Friday, January 13, 2012

Diary of a Colonoscopy

I just earned my colonoscopy badge.  I wasn't given an "I survived my first colonoscopy" sticker, but would have proudly displayed it on my lapel had one been offered to me.  It's a life rite of passage that deserves some sort of attaboy token.  My decision to subject myself to a colonoscopy did not come easily.  Apparently, I had long passed the recommended age as my proactive medical insurance company's mail correspondence was feeling more and more like hate mail.  Ok!  I'll do it...

Many of my friends and family members had raised their white flags to the colonoscopy pushers long before I did, so I had several "been there, done that" accounts of the experience to help in my understanding of what to expect.  The mantra was always the same-the actual procedure is a piece of cake, it's the day before that's a little rough.  I managed to block the entire existence of this  scheduled procedure from my mind until 2 days prior to my prep day when I discovered there was a lengthy information sheet that had to be in the doctor's office 10 days prior to the procedure day.  Oops.  A telephone call and fax machine fixed that little snafu.  I opened the amazingly thick envelope that I had received many weeks prior and began reading in earnest.  Knowledge is power.  Armed with my new power, I was off to the druggist to pick up my prep day prescription.

I am not sure what I expected, but being handed a seemingly empty plastic bottle with a cute little packet taped to the cap had never crossed my mind.  For some unexplained reason, I was embarrassed carrying it as I walked through the store on my way to leave.  I am quite sure I saw several Mona Lisa smiles.  They knew.  It wasn't until I got into my car that I began to stress.  The empty jug beside me very much resembled the emergency water ration jugs we scrambled to purchase for Y2K.  It was huge.  

Prep day came and I was ready.  I had fasted before, so how hard could this be?  White grape juice, green Gatorade, lemon Jello and banana Popsicles all met the clear liquids-no purple or red criteria spelled out so clearly and repeatedly in the thick informational packet so these were included in my arsenal of treats to make it through Prep day.  I added water up to the "add water to here" line.  Just in case there was any confusion with this task, even though this was indeed the ONLY "add water to here" line, there were also not one, but two humongous arrows that pointed to this only "add water to here" line.  Reassured that I had completed this task correctly, I cleaned out a good portion of my refrigerator to accommodate my Y2K jug and began the chilling process.

The instructions were to start drinking the prep liquid around 5:00 pm and to "try" to drink 8 ounces at a time.  I didn't understand the "try" request, but I knew there was no way I could down the whole Y2K jug of liquid by a time that would prevent me from being up all night peeing if I started so late in the day.  So, I made the intelligent decision to start at 1:00 pm.  I poured some of the cloudy liquid into a glass that I estimated to be around 8 ounces and took my first sip.  Hmmm.  It wasn't horrible, but the just short of lemon taste was curious and I wondered why they didn't give a few more grains of flavor in the cute little packet to actually make it lemon flavored.  Makes sense.  It also had a hint of salt and something else I didn't immediately recognize.  Then I did.  It was a just short of lemon flavor with a twist of gag......

Suddenly it all came full front and the mantra that included it's the day before that's a little rough and "try" to drink 8 ounces at a time became crystal clear.  And, let me just say this cloudy liquid takes its assigned task of cleaning out your colon VERY seriously.  Within minutes, all the food I had stuffed into my body the day before for fear of not being able to eat for a day was history.  Whoosh.  A colon is typically about 6 feet long and all coiled up in our bodies.  This just short of lemon with a twist of gag solution magically straightens out your colon, shortens it to exactly match the distance between your throat and the escape hatch and then turns it into a vacuum shoot that is handy at a bank but has no business whatsoever being inside your body.  Annie get your guns!  My day became a surreal B rated version of the movie "Ground Hog's Day" and the tv show "The Twilight Zone".  Every 30 minutes I would "try" to drink a full glass of the prep liquid, within minutes it exited my body like a volcano geyser, I would use foul language, repeat.  The very cruel piece of this "Twilight Zone" episode was it seemed like no matter how much I drank, the liquid in the Y2K jug never seemed to go down.  Plus the 30 minutes between glasses of this just short of lemon with a twist of gag liquid seemed more like 5 minutes.  Time flew and stood still at the same time.  Even almost hypnotizing myself with thoughts of "My Happy Place" and chugging to match any college kid at a frat party, there were several times I thought I was just not going to make it.  But I did.  I finished my last glass around midnight, had my last mini explosion and went to bed with no doubt whatsoever that my colon was squeaky clean. 

