Kay called about breakfast, as she usually does when we haven't had any greasy food in a while.
"Have you seen those peach pancakes on t.v.? The ones with whipped cream all over them. And peach syrup, too. Have you ever had peach syrup? I've never even heard of peach syrup, have you?"
"Food poisoning," I managed to gasp. Why oh why did I pick up the phone?
"No, I don't think so," she said. "If somebody had gotten food poisoning from them, we would have heard about it."
"No. I have food poisoning." I gasped into the phone. The thought of all that peachy whipped creamy goodness was almost too much.
"Probably all that healthy stuff you eat all the time," she said. "I told you it would make you sick. Remember when we couldn't eat spinach a while back? Contaminated or something."
"I don't want to talk about it, or food in general, for that matter. Anything else on your mind?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. Uggs."
Kay has almost as many pairs of Uggs (those notoriously clunky and delightfully comfy shearling boots) as she has color coordinated flip flops.
"Do you really think you need any more pairs?" I asked.
"Of course. They have new colors every year. I was going to ask you you to come with me, but it sounds like you don't feel like it."
That's an understatement. All that fuzziness, and in candy colors, too. I passed her offer of shoe shopping and pancakes.
I hung up and crawled back to my bed which I had unwisely left less than an hour before. I had just closed my eyes to continue suffering alone, when I heard the front door close and the dogs go wild with glee. My daughter had arrived.
She found me cowering under the covers, hoping not to talk to anyone.
She held up a bag with a few tell-tale grease spots on the bottom. "Guess what I have? These will get you up." She opened the bag revealing pastel macaroons, and worse, releasing their icky- sweet coconutty fragrance.
After I returned from my rush trip to the uh, er, commode, she ingenuously asked, "Sick?'
I know that macaroons are now a very hip desert, but I have never actually liked them much. And now that they come is so many lovely pastel colors, I like them even less. Just imagine what havoc a pale green macaroon can wreak on a fragile digestive tract. Come to think of it, no, don't.
And so I await tomorrow when I have cancelled all plans to get over this unholy state. Perhaps, in peace and quiet. Or perhaps not, since my husband is on vacation. And he is relentlessly handy. Right now there is a saw on the hall table, a threat if I ever saw one (get it? saw...and saw. Bad, I know, but what the heck? I'm sick, I said.)
Monday, September 23, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Woman Falls Shortt of Weight Loss Goal. Does Not Care
Well, I thought -wished, hoped- that by now I would be about thirty pounds lighter. The truth is, that was an unrealistic goal, and I knew it at the time I set it, but hey, why not go flat out. One hundred pounds lost in 9 months? Only if I were giving birth to a moose. In 12 months - that takes me up to some time in December - yeah, probably. The good news is that I am building muscle every day, gaining energy and strength and regaining balance and co-ordination, and at this point, those things are more valuable than more lost pounds. So, yeah, I feel OK with it. Good, even.
Now that Autumn is coming to Atlanta, albeit in fits and starts, walks in the woods and along creeks with the dogs have become even more beautiful and sometimes last two hours at a stretch. And, I have to admit the down side, the humiliation factor has increased at the gym.
To his everlasting credit, my trainer does not cringe or laugh, and he has plenty of reason, believe me.
Today was a prime example. A core exercise that I think is also supposed to be good for the legs (if not one's dignity) is to lie flat on a narrow, padded bench so that your legs are over one end, knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Now I have a fear of falling off almost anything, and since the bench is narrower than my rump, I have good cause to feel I will pitch over the side at any moment.
My trainer, due to his education and an ample amount of kindness toward ladies as old as his grandmother, keeps reassuring me not to worry.
"You can't fall,"he says. Yeah, right. "I'll catch you before you fall," he says.
Yeah? You and who else? I want to ask. After all, he definitely weighs less than I do and although he has muscles, they are the muscles of youth, muscles that have never really had to catch a flailing panicky woman, plunging all of 16" or so to the floor. I need a forklift, for God's sake. Maybe a fireman, trained in the shoulder carry while climbing backwards down a ladder. Out of a 6th story window. If I fell on this young man, I would squash him like a bug. Of this, I am certain.
But the worst is yet to come. We start the exercise, which means that I have to elevate my legs at ninety degrees to my body, knees straight, feet together, and then lower them slowly until my feet are once again on the floor. Just my feet. Not the rest of me.
The first couple of times I barely get my legs horizontal. On the third time I hoist them up a bit more, obviously encouraging him to think I might eventually do this. I am sweating like a longshoreman. On next try, I heave my body into it and get my legs up to about a fort-five degree angle, whereupon I feel someone (guess who) firmly grasp my calves and help me hoist my dry, flaky, and yes, somewhat hairy legs a bit further.
