Monthly Archives: October 2011

Halloween

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Halloween Carvings on Pumpkins of Horror Movie CharactersTomorrow is Halloween.

We live on a street with no sidewalks, the houses are set back a little ways so anyone going door-to-door would have to walk down the driveway a ways to get to the front door. Not too awful far. Not too long but long enough to make it a pain and long enough to make going door-to-door something only Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons or people selling contractor services would do. Little kids?  Not so much.

So we don’t get a lot of kids at our door. Some. Not a lot.  Enough to have to buy a bag of candy.  Usually we get the big, hunkin’ bag they sell at Costco. The “fun size” candy bars. Butterfinger, Reese’s, all the rest. Good stuff.

Of course, there’s a lot left. We should take it to the nearest whatever.  Maybe the office or maybe someplace else.  We don’t though. We keep it. We eat it.

So tomorrow we’re thinking about going to a movie.

Just sayin’

October Snow

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Now, I’m sure that snow in October, two days before Halloween is pretty common in some areas.  It sure as hell isn’t common around my neck of the woods (the MD Suburbs of DC). In fact,  the leaves, which tend to turn all kinds of orange, red, and gold haven’t even turned, yet. Well, maybe they turned a little.  But not as much as they’re supposed to before it snows. In fact, they’re supposed to have dropped from the trees completely before this mess arrives.

So, why did it decide to snow?

I’m not sure whether it’s global warming or what but it’s a little disconcerting. After all, I’m preparing for little goblins and witches and Darth Vaders or whatever to come around and hit me up for some candy. Instead, the snow is putting me in the mood to put on the Christmas Carol channel on my satellite radio.

I don’t think I’m alone.  I’ve seen tweets and Facebook postings from all over New England going on and on about the snow. Some positive. Most, not so much. And those guys are used to snow.

I’m not ready to get out the snow shovel and heavy winter coat. I don’t mind a sweater now and then but snow gear?  No, thanks.

It’s supposed to be up in the 50s tomorrow so I know the snow won’t last (it “stuck” a little but not that much). Hopefully, it’ll head back north to where it belongs until December.

Eating and the Force of Habit

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Yeah. Eating is a habit. Probably a good habit. After all, you need to eat to live. Right?

Of course, overeating is not a good habit.  Yet, some ginormous number of the US population, if not the world, overeat. Overeating leads to, well, fatness or, as te medical community likes to cal it, obesity. so overeating equals bad habit.

Yet, we all have habits of eating. We eat certain foods over and over and we tend to eat at the same time every day.

This “epiphany” recently came to me (this morning, actually) when I sat at the dining table, as I usually do, with the morning paper. Yes, I actually still get a real paper copy of the newspaper.

The difference this morning was that I knew I was also meeting some friends for breakfast later. Not 6:00am when I normally eat breakfast but about 9:00 when everyone else had a chance to get up, get dressed and drive to the diner where we were all meeting.

I made a cup of coffee (ya gotta love those Keurig coffee makers) and sat down. My next step would normally be to make myself a bowl of cereal (carbs and sugar with dairy in a bowl). But, I knew I was going to be eating just a few hours later. I knew it. It was in the front of my brain.

Yet, after a few minutes of reading the paper and drinking my coffee I decided to make myself that bowl of cereal. It was almost automatic pilot. Almost. The only difference this morning is that I knew I was going to eat  later and I was trying to make a rational and conscious decision not to eat.

Of course, there are times I’m successful with this.  The other day when I was getting my blood tested, I was able to abstain.  I was able to go to the lab much earlier, though.  9:00am is a long ways from 6:00. Isn’t it?

I guess my point is that breaking the habit and re-establishing a new habit isn’t as easy as it looks. It’s the same with everything, I suppose. Do you shower before or after breakfast? What time of the day do you exercise? (exercise?). Do you check your e-mail and Facebook first thing or wait until mid-morning?

Most of the things we do in our life is a habit. I’m told that habits, no matter how deeply ingrained, can be changed. Bad habits replaced by good ones.

I wish I could find the secret key to changing the eating habits.

 

Taking Up the Whole Photo

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It’s been a  long time (I guess) since I’ve written about my constant and never ending struggle to lose weight.  It’s crazy.

I made a decision and then I lost about 20 pounds only to gain back 14 only to lose 5 to make it a net of about 11. Since January 1st.  Pretty pitiful.

Of course, since then I’ve been on a plane (seat belt extender, please) and been uncomfortable. I’ve been to restaurants where wait staff put me, excuse me, squeezed me into booths with other people. I’ve been to a medical lab to get my blood tested and sat in one of those small chairs right next to someone else.  It was like being on the plane.

The topper for me is being photographed.  I take up the whole frame.  Still or video. It’s like you need a wide angle lens to make sure you get all of me in the shot.  Small head,.w-i-d-e shoulders, huge torso. And if someone is in the shot with me. Whoa! No matter who they are, they look tiny in comparison.

So, why don’t I just get with the program and eat right and exercise?

Why, indeed.

Blood Test

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We all go through it sooner or later.

The doctor wants us to get a blood test.  It could be as simple as checking our cholesterol levels or maybe something more serious.  Maybe it’s just one those blood test you get because you’re on certain medication and your physician wants to monitor its effects.

Whatever it is it means hiking down to the local lab, waiting in the waiting room with a dozen other people waiting to get a needle stuck in their arm, and then…getting a needle stuck in your arm.  Sometimes, if you’re luck, you can skip step one and just walk down the hall in your doctor’s office to get the needle stuck in your arm.

Unfortunately for me, finding that one great vein to plunge that needle into and draw some blood is easier said than done.

Yeah.  I’ve learned to drink lots of water (which really, really,really makes me need to pee) in order to plump up my veins and make them easier to stick. Sometimes that works.  Sometimes not.

Sometimes I get a great lab tech who knows just how to do an arm that has veins that roll and are just generally hard to find.  Most of the time I get techs that need to stick me two or three times in order to get the needle in the right place so blood will start coming out of my arm.

The Red Cross is the same way.  I’ll go through their whole screening procedure only to get someone who can’t quite get the needle in the right place.  In fact, the last time I tried to donate blood no one could get it (the techs almost always call in the more experienced ones to help out)

They were nice enough to give me a nice parting gift and some cookies.  Still, it doesn’t quite make up for being used as a pin cushion.

Donating blood is one thing. It’s voluntary. The blood test is another.  I really need to get it done for my doctor.  So I roll the dice and hope and pray I’ll get someone who knows how to deal with difficult veins that roll.

It’s a real pain.

Control Freak

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I hate to say it but I think I might be a bit of a control freak.

Maybe not in the sense that everything has to be my way. More in the sense that I wish people would listen to my advice or recommendations or insights or whatever you want to call them…especially if they ask for them. It really drives me up a tree when someone asks me “What do you think I should do?” and then does the opposite. Or, at least, not anything close to what I thought.

This is especially true about the people I work with/for.  I’m one of these entrepreneurial types in an industry where people ask to use my services because I, supposedly, have an area of expertise they don’t. I even get paid sometimes.

Yet, it always surprised me when, time after time, my clients continue to ignore me. Not ignore as in “I’m pretending your not there.”  More like ignore as in, “Yeah, thanks for filling me in on that but I’m doing it the way I want anyway.”

Letting go is really tough for me.  Being told what to do is really tough for me. So I should realize at some level that other people are like me. People who have a hard time letting go and don’t like being told what to do. Yet, I am.

Don’t people realize that the world would be a perfect place if they just did what I said?

Writer’s Block

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I always read that the most important thing a writer can do is write.  Reading comes in a close second.  Maybe even tied for first.

I also read that the important thing about writing a blog is to write witty and charming  or, at least, interesting and entertaining content (i.e, the writing) so that one builds an audience.

That one being me.

It’s hard to come up with stuff all the time, though.  What’s good, interesting? Is there a topic or something?  Who the hell knows?

I see blogs all the time that are written poorly or with that great, snarky tone that seems so prevalent in the blogosphere. But they get lots of traffic, lots of commenting, lots of interaction.

Others like Paul Krugman’s blog on the New York Times’ site — The Conscience of a Liberal — gets tons of readership for blog posts that sometimes are two tor three paragraphs long and sometimes posts about not writing posts. I guess that’s the difference between a Nobel Prize winning economist on the New York Times’ site and a canoodler with no credentials.

Sigh.  Maybe one day.