Category Life

Let Me Sleep on That

Michael Leave a comment

I had a great idea for a blog post. Unfortunately, I had it while I was asleep. Maybe “great idea” isn’t quite the right way to put that. Everything I post is real, hence the title “The Real Reality Show Blog.” This is really real. But not everything is blogworthy. (By the way, did you know that “blogworthy” passes the spell-check test? That could be blogworthy in itself.) And not everything that is blogworthy lends itself to a blog. But enough times, something happens that makes a great post. And then something happens to actually make me able to write about it.

Sometimes that something is a bit of work. I mull it over, run it through my brain, try out a phrase or two, and somehow remember it when I sit down in front of the computer where it can fall out of my head through my fingers onto the screen. One of those times was sometime last week. It was a great idea and it just about wrote itself completely in my head. Had I had a computer in front of me I could have walked away with a completed post in just a few minutes. But what I had in front of me was a pair of closed eyelids. And behind them was what turned out to be a faulty memory.

I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking or dreaming or meditating or whatever it is one does on the edge of sleep. All I remember is that I woke up thinking “that would be a great blog!” I just had no idea what “that” was.

Some people can remember every little thing they dream. They’re probably the same persons who know everything that is in their refrigerators. They can relate them at lunch to everybody at the office in excruciating detail.  (That would be their dreams, not their refrigerator contents but probably those, too.) On particularly good days they even come with critiques of the main characters in their mental movies. I can do that only if I have a particularly spicy enchilada with multiple beers after 9pm. Then I either wake up remembering my dreams or remembering an actual altercation in the parking lot between my untied shoe and a telephone pole. Neither makes for a great idea for a blog post although the shoe lace bear some promise.

So whatever it was it isn’t going to be. And instead of a great blog post, you get this. Sorry.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Weight Not, Want Not

Michael Leave a comment

Three years ago I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “you have got to lose some weight!” I was easily 50 pounds overweight. I not only was putting on pounds, I was losing height. The inches I lost going up and down found their way to my middle and went round and round. I recall when I was told I had to start getting in shape my stock answer was “round is a shape!” But truth be told, I felt pretty bad. I was always short of breath, I took elevators to go one floor (down, even), and my favorite place to go was the airport because there were people movers all over. If I had to walk all that way on my own I’d just sit and wait a while and eventually my breathing and heart rate would get back close to normal.

I was certain I could lose weight. I watched TV. I saw the ads for pills, exercise CDs, diet books, and portable gym equipment. In just 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 30 days, or 90 days I too could lose inches and pounds. I was ready to take all the “before” pictures if I could just bend over far enough to get the camera case off the floor. And if pills, exercise, and diet didn’t work – or didn’t get started – I had a secret weapon. I would monitor my portions and eat less. And I did. I only had one rack of ribs for dinner, half a chicken at one meal, only two appetizers even if the special was for three, and I always shared dessert. I rarely had soft drinks unless they were mixed with bourbon and I even started drinking light beer for a little while. Even with all that, I still didn’t lose weight. In fact, I gained! By the time that year was over I was exactly 100 pounds heavier than what the height/weight charts said I should have weighed.

Two years ago I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “this would be a whole lot easier if I wasn’t so fat.” The surgeon agreed with me but said I really needed to do this. So during the procedure to remove the cancer, all or part of a couple organs were removed. And finally I lost some weight. Since then I’ve had three more surgeries, five more hospitalizations, several outpatient procedures, and quite a bit more weight loss.

I am 90 pounds lighter than I was three years ago, only 10 pounds away from a goal I would have otherwise been proud to have reached. I still get short of breath and I still take elevators for just one floor. That’s because I can’t walk a flight of steps without becoming over-exerted. I’d like to take an “after” picture but when I get down to the floor I have to have somebody help me back up. Eventually the stamina will return, the flexibility will come back, and those last 10 pounds will disappear.