I arrived at the hospital at 9:15, quickly registered and was escorted to the outpatient wing by a volunteer.  I was surprised how large it was.  There were dozens of little fabric rooms just big enough to hold a gurney sized hospital bed and a single chair.  These curtain caves housed patients in different stages of procedures that used to be hospital overnights but now are "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" and get your designated driver to get you out of here.  I really tried hard to follow the "never look into another family's cave" rule, but it was difficult not to sneak a glance.  Everyone looked miserable, but most especially the expressionless designated drivers.  The book/movie "Coma" came to mind and I wondered if anyone was leaving without an organ.  I was shown into my curtain cave, given a top of the line paper dress (very different from the one I spoke of in The Ambush) and hooked up to an IV.  My designated driver was allowed to leave until after the procedure.  There I sat confined in a gurney bed with the sides up and an IV dripping for 2 hours.  I hadn't had anything to eat for 40 hours and nothing to drink for almost 12 hours.  In an attempt to ease the delay, a nurse gave me a "Time" magazine from several years ago.  I wasn't interested...

Close to noon, a woman with a paper muffin on her head came into my fabric cave to ask some questions.  She was one of the anesthesiologists and wanted to review some of my information.  I have a minor heart issue that I take medication for.  Basically, occasionally my heart has a mind of its own and goes a little crazy.  Medication keeps everything under control.  I understand why she was concerned and needed the details, but I just couldn't seem to give her enough information or the information she was looking for.  I started out using words like tachycardia, it gets a little out of rhythm etc. and she just kept asking more and more questions.  I just couldn't explain it in any other way than I already had.  Finally, I said it just sort of goes nuts every so often.  She looked at me with the same Mona Lisa smile I had seen when I picked up my Y2K jug and stated in what I perceived to be a condescending way-"ma'am, nuts is not a medical term..."  Let me repeat.  I had had nothing to eat for over 40 hours and nothing to drink for over 12 hours-including coffee.  It was all I could do not to slap that paper pastry right off of her head.

Finally, my turn came and I was rolled into the inner sanctum.  There I am sure I experienced a tesseract from "The Wrinkle in Time".  The nurse asked me to roll over on my side and then the physician was smiling as he handed me a picture of my very normal colon.  I believe the whole experience lasted roughly 1.5 seconds.  It was absolutely amazing.

Colonoscopy?  Been there, done that.  It's a piece of cake.  It's the day before that's a little rough......


 
 

             

     

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Contrary to Popular Belief

Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated at my sister's house.  We are blessed to have many of our family members within a short driving distance, so it is not uncommon to have 20-30 assorted family and friends get together for the holidays.  She does Thanksgiving and I do Christmas.  Creating (and eating) desserts is a passion of mine, so I have been dubbed the Queen of Desserts by my family.  The expectation is that I make ALL holiday desserts, so even though my sister does Thanksgiving, I do the desserts.  Queen of Desserts is a role I enjoy and one that I have learned to take very seriously.  I didn't quite understand the importance of my role until one year I decided to make an authentic Pilgrim dessert instead of the anticipated myriad of sinfully rich confections.  I am unsure if the recipe I cut out of the local newspaper omitted an ingredient, but let me just say that the not sweet brown cornbread like mush casserole dish that I presented to them did not go over well.  Grown women broke into tears and my son's disappointment was so intense that he continues to bring it up year after year.  "Remember the year that my Mom ruined Thanksgiving?".  I have learned from that day.  I get it.

Part of the fun for me in my role as Queen of Desserts, is getting the opportunity to try new recipes I have collected throughout the year.  I had narrowed my choices down to four for this Thanksgiving-pumpkin cheesecake with a praline caramel topping, a fudge brownie like tart with a mint center and ganache top, a dark chocolate chess pie and some lime cookie truffles covered in white chocolate.  I was ready. My adult son also loves cooking and is typically my right hand when it comes time to send the family into an intense Thanksgiving sugar rush. He was also ready.

