Food

Drives me nuts.

Nuts. One of the foods I can eat, and what a narrow target that's becoming!

First we have the diabetes mess and now it seems I'm also gluten intolerant. I have a few friends who are gluten intolerant and I always sort of halfway felt they were making it up, or rather their doctors were making it up. It does seem like there are fashionable health problems -- fibro seems to be on the way out and gluten/wheat problems on the way in. Sometimes I suspect that if your doctor is baffled by your symptoms, he just gives it the current *in* label and sends you on your way.

This is quite real, though, damn it. When I eat very carefully from my my little tiny short list, I feel fine. When I don't -- not so fine.

Right before we left for Texas (as David was packing and I was putting off packing, because I've done this so many times and for goodness sake I can throw it together in 15 minutes, which is one reason we squealed into the terminal just in time to board), I found a nifty little system called Diet Solution. I think. Anyway, it was one of those sidebar ads that don't look like ads on a page I often read called ... wait ... it was either The Nourished Kitchen or The Healthy Skeptic on FB and in any case this was the link: http://www.naturalnews.com/028578_grains_health.html

And there was this little ad and I clicked it, expecting it to be that guy who promises you earth-shattering knowledge about food and weight loss and then carries on about his abs for 15 minutes and never gets to the info and eventually you have to send him money. I always close the page before he gets to his pitch because life is just too short. But this guy, Jeff, was there with his friend Isabel, who has all sorts of certifications having to do with nutrition and together they worked out a system for eating right and losing weight and Isabel (who was, come on, admit it, just a little pudgy there in the beginning) lost 30 pounds and has kept it off for 10 years and just had a baby and still looks great. What I liked about them was that they didn't keep me hanging for 20 minutes. They actually gave me their basic info, and I like being given things. Who doesn't? When they got to their pitch at last and said they had all this support info, actually priced at $499.99, I knew that for the horse poo-poo it was, of course, but they quickly trimmed it down to $49.99 (just for today!) and when I thought it over and said okay, this time I'll bite, they jumped in to tell me that actually they only wanted $4.95 today and then in 21 days they'll take the rest and if I decide I don't like it before then, they won't and I can have my $4.95 back. Of course, at every stage of the ordering process, Isabel interrupted to helpfully offer me Yet More Stuff, and I turned all that down, patiently, and got all these books of recipes and menus and support strategies as downloads. They're sitting on my desktop because we're about out of ink and for that matter, our printer needs to be replaced. And we had to go to sleep so we could get up and go to the airport.

So that's kind of where we are now, except that I did read enough of it to get the general idea, which is:

1. Single ingredient foods are foods and you should (generally) eat them.

2. Processed foods with ingredients you can't pronounce are not really foods at all and you should not eat them.

3. Sugar under any name is your enemy.

4. Some fat is good fat. Some fat is evil.

With those four things to guide me, we went to Texas. All around me, from the spread at the reunion itself to the quickie marts where we stopped between the airport and Seymour to the cafes and restaurants and airport food-court, it was like blinders had been taken from my eyes. Points 1,2,3, and 4 were not news, but this time I was really looking. There was *food* everywhere and not a whole lot to eat.

Here's the Real Food available at the quickie mart: milk, eggs, butter, apple juice and orange juice (which I can't drink due to sugar content), four green bananas, six red *delicious* (not) apples, a few oranges, and some nuts, which were oversalted. There was also Hershey's Special Dark chocolate, but that's not *excellent* dark chocolate and the sugar content is still too high. Everything else in this crowded little store is toxic, including the rows of cheap bread, white or *wheat.* Ice cream, popsicles, candy bars, chips, deep-fried quickie foods, hot dogs, sodas of all kinds in all sizes ... shelves and shelves of stuff that is just plain nasty and makes us fat and sick.

Made me cranky. I went back to my bottle of water in the car and my traveling baggie of almonds and serious dark chocolate.