All I have to do is sit around and wait a while.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

You Give Me 15 Minutes, I’ll Give You … You Know

Michael Leave a comment

This week among the junk mail was a notice of “Big Savings!” from a local car dealer. Right there with their tire specials, tune-ups specials, air conditioning service specials, and brake specials was their “Signature 29 Minute Oil Change” now at a special price. Isn’t that special? I don’t know why but it made me think why 29 minutes, why not a half hour? And then I thought even more. Whatever happened to the 15 minute oil change?

Surely you remember the 15 minute oil change places. There were lots of them and they were everywhere. I remember going to them. I also remember they always took more than 15 minutes. They spent at least 15 minutes on asking you what type of oil you wanted (if I knew that I’d do my own oil change), do you want your old filter or may they discard it (yuck!), will you be needing new windshield wipers today (I hope not, it’s a convertible and the top is down), would you be interested in joining their savings club (here’s a brochure you can read while we huddle around your car), and do you have any coupons (why do they always ask about couponS when they (the couponS) always say “cannot be combined?”). Then a squadron of oil changers descended on your vehicle checking tire pressure, topping off windshield washer fluid, cleaning headlights, checking coolant, transmission, steering and brake fluids, examining air filters, and changing the oil. Then another 15 minutes of post-change summary included the status of your fluids (always due for something), air filter (always dirty), windshield wipers (always worn), and tires (holding up pretty well and aren’t you lucky because we don’t sell them here).

Well, I’ve come up with some things that really do take only a quarter of an hour and make you better for them! For instance, in 15 minutes or less you can start an exercise program. You’ll notice general health improvements in most low to moderate impact exercises including walking. After a few weeks you may want to increase your activity time to 30 minutes but that’s still less time than it took to get a 15 minute oil change!

Staying with health, in less than 15 minutes you can check your blood pressure and pulse, and breathing rate and oxygen level at home. Every day if you want. Even young, seemingly healthy people can have high blood pressure and never know it. For a few dollars and a few minutes you can buy and use a blood pressure monitor that measures your pressure and heart rate. Another inexpensive tool is the pulse oximeter to measure how much oxygen is in your blood and you do it bloodlessly. This little thing does it by clamping onto your fingertip. Learning how to measure your breathing rate is easy. You probably already have everything you need – a watch with a second hand and your lungs.

A whole world of 15 minutes or less is right in your kitchen. A hot breakfast of ham and eggs or a bowl of oatmeal takes about as much time as it does to toast a bagel and find the cream cheese. You can make a whole light dinner in 15 minutes. Boil your favorite pasta in water for about a minute less than the package directions instruct. While that’s going on sauté sliced green peppers, and broccoli in olive oil, then add some spinach to wilt. Toss in your cooked pasta, top with shredded parmesan and you have a delicious pasta prima vera. If you’re willing to use a pre-made pizza shell or store bought dough you can shape, top, and bake a pizza, then let it rest for a few minutes while you make a small salad for the side and you have another dinner in half the time it takes to get one delivered. For something more fun, season one pound of ground beef with salt and pepper, add just a drizzle of olive oil, and splash in a couple of squirts of hot sauce.  Shape into four patties, grill or broil for 4 to 5 minutes on each side for medium and let rest for a couple minutes. While the patties are cooking, slice a few potatoes, toss with oil, and roast in a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes turning once. As soon as they come out, season with salt, pepper, paprika, Cajun seasoning, grated cheese, or whatever you and 3 friends feel like. Dinner for four and you didn’t give your guests enough time to talk about you.

And the ultimate less than 15 minute activity – reading this blog twice a week! Even a lengthy post like today’s takes maybe 5 minutes. Do that twice a week and you still have time to make a comment, smile, laugh, cry, or curse at your screen as appropriate, and/or scratch your head and wonder “who is this guy?”

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Michael Leave a comment

What would you do if someone told you that you had to lose two-thirds of all that you have? I told myself that and it’s hard!

