Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Forget the triple cheeseburger

I've been starving lately. I'm guessing it has something to do with the exercise, however modest it is. I've also been having flashbacks to the good old days of cycling training, when I ate like a proverbial horse.

Before I strap the feedbag back on, though, I decided to see just how many more calories I am burning. I found a calculator at Indiadiets (a site I'll be checking out in closer detail later, especially for the low-calorie Indian recipes...I love Indian food). Snowshoveling and sex are among the activities used for calorie counts.

At any rate, it looks like my body telling me I can eat, eat, eat is being a tad optimistic. Unless, of course, I add several hours a day of ...

shoveling snow.

workout

Leslie Sansone tape, 30 minutes, 2.5 pounds.
Didn't bother to use the monitor, judging by "perceived exertion" I was in the moderate zone.
If it were above freezing I'd actually walk. I'm slightly bored with the tape already.

workout

40 second intervals, 2 circuits, stretching.

HR - no idea. probably a little lower than yesterday overall, but up and down much more. high 185 after squats (so 185 is prob. not my real max).

had to force myself to go, feeling a little bonky. had safeway chicken ceasar salad for lunch and no snack.

Hold on

I'm on hold. You know what kind of music I want to hear on hold?

That I don't want to be on hold goes without saying. But if I have to be on hold, I want to hear...James Taylor, maybe. Something mellow, something familiar. Gordon Lightfoot would work, too.

I wouldn't mind The Girl from Ipanema. That would make me think of The Blues Brothers, and I might sit here amused instead of increasingly pissed off because I am still on freaking hold.

Greensleeves wouldn't even bother me. (It bothers Brits, apparently.)

What I do not want to hear is Eddie Vetter, Cold Play, the annoyingly perky "dj" telling me who these singers are, or anything else that would appeal to a 14-year-old (unless it is a 14-year-old who is like I was at 14, into James Taylor.) 14-year-olds are not on hold with a billing department.

Aurgh. I also do not want to deal with a customer service rep who seems to be on thorazine, but that's a topic for another rant.

Oh the Places I've Been (and Not Been)

This is pretty cool...from World66, a graphic of states visited. Before I filled it out, I said "I've never been anywhere," but actually I've hit 20 states. Several were drive-throughs...I didn't spend the night in Indiana, Mississippi, New York, or New Jersey, for example.

It makes a nifty-looking pattern. It also makes it look like I have something against Ohio.

create your own visited states map

(Is New York really that big?)

workout

Gym
40-second intervals, 2 circuits, stretching.

HR lower today than yesterday (max [on squat, of course] ~172)
I'm probably not doing as well as I could on the ab machine because I'm still trying to recover from squats. Try to slow squats down to keep HR out of the red.

Maybe add ab work in on the floor. Yeah, right.

Could really feel shoulders and upper back.

Don't wear nylon track pants. The noise is annoying on recovery stations.

Super Bowl

I missed out on the Super Bowl pool this year...the grid got filled up before the mail guy got down to my office. I'm truly bummed, because now, really, I have very little interest in the game, since I don't care at all about either team.

I suppose I could still create the experience. At the end of every quarter I could say "Damn, not my numbers," and tear a five dollar bill up in little pieces.

workout

Gym, 40-second intervals, 2 circuits. Resistance was up, but don't know how much...noticable difference, though, particularly leg press, bicep curl.

HR ~140-160, max 180 on squats. I'm wishing I'd bought the better HR monitor with a memory now.

Ate a handful of peanuts and had peach juice before.

Slight headache.

Today's workout

I'm putting this category in for my own records, to keep track of workouts and make notes of things my sieve-like brain can't hold. There's nothing to really read, though. And those of you who are serious about exercise would just laugh and laugh at my middle-age routines.

I am middle aged. I have a recent Time magazine health issue, and my last birthday put me over a blurry line into a new chapter of health problems. I think my middle-agedness explains the newfound interest in craft projects, stuffing kleenex in my sleeve, and laughing at the comic strip Cathy.

Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds Get Up and Get Started 2-mile, 30 minutes, 2.5 pound weights.