We had the entire day to prepare these chosen desserts.  I tackled the pumpkin cheesecake while he put together the chess pie.  No problems.  I moved on to the fudge tart and he began the lime truffles.  I love most anything citrus and lime is one of my favorites.  This truffle recipe sounded amazing and it had rave reviews. Basically, a recipe of baked sugar cookies is crumbled and mixed with cream cheese, shaped into balls and covered in white chocolate.  Yum.  The sugar cookies could be from a homemade recipe, a mix, or even slice and bake ones.  I wanted easy, so I was disappointed when I discovered the slice and bake ones were all sold out at the grocery store.  I remembered I actually had a sugar cookie mix in my cupboard, so this was no big deal.  I had skimmed the recipe earlier and instructed my son to bake the cookies first as they had to be baked and crumbled.  I continued with the fudge tart and pretended not to notice his eyes cutting at me in disbelief as I handed him a box of organic sugar cookies mix that looked like it came out of rations for World War II.  Yes, it was on sale some year ago...

I finished the mint fudge tart and the sugar cookies were baked, cooled and ready to go when I picked up the lime truffle recipe.  The cookies smelled sort of odd, but since I really didn't know what organic sugar cookies should smell like I just chose to ignore this.  Plus, I now had something to prove-organic sugar cookies from World War II are just fine!  As I was reading the recipe, I realized a mistake had been made.  I so wanted to blame it on my son, but he had not even been given the opportunity to read the recipe.  Evidently, we were supposed to add the juice and grated zest from a lemon and a lime to the cookie dough BEFORE it was baked.  Bummer. 

My son and I are similar in so many ways.  Sometimes this is good and other times-well, not so much.  We are both extremely thrifty, hate to waste anything,  and being eternal optimists, we are positive we can fix everything.  Humor and intelligence are cure-alls for all of life's problems.  We are both also very convincing when we believe we have the answers.  When I informed him we had made a mistake, he didn't skip a beat to convince me that it was not a problem, in fact it would be better to add the juice and zest now after baking-it would only make them more flavorful.  I thought they might be soggy-a typical end result of mixing crispy crumbs with liquid.  My first impulse was to dump the odd smelling World War II organic crumbs and forget recipe number 4, but he was very persuasive.  They would be better, smoother and more lime tasting.  So, we rolled our soggy war crumbs and zest balls together and placed them neatly on a cookie sheet.  They looked like little meatballs with an egg wash glaze.  If we chill them long enough they will be fine...

The lime truffles recipe called for white chocolate candy coating.  I had several humongous bags of white chocolate chips that I had gotten at a closeout price.  They would work just fine.  The balls hardened to the point we thought we could dip them in the white chocolate, so I began the melting process.  The recipe clearly gave instructions to either slowly melt the chocolate over a double boiler or use the microwave at 50% power checking and stirring every 20 seconds.  My chips were frozen, so I used the bigger is better theory-100% power, 2 minutes.  When I took the bowl out to stir it, I couldn't believe it hadn't melted all the way, so I gave it another minute.  I took it out to stir it again, and it all just followed the spoon around in a big odd dry looking clump.  Two intelligent minds aren't stumped very long-it needed  milk since it wasn't candy coating, only chips.  More microwaving and now the milk is just laying on top of the white clump and won't mix in.  It needs a double boiler!  So we move it to the stove, heat it over a double boiler and now we have a huge ball of play dough.  The internet tells us we have "seized" the chocolate.  One humongous expensive bag of white chocolate chips that now looks like a lumpy glob of play dough heads for the trash.  Clean slate.  New industrial sized bag of chips goes into the pan over a double boiler as we have convinced each other that the microwave was the beginning of the problem.  I watch in horror as the huge ball of play dough comes back and that is the last of the chips stash.  Seized again!  Oil-we need a little oil.  Oil and water won't mix and neither will oil and white chocolate play dough.  There was no way we could dip the soggy war crumb balls in this huge glob of seized chocolate so....we will make squares!  I splat half the blob of chocolate seize on some parchment paper, put another piece of paper over it assuming I will roll it out but lo and behold the encased heat melts it!  I have to act fast, so I push it all flat, scalding the palms of my hands as I go.  Quick!  Give me the soggy war balls and we will roll them.  The sogginess of the balls prevented the now melted chocolate on the parchment paper from sticking so the only choice was to figure out how to pour it.  All the balls are quickly thrown on paper and smashed flat with my son's non-scalded palms to make chocolate glazing simpler.  The then melted chocolate has now begun to harden on the paper so a knife is used to scrape it off and each smashed soggy ball gets a dollop of chocolate paste.  The first survivors have hardened so I venture a taste.  They still smell odd.  They are like nothing I have ever tasted smothered in white chocolate paste.  Then it dawned on me-we had also forgotten the cream cheese.  We had taken World War II organic sugar cookie crumbs, taken all the crunch life out of them with undiluted lime and lemon juice, thrown in some sandy citrus zest for good measure and attempted to convince ourselves that we had made truffles.  Contrary to popular belief, even smothering this soggy mess in chocolate did not help.  Thinking back, seized or not, chocolate can not fix a botched recipe, forgotten ingredients or the possibility of a World War II organic sugar cookie mix being rancid... 