Eventually I’m going to be moving. I can’t navigate the different levels of my house nor maintain the building and surrounding yard. Even with the help of family and neighbors, the time to downsize has come. If you haven’t yet, someday you will consider living somewhere smaller and of less maintenance.  I recall an apartment I had that consisted of one smallish room about 15 by 20 feet, a galley kitchen so small you had to stand to the side when you opened the refrigerator door, and a bathroom so small you had to sit to the side when you…when, you…umm, you know. Anyway, that would be a good size for me now.

Instead I now live in about 1900 sq. ft. of house, ten rooms each fully furnished, and every closet and storage area filled to capacity. The plan is to move into a four room, 700 sq. ft. apartment, give or take. And boy is there a lot of giving going on!

Everybody knows the “rules” of keeping a handle on one’s stuff. If you haven’t worn it yet this year, donate it! If you haven’t cooked with it in the past six months, get rid of it! If you haven’t read that paper since your last tax filing, shred it! (Copies of tax returns notwithstanding.)  Those rules work well under most circumstances. But these aren’t most.

What do you do with the roasting pan that you use only one time a year at Thanksgiving but you have plenty of storage space so you let it hang out for the other 364 days? What should become of that big puffy coat that you wear only when it goes below zero and that only happens once every 3 years? What happens to the clock shaped like a football your father gave you for Christmas when you were ten?

More than one person has told me that stuff is stuff. You’ll haven’t had twenty people over for Thanksgiving dinner for 15 years and if you want to roast a turkey it will be a small one and either get a disposable pan or deal with what you have. It has been below zero once in the past 12 years and you didn’t go out that day anyway. And it took you 3 weeks to find that clock in the back of the garage.

Yep, stuff is stuff and there’s still going to be plenty left. So when it comes time to downsize your life, close your eyes, pick two of every three things to shed, and move on. I’m getting rid of the roaster and coat.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

If Only Restaurants Did Outpatient Surgery

Michael Leave a comment

Regular readers noted that there was nothing to read on Monday. Unfortunately, I spent Monday at the hospital and hadn’t had time to schedule a post for then. Nothing horrible, just a little procedure. The last time I wandered into a hospital it was five months before I wandered back home. Thus I can be a little skittish about returning there.

While I was waiting there my mind wandered. It almost always does. I got to thinking about a post we did more than three years ago, “If Only the ER Served Margaritas,” a tale of an adventure we had at a local restaurant comparing the level of activity to that of the local emergency room. While I was thinking of that, I started noticing how much the hospital resembles one’s regular eatery. Stay with me here.

You know how at a restaurant or tavern where you might be a regular there will always be a place for you. And when you get that place you will always be handed your menus, served your usuals, or surprised with an appetizer. Well, when I got to the hospital I was greeted by name by the surgery gatekeeper, bypassed the waiting room, and led directly to the first prep room inside the pre-op area. There my doctor was already waiting for me and went over the procedure like I had never had it done before.

Back at dinner where they know you, all of the wait staff will drop by, say hello, and give you their opinion of the best entrée of the evening. Your waitperson knows if you want ice or not in your water, will make certain that you haven’t changed your favorite beverage, and knows just how long you’ll chat over the starter before bringing your main courses. Back at the hospital where they know you, the phlebotomist knows what vein to use when you’re normally a “hard stick” for anybody else, the pre-op nurse just has to fill in anything new to your history, and the anesthesiologist knows exactly how much is enough. Those not directly involved in your care that day will still stop, say hello, and see how you’re doing as they walk by your area.

After the main course at the restaurant you don’t even get a dessert menu, those taking care of you will tell you the best available and all you have to decide is one portion or two. After the main event at the hospital you wake up to a can of ginger ale and some saltines without ever having to ask.

Ok, so it’s not as much fun as dinner and a margarita but coming off a five month hospital tour I had to make it some fun!

