Author Archives: David

Random Observations

06 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in cooking, food, Fruit, personal grooming, Uncategorized

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Observation #1

Men are gross. The ladies are right about that. Why do I say that? Yesterday, at the Y , I’m getting dressed after my swim. One of my fellow members is also attending to his grooming. He takes the blow dryer there for use in drying hair, presumably that particular hair on top of the head, and, after a quick once over to his pubes, uses the communal blow dryer to dry the space between his toes! All of a sudden, I really didn’t need to style my hair with the blow dryer.

Observation #2

Somebody tell me the difference between cultured buttermilk and kefir. The most basic one is that kefir costs about twice as much. The two products taste remarkably similar. I know there are active probiotic cultures in kefir, but does their presence mean I have to pony up twice as much dough?  I guess so. 

Observation #3

Kitchen parchment is really cool stuff. Last night I lined the pan with it when I grilled the swordfish steaks in the oven and wrapped the corn on the cob in it as I cooked them in the oven along with the fish. The clean-up with parchment was easier, I think, than with aluminum foil. By the way, cooking corn in the oven or on the grill is so much easier than throwing them in boiling water on top of the stove.

Observation #4

Fruit 1: Why do strawberries seem to last an incredibly long time before turning into gross red pulpy blobs these days? I notice this in the ones I buy at the market in the big PETE #1  containers that come from some farm near Watsonville, California. Maybe they pick up a weird vibe from the spirit of John Steinbeck, who lived near there. The locally grown, “pick your own” kind seem to have the shorter life I remember from the Dark Ages of the Eisenhower Administration.

Fruit 2: Peaches grown locally, within a few hundred miles, more or less, are delicious. The ones trucked in from California or Washington (I live in Virginia) are pretty nasty. Let’s not even talk about the ones from Chile that show up in the stores in the winter.  I must say that the Chilean cherries are pretty good.   Chilean  apples aren’t bad. The oranges are so-so.

Checking Out The Equipment

05 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Old Cameras

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Many years ago, in a simpler time, I used my 35 mm Pentax K-1000, Single Lens Reflex camera a good deal.  Then everything went digital. I stood still. OK, I was broke too.  This morning I got out the camera and lenses. I was afraid I had never unloaded the film from the camera the last time I used it, at my elder son’s first wedding in 2002. But I had.

Now what do I do? Do I go buy some film and try it out? I think yes.  I guess going from film pictures to digital images represents a challenge, but there is a scanner I could hook up. We shall see.

4 July 2016

05 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in memoir, Sport

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My plan was to rise early, have a leisurely morning at home before leaving for the 10:00 Independence Day Mass at St Benedict Church.  The morning was about recovering the sleep I lost the night before as a general and inexplicable anxiety gripped me.  I knew all was well, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Yet body and soul rebel, as  they reject all the cognitive evidence of normalcy and safety. So I slept.

Around 10:00, I call Dorothy and we plan to go to the Y, she to use the machines, and I to swim.  Frequent rain storms command the course and outcome of the day. Most picnics are cancelled or rearranged to indoor events.

My swim restores me, gives me time to collect my thoughts, feel the water on my body, caressing it, if you will. Eros, to me, claims movement as his vassal.

I learn my nephew and his family are in town from Florida. J wraps the Christmas gifts we had been unable to give our two great nephews, aged 8 and 6, due to my recovery from back surgery.  The presents are books and card games, perfect for boring hot summer afternoons in sweltering Florida.The books are Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown, and Robert McCloskey’s One Morning in Maine.  Authors was a card game my siblings and I played as children. I’m hoping these lads enjoy the diversions of our childhood as much as we did.

An early supper and cat-tending set the stage for a nap. Independence Day was filled with a restorative leisure.