The food we had with the family was the sort of thing everyone has at church suppers and family gatherings. They had a brisket, which is actual food, of course, and would have been great except that I don't like sliced beef, especially not pinkish sliced beef, so I passed that up. And then everyone had brought side dishes and desserts. Many seemed to contain cool-whip and canned fruit. The pies were mouth-watering but forbidden (I had one bite of David's Derby Pie -- there are some things that have to be tried). There were deviled eggs and I ate several of those. There were watermelon chunks, not ideal but not processed non-food, either, so I ate those and some salads of various sorts and took some extra metformin. At the airport I found a little box of melons and grapes and packed it around with me like it was full of gold nuggets.

In Dallas on the last night we found a restaurant called El Fenix and I got fish tacos, which I loaded with guac, and a cup of incredible bean soup and an awful lot of light excellent corn chips, and had no reactions other than bliss.
So far it seems I'm fine with Mexican food except for flour tortillas, so hurray for that. Or, ole, with one of those little diacritical marks over the *e.*

I certainly didn't go hungry on the trip, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that I really noticed how we all, of habit and by custom, eat a lot of things that don't help us and often hurt us.

I wish I'd known all this forty years ago. I'm glad my kids are smarter about what they eat themselves and what they feed my grandkids. Not long ago I remembered a little snip of conversation I had with one of my relatives in Kentucky on a visit when I was very small. I was either eating a cake of some kind or spooning sugar into my iced tea (probably that) when she leaned over and said to me, "Now you be careful about all that sugar or you're gonna get the sugar diabetes like me." I thought getting a disease from sugar was a silly idea.

Growl.

Off to find some food for dinner.

Nuthin', Nuthin' ...

Just dropped by to update the On the Needles thingy. Wool everywhere and not a sheep in sight. :o)

No more PT, which is nice. I was told to expect to be trotting over there for months and it ended up being ... (pause to count on fingers) well, something around 3 weeks. Just like magic! My knee is still a bit swollen, sometimes quite swollen, sometimes hardly at all. But I can walk around okay, go up and down stairs (down is harder), get in and out of the car, and ... pack boxes!

Yay, packing boxes, packing boxes! We could actually have a white Christmas this year, if the weather cooperates! We could have Thanksgiving with some family in the house! Pretty sure we'll be spending Halloween here, but that's okay, there's always next year.

Fingers crossed and all that sort of thing for a quick sale of this house, followed by good fortune in finding a Real and Sound and Affordable House in the Denver area, something big enough but not too big. Two or three bedrooms would be plenty (one could be David's office and one could be my playroom/the guest bedroom, which is what we have here). I think two bathrooms would be swell. I'd prefer a great room sort of thing to separate kitchen/dining/living room -- I always used to hate being shut off away in the kitchen while all the fun was happening in the living room. A finished basement to store things in and set up the treadmill would be a plus. A fireplace. A back yard with a tall fence -- not a huge back yard, but enough to let the cats out, have space for a *dog so he doesn't always have to be walked, have a garden. A nice old tree for a birdhouse? Maybe I'm getting carried away. I won't mention a redwood deck with a hammock and a porch swing, or a babbling brook, then.

But yes, the packing continues and will continue to continue for quite awhile. It's kind of disturbing to realize how much stuff you forgot you have (or never knew you had, when combining households like we've done) and haven't used in years but are simply not willing to leave behind. I know perfectly well that the day after I give anything away, something will change and cause me to need it so badly that I'll go out and buy a replacement, so really, isn't it just simpler to put it all in boxes? Yes. (And I'm still grieving stuff that didn't make it onto the truck when we left NJ in 1995, don't get me started. I'm very attached to my 'stuff,' I admit it. I have a flaw. Just that *one.* There.)