Do I go to the gym with unshaven legs? Shocking thought. Of course I do. So does every woman in American over the age of twenty-seven. Not simian hairy, but stubble-ish, and hairier than the stubble on his chin, that's for sure.
So, I survived this ordeal and we know each other a bit better than perhaps we want to. Let's just say my legs will be as smooth as a baby's bottom before my next workout. And he is trying to build his client list, so if you want a cute, young guy grab your calves, just let me know and I'll pass along his number.
Now that Autumn is coming to Atlanta, albeit in fits and starts, walks in the woods and along creeks with the dogs have become even more beautiful and sometimes last two hours at a stretch. And, I have to admit the down side, the humiliation factor has increased at the gym.
To his everlasting credit, my trainer does not cringe or laugh, and he has plenty of reason, believe me.
Today was a prime example. A core exercise that I think is also supposed to be good for the legs (if not one's dignity) is to lie flat on a narrow, padded bench so that your legs are over one end, knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Now I have a fear of falling off almost anything, and since the bench is narrower than my rump, I have good cause to feel I will pitch over the side at any moment.
My trainer, due to his education and an ample amount of kindness toward ladies as old as his grandmother, keeps reassuring me not to worry.
"You can't fall,"he says. Yeah, right. "I'll catch you before you fall," he says.
Yeah? You and who else? I want to ask. After all, he definitely weighs less than I do and although he has muscles, they are the muscles of youth, muscles that have never really had to catch a flailing panicky woman, plunging all of 16" or so to the floor. I need a forklift, for God's sake. Maybe a fireman, trained in the shoulder carry while climbing backwards down a ladder. Out of a 6th story window. If I fell on this young man, I would squash him like a bug. Of this, I am certain.
But the worst is yet to come. We start the exercise, which means that I have to elevate my legs at ninety degrees to my body, knees straight, feet together, and then lower them slowly until my feet are once again on the floor. Just my feet. Not the rest of me.
The first couple of times I barely get my legs horizontal. On the third time I hoist them up a bit more, obviously encouraging him to think I might eventually do this. I am sweating like a longshoreman. On next try, I heave my body into it and get my legs up to about a fort-five degree angle, whereupon I feel someone (guess who) firmly grasp my calves and help me hoist my dry, flaky, and yes, somewhat hairy legs a bit further.
Do I go to the gym with unshaven legs? Shocking thought. Of course I do. So does every woman in American over the age of twenty-seven. Not simian hairy, but stubble-ish, and hairier than the stubble on his chin, that's for sure.
So, I survived this ordeal and we know each other a bit better than perhaps we want to. Let's just say my legs will be as smooth as a baby's bottom before my next workout. And he is trying to build his client list, so if you want a cute, young guy grab your calves, just let me know and I'll pass along his number.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Where's Your Heaven ?
I received an email from a dear friend a few days ago. As I recall, it was a general note including a number of fellow writers. In it my old friend briefly described where he was, in the far NorthEastern U.S and parts of Canada, which have always been heaven to him. How nice, I thought, to know exactly where heaven is. A longitude and latitude are comforting. This writer is no simple thinker; science and philosophy are his friends. He knows that heaven is not to be taken lightly.
I remember my mother telling me where heaven was to her, without exactly calling it that. It began at that point on a long train trip from the mountains and deserts of the west, when the train windows began to reveal thick, lush woods, fields, little country streams, and tall, cool grass of the Mid-west. It was that point at which she said to herself, "I could walk home from here." That's it: the turning point for our heart's home.
I walked into my portent of heaven the other day, with two giddy leashed dogs, dancing with the excitement of their prospective walk and the chance to go leash-free and fly back into our arms when called. On a warm, blue sky morning, we drove just a few miles to a place called Price Park. Only about one hundred and twenty-five acres, very lightly trafficked and home to birds and butterflies and no doubt many feathered, furred and scaley creatures. It begins just off a busy road, with an asphalt turnoff and lot this day unoccupied by other cars.
A wide swath had been mowed , creating several adjoining pastures, making the most distance of a fairly small area. The paths are bordered this time of year with meadows full of purple, yellow and white flowering weeds (?) taller than our heads. At the far edge, all around, there are tall oaks, some with benches beneath.
Walk far enough and you will come across a small incline down to a creek, bubbling over sharp granite outcroppings and polished pebbles, home to glittering fish swimming among the stretches of mica-laced sand. There is even a narrow sandy beach where dogs and children can dabble.
Back on the trail, a field of what I think is yarrow and maybe wild mustard is filled with bumble bees, so fat they make the stems bend when they alight on their blooming tops. The sound of ciccadas and crickets competes with the bees' buzzing and the bird calls from the oaks and fruit trees.