Milestone

01 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in Health Issues

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My orthopedic surgeon cleared me to swim at my recent office visit, June 20. I had been taking my return  gradually, swimming laps after my one hour session of treading water. Today,  I decided to swim before I did the treading. I thought swimming the same distance I swam Tuesday , 650 meters, would be a good continuation.  When 650 meters passed, I said 850 meters would be a good stopping point, then after 850 m, I told myself 1000 m, then after 1000 m, 1250,  after 1250 m a mile. So at 1650 meters, (what I use for a mile) I stopped. I felt good. My back muscles were a little sore, no worse than after physical therapy, but I did it! My level of cardiovascular fitness is good. The walking and the treading water have maintained my “cardio” fitness, so the transition to swimming was easier than I thought.  This was the first mile swim I have completed since I tore my rotator cuff in December of 2014.  This is a big personal victory for me.

Herein lies the irony. If I can swim that far, how come toting  Dorothy’s kitty was so hard for me yesterday? Holding  that weight is different from moving through the water, most decidedly.

This brings up one of my passionate issues.  I believe older people (I consider myself an older person) should get active and stay active. Too often I have seen the quality of life for seniors decline when they reduce their physical activity.  My experience shows that we can come back after injuries as younger people can. We may have to change our exercise preferences, but it can be done.  If  you aren’t yet “old” and read my blog, get active.

And quit smoking!

Please.

Night Falls On Random Thoughts

01 Friday Jul 2016

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Today, Dorothy my stepmother and I took her kitty to the vet to have her feline diabetes checked.  The condition is responding well to the dietary changes instituted earlier in June. So no kitty meds are needed now.

What knocked me for a loop was toting Sugar (the cat) in her kitty carrier. Too much weight was a little reminder that life before the fusion isn’t coming back. If I can’t lift a cat  (admittedly a little chubby) and a carrier  without feeling pain for the rest of the day , I guess I am disabled. For real.

After my ice pack afternoon respite, I made my daily visit to check on Grace, my sister’s cat, whilst she is on vacation. Grace is a sweet cat who rests her head on my thigh while I sit during my visit. I could be a cat person very easily.

I came home,  fixed a veggie and cheese wrap that reflected my Weight Watchers meal planning. I did some more cold therapy on my back, then got up for some cleaning.

Now I sit, sipping my decaf, writing the blog, and watching Lord Kenneth Clark’s epic documentary Civilisation.  The particular episode I’m watching, The Fallacies of Hope,  deals with the roots of Romanticism in the French Revolution.

I want sleep to come, but I want a sweet thought to spawn a dream. So I stay awake, hoping that sublime moment will creep in.

Oh Well. Good Night all.

Random Update

30 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in Health Issues

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Here I am, sitting at the keyboard, having just set up a doctor’s appointment for a prostate exam. I’m at the age where a prostate exam is a life saver, and a digital rectal exam is a small price to pay.  We shall see what’s in store. The primary care physician will also set up the referral for an endoscopy, since it’s been 10 years since my last one of those. Somebody said people retire so they can go to their doctors and the funerals of their friends.

Moving along, I have been active in the pool all week. I enjoy the water for exercise more than walking or running, especially in the summer when the temperatures hit the 90’s. Usually the pool is the only option unless I want to exercise shortly after dawn.

 

Laundry Day, Circa 1958

28 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by in Love and stuff, memoir, seduction

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On the vinyl-covered flossy line,

Stretched between two iron T’s

Painted with silvery aluminum paint,

Are their secrets, of a sort.

Her slips, brassieres and panties, pristine white as a wedding gown.

His button-front cotton drawers,  archaic as a shaving brush,

Hang pegged to the line with wooden pins, by spring-loaded tension.

The wind blows on this sunny day,

Evaporation is magic as shirts and chinos change to cotton boards,

As another metamorphosis, by shiny electric iron, awaits.

Night finds the bed  clothed anew, sheets infused with outdoor smell,

The fragrant aphrodisiac invites repose, compels arousal.

He removes the propriety of pyjamas, as she sheds opacity of nightgown.