At this point, about half the packed boxes are stuff we aren't going to miss at all between now and whenever we get moved into the Real House (David's college textbooks, for instance, or many many small balls of leftover sock yarn) and the rest are packed with stuff that I could not bear to lose or even be unable to get my hands on immediately (all eleven seasons of Frasier and certain beloved casserole dishes), on the theory that The Big One might hit and perhaps all we'll escape with (besides one another and the cats, of course) is whatever is already packed and all set to toss into a truck. Not that we have a truck. And not that I think we could load up and drive away if the ground started rippling and rolling, but I've made it this far by enjoying a Rich Inner Fantasy Life and I see no reason to stop if it's still working.

Carry on.

*Note: have not yet acquired dog. Remains a negotiating point.

Physical Therapy

So we got up way too early this morning and went to my first Physical Therapy appointment and it was NOT an Unspeakable Horror, as I had heard it would be.

Didn't really hurt at all, actually. I was afraid the remaining swelling was a bad indication, but the therapist (Ann, her name was, and a tiny little thing she is, perhaps in her late 40s) said it's actually not bad at all for 3 weeks post-op. She gave me some exercises to do at home and had me ride a stationary bike for 5 minutes, and said come back twice next week and then once a week for awhile.

Basically, the rules are:

1. If it hurts, don't do it.

2. It the swelling gets bad, ice it.

She said I should plan on icing it now and then for several weeks or even months yet.

I'm supposed to come over there every day (except weekends, when they're closed) and hop on the bike for 5-7 minutes and she even said I can drive myself to the sessions, which is a relief to David who has been taking off work to get me to various appointments. Ahhhh!!! As Abby would say. :o) But no driving on Vicodin or Percocet. Well, no, of course not! Silly lady!

Overall Ann said I'm doing remarkably well, much better than she would expect. She also said our two up-coming trips next month (to David's family reunion in Texas and then to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) should be no problem and I will probably find I'm much improved from today by the time we go to Oregon.

Ohboyohboyohboy!!!

Now my biggest immediate concern is running out of Charlaine Harris books



(for instance)
before my stash of Laurie R. King's mysteries gets here.



And so forth. Oh, my nerves, is this woman good!

But in the meantime, there is much needful knitting to do. :o)

What a Wonderful World ...

We're watching "Life," by the folks that gave us "Planet Earth" -- that is, the BBC filmmakers. :o) Narrated by Oprah. Looks like it was on The Discovery Channel, but as I may have mentioned thirty or forty times, we don't watch tv. At least, not here and not now. Anyway, we're getting it from Netflix and watching one or maybe two episodes a night and loving it. Loving it! I mean, I watch with little tears in the corners of my eyes because it's all just so incredibly cool and so beautiful. Yeah, so some of the animals eat others of the animals ... this is sad, but there it is.

And underwater? I'm always stunned by how amazing that world is. We have a friend who is currently on vacation in Hawaii and her FB updates are full of reports of snorkeling adventures. Yesterday she said there was a 30 ft drop off the edge of the reef and it was not to be believed. I greatly admire her courage for being out there -- almost as much as I envy her for what she's experiencing.

I wonder how much the cats would enjoy a salt water aquarium? I also wonder if they would enjoy some nice bright tiny little frogs?

Have settled finally on the Ornaments for this year, have a few done and a few more half-done.

Too Much Water Flowing By

Geez, I haven't blogged since April! A friend in Denver emailed me a couple of weeks ago and asked what was up with that because she doesn't do Facebook. Hi, Cheryl!! I meant to get right to it after that but --- here we are.


The wedding happened, it was wonderful and could only have been better if more of the kids could have been there. I'm an old married woman of about 6 weeks now and it seems to be working. :o)

My knee surgery got pushed from June 16 to July 1 because my internist thought he saw *an abnormality* on my EGK and that had to be checked out. There wasn't one. So the knee is fixed but not entirely functional. First available appointment for physical therapy is July 23. At 7:45 AM. Wonderful.


