Category: Wellbeing

Old age is nigh

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One day you wake up and the sentence, “I’m sure glad my wife bought whole wheat hot dog buns” makes perfect sense. A few years back, heck, just a couple of months back, I would have rejected the concept of a whole wheat sheath for the world’s most popular mystery meat. Who REALLY prefers the taste of whole wheat to white? It just doesn’t happen. It’s like preferring ANYTHING diet to the regular ‘ole sugared, greased lightning version. It’s like selling your soul to decaf.

This is the indignity of dieting, of “eating right.” You find yourself stooped over the meat drawer trying to spy the calories in a Ball Park Frankfurter (Frank to his friends).

Being sick and all that entails

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The Kauffman Household, version 2.2.1, has all the appeal of an isolation ward. It’s enough to put a smile on all those kids that made fun of me in grammar school. Yes, there’s been a real run on items such as Kleenex and cough drops. It all started with Beth, yes, Beth. Beth spends six or so hours, five days a week at the germ bank, known in some circles as “the public education system.” This month, the most important thing Beth has learned in school is the difference between a good antihistamine and a decongestant. Although Adam gets out about as much as Howard Hughes, he got sick next. Naturally, since they were the first to get sick they had it the easiest, there were a couple of healthy people to take care of them. Now it has spread to the rest of us, and they’re just peachy. Pity my poor wife, the last of our kind to fall ill.

I was discussing her prospects for tomorrow (five days ago, when I had little inclination to write), and she was rather coy about her work prospects. She said she was sick and didn’t want to work, but she wouldn’t commit. Who would have thought my wife would have a fear of commitment? Perhaps her prior experiences didn’t work out so well? Making matters worse for the ole “D.C.”: our primary baby sitter was in isolation as well. So I asked, “Cheryl, why don’t we just call your mother now and see if she is too sick to watch Adam?” She replies, “Nah, if she calls me tomorrow morning I’ll just stay home.” “Yeah, but you’ll have gotten up early for nothing.” “Like Adam is going to sleep in?” “Well, maybe not; but, you’ll have gotten out of bed, showered and dressed for nothing.”

For that split second, it was as if I hadn’t lived with this woman for the last ten years. I’m happy as a clam in a two-day-old pair of PJs, and with skin preserved in it’s own natural oils, like an ocean living mammal. Cheryl? Not so much.

Suffering

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It is evening, two hours before your normal bedtime. What do you suppose is the worst thing you could do? How about a little nap?

You go to bed at a reasonable hour, after your unplanned hour-long nap. You lie down to bed with what you believe to be a great recipe for sleep, a book you’ve already read once and a drowsy head start. Only, it isn’t such a tasty recipe after all. Now it’s almost two hours after your bedtime and you’re still wide awake. You’ve decided to get up and fill that pit that diet has dug in your stomach with some delicious looking frosted animal cookies. It’s only after you’ve eaten the last one that you wonder if a healthy dose of sugar mixes well with insomnia.

So be it.

Your next stop is your trusty computer. You decide to show your desktop Mac some love with a little long overdue attention. Having been in bed so long, and the night being so well advanced, the click of the keyboard is deafening. This is when you realize why you so often prefer your PowerBook, the elegant feel of the keys under your swift touch. You wonder if it’s like a musician trying to play a high school band instrument after playing for years on a Stradivarius. There is simply no comparison. You wonder if it would be worth the investment to upgrade the keyboards around the house.

The eMac that you woke from sleep, and then eschewed for your trusty PowerBook, has returned to sleep. The fan cooling its innards has turned off, returning the room to near silence. Your only companion is your insomnia and the strangely addictive chatter of your keyboard. It almost becomes a kind of conversation, you interacting with the keys.

You have returned to that place where you last slept; your feet up, reclined on the living room couch with your PowerBook in your lap. You hadn’t intended to recreate the moment, but you note the occurrence when you begin to grasp that elusive sense of coming sleep.

Before returning to bed, you wonder if your attachment to a computer is a sign of a shallow nature, a nerd at heart, a discerning consumer, or all of the above.