I never thought, when I left my beautiful Mid-west, that my portal to heaven would be in the deep South, although I know well that the South is the very definition of heaven to many. But there it was, a little stretch of land near a busy road, preserved in it's pristine form, close enough to visit on an early fall morning with two eager dogs.
And to make it even more certain that it is in the territory of heaven, there is a biscuit shack on the way home where we sat on porch rockers and had wonderful, just-made, flakey biscuits and coffee. Well, no coffee for the dogs. Just bowls of cold water and warm biscuits. Heaven for them, too.
I remember my mother telling me where heaven was to her, without exactly calling it that. It began at that point on a long train trip from the mountains and deserts of the west, when the train windows began to reveal thick, lush woods, fields, little country streams, and tall, cool grass of the Mid-west. It was that point at which she said to herself, "I could walk home from here." That's it: the turning point for our heart's home.
I walked into my portent of heaven the other day, with two giddy leashed dogs, dancing with the excitement of their prospective walk and the chance to go leash-free and fly back into our arms when called. On a warm, blue sky morning, we drove just a few miles to a place called Price Park. Only about one hundred and twenty-five acres, very lightly trafficked and home to birds and butterflies and no doubt many feathered, furred and scaley creatures. It begins just off a busy road, with an asphalt turnoff and lot this day unoccupied by other cars.
A wide swath had been mowed , creating several adjoining pastures, making the most distance of a fairly small area. The paths are bordered this time of year with meadows full of purple, yellow and white flowering weeds (?) taller than our heads. At the far edge, all around, there are tall oaks, some with benches beneath.
Walk far enough and you will come across a small incline down to a creek, bubbling over sharp granite outcroppings and polished pebbles, home to glittering fish swimming among the stretches of mica-laced sand. There is even a narrow sandy beach where dogs and children can dabble.
Back on the trail, a field of what I think is yarrow and maybe wild mustard is filled with bumble bees, so fat they make the stems bend when they alight on their blooming tops. The sound of ciccadas and crickets competes with the bees' buzzing and the bird calls from the oaks and fruit trees.
I never thought, when I left my beautiful Mid-west, that my portal to heaven would be in the deep South, although I know well that the South is the very definition of heaven to many. But there it was, a little stretch of land near a busy road, preserved in it's pristine form, close enough to visit on an early fall morning with two eager dogs.
And to make it even more certain that it is in the territory of heaven, there is a biscuit shack on the way home where we sat on porch rockers and had wonderful, just-made, flakey biscuits and coffee. Well, no coffee for the dogs. Just bowls of cold water and warm biscuits. Heaven for them, too.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Don't tinker with me, colds and flu. I am armed!
I have taken this exercise thing to new heights, for me, at least. That explains why I was in Walmart buying lifting gloves. Those are what weight lifters wear to keep from tearing up their hands on barbells. "Wimps" my daughter said. I should note she has been a rower, and a pretty good one, at that. "They should just pound their hands to numb them. And if the cuts are too deep, just put in a little SuperGlue." Rowers are seldom hand models.
Listen, Sugarplum, I thought , if you knew how much I can bench press, you'd be calling me Mom Ma'am.
"Well, I sometimes have to shake as lot of hands, " I said, "and I don't want them to feel like I'm a stable hand in my free time."
"You still shake hands?" she asked in amazement? "That is so germy. Everyone I know just hugs."
And blowing your germy breath into someone's neck is more sanitary? I wondered .
And that brings me to my question. Just what do you know about Goji berry juice? Or Acai berry, for that matter. And does Airborne really work?I have been thinking a lot about contagion lately, ever since the the We Now Have Flu Vaccine sign went up at the Kroger doc-in-a-box.
I usually deal with cold and flu season by not going out much. Now that my children are grown and I don't do school related things, and I no longer work with little kids, I can have pleasant solitude for a good part of the winter, which is fine with me. This fall, however, my calendar is buzzing with unaccustomed activity, the germiest probably being airplane flights and the gym.
Call me flirting with danger, but I have never had a flu shot. Ever since my mother-in-law nearly died from her flue shot (either the shot, or she got the flu at the doctor's office, also entirely possible) I have avoided the "Elderly should be vaccinated" warnings and the AARP scare literature and have been vaccineless and flueless. But now, I think I may have pressed my luck far enough.
I toyed with wearing a mask on the plane. Not some merry Halloween interpretation of Lady GaGa, but one of those staid white medical masks like the Chinese wear in their polluted cities or that Japanese seem to wear just because they know something we don't. That could be a good way to avoid chatting with my seatmate, so it has some appeal.
Of course there will be an excessive amount of hugging and insincere air kissing at my reunion. If I had known fifty years ago that I would be expected to hug and kiss some of these people, well, let's just say, I would have used them even more cruelly as characters in my books than I already have. But it's never too late.
Anyway, on to the remedies. I posed the question of Goji berry juice to Kay and MaryBeth when we had lunch last week.
"I wouldn't know a Goji berry if it came up and bit me on the leg," Kay said, although perhaps a bit more colorfully.
"Well, an acquaintance of a friend had cancer, and he went into full remission after drinking huge amounts of Goji berry juice for several months," I said.
"So you decided to drink it, too?" Kay was unimpressed. Kay had cancer, too, and she got rid of it after chemo and a diet of eggs fried in bacon fat.
"Well, yes, sort of, " I said. "But only 3 ounces a day. It doesn't taste bad."
"Boy, are you a sucker." Kay dug into her unusually healthful lunch of sliced steak on a green salad.
"She is," MaryBeth unhelpfully added. "I can attest that she has an entire kitchen drawer full of Green Coffee Bean capsules, which Dr. Oz was peddling."
"Listen, this is not about me. What about Acai berries? Zinc? Super C? "
So, here it is: I am going to drink my Goji berry juice (a powerful antioxident, everyone agrees on that ) get a shot, take my extra C and maybe take zinc (two people I know swear by it) plus eat all the vitamin loaded good stuff I already swear by, and hope for the best. And I better not get sick.
But, my daughter put a positive spin on it. "Look at it this way. You'll just lose those stubborn last 40 pounds a little faster." Ah, the annoying cheer of youth.
Listen, Sugarplum, I thought , if you knew how much I can bench press, you'd be calling me Mom Ma'am.
"Well, I sometimes have to shake as lot of hands, " I said, "and I don't want them to feel like I'm a stable hand in my free time."
"You still shake hands?" she asked in amazement? "That is so germy. Everyone I know just hugs."
And blowing your germy breath into someone's neck is more sanitary? I wondered .
And that brings me to my question. Just what do you know about Goji berry juice? Or Acai berry, for that matter. And does Airborne really work?I have been thinking a lot about contagion lately, ever since the the We Now Have Flu Vaccine sign went up at the Kroger doc-in-a-box.
I usually deal with cold and flu season by not going out much. Now that my children are grown and I don't do school related things, and I no longer work with little kids, I can have pleasant solitude for a good part of the winter, which is fine with me. This fall, however, my calendar is buzzing with unaccustomed activity, the germiest probably being airplane flights and the gym.
Call me flirting with danger, but I have never had a flu shot. Ever since my mother-in-law nearly died from her flue shot (either the shot, or she got the flu at the doctor's office, also entirely possible) I have avoided the "Elderly should be vaccinated" warnings and the AARP scare literature and have been vaccineless and flueless. But now, I think I may have pressed my luck far enough.
I toyed with wearing a mask on the plane. Not some merry Halloween interpretation of Lady GaGa, but one of those staid white medical masks like the Chinese wear in their polluted cities or that Japanese seem to wear just because they know something we don't. That could be a good way to avoid chatting with my seatmate, so it has some appeal.
Of course there will be an excessive amount of hugging and insincere air kissing at my reunion. If I had known fifty years ago that I would be expected to hug and kiss some of these people, well, let's just say, I would have used them even more cruelly as characters in my books than I already have. But it's never too late.
Anyway, on to the remedies. I posed the question of Goji berry juice to Kay and MaryBeth when we had lunch last week.
"I wouldn't know a Goji berry if it came up and bit me on the leg," Kay said, although perhaps a bit more colorfully.
"Well, an acquaintance of a friend had cancer, and he went into full remission after drinking huge amounts of Goji berry juice for several months," I said.
"So you decided to drink it, too?" Kay was unimpressed. Kay had cancer, too, and she got rid of it after chemo and a diet of eggs fried in bacon fat.
"Well, yes, sort of, " I said. "But only 3 ounces a day. It doesn't taste bad."
"Boy, are you a sucker." Kay dug into her unusually healthful lunch of sliced steak on a green salad.
"She is," MaryBeth unhelpfully added. "I can attest that she has an entire kitchen drawer full of Green Coffee Bean capsules, which Dr. Oz was peddling."
"Listen, this is not about me. What about Acai berries? Zinc? Super C? "
So, here it is: I am going to drink my Goji berry juice (a powerful antioxident, everyone agrees on that ) get a shot, take my extra C and maybe take zinc (two people I know swear by it) plus eat all the vitamin loaded good stuff I already swear by, and hope for the best. And I better not get sick.
But, my daughter put a positive spin on it. "Look at it this way. You'll just lose those stubborn last 40 pounds a little faster." Ah, the annoying cheer of youth.
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