Heart rate from around 120-140 (in 120s mostly).

Couldn't get to the gym because of the weather. Yesterday shoveled snow 45 minutes. Nothing Saturday or Sunday besides stress and bad food.

Didn't record my vital stats from the gym last week...weight was 121.5, resting HR was 72, BP was good but don't remember what it was.

White beans and pasta, and some observations on my writing style

I haven't posted a recipe in awhile. I really haven't been cooking a lot (so much for that resolution) but I got home early today (to beat the ice storm, which promises to make the commute treacherous) and (since I expect the gym will be closed) I think I'll go all out and make a real dinner.

What's the record for parenthetical comments in one sentence? I'm bad about that...and ellipses...because I'm typing as I think, and I'm too lazy to go back and edit.

Anyway: dinner. (I also frequently try to re-rail my train of thought by saying "anyway." Is this breezy and conversational, or annoying?)

This bean & pasta dish is very simple, and I like it because I can make it without looking up an actual recipe. In fact, I have no idea where the actual recipe came from originally.

Cook about two cups of ziti, penne, or other short, tubular pasta. (The twisty kind like rotini works, too. One of the things I like about this dish is the "use what you have around" aspect.)

Mix together
One can of white beans (Great Northern or Canellini)
One 28-ounce can of tomatoes (something chunkier than crushed...I usually use whole, and break the tomatoes up with my hands. Don't squirt tomato sauce all over yourself doing that.) Drain the tomatoes, but reserve the sauce in case the mixture looks too dry.
8 ounces of ricotta cheese (or cottage cheese)
About half of a red onion, chopped (or white, or yellow...use the whole thing if it's a small onion)
Spices like crushed red pepper, parsley, basil, oregano, thyme...pizza-like spices
The cooked pasta (drained, but you probably figured that out)

I find this is easiest to mix together with my hands (gloved, of course).

Spread the mixture in a baking or casserole dish (sprayed with Pam or something first, unless you like soaking dishes for three days before you can scrub them) and sprinkle the top with shredded mozzarella. (I've skipped the mozzarella since I cut back on cheese, it isn't critical.) Bake in the usual way (350 degrees for 45 minutes or so) until it's bubbly and the cheese is starting to brown and it looks like a casserole should look.

If you don't go crazy with the cheese this is pretty healthy, and I usually use wheat pasta to add even more fiber. I'm not a huge fan of wheat pasta by itself or with light sauce, but I think there's enough liquid and strong flavors in this that the gumminess and the flavor of wheat stuff fades to the background.

You can mix everything up the night before and bake the next day, if you are better organized than I am.

The word of the day is...

• But the weather service cautioned that the storm bringing the snow will merge in this area with a warmer air mass coming in from the south and that would cause the snow to turn to the more treacherous sleet and freezing rain later in the evening. The area could get as much as a tenth of an inch of ice, Hale said.

• A pair of storms spread snow, sleet and freezing rain across the eastern half of the nation, glazing highways with treacherous ice as far south as Georgia and closing schools and government offices Monday.

• This weekend's rain in Washington, on top of a dusting of snow the night before, created some treacherous fog, making navigation tricky. Yet the inside the Beltway, lack of visibility was no match for another surprising political climate event — the fog created by the results in this week's surprising Iowa caucuses.

• "Obviously the weather has made traveling treacherous and we don’t want our fans taking any unnecessary risks,” said Wizards President Susan O’Malley. “Tonight’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers will be played as scheduled. While we encourage fans to take Metro if it’s available to them for tonight’s game, we are also offering two games to which fans can exchange their tickets if they are unable to attend MCI Center tonight."
  

You wanna know about sealing wax?

Here. The British government will tell you everything you want to know about seals, sealing wax, and how to take care of old sealed documents.

For example, to make sealing wax in red or green:

Melt a pound of wax and two onces of turpentyne together, and when they be well molten, take them from the fire and put to them an once of vermillion while it is luke warme, and stir it well together in the keling, and then make it up in rowles and in like maner that you make greene waxe by putting vertgrese into it. Note if you