In the future, I believe I will pay more attention to Kenny Rogers  ....know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run.....




       

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Right Now is My Least Favorite Season

Why are these words tumbling uncontrollably out of my mouth?!?  I love everything about fall~

I love the crisp air, Halloween, the beautiful mountain colors.  I love all the holidays all bunched together and the time spent making joyous memories with family and friends.  Halloween is the beginning of a holiday cluster that lasts all the way through New Year's Eve or even Valentine's Day.  So what's my problem with this time of year?  "Those People" that are attempting to turn this happy holiday cluster into a cluster f@%# - sorry, it just came out.........

Ok.  There's no question, I get it.  I understand marketing, Black Friday, everyone scrambling for their piece of the retail pie.  I also participate to a certain degree with my Etsy Shop.  But, it seems no one is following the #1 rule-CHRISTMAS CAN NOT BEGIN UNTIL AFTER THANKSGIVING!!  Who gave anyone permission to change that rule??  While we are at it, let's just change the name to Hallowthankmas... 

Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all happen in about two days in the retail world.  It absolutely amazes me that some of these major marts can be all about Halloween one day with tons of displays and floor space and on November 1st, everything has vanished, paper turkeys are everywhere and Santa and all his trimmings is sneaking up the back of the store.  I can only imagine what happens between closing time on October 31st and opening time on November 1st.  I envision a hoard of mart employees all running and yelling at each other with broken bits of the clashing holidays all over the floor.  "Hurry!!  We have to go faster!  If you run across any freakin' candy corn-you've got to just eat it for God's sake!!"

It is extremely difficult not to get caught up in this mass produced holiday frenzy.  When I start hearing Christmas carols on the radio the day after Halloween, my very passive self wants to beat the stuffings out of my radio.  Yes, I probably lose control of my words then also.  Thanksgiving quickly becomes the red headed step-child and it's all about Christmas.  Everywhere.  What should be a wonderful, happy time shared with loved ones can quickly become a season full of frenzy and angst.  "Those People" are in the radio, on television, in the stores.  Have you finished your shopping?  You need to start some holiday baking.  You will forget someone, so it's smart to have extra unisex gifts ready.  Martha makes her gift tags after she makes the paper.  Why not make homemade Christmas ornaments this year?  It's your turn to have a Christmas party, you know.  My Christmas tree theme is...what's your's?  You should join a gym now, because you will get fat....

This holiday cluster, I vow to not let "Those People" clutter my head with anything that changes the meaning of these holidays for me.  Thanksgiving will be a special day unto itself and I will give thanks for all the people that have blessed my life.  I vow not to swear at my radio when a Christmas carol sneaks out before I can flip it to another station.  I vow to try not to have this time of year my least favorite season.  What advice do I have?  Humor helps.  And maybe a little wassail.  Yeah, humor and wassail as often as you can get away with it.  There's just something about hot alcohol.... 

  
Looks like Thanksgiving couldn't hold his tongue either... 


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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Bucket List

So, do you have a bucket list?  I never thought much about bucket lists and all the buzz around them until I realized that I, too, actually had a bucket list.  I never consciously sat down with pen and paper intending to make a list and fill my bucket-sky diving, travel to exotic places, save the world...But, the bucket still existed in the recesses of my mind.  Everyone has things they would like to do or see sometime in their lifetime, so we all actually have a bucket list even though we may not recognize it.  Sometimes, you don't even know something is in your bucket until you are faced with something that makes it bubble to the top and then you are smacked in the face with the challenge to lighten that bucket.

