to Jeff “just take deep breaths, stay calm” – which of course he was anyway.  It was me who was frozen in place.  The bull walked over to Jeff to give him a sniff at which point, because I am so familiar with how to deal with a bull when you have invaded his space, I commanded “We will follow him.  We don’t want him behind us.”  Jeff of course started to ignore me at which point the bull got a little agitated so I said it again.  Then the dream ended so I don’t really know if we got gored, led out of the tight spot we were in, or what.

I know there are supposed to be meanings to dreams and I do like to pay attention and often consult my dream book, but sometimes it just all gets so nutty I can’t do anything but laugh.  The menagerie of animals that have taken up residence in my dream life I’m sure have much to tell me, on the other hand they might just know via the grapevine that I am a sucker when it comes to doling out food for animals who even look at me with hungry eyes (yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Ed the Dog).

It’s late, I have to go to bed.  What’ll it be tonight?  A giraffe sticking its head in my car window?  A couple of kangaroos hopping around the living room?  A dolphin in the bathtub?  An elephant hangin’ out in the carport?  I can’t wait to find out.  Good night!

Posted in Animal Lover | Leave a comment

When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall…

Posted on February 9, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Last week’s news: “As pro- and anti-Mubarak protesters clash in the streets outside, Ms. Thornberry is stuck inside her apartment with only, she told Williams, a walking stick, a rolling pin, and a sharp knife to protect herself. She says that men have been periodically pounding on her door and trying to break it down. She sounds remarkably calm. Again, all this is according to NBC national news. ”  www.fwweekly.com

Ya gotta love it.  Chaos all around her, and this feisty old gal, a lifelong Egypto-phile,  is stuck in the middle with her rolling pin, walking stick and sharp knife, which she later admitted was not a knife with which you cut butter.  I’ll bet she knew how to use it too.  Can you say “I’ve studied all about the Middle East.  I know how to decapitate…”   Later she also said she had hot boiling water going on the stove just in case.

I have delusions of grandeur sometimes and one of those is about how I would handle an attack upon my person.   My sons are in the wings to tell you the truth – I would do exactly what I do when they jump out behind a door to watch me totally freak out.  I would jump, scream out and freeze. That’s not what I rehearse in my head, though.

In my head I’m swinging walking canes, wielding knives in a diagonal slash and burn pattern, and flinging boiling hot water in faces, all while yelling “I raised three sons you, bastard!  You don’t scare me!  You want to mess with me, go ahead, and say your prayers!  I’ve flattened pie dough with this rolling pin and I’ll do the same to you!”

Or,  let’s say I’m being carjacked like in the hilarious movie “Bandits” in which Billy Bob Thornton tries that on a woman who has found out her husband is cheating on her.  I would tear at top speed through city streets, barely missing buses and pedestrians and head-on collisions, not caring whether I live or die, until the “bad guy” is begging for mercy and only hoping to get out of the car alive, the weenie.

Then there’s my favorite, I’ve probably mentioned her before: Venus Ramey, Miss America 1944, who in 2007 heard her dog barking on her farm in Kentucky, and at age 82 grabbed her snub nosed .38 and shot out the tires of the guys who were trying to steal stuff from her barn.  The news reports said she had to balance on her walker!  This image never fails to make me smile real big. I’ve never taught my patients to balance on their walker while shooting a gun, but perhaps that’s the kind of “functional goals” Medicare is always talking about.  She was the first red-haired Miss America.  Go figure.

I don’t know where I get this idea that all anger I have ever repressed in my life would come out on some poor ne’er do well. God knows I’m not actually one to repress my anger – very unhealthy, doncha know.  My Grandma, who said the Rosary every day, would not have taken lightly to hormonal young men pounding on her apartment door; my Mom, who is generally a scaredy-cat like me,  last summer stood up to a couple of door-to-door scammers who approached her in her driveway and promptly called the police after they took off when they realized this diminutive octogenarian was not falling for their ma’am this and ma’am that and in no uncertain tone of voice told them the conversation was over.  I guess it’s in my genes.  I have no idea what I’d actually do in a scary situation.  I don’t like to think I’d just lay down and die.  I like to think I’d go down fighting.  I just don’t know.

Years ago Mom gave me a tape of an Oprah show on safety.  One thing that has always stuck with me is that if someone wants you to “get in the car” your chances are much better if you take a stand right then and there.  Don’t get into the car.   History is full of dead people who thought if they just cooperated they would maybe be spared, and ended up in a shallow grave somewhere.  I tell you what, that is advice I WILL follow.   A nice firm “eff you, kill me now #&$&@)(^!*” are not exactly what I would like my last words on this earth to be, but I’ve been rehearsing them just in case.  That’s called courage against evil.  I’d like to think I have it.