Our eldest cat Aletia (who was David's cat originally) died of a stroke about a week ago. She was sitting on the bed with us and Neo and Yarrow around midnight watching a Teaching Company lecture (happened to be Anthro) and nibbling bits of cheese as we had cheese and crackers as a very-late-night snack. Out of nowhere she let out this horrible loud yell and alarmed all the other cats -- Mawr came shooting in from the living room and yowled back, the others sat straight up and their eyes got huge. We thought at first that she was angry because Mawr had come up behind her and she's never been real real fond of any of the other cats. David tossed a pillow down to scare Mawr off but she kept yelling/yowling and then just collapsed on his lap in a weird *broken* sort of position. He tried to get out from under her to get the phone so we could call the vet (who is a 24-hour vet) and she fell off the bed and onto the floor. She was conscious and she looked at us and moved her head. When I petted her she licked at her chin, and one hind leg seemed to have just a bit of movement, but that was all. The vet agreed it sounded like a stroke and said to bring her in. It didn't take him long to check her out and tell us she had very little chance of recovery or of any quality of life. We decided to let her go, and David held her. She would have been 17 in September. It was all over within a couple of hours, and it was very sad, of course. David had her since she was a small kitten, and no animal was ever given better care. We've noticed that Yarrow, in particular, seems to understand that David needs more cat-love now and he's spending more time sitting with him and rubbing his head up against him.

And that's how I happened to be on FB at 3 AM local time with Ethan, discussing removing the 1980s. And the *given* answer to "what was the Beach Boys' best album?" is ALWAYS going to be Pet Sounds, but I wasn't that crazy about it. It was okay. I do think their best song, or at least the one that has the best associated memories for me, is "Sloop John B."

Toward the end of last week I was developing an intense case of cabin fever, so David said we should go out driving around over the weekend and maybe have lunch or dinner out, and I could pick where. Oh, my goodness! I thought it would be cool to drive down the coast and maybe find a place in Half Moon Bay or maybe Moss Beach, but after considering, I suggested we make the drive down to Sunnyvale instead and hunt up the yarn shop of Scott's girlfriend.

Scott does my acupuncture and is quite a good friend, and he's always talking about Nathania's shop. So we went there instead, on Sunday. It was my first real trip anywhere since the surgery (unless you count the vet), but the knee held up pretty well and I bought some lovely yarn and three inspiring books, including one on knitting with beads, which is something I'm interested in learning to do.

Oh, and I've very recently become gluten intolerant, which is entertaining, and Nathania was able to tell us that Chipotle's menu is quite friendly for that (apparently spreading) condition, and there was a Chipotle a couple of blocks away, so we went there for lunch. No ocean views, but it was a very nice afternoon and I no longer want to shoot things, which was the whole point.

The first thing I want to do with beaded knitting is a pair of Halloween socks, knit in black with a crystal beaded web on one sock and a spider on the other.


Oh, for cute! I bought the pattern a couple of years ago and then maybe a year ago i bought a tube of beads and more recently I got some solid black sock yard when I was buying yarn for other projects. I figured I'd learn how to do it when the time came. And now, with a book about all sorts of bead-knitting, the time is at least drawing near. It took me two days to find the pattern, and really just a few minutes to find the yarn. Can't find the beads.

I'm SURE I saw them in the drawer of the nightstand, not all that long ago. Yesterday I spent the afternoon cleaning out that drawer in search of them, threw away a bag of junk, sorted the various pain meds. I found a tube of turquoise beads, a tube of tiny forest green beads, a tube of tiny black beads, several tubes of rub-on pain reliever left over from when I had chronic back and hand pain (thanks, Scott!), a small stapler, a box of small staples (not near the small stapler), four bottle of white glue, some herbal sleeping pills, three bags of cough drops, several sets of ear-plugs, a box of toothpicks (spilling), three pair of scissors, two tarot decks, three kinds of stevia drops, two art gum erasers, several small paintbrushes, half a dozen various pens, the UNO deck, my collection of Mother's Day cards, and a pair of comfy bedsocks.