The bucket is different for each individual and what it looks like greatly depends on your personality.  My personality is sort of willy nilly and my drum tends to beat all over the place.  I have to admit I don't always think things through.  I'm not really impulsive, I just don't always recognize that something may be dangerous, stupid, embarrassing etc.  Given my personality, over my lifetime if there was something I really wanted to do I just took the steps needed to do it.  For me, the whole concept of the bucket list revolves around pushing the envelope a little past comfort zones.  "I would like to do that but...."   It's the buts that get the item in the bucket for me.  Get beyond the buts, get over the buts and push yourself to just do it.  Another aspect of bucket list worthy items for me is the magnitude or scope of the task.  For example, I would like to see the Grand Canyon.  That doesn't make the bucket list cut for me.  I would like to visit every National Park-this is on my bucket list.

Recently, a bucket list item unexpectedly bubbled to the top and smacked me in the face.  Flash mobs. I have always loved the whole idea of flash mobs and thoroughly enjoy watching videos of ones that have been successfully pulled off.  As I have watched, I have often thought how fun it would be to  participate in a flash mob-an easy flash mob.  Maybe everyone waves at the same time.  Or jumps out of somewhere.  Or yells or something.  The problem was, I was asked to participate in a dancing flash mob.  Ah........No!!  I was coaxed and coaxed and I finally caved.  Ok.  I had to mentally keep pushing myself to actually participate in the 4 weeks of dance practices.  When the opportunity comes to lighten your bucket you've got to do it.  I think that's in the bucket rules somewhere.  I do have the required rythm to dance, love to dance for fun, but this was Michael Jackson's Thriller routine to be performed at our town's Halloweenfest.  In front of potentially hundreds of gawking spectators.  Good grief...

The routine was harder than I ever imagined and I felt like I just wasn't ever going to master it.  Around the 3rd week, something kicked in and I seemed to be getting it.  By week 4 I felt confident that I had learned the routine and practiced as often as possible with a dvd given to participants to take home.  But, I never really allowed myself to think of actually DOING it.  You know how that is-if you don't allow something to come to the front of your mind where you have to actually think about it, then it doesn't really exist....

The eve of the Big Day came and I hadn't even started creating a zombie costume.  As I was outside in the dark trying to find sticks and leaves to attach to an old shirt with the glue gun that was heating up  inside, the reality of what I was doing the next day pushed its way to the front of my mind with a mighty force.  OMG!  Why do I do these things to myself??  Cold feet appeared like an unannounced winter freeze.  I'm in a frenzy trying to create a zombie costume from things on hand and fallen debris from the yard and I'm starting to freak a little.  I had this ridiculous idea that burning the shirt would create a good effect.  Let me just say that burning 50/50 polyester is NOT a good idea under any circumstance.  I have no idea what I expected to happen, but what I ended up with could not possibly have been what I intended to create.  50/50 doesn't actually burn, it melts, so wherever I put fire, that piece of the shirt just disappeared into thin air.  The only appropriate shirt I had for a zombie costume was shrinking right before my eyes and for some unknown reason I kept trying thinking it would work.  Every time I did a little more of the shirt vanished.  Panic was setting in and the fumes I created from burning polyester in a closed environment really weren't helping the situation. Can you say fu@# it when it's in the bucket??  I am quite sure "NO" would clearly be in the bucket list rule book.  So, I did what most women do when panic is setting in-I went to bed...

The flash mob happened and I have no idea how my performance was.  But you know, it doesn't really matter.  I pushed the envelope, I did it.  If something bubbles to the top of your bucket list and smacks you in the face-do it.  The feeling of accomplishment is worth every second of the panic created by pushing beyond your comfort zone.  Bucket list-Flash Mob:







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Saturday, October 1, 2011

Have you ever felt, um, you know...not so fresh?

Let's all just have a little chat as we enjoy our international coffees.  You know, like we often do when we talk about feminine products...

My Mom has reached the age where she needs a little help to remain independent.  My siblings and I help her with things like shopping, showering, etc. so she is able to remain in her own home.  Recently, I was on shower duty and was surprised to see that she used feminine deodorant powder.  She's 84 years old, my Dad has passed on and unless she is sneaking out at night, her dance card is completely empty.  She bathes regularly and knows no man "in the Biblical" sense.  Why would she ever feel she needs to use feminine deodorant powder??  Marketing.  Damn good marketing. 

