• Picking on diets

    I don’t like the word diet. It has such a temporary connotation, as if we have no intention of making a long term commitment to healthy eating. And worse? Diets often have little to do with good health, and everything to do with vanity. Who cares how healthy it is, as long as we get skinny? Remember the cabbage soup diet, or the claims that you could lose ten to fifteen pounds in a week?

    Check out this bit from a web site extolling the virtues of cabbage:

    Cons: Some people find the soup bland. Some people have reported feeling light-headed, weak, and have suffered from decreased concentration (although some who have been affected in this way felt it was well worth it, since it was only for a week and they had lost considerable weight).

    Or there’s this little nugget (figuratively speaking ;-) they left out: it makes your intestines eligible for hazard pay.

    By learning a few basic surgery techniques you could lose that ten to fifteen pounds in a matter of hours, not days. Heck, it might be closer to twenty. (You’d have to learn to hop though.)

    Wow, when you put it like that, it’s *like* totally worth it.

    When I hear my wife, a family member or a friend mention the word diet, I immediately ask myself, “why not aspire to more?” Ah, but sometimes I live for being the silent (cowardly) contrarian.

    Unfortunately, I’m right in the middle of another failed attempt at lifestyle change. My problem isn’t carbs, fats or sweets (or all three at a fast food joint)… it’s much harder to avoid. I’m addicted to calories. If it doesn’t come from a cow and it’s got calories, chances are I like to eat it – and in large quantities. I’ve got a database on my Palm for counting the calories I eat during the day, and that usually keeps me on the straight and narrow for a few weeks. It doesn’t help me to starve myself like the Cabbage patch kids, but it helps keeps me honest on the portions. Unfortunately, it’s not enough.

    There’s something everywhere I go. I refill my water bottle at work and there’s a box of donuts sitting on the table. I go to my in-laws for dinner and they’ve got a coconut creme pie that must asexually reproduce in their refrigerator. Or worst of all, I go to the wine store and see my diet’s yellow kryptonite on the teaser rack at the checkout isle – a white chocolate concoction made by the evil geniuses at Lindt that has enough calories to sustain a family of four for a week.

    Well, no… not really, but it was a fun sentence to write.

    If the best way to avoid eating poorly is to avoid temptation, yet temptations are everywhere, what do you do? Judging by the increasing rates of obesity in this country, maybe the answer is you don’t.

    Boy, that’s depressing.

  • A little sunshine ain’t so bad

    My wife, my friends, my coworkers… just about everyone who knows me thinks its strange that I don’t like sunny days. Frankly, I think everyone else is a little strange for not yearning for a little more variety. At the same time, I must consider the odds. Either everyone I know is strange, or it’s me.

    It don’t look too good friends.

    I must admit that today was a nice day, and it was because of the sunshine. Cheryl and I brought the kids over to Chesnut park, and the swamp never looked so good.

    The Thing


    By the way, I have no idea what kind of bird that was.

    And no trip to Chesnut Park is complete without a walk out to the lookout tower.

    The Lake


    Although Cheryl got a bit overheated, the kids didn’t want to leave and I always take that as a good sign. It was one of those days when the sun is shining and every color seems to jump out at you.

    Ah, what a day.

  • Gentlemen, start your wet-vacs!

    Yeah, I’m sure you want to read a letter I’m sending to a stranger in Vermont. Although, if you’ve been reading for a while and you’re still coming back, maybe you won’t mind so much.

    I wonder if I’m overdoing the “complete stranger bit?”

    —

    2/17/2008

    Dear (concealed),

    If I were you I’d be wondering who I am. I’m pretty sure you have no idea who I am, and to be frank, I’m not at all sure who you are either.

    I should explain.

    A little over six years ago my grandmother died. She was many things: generous, kind, and loving; but she wasn’t talkative. While she was alive I remember trying many times to draw her out, to tell me something about her family in Vermont. Every time I asked she only made vague references to her brother (hidden), his wife (blacked out), how they were nice, and how she got lots of maple syrup. I learned a little more about her family after she died when I took up genealogy as a hobby, and went through some of the old pictures and letters she left me; but it wasn’t much. I knew she had more family but I didn’t know if they were still alive; and even if they were, I didn’t know where to start looking.

    This weekend I was going through some of my parent’s old stuff and I found another box of letters, documents, and pictures. Among them was a collection of cards from a (cloaked) (with pictures of young children, who I won’t name now – just in case I’ve got the wrong person) with no return address, but postmarked 15 odd years ago from (hidden), VT. I knew a few people from my grandmother’s side of the family came from (masked) from my genealogy research (albeit a hundred ago)… so I looked up the (shielded) phone listings for a (obscured)… and took a chance that you might be the same (screened) that addressed my grandmother as “Aunt Betty.”

    If you are who I think you are, this may help explain who I am: my mother’s name is (somebody get me a thesaurus) and my grandmother was (not for you to know). If I’ve got the right person, I’m guessing you might be a daughter/grand-daughter of (some dude you don’t know). It’s also possible that I’ve got the wrong person, completely misinterpreted your relationship to my grandmother, or really creeped you out – me seeming to be some strange long-distance stalker from Florida.

    I hope I’ve got the right person, and you don’t think it’s too strange being contacted this way. If you are (the right person), I hope you wouldn’t mind writing me back. For a long time I’ve felt like I’ve been missing half my family’s history, and I’d love to hear anything you might be willing to share.

    If you’d feel more comfortable writing back, having seen who I am, feel free to have a look at my family web site: mykauffman.com. Otherwise, I can be reached by email at: (it’s already listed elsewhere so why am I hiding it now?), or by snail mail at: (no chance)

    In the interim, thanks for taking the time to read this letter from a complete stranger… and thanks in advance for considering my request.

    With warm regards,

    John