On Saturday, I made one final attempt to make decent bread in my bread machine. (How hard can it be, right?) Previously, it has produced "bread" that is dry and leaden, and heavy as a brick. This time it worked: the bread was light, with an even texture and flavorful with basil and oregano. It was gone by breakfast.
When my fifteen-year-old finally came downstairs, he called out, "Who ate the last of the bread you baked yesterday?"
Me: I don't know. Should I bake more?
Brian: Yes, please!
So I showed Brian how to bake some bread and the house filled with the smells of comfort food.
Also on Saturday, Emily asked if I would help her make cookies to bring to her friend who is in hospital with Crohn's. This friend is not supposed to eat cookies, but she is craving Just. One. Poor thing.
Steve: That sounds like a fun Mommy-Emily activity.
So I agreed. Fast forward to this afternoon while the bread fills the house with its yeasty goodness.
Emily: Are you ready to help me bake cookies? Last time I tried, they all burned.
Me (with a little trepidation): Sure.
So we mix up a batch of buttery, sugary chocolate-chip yumminess.
I'd like to see YOU try not to eat one of these!
Freshly baked bread? Warm-from-the-oven cookies? Hey, I am only human! Diabetes be damned, I ate a cookie [three cookies]. And I did have a slice of that bread [two slices] with butter melting into its herb-flecked sponge.
In the meantime, I can't help but wonder if my kids are trying to hasten my demise ...
Once upon a time, I was young, and met many of our culture's criteria for prettiness. I was slender, my face was more or less symmetrical, I had a clear complexion, I was short, and I had discernible breasts.
I received a good bit of attention for this, not all of it pleasant. A pervert flashed his member while I walked past on my way home from high school. ["Flashed" makes it sound like I could've missed it if I'd blinked; let me assure you, I would have to have taken a nap to have missed it.]
A health-club sales prospect once pressed his full body up against my back as I showed him the squash courts. [Oh! Now I get it: the SQUASH courts! Hah! I did not find it funny. I was afraid he was going to push me right over into the court many feet below.]
But most of the attention was innocuous: doors held open, smiles. Inclusion.
Then I gained weight. And then I aged. And gradually, I have become almost invisible. You may doubt me, but it's true. I recently stood patiently waiting for a fitting room for at least 10 minutes before the pretty, young attendant even acknowledged me and directed me to a room that had been vacant the entire time. (No one had left in the previous ten minutes, so I know it hadn't been recently vacated.)
I remember also one colleague who virtually stopped communicating with me when I gained weight, only to "rediscover" me when I lost 25 pounds. Even Jennifer Hudson, who lost 80 pounds, agrees.
People are friendlier; there are more opportunities, more flexibility in so many different ways. I think it’s messed up that people are so image-driven and your appearance affects the way people treat you,” she added. “It’s crazy and it may be something we do subconsciously, but there it is.
Frankly, I've reached a point where, even if I could exercise and diet my way back into a size 6, my skin, age spots, under-eye circles, and boob-saggage would clearly mark me as non-sexual and therefore invisible (except to a certain significant other). I have not inherited good genes in that department.
Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Source
Why are there sequins on her face? Are they covering moles?
I can see how women once idolized for their beauty - like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard -- make youth their obsession.
I'm not quite ready to embrace the role of Crone, nor am I bitter or disgruntled about fading to the periphery (though rudeness, as displayed by the fitting room attendant, is not okay). I'm just reflecting on what it is to be me, overweight, approaching 50, and entering menopause. It is an entirely new stage of life. And unlike the other stages (childhood, adolescence, womanhood, motherhood ...), I think I would like to navigate this one, rather than just ride the currents.
Incidentally, all of this meandering was triggered by this hysterically funny video. Enjoy!
The following is an unpaid product endorsement. Remember the old saw about the lofty value of "finding the cure for the common cold"? I don't think they use it anymore. It's all about the cure for cancer now.
But that may be because the makers of Cold-FX actually have found the cure for the common cold. I can't believe they did it and it didn't get more press. Seriously.
My first encounter with Cold-FX [blastedly annoying to type that!], came shortly after my sister-in-law, who works for a prestigious medical journal, told us about this new product. Health Canada, it seems, had vindicated the product's claims that it could prevent or relieve colds.
My daughter had a very, very bad cold. I was staying with her, even sharing a bed. We both started loading the Cold-FX. She got gradually better; I NEVER GOT SICK. Not even a sniffle.
Last week, I got sick. I came down with a cold on Wednesday evening, and, by Monday morning, I was all better. Seriously: not a sniffle, not a scratch, no dirty looks from fellow passengers on the airplane. No sinus infection or bronchitis.