Women could never get through the woes of womanhood without many different sizes and shapes of products for all the different days.  Regular and super will never again be adequate for the job.  There are pencils to torpedoes and if you use too much you will get toxic shock syndrome but if you use too little, well you have used too little.  You must have a stock of all sizes to make sure you always have the  perfectly correct sizes.  If you prefer pads, the same holds true and you need to have a plethora of sizes and thicknesses and you might even require wings to get the job done.  The first time I ever saw the commercial where the pad with wings was flying around like a bird, I was sitting on my couch with my teenage son.  Neither of us said a word and we both pretended the other one wasn't there...There are light day products for light days, regular day products for moderate days, super products for heavy days, or actually you may leak something any day so you should just go ahead and where a panty liner every day of your life. 

A woman needs to do many things and purchase many products to be pleasant for and keep a man or even be able to stand being around herself for God's sake.  She must bathe with special soap, frequently cleanse internally, use special sprays, powders and deodorized products for her special time of the month.  There's so much to remember to do and purchase to keep "it" under control, it's a wonder we have the nerve to leave our homes at all.  It would probably be more prudent to stay home when we are having "our friend", not leave our beds and surround ourselves in a shroud of darkness until it passes.  Then we can put the trunk full of products away, use double the amount of cleanses, sprays and powders to get presentable for the world again and re-enter society.  I've often wondered if we shouldn't just stitch the damn thing closed and be done with it....

Marketing Boomer Babies Upcycles is hard work and requires much more time than I ever imagined when I started out on this adventure.  There's SEO, metatags, relevancy, etsylush, photography, relisting, facebook, backlinks, blogs etc., etc.  Etsy is nothing like Ebay where you just throw up a listing, do nothing and  bidders are just there at the final hour.  I have no desire to leave the refined atmosphere of Etsy for the rabid pigpile huge yardsale atmosphere of Ebay, but I must admit it was easier on Ebay to put a little jingle in my pocket.  Etsy shops take a tremendous amount of committment and time to make them work.  I'd like to meet the marketing team that convinced women that they are stinky, smelly, oozing, leaky, vile out of control creatures that absolutely must purchase an arsenal of products to ever have one ounce of confidence in themselves.  I'd like to be able to quit my day job and take off with Sputnik......














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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Do We Really Need So Many Choices??

I am not a shopper. More than likely, the testosterone level in my hormone mix that makes my heart race a little when I see heavy yellow equipment or power tools contributes to my lack of excitement about this sport. I shop like a man-know what you want, get in, don't look anyone in the eyes, get out and go home. The exception to this would be thrift store shopping but I really don't consider that shopping at all. Thrift store shopping is more of a game or a treasure hunt where you always have a chance to win the prize of the day. Very different.

Since I am not a shopper, I am sure it comes as no surprise that I am not into the whole social aspect associated with grocery shopping. I don't want to be there at all, so I surely don't want to park my monster pot metal cart in the middle of the aisle to chat while my frozen food is melting. Get in, get out, go home. Yes, it has briefly crossed my mind to ram the two ladies with my monster cart as they are blocking the aisle chatting about a reality tv show. Fortunately, I have learned to control such impulses. Maybe horns on shopping carts would be a good idea. Even if people don't stop to chat, it's against human nature for them not to do the quick sideways look into your cart to get a glimpse into your personal life. Aha! I see that full fat icecream nestled among those Lean Cuisines...Avid thrift store shoppers are completely opposite of grocery store shoppers. There's no chatting or visitng. A quick hello with no eye contact is the most that ever happens in this arena and neither person physically stops. If you stop, you lose your position and another rabid thrift store addict will get ahead and be first to eyeball "the great find".

Since I live by myself, my grocery shopping is very limited. I typically only pick up a few items at a time. I'm in and I'm out. Nice. Recently, I had company stay with me so I decided to pick up some orange juice which is something I don't normally purchase. One of the most popular grocery stores in my area is the size of a strip mall. I virtually never shop there because of its humongous size and invariably I forget one item that just happens to be all the way back on the other side of the store. Until they install motorized aisles or an underground subway system, this will never be my store of choice. On this particular day, it happened to be the closest option,so I popped in to get the juice.

When I was growing up, there was one kind of orange juice. Frozen. You popped off the metal circle on top of the paper cylinder, scooped out the frozen concentrate with a spoon, almost burned your fingers from the intense cold, added so many cans of water and voila! You had some off tasting bitter liquid that we called orange juice. I am not sure if it really was bitter or if my Mom added something to it that made it taste more like grapefruit juice than orange juice. She fooled none of us kids when she fortified her mashed potatoes with turnips. That was just cruel. We all loved creamy, moldable mashed potatoes. I would fashion mine into a volcano, use a spoon to make a well on top, add the butter and wait for it to melt into lava. Kids had wild imaginations back then because we hardly even had television, never mind all the electronic amusements children of today can't seem to live without. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that first creamy butter drenched bite was laced with bitter stringy chunks of turnip. Not funny.

I prefer not to use frozen orange juice, so I headed over to the already made variety. There were cooler doors after cooler doors of orange juice choices. No pulp, 2 pieces of pulp, some pulp, lots of pulp, move your bowels pulp, OMG, now that's what I'm talking about! pulp, ridiculous pulp, go get your knife pulp, added calcium, nothing added, fresh squeezed, not from concentrate, from concentrate, added vitamins, with tangerine, store brand, major brands, etc., etc., etc. I was so overwhelmed I just stood there in awe. As I began narrowing down my choices, reading all the possibilities, I just started giggling.

My walk toward the checkout led me past the bread aisle. I mean that literally. There was an entire aisle devoted only to bread. We had two types of bread when I was a child-the dry bread my Mom bought with crusts so dense I swear they could cut your lip and Wonder Bread that my best friend was so lucky to have. I remember the first time I ate Wonder Bread at her house. Her Mom even cut the crusts off and it tasted like candy. When it mixed with saliva, it turned into a ball of putty that stuck to the roof of my mouth until I released it with a push of my tongue. Each bite was a little piece of heaven. Back in "those days", we just never had choices like we do today. Grocery stores were more like corner markets. They were small with limited choices but completely adequate. If you came in for ketchup, you might get 2 choices, if it was bath soap, maybe 3-Ivory, Yellow Dial or Cashmere Bouquet. Limited choices certainly simplified shopping. It is my understanding that Europeans still shop this way. Nice. I often wonder, do we really need so many choices? 












Just maybe we do.........................

Friday, August 26, 2011

10 Things Your Mother Never Told You About Aging

Women of yesterday politely kept secrets from the next generation of females.  For example, the pain of childbirth was undisclosed.  The truth was hidden under a shroud of secrecy with statements such as "there may be a little pain but as soon as you see the baby you completely forget it".  My first child is 25 years old and I still remember the excruciating pain as he repeatedly banged his enormous head that was attached to a 10 1/2 pound body against something inside of me that would not let him out.  His forehead had a very large unnatural dent in it that did not come without a great deal of pain within me.  I will never forget the pain of child birth.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely-but the pain is like nothing you have ever felt before.  Logically, something of that size, coming out of something THAT size is not an easy feat.  It hurts and you never forget it.  Secret disclosed.

I was not mentally prepared for childbirth because I was not armed with the truth.  Certainly, the pain would have been the same, but if I knew more of what to expect when that humongous belly decided it was coming out of that little orifice all at once, maybe I could have mentally handled it better.  There's only so much dilation, effacing and otherwise stretching one can expect from a body part of that size.  I think it is only right for the next generation to know this.  I also feel it is my moral duty to inform the next generation of women  10 things your mother may not tell you about aging....

1.  If you have birthed a child, you know all too well that immediately after that amazing feat your brain turns into oatmeal.  Your memory goes and all cognitive processes cease to exist.  As your child or children grow, some of what you lost begins to come back but never all of it.  Somewhere in your late 40's or early 50's, you lose it forever.

2.  All muscles melt like grape jelly in hot water as you age.  You can beat yourself to death trying to exercise and keep toned but it's fruitless.  Your flesh and what used to be muscles will hang from your bones like well done chicken no matter what you do or what your body type is.  It makes no difference if you are fat or thin-when you raise your arms a pair of water balloons will be flapping in the breeze.

3.  Your skin turns into one thin shiny layer of phyllo pastry and there are no miracle creams to turn it back into regular skin.  You are amazed it doesn't split trying to hold in the gigantic veins that snake across the tops of your hands.

4.  Remember how you used to say "I laughed so hard I thought I would pee in my pants!"?  When you get older, you actually do.

