Diet

This last weekend I found out some disturbing new about my health. Diabetes type 2, exactly what I didn’t want. I have been working out these last few years to get my weight down before I get older and it is harder to lose. I have made some progress and it has helped me feel better.

When it comes to healthy issues and me I tend to get defensive. It opens up old wounds that my mother inflected on me a young girl. If we really want to get down to it, my mother ruined my health at an early age. She didn’t feed my Gerber baby food or make strained pees for me. She fed me nothing but sugar and candy. So much of it I would spit it out, since I was sick of it. She thought since she always wanted sweets as a child it would be fun for me to have that all the time. Not very bright, mom, I became weak without proper nutrition and almost died of pneumonia.

After that I was taken to all kinds of herbalist and specialist. I had a very strict diet with no starches and only complex carbs, no simple carbs and no sugar. I could only have sugar free candy; I could get at Hickory Farms and soymilk. It wasn’t the nice kind we get at the stores now; it was thick like condensed milk.

My mother made all of this drudgery and I grew to resent it. She made it clear that my condition was a burden. She even had to go to the state offices and get more money from food stamps since my diet requirements were so costly. On cold rainy days she didn’t think I might like something warm, like soup or the occasional hamburger and was ready to force me to eat a cold salad. I had to demand a hamburger.

Later when I was older she blamed my shortness on my unfaithfulness in taking my vitamins. The specialist had said if I took them there might be a slight chance I could be taller. It was not a guaranty. She yelled at me and told me if I kept eating sugar, they (the doctors) would have to cut off my foot. Again, thanks mom, nothing like positive reinforcement. It was such a strict diet and it was too much for a child to keep up. I would throw out my pills. I had been taking them for years. It was very difficult to be a child and chained to a regiment of pills and certain foods. I wanted to run and play and not worry about my health every minute.

The only good thing about that time is that now I know the things I should be eating. It is easy for me to get some squaw bread and make the needed changes in my diet to help me feel better and live well. I hate the thought of shooting up insulin. Instead I will cut out sugars in potatoes and fast food. In the last week I have made these changes and lost 3 pounds. I did have to get a blood monitor and still have to learn how to use it. Next week more on this process, for now I am keeping close watch on my diet.

Life and Death

The other day we found out that a friend of a friend died in the Middle East during his tour of duty. It was still a shock, no matter that he was in a war zone. The widow was angry and took it out on a friend saying it was their fault. No one held a gun to his head and told him to take the oath to defend the country against all enemies’ foreign or domestic. He took that of his own free will, but she was just upset and felt the need to blame someone. Part of the process, later she will get to acceptance.

The same day I was taking time to start up a new friendship. We took some time and met for coffee and talked of life. She is ready to start a new part in her life and we talked of that and so many other things.

That’s the thing; death is hard on the living. We have to deal with the pain and we have to go through the feelings of loss and denial, anger the whole gambit. We have to attended the funerals and cry with the families and bring by jell-o molds. Always the jell-o molds show up.

One of the stress reliefs in my life is my dogs. I can cuddle up with them and they help. Just petting them helps me feel better. Looking into their eyes and it helps. They don’t know why we are sad, but they just cuddle up and help us feel better. The best thing we did when our older dog Angus died, was to get a new puppy. Middy, she had no idea what had happened and she helped to cheer us all up. Even the other dog, Gwennie was entertained by her; I think it is the best way to heal from another dog dying. Sure the one that died is mourned and there will be another one just like it, but the new one will help us to remember, life goes on and there is still plenty to be happy and grateful for.

There is nothing like a good friend or a new friend to talk to. We can’t make it on our own all the time. We need friends and loved ones to help us get through it. Even if we can’t find the right words to say, just being there and holding our friend’s hand, or hugging them can be the best thing we can do for them. The rest will just take time; it’s all part of life and death. OXOX

Relief

There are stressful situations that we all have to go through. Sometimes it’s all at once, and we don’t know what to do. Of course we talk about to our friends and try to figure out what to do next. Really the only thing to do is take care of one thing at a time.

Recently I had something come up and the only thing to do were to wait for the day I was supposed to deal with it to come. It was an appointment, and just deal with it then. Sure I had nightmares about it. It is never as bad as I image.

On that day I was prepared and it was fine. My fears were based on my own imagination and nothing more. I was so relieved to get that over with that I had to take a nap after wards.

There are other things that have been a relief lately and some justice is going to be measured out. The hard part in all of this is to be patient and see what happens.

I had a performance this last weekend and it came out pretty good. The crowd was quite and I was trying to move around more to get them interested. It made the sword I was balancing on my head almost fall off. It turned I wasn’t supposed to use a weapon (even a dull one) at this venue. Not a problem, I can use my sword another time at another place.

It was a relief to get that done as well. Not that I hadn’t practiced enough, I had made myself tired getting ready for this dance. I was as prepared as I could be. It was just the first time I had performed with a prop like this and I had been looking forward to seeing if I could handle it.

It’s not just stressful things, that when they pass is a relief. Even fun things like dancing can make us apprehensive. I do like to challenge myself and try new things in my dancing routines. It is great that my friends were there to support, that brings a bit of stress too, since I don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of them.

There are few things we can to, to prevent bad things. We can’t anticipate all the challenges that will come our way. The best we can do is take a deep breath when they come around…. All ten of them at once, then take one at a time and deal with them. After wards, sure pour yourself a good tall drink. I know we need that from time to time, as well.:-)

Land of Man

In my work as an office manager at a scooter shop I feel I have entered an alternative universe comprised solely of men. The last few years has been such and still is an education of this place.

In Southern California in the industrial complexes are filled with smart men who are craftsmen and innovators. They make tools and parts and make things faster. They chrome and straighten forks. It may seem dull or silly that I am remarking about this.

It is just such a different from the world I had been from. In the past the offices and most of my co-workers were women. The first job I had was behind a makeup counter at a department store. Most women don’t want to know how things work. We want to pretend that cars are like driving houses and we don’t want to know that things can come apart and all little nuts and bolts and pistons, cylinders that make up an engine.

It is almost as if I have been forced to take a good hard look at the owner’s manual and the exploded view of the parts. I have learned about intake manifolds and performance pipes. Big bore pipes, carbs and gasket kits. At the Vegas rally I listened to a man give me the information of some pipes that can be re-packed. To my horror I knew what he was talking about.

The men I have met have been interesting. They can tune and bore with precision, but none of them can clean or keep paper work organized. By and large they are all Caucasian, not that other ethnic groups are exulted from this world, they just don’t seem to be interested. There are all kinds of schools that can teach anyone how to pull apart a motorcycle engine.

In the last few years, since entering the land of man, it doesn’t make me hate them. I have found a greater understanding of them. The thing about women that only have other women for friends, they never really get men. Women always make things more complicated than it needs to be. Men are really so simple, like a baked potatoes, what you see is what you get. They don’t really change either; woman may spin out of control, in the way the view an argument. To the men it is usually pretty cut and dry. They don’t work hard enough to be complicated. And once something is discussed they don’t obsess about it later, they let it go. They have too much to worry about making money and taking care of things to worry about needy women.

This is just a few of the things I have learned in the land of man. The really good stuff I am saving for a novel.