I followed the recommended regime:
Three capsules three times a day on the first day
Two capsules three times a day on the second day
One capsule three times a day on the third day
One capsule a day for "steady state" (I don't actually take the one-a-day capsule unless I'm sick, though some people do.)
Now, this was a cold that had travelled through our office and our household, so I know how dreadful it could be. People were still sick a week or two later.
I've decided to keep a Cold-FX go-pack in my travel pack as well as a large bottle in our medicine drawer. This stuff is simply amazing.
By the way, we have tried the knock-off store-brand versions. They are NOT the same and do not get the same results.
Incidentally, I know it can be harder to find in the U.S., but you can buy it online.
You can buy this keychain on Amazon.co.uk
(And don't you love how the website says, "dispatched," instead of "shipped"?)
I love that proverb, though I would never actually say it to anyone. In fact, I am more inclined to help someone out of a tight spot, partly because I've been there myself, a time or two, and partly because I really like to make people smile.
[I'm much tougher here on my blog than I ever would be in real life. For example, though I rant about grammar and spelling errors here, the only person I ever correct on Facebook is my own son. And then, only because I know he knows better, and he knows I love him, and he knows I'm doing it sarcastically. (I've been told I "try too hard." So sue me. Whatever.)]
So it surprises me when I come across someone who is less obliging.
Well, today it was I who brought what I considered an emergency to someone who stood her ground. I didn't like it.
So here's the deal. After almost two years of not testing my blood sugar, I finally bought a glucose monitor and discovered -- holy heck! -- my uncontrolled diabetes was out of control. Over the past three weeks I've been a little more careful with my diet, but really haven't done anything exercise-wise.
But I HAVE done a lot of obsessing [googling]. Here's what I've learned:
Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia, under 3 mmol/L) constitutes a real emergency and can rapidly (within minutes-to-hours) lead to seizures, coma, etc.
High blood sugar (hyperglycemia, above 7 mmol/L) can lead to ketoacidosis which causes all sorts of nastiness like organ failure and coma, but over a prolonged period (months). The patient should see a doctor.
My problem is high blood sugar, and my average over the past three weeks has been 13.9 mmol/L, so, yeah, I knew I needed to see a doctor. But I'm still waiting for the New & Improved doctor to accept me as a patient. And I figured, I got in this mess over many months, so what's the panic?
Then I saw this in the instructions that came with my glucose monitor.
IMMEDIATELY
I called the doctor-elect. I am not yet on the roster. I didn't want to go back to my ex-doctor, since we had had such a nice, cordial break-up and I didn't want to have make-up medicine. So I went to a walk-in clinic. hoping for a one-night (or one-month) stand.
The doctor at the walk-in clinic did not accept that I had divorced my family doctor, and told me to go see him about my blood sugar. I almost cried.
But she's right, of course.
Bad behaviour on my part does not constitute an emergency on her part.
If it were truly an emergency, she'd have done something. It's not. It's just my current obsession.
I've decided that I'll give the doctor-elect a couple more weeks, and in the meantime, make a better effort to be healthy, but I'm not going to panic.
Last night, I slipped out of my hotel room and walked a couple of blocks down to Tim Horton's. Rain was drizzling down, as it had been most of the day. It was cold out, not freezing, but that miserable, wet cold that you get when it rains.
The sidewalks were crowded with people heading out to dinner, out to shows, out to meet friends. And there were homeless people huddled by walls and curbs with their hats out, hoping for spare change.
I stayed out of the way of the revelers who seem to need more space per person than the rest of us, I dodged umbrellas, and I smiled recognition at the homeless people, but kept walking without dropping any coins.
I reached the warm embrace of Tim Horton's and picked up a bowl of chili and a garlic roll, then stepped back into the rain.
Waiting to cross one intersection, I glanced at the panhandler huddled by the post. He was was sitting on his haunches, knees tucked under his jacket, teeth chattering, a hat upturned by his feet. The hat was sodden and flat and empty.
And, for a flash, less than a moment, I saw my son. I saw Peter shivering and cold and alone. I saw my son who has Asperger syndrome and sometimes finds himself needing help but unable to ask for it. I saw my son who is sometimes ostracized because he seems "odd."
I thought: I should give him money.
But I didn't want him to buy drugs or booze.
I thought, I could give him my chili.
I thought, I could take him back to Tim Horton's and let him choose a meal.
I thought, I could sit with him.
I froze at that last thought and it erased all the other good impulses I had had. Because I wasn't able to do the truly Christlike (or Ghandi-like or Mother Teresa-like) thing, I did nothing.
Nothing.
The light changed, I walked to my room and ate my dinner.
I am so sorry. I am ashamed that, even though I saw my son (my own son!), I still walked by, holding my bag of warm food. What would it take to reach me?
Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it! ~ Hebrews 13:2