5.  Huge freckles or age spots pop up all over the place.  These are also called liver spots and I have no idea why unless it's because they are dark and have irregular shapes like miniature pieces of meat randomly placed around your body.  If you are lucky, you will get enough of them clustered together on your arms to look like a tan.  If you are not lucky, you are back to the pieces of meat analogy.   If they show up on your face and that is not a good look for you, a dermatologist can zap them off.  You may want to read The Ambush to make sure you are prepared for that.  Horrifically, sometimes a single thick wiry hair unlike you have ever seen on your body or anyone else's for that matter, will grow out of one of these spots.  When that happens you just do whatever it takes to annihilate it.  Leaving it there is not an option.

6.  It doesn't matter if you wore glasses or not prior to aging-seeing becomes a challenge.  Typically you lose your night vision to some degree which hopefully curtails some of your driving after the sun goes does.  It really doesn't matter because in reality you are too tired to go anywhere after the chickens go to bed.  You can't see with or without your glasses so you are continually taking them off or putting them on depending on the task you are doing.  Then you lose them.  If you never wore glasses you will more than likely need glasses to attempt to focus on things close up.  The cheap ones from the dollar store work great and as you lose them it doesn't bother you.  The snazzy beaded necklace glasses holders are an optional accessory, but quite practical if you can get beyond the stigma of being the old lady with the glasses necklace.  Another option would be purchasing several pairs and placing them around because you will ultimately need them and not be able to find them.  It's a fun game you play with yourself all day long, every day.

7.  Everything sort of falls and slips as you age.  Somewhere during this great migration south, you discover you have developed what is affectionately called "the chicken neck".  You will not like "the chicken neck" and no matter how much money you have or how well you research, you will never find chicken neck eradication cream or any kind of neck apparatus to wear to bed to rid yourself of this flaccid goiter that now lives where your neck used to be.

8.  Your body revolts against you in the strangest ways as you age.  Inevitably, you will begin finding odd attachments to your skin that feel like grains of sand or little pebbles.  When you discover the first one, you will have no idea what it is so your instinct tells you to pick at it until you pull it off.  These are skin tags and once they start coming they don't stop.  Sometimes they are just clear and small like little rocks and other times they look like sideways 3-D freckles that just stick straight out from your skin.  Bizarre.  When I got my first 3-D sideways one, I decided there was no way it could stay and be my friend.  I went to the internet to do some research on this protrusion that really looked like a little flat circle of Playdough hanging oddly from my skin.  The best advice given was to tie a piece of thread around the base to stop the blood flow, choke the life out of the little sucker and it would fall off in a couple of days.  You may find this surprising, but that was not an option for me.  What's really special about these skin tags is they tend to cluster more around areas that may have rubbing from clothes-like your underwear.  You haven't lived until you manage to somehow wrap a wayward thread from your bra around a skin tag.  When you are ready to whip that bra off, no whipping occurs and you are left with a less than pleasant experience.  If you happen to tear the tag off with the whipping of the bra, you will be absolutely amazed at the amount of blood it produces and how long it takes to stop bleeding.  After one too many skin tag accidents, I consulted with my physician and she zapped them off easily with a simple freezing gun.  They grow back, but I am all for the zapping of these little Playdough pilings.

9.  Your teeth break for no apparent reason and it will cost you $1000 each time if you do not have dental insurance.  It has nothing to do with biting on the wrong thing like a hard piece of candy.  They just are old so they break.  My first tooth broke while I was eating vegetable soup.  It's a shocking experience, especially if you are out.  Ann Landers should write a column on this.

10. For some mysterious reason, you choke alot-on nothing.  You can be walking along and all of a sudden you suck your own breath into your windpipe and you nearly choke to death.  Or, suddenly your spit has a mind of its own and it jumps down your windpipe and you again nearly choke to death.  It's quite embarrassing.  There you are talking to a business colleague (always a younger male) like a normal human being and in a split second you're choking like an old crazy lady.  He's looking at you aghast as you are backing out of the room making those horrific sucking noises as you are trying to catch your breath.  When you see him later and he asks what happened you will not say I choked on my own spit.  You will make something up.

These are all things your mother will probably not tell you about aging.  Though they sound a little frightening or at the very least strange, it's not so bad.  The wonderful thing about aging is you reach an age when you really don't care.  It's not in a callous I don't care about myself or others way.  It's a fabulous liberating I don't care way.  As you lose control of your outside, something amazing happens to your inside.  With age comes a confidence of who you are as a person and it is a fabulous feeling.  Little things don't matter any more and the important things bubble up to the surface.  Getting older is good for you-it means you are living longer.  Embrace it and enjoy the ride.... 












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