Now for a little math. You function best with eight hours of sleep. Seven is almost as good, but the seams begin to fray. Getting six is a precursor caffeine abuse. It is pushing midnight and I’m getting up at 5:30. Say, how long has it been since I’ve called in sick?

On behalf of mankind, we welcome you to Earth

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Alternate title: “Is this blog becoming a treatise on substance addiction?”

What’s faster than Crash Bandicoot, produces more energy than a stray match at your local propane refilling station, and is more excitable than a cat stuck in the dryer? What if you were a little anxious about going to work this morning, then you proceeded to drink two cups of coffee, two glasses of iced tea, and topped it off with a diet crashing Twix bar? What if your tolerance for such things was lower than a Mormon at his first frat party?

“I’d like to buy another cup, and live in harmony,”

Falling from the wagon can hurt so much, but oh it hurts so good.

Not so fine print

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&*%$! DECAF! That was the prevailing sentiment earlier this week. That’s right, I’m tired as hell and I’m not going to take it any more! The problem? I kept forgetting to stop by the store to pick up some good old fashioned caffeinated tea mix. The answer presented itself last night. Cheryl asked me if I could stop by Publix on my way home. Could I?!? Heck yeah I could. I spent ten minutes on the coffee and tea isle weighing my choices.

Unsweetened? No, let’s go hole hog. Low cal or high cal? Well, let’s go low cal – as long as it’s all real sugar. Flavored or straight up? Well we’ve gone this far, flavored.

After the jury of one passed the verdict, I went home. This morning when I was unpacking the crown jewel of today’s provisions, I noticed the warning label. It was right there the whole time, if only I had looked more carefully. It said something to the effect of “one serving of this product contains less caffeine than brewed tea or your average soda.”

The gnashing of teeth and cries of despair could be FELT two floors below. It was a horrible blow to sleep deprived kind, the world over.

What exactly is the market for a “reduced caffeine” beverage anyway? Is there a carbon based life form ANYWHERE that’s a shade of gray on the caf/decaf issue? Is this stuff supposed to be the Nicorette Gum for coffee addiction? Is it for people who just want to be a little bit alert? WHY ME! WHY ME!!!

Friends, heed my warning, avoid Nestea instant, sweetened tea at all costs. As they said on the streets of the ’90s: “It’s not all that.”

Choosing the other way

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Yesterday I was presented with a choice. I was given an opportunity to react to some offensive behavior. I was given the opportunity to act like an adult, to place myself above the fray, and be an example of responsible behavior.

And of course, once again I went the other way with it.

Once again this choice presented itself on the road. Once again I was on my bike. Once again I was startled into a medium grade rage by a driver with a set of keys and a self appointed license to operate it like a jackass. These kids today! Apparently when the Xbox gets old, leaning out of car windows and screaming obscenities at bicyclists serves as a “good time.” Well, since this happens about once a week I’m usually prepared for it. My usual response? Ignore it. So why didn’t I ignore it this time? Opportunity. Apparently this new breed of jackass does this sort of thing within 100 feet of the turn off for his or her neighborhood. Opportunity knocks. In a flash I’m following them into the neighborhood and riding by as a kid is getting out of the car, in front of his house. I slowed down. The kid looked back like a deer staring down the headlights. I gave him the tried and true “you’re number one” sign, reassured him that my vocabulary has a few four letter words in it too, and continued on my way home.

Why does it always seem that the rightness of a course of action is inversely proportional to its ease of execution? I don’t feel any better knowing that I’ve probably just guaranteed myself an encore performance this afternoon. In light of the whole “man v. car” thing, do you suppose Darwin is up there somewhere (or down there somewhere, depending on where you went to school) shaking his head?

Running a business more like a government, revisited

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Here’s my list of the world’s largest bureaucracies, listed in order from biggest to smallest: the U.N., the U.S. health care industry (lumping providers and insurers together), the old Soviet Union, and the Federal Government. Feel free to quibble with my order – I’m not married to it – but you’ve got to admit that they all deserve to be on the list. Today I have no qualms with world organizations or sovereign nations (red commie bastards and otherwise). No friends, today my ire is directed at everyone’s favorite whipping boy: the health care industry – and specifically, one unnamed provider of prescription medication.