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?
(Read the original, it’s a lot better if I say so myself.)

Drive-In Theaters and the Batteries That Died There

Michael Leave a comment

I was reading the movie listings in the paper and noticed that drive-ins are making a comeback. At least here they are. Sort of. A quick check of the papers and Internet reveals there are about a dozen drive-in theaters within 20 miles of where I live. When I was a just a kid, there were 40 within 10 miles, but that was a different time.

Drive-ins were, still are, an experience. IMAX theaters notwithstanding, drive-in screens are huge! They have to be to be seen from the last row. Drive-in concession stands are cool! Oh sure, you can get burgers and pizza at some of the bigger indoor theaters now but for years, the only real food at the movies was at the concrete bomb shelter that doubled as the drive-in concession stand. And you still only find the more carnival like snacks like cotton candy, snow cones, and funnel cakes at the outdoor theaters.  Drive-ins are anything but boring! You can talk, text, chomp, snuggle, kiss, sing along with the soundtrack, and play “what movie did we see her in last year?” all that you want to without antagonizing those sitting behind you.

As much as it sounds like I have a real vested interest in them, I never went to many drive-ins.  Even though I grew up within a mile of two theaters, we weren’t big drive-in people. I could have walked to them but that would be a whole different post. By the time I was old enough to drive to them, drive-ins were starting on their decline. Indoor theaters were by and large still single screens and got all of the first run movies. The outdoor venues were home to last year’s big, and not so big, hits. In efforts to make them seem more “hi tech” (for those days), sound was piped over a radio frequency replacing the old speaker boxes that you hung on your window. That meant leaving your car in the “accessory” mode risking a dead battery, particularly in the kind of cars we were apt to be driving. If you were in the back row where nobody behind you would be poisoned by your exhaust fumes, you could leave your car running but then risk running out of gas before the double feature ended. Girls never believed you didn’t plan in that way.

Today some of those old relics of outdoor fun are being refurbished and re-opened. They will never approach their peak of the late fifties when over 4,000 drive-in theaters played to families across the USA.  Now there are just over 400 theaters with 600-some screens showing movies in America.

The only problem I see with drive-ins is that they don’t start the movie until dusk. In the summer months, that’s past my bedtime!

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

The Best Best-Seller That I Never Read

Michael Leave a comment

The other day I was looking up the best selling books of all time – because I have that kind of time – and found some interesting stuff.  I think it started because I received a mailer from the city’s summer stock theater that the Man of La Mancha would be opening soon.  That sparked something in my head about Don Quixote being the best selling book ever.

Upon researching it, I found out that Don Quixote indeed is considered to be the best best-seller of ever. This classic was first published in the 1600s, the early 1600s, when there was no Internet to track sales so some of this might be conjecture on the part of whoever (whomever?) came up with the list. The estimate is that over 500 million (that’s half a billion!) copies have been sold. Since it occupies the Number One spot on several such lists, it must be a fairly reliable estimate.

There are some classics that take residence in the Top Ten of book selling lists. Titles everyone knows like A Tale of Two Cities, Lord of the Rings, and The Little Prince. And there are a couple that everyone knows but wouldn’t think they would be among the best selling of the best-sellers.  Agatha Christie is often mentioned as the world’s best selling author. She sold over two billion copies of her books but then she wrote 85 of them. One cracked the Top Ten and that was And Then There Were None selling about 100 million. An author just missing the top ten of authors coming in at number 11 and having published only 11 volumes is J. K. Rowling.  All seven of her Harry Potter installments meet in most lists’ top 25 best-selling books and they are still selling.  But the first of the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, hits most lists’ Top Five at 107 million copies sold.

It was fascinating to read about all of these most successful books and the authors who wrote them.  I spent hours reading the stories behind the stories. I had to pick a floor so I stopped when I saw books that sold less than 50 million copies. Excluding religious, text, and reference books there are thirty-five books that have sold at least that many.  There is no pattern, no magic formula. They are adventures, mysteries, romance, children’s, and fantasy. The only thing these books have in common is that they all hit a common chord in the world’s readers, some literally for centuries.