And, confident of sleeping children and plaster walls,

With caress and kiss,  pant and cry,

They create, at the very least,

…..another load of laundry

Those Numbers On Your Drivers License Are Your Age

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in Health Issues

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I guess I’m supposed to feel old, however old feels, today.  My elder son celebrated his fortieth birthday. Since I was 25 on the day he was born, that means I am 65.  65 just doesn’t compute. Sure I hurt physically; back pain, some pain in my shoulder, but I hurt physically when I was 34 and 63. The fine print seems to be finer and a  bright light when reading is my friend.

This hasn’t been a day about feeling old. I went to Weight Watchers and learned I lost 5.4 pounds (2.49 kg) since last week. I started out earlier in June weighing 213 lbs (15 stones 3 lbs, 96.6 kg). I am following their program, not doing my “version” of it. Their program  is working for me. Now I am at 206.8 lbs, (14 stone 11 lb,  or 93.8 kg). I went for my 4 mile power walk and I felt drained afterwards, but feel great now.

So life is good. As the saying goes, life isn’t about having what I want but wanting I have.

The Writer’s Life: Fantasy Vs. Reality

23 Thursday Jun 2016

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In Fantasy Life, I wake up, Good To Go, ready to sit at the computer and bare my very soul in words that the Swedish Nobel Committee is reading approvingly as I write.   In Real Life,  back pain wakes me up. I go make coffee, text with a friend, think about the crap I have to do today which I subconsciously put up with, so I can avoid writing.

I had one project, to get the Weight Watchers mobile app working on my Smartphone. I accomplished that and also reset my page on the online site, so I can track my Weight Watchers SmartPoints.  It’s another activity I’ve been avoiding, thinking my post surgeries weight gain is going to manage itself, disappearing on its own.. It hasn’t yet..

Writing wise, there’s a poem I wrote and will publish today. I will try to do more, allowing for the back pain which comes when I sit for extended periods, say an hour or so.

Being an adult sucks, sometimes.

Catch-up Time, Plus A Quick Survey of Blessings.

20 Monday Jun 2016

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Time sure flies when you’re procrastinating. Not that I planned to be away this long. We  had several  dramas, “incidents and accidents”, to use Paul Simon’s marvelous little phrase.  My stepmother Dorothy fell at the Y and cracked her coccyx, AKA, “tailbone”. All in all, it turned out as well as you can hope for when a ninety year old falls. She just won’t be back at the Y til she’s healed a little more.

Then we had to deal with the final legal details pertaining to my brother’s estate. Part of the legacy was an envelope full of packets of stamps, mostly “Forever”, but some 42-cent  Christmas stamps from several Christmases ago.  That was so typical of my brother; to have a bunch of stamps.

The following week Dorothy’s Persian cat was acting odd, sort of lethargic with no appetite. I took Dorothy and Sugar to the vet, left Sugar for a work-up while Dorothy and I went home.  Turns out Sugar has  “the sugar”.  Yep, feline diabetes. She is not on kitty insulin yet, but she started a special diet.

During all these singular events, I continued with physical therapy for my back, twice a week. It was actually a workout disguised as physical therapy. It was tough, but I actually enjoyed it. This comes from a man who enjoys swimming 2 miles straight through. At PT I became very familiar with a device called the Total Gym, the apparatus for which Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris do an infomercial.  The Total Gym is a serious piece of exercise equipment, sturdy and well-made. The particular exercise I performed was pushing my body weight with my legs while leaning back against the backboard. Serious stuff.

Going to physical therapy and doctors’ offices has reaffirmed my belief that I am an extremely fortunate 65 year old.  I’ll take my repaired rotator cuff and fused spine at L4/L5  any day over what I see my contemporaries  (and younger folks) enduring.  Specifically I see weight problems that put strain on joints; a man, crippled by Multiple Sclerosis, who gets in the pool and treads water every day. I am incredibly lucky.