And once again,  my favorite quotation ever from the lovely red-headed Venus Ramey at age 82:  “I didn’t even think twice. I just went and did it,” she said. “If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now.” Just kidding, that wasn’t my favorite, although she did say that.  It’s this:

“I’m trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another,” she said.  I hope when I’m an old woman I can just do the quiet, peaceful life and stay out of the trouble part, but just in case, I’ve got my kitchen utensils handy.

 

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Calories and Fat Germs…er…grams

Posted on February 6, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

I’ve had a nasty chest cold for the past two weeks.  What this means is: exercise has been at a minimum.  Eating bad things at a maximum.  About halfway through I found myself like a cat in a bag, head first into a bag of potato chips.  I was craving the salt, so I figured I needed it.  That happens to me when I get a cold, I’m sure there must be some reason for it – losing salt through snot or something.  Then there’s the feels-oh-so-good on the sore throat ice cream/Jack in the box shake/coffee drinks remedies.  Add another 15,000 calories.

It all starts out so well.  Not hungry at first and wanting something to help ease the congestion,  I eat some chicken soup which really hits the spot.  Maybe a little ice cream at that point. One week in and the cravings begin.  I’m sick of being sick and start consoling myself with comfort food.  Then I start eating under the false assumption that maybe if I keep throwing stuff down my throat it will clear the secretions that are making me cough all night.  Never mind that I actually dissected a human cadaver in PT school and know first hand that the esophagus is a completely separate tube from the trachea, and food is not supposed to ever go down the trachea which is where the secretions hang out until they hit the bronchial bifurcation and…you cough.   This knowledge does not stop me from trying everything in the refrigerator to carry out the futile task.

Now the cold is over, mostly. Getting back into exercise is, for me, The World’s Laziest Physical Therapist, a major roadblock to losing the five pounds I  picked up.   I will get there, I always do, and at least last night started my knee exercises so I can ski in two weeks without injury.  How to return to sanity in the kitchen?

I started with the “how many grams of fat should you have daily to lose weight” calculus formula my Mom has give me several times in my lifetime.  Turns out: 26 grams per day to lose weight.  Next, the 1200-1500 calorie per day remains the norm if a woman is going to lose weight.  Finally, and this is the most important part: the food journal.

Oh boy.  Yesterday I began.  I started with a piece of paper with the calories and the grams of fat on the top of the page, and just started subtracting as I went.  I weighed my food.  I thought I was eating “small bananas?” Nope. I weighed it on my food scale.  9 ounces, make that super sized please.    My friend whose young (skinny, otherwise healthy) daughter has diabetes, recommended the book The Calorie King that was given by the diabetes center at the children’s hospital.  This book is awesome – lists EVERYTHING, including fast food restaurants.  Brutal truth on every page.

A food journal really is a great way to realize what you’re eating.  I am a popcorn nut, and often will eat it and throw butter on it even though I know the truth.  Popcorn without butter is like coffee without caffeine – why bother?  Now I’ll have to write it down, subtract it from the grand total.  Suddenly I’ll have to bother.  Also, guess what?  Fruit and vegetables may have calories but they have NO FAT.  Sigh.  I guess that’s one of the reasons they are so good for you.

The end of the day found me with enough left over on the 1500 calorie limit and the fat grams limit for 5 squares of a Hershey bar for desert.  Yummy.  Choices will have to be made.  Talking to Mom about it today she said she loves Marie Callendar pot pies but when she picked one up she noticed the grams of fat was 36. She put it back.

I do not believe in deprivation, and I’m sure once in awhile Mom indulges in a pot pie.  It’s just so dang easy to get carried away, to not care, to just this once, to reward yourself, to comfort yourself, all with what lies in the refrigerator.

I have another college reunion coming up.  The once extremely hot Kathleen Turner (young folks, if you haven’t seen the movie Body Heat, you are missing a classic sexy thriller) once said in her thirties: “At this age an actress has to choose between her face and her ass.”  What this means is that when the ass gets smaller, the face gets wrinklier/saggier.  She chose to keep her face smooth and sacrificed her ass.  It’s a personal choice, and I’m choosing my ass.  And, oh yes, my health.  It won’t be easy – I like it when people say “oh you can’t possibly be 56.”  I have found that in the transient moments that I have lost some weight, my little old lady patients are able to nail my age perfectly.  It’s only when I’m more rotund that they peg me 10 years younger.

Too bad, because the fat gram/calorie counter is ticking now and I’m on a race to the scale.  Enough.

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