The other thing they have in common is I haven’t read many of them. Ok, of the 35 best-selling books of all time I haven’t read 33 of them.  And I thought I was a big reader.  I better go pick out another pair of reading glasses. I might be busy this summer.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Subconsciously Yours

Michael Leave a comment

Does anybody have any idea what our minds actually do while we are sleeping? Let me explain. Since I got out of the hospital my body has taken revenge for all those weeks that I ignored it and is making life challenging. Perhaps due to the rigors of physical therapy and a twice daily set of exercises designed to satisfy the Marquis de Sade, I am asleep every night by 8pm, up again around 2am for an hour or so, then back to sleep until 6 or 7. It’s during that second phase that the mind is now joining the body in a quest to make me wake up most mornings with “huh?” on my mind.

I rarely remember my dreams. Sometimes I’ll get a snippet of the movie my sleeping subconscious played for me, but most often I wake up blissfully ignorant of what went on inside my head those few hours. All that has changed recently.

Now I’m waking with vivid details of the sleep show. And I’ve figured out where they are coming from. One recent day I heard Pinball Wizard on the radio. I recall that iconic rock opera as one of my favorites from overture to finale. Throughout the day I was humming and singing (just to myself in my head) that famous modern aria. The next morning I arose fairly exhausted from having been chased by a silver ball in a life-size pinball machine never finding the drain that would have saved me from exhaustion.

A day or two of returned blissful ignorance and then it happened again. I was reading a novel, a favorite past-time, but was really too sleepy to have been reading with any concentration. As a result I kept reading the same passage over and again. I was at the part in the story where the good guy had chased the bad guy to a concert hall then to the concert hall’s basement, then to its sub-basement. Sure enough, the next morning found me waking wondering how I had become the good guy and chased the bad guy through several sub-basements including a fruit cellar, wine stores, utility rooms, a secret laboratory, a bomb shelter, fur storage, and garage. When I finally cornered the villain trying to hotwire a 40 year old MG Midget he surrendered and we rode an escalator back to the surface.

Then there was the day I read in the paper about the upcoming art show in the city and woke up the next morning having wondered why I was painting a geometric abstract including the use of a carpenter’s square and a hand held scientific calculator straight out of the 1970s. And I was painting this masterpiece from inside the canvas.

So you can see why I’m leery of going to bed at all tonight having spent the day craving ice cream. I guess I should wear my flannel pajamas – just in case.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?

Sandwiched Between Here and There

Michael 1 Comment

About 15 years ago I spent a few years living in Philadelphia. To this day, when friends and family plan a trip to the city proverbially of brotherly love I get calls about finding the best…well, not the best time to visit Independence Hall, not the best museum for kids, not the best place to see fireworks on the Fourth of July. Nope, people are always asking about the best cheese steaks in the city.

Maybe I just look like someone who eats a lot of sandwiches or maybe sandwiches are starting to define certain cities and even whole geographic areas.

Think about it. That cheese steak identifies so closely with Philadelphia that in other cities it’s often called a “Philly Cheese Steak.” Across the state in Pittsburgh take that same meat and cheese and top them with tomatoes, french fries, and cole slaw and you have the classic Pittsburgher sandwich. Pile a sandwich high with thinly sliced corned beef or pastrami, add a well pickled pickle on the side and you’re eating in a deli in New York City. If you’re lunching on a lobster roll you’re lunching in a New England coastal town. You’ve made your sandwich with sour dough bread and you’re on the other coast somewhere around San Francisco. And a Po’ Boy on your plate puts that plate and you in New Orleans.

Of course there are some sandwiches that are universal like peanut butter and jelly. Then there are others that people eat all across the country but nobody will claim them. Like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. No pickle required.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?