It all started with an order for drugs by mail. By now most of you are familiar with the mail order drugs phenomenon – the Sam’s Club of prescription medication. Well we were a little late to the party, but we were eager to take advantage of the cost savings realized by buying bulk. We placed our order and waited the recommended two weeks for delivery. In no time at all we received an email confirmation that our order was received, then, nothing. When our patience finally gave out, Cheryl (our designated corporate complaint liaison), picked up the phone. The news was not encouraging. We were told that our order was not shipped because they needed our authorization to ship a partial order (due to one of the prescriptions being denied by insurance). Never one to shy away from a telephone confrontation, Cheryl replied, “Did you ever consider soliciting our authorization, or did you plan to wait for us to get desperate enough to call you?”

Ah, the delightful smell of conflict in the air,

Cheryl gave them authorization to ship the partial order, and asked them not to pursue clearance for the denied medication (we no longer wanted it). Two days later we received our medication, sans the one we needed most – and unexpectedly including a 90 day supply of the denied (and unwanted) medication. That prompted, you guessed it: another appearance by our corporate complaint liaison. The mail order company explained that our much needed medication was no longer on our insurance formulary, and that they would send a return label out to us for the unwanted medication (and a refund). The next day, we filled the same prescription (that was not filled by the mail order joint) at our local pharmacy. If we found any of this the least bit funny at the time, this next bit would have us blowing our milk out our nose, our local pharmacy owns the mail order service.

Another two days pass, and I discover a voice mail message on my cell phone. It was the mail order service. They wanted to speak to me about getting money off the price of prescription number xxxxx. I called them back the next day. It turned out that in return for our troubles they were willing to discount my next refill of the prescription indicated in the message. You guessed it. It turned out to be the medication they originally said was denied, and then shipped anyway.

“Let me get this straight. You want to give me half off a prescription that was denied by insurance, that we said we didn’t want, and that you already sent to us once by mistake?”

“Can I put you on hold?”

It turned out she wasn’t really asking.

Dear Lord, I never thought I would need to ask you this favor, but could you please make them stop sending me drugs I don’t want?

One month later

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It has been a month since I resolved to eat better, exercise more, and live well.
It has been a month since my last carbonated beverage.
I’ve only been to Starbucks three times (maybe four, tops).
I popped a Walgreens caffeine supplement once, but I REALLY needed it.

The occasional side trip to Starbucks aside, I’ve limited by beverage intake to water and unsweetened, decaffeinated tea (shudder). I’ve been eating fruit and veggies for snacks, as well as with meals.

And tomorrow I’m returning to my home world near the galactic core and returning the real John to his natural environment (with all of you on Earth).

A funny thing happened on the way to the pharmacy

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O.K., I admit the whole “no caffeine at work” thing was crap. Sleep deprivation will do funny things to your mind. I’ve heard some liken it to being drunk. If so, that one came after a kegger.

So I decided to pack my little miracle in a bottle this morning. 1) A diet. 2) Four hours of sleep. 3) Re-acclimating to riding to work. Yep, we’re back in the saddle boys! It’s Walgreens branded caffeine to the rescue!

Only, I got to work and didn’t seem to need it. Whassap wit dat? Am I having delusions of alertness?

Guilt of Catholic proportions

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It all started last evening with a question, “John, do you want anything from Smokey Joe’s?” My stomach said, “Boy do I!” But my brain intervened, “I guess so.”

Damn diet.

It turns out the stomach won out. I had a whole heapin helping of B-B-Q pork with cinnamon apples and steamed broccoli. That first bite of pork, dipped in sauce, it was like manna from heaven. Oh Lord someone catch me cause I’m gonna faint. Yes, it was that good. Ah, but I did manage to moderate my appetite a bit. Rather than stuffing my self silly, I managed to stop eating while there was still some food left. Still, I estimate this one meal had more calories than everything I ate on Saturday. (By some miracle, I managed to stay just below my calorie goal for the day. Good thing I haven’t set a goal for fats.) Hey, no one said that diets were easy.

Damn diet.

Alas, after that one quick foray off the wagon I’m back on the diet again. I shoulda saved me some of that broccoli for this morning.