No crystal beads. But I think they should have been silver, anyway, so now I must get *new* beads. :o)

Oh, well, it's not like I haven't got other knitting projects. Going to look for something I can make lunch of. Of which I can make lunch. I told David I could go live in the woods with the bears because I do very well on nuts and berries.

Moving Right Along ...

I forget the blogs are here half the time. Facebook is so much quicker and more efficient -- but also, alas, more shallow. Still, it's nice to keep everyone I've ever known (who has internet access, and a couple of people don't) right there, organized tidily, in a place where we can remain aware of one another. There's something metaphysically *right* about that. We're All One. :o)

Noah is here. He's not *here,* actually, he's out exploring and looking forward to Robin's arrival tonight. We just had a cloudburst (I don't think they use that word here) and I hope he was indoors somewhere, but he's got his cell and he didn't call to be rescued, so I expect he's all right.

David and I went out last weekend to do the wedding clothes shopping, which for me meant hunting for fabric because I couldn't find a suitable dress for a Round Hobbit Of a Certain Age. All I need to do now is ... sew. Which will be interesting with the bad knee making it hard to get on the floor to lay out the pattern and also hard to sit at the machine, but my former doctor made sure I had really fine pain pills for just such situations. In David's case the shopping trip meant picking out the first suit he's bought in years and years, and the first *dress shoes* since he went shopping with his father before he left Texas in ... I don't know, the late '80's, early '90's. We're casual, folks. But it all looks great. Now, as I said, all I have to do is sew ...

Two of my tomatoes have been moved outdoors to big pots that I hope will make them happy, and may they live long and produce much fruit! Three more are still to go. It seems like a lot of expense and hassle, but these heirloom tomatoes are $7.99 a pound here and we do prefer them (I do, actually -- David isn't a fan of raw tomatoes) and if even a few tomatoes show up here, fat and edible, we've saved money on them. And we're enjoying watching them grow. :o)

I've just downloaded my old Chad Mitchell Trio albums onto iTunes, listening to them now and remembering being about 13 and a very young rabble-rouser. In my heart. :o)

Knitting, working on Christmas stuff. (Yup, of course!) Reading, currently working my way through some of the Sookie Stackhouse stories.

Still watching 24, now on Season 7, determined to finish. (I have this thing about finishing.) Laughing at how often a character (usually Jack Bauer) says very seriously, "I/we didn't/don't have a choice." Honey, you *always* have a choice. Crazy show, easy to write -- you need a terrorist plot involving the destruction of a major American city, a dozen stock lines of dialogue and a revolving cast of characters which always must include an incredibly evil (usually dark-skinned) arch-enemy, a lot of minions who will be blown to bits soon, a secret organization or two (on both sides), a beautiful woman for Bauer to be devoted to but betray anyhow because -- wait for it -- he doesn't have a choice, and an uber-techy female geek who could run the whole show. Everyone but Bauer is expendable, but some of the dead come back in a season or two so don't get too sad too soon. Jack Bauer is a rogue agent, that's very important. The man needs to laugh once in awhile. He needs to come watch his show with me -- I'll get him laughing.

Kiefer Sutherland has the mouth of a sea turtle, has anyone noticed that? I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just an observation. I always kinda liked his dad, except for that last scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Noah has returned.

Crafting -- Various

Well, not *all* that various. My friend Sam/Sioux, PhD in Making Stuff, made me this date book. As I understand it, she was intending this for Christmas but didn't get it done in time so it was a birthday present instead. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has resorted to that. :o) I think it's so cool that I wanted to show it to you, especially those of you who scrapbook. (That's a verb now, I guess.) Apologies in advance for the fuzziness of the photos -- they didn't enlarge all that well.














Socks so far this year, plus my first needle-felting project, which Jaz helped me with when she was here in January. Oh, yeah! Jaz was here in January, for my birthday! I do so love my friends, as well as my family. The colors in the red and blue socks look washed out (no flash used), but still, you get the idea. The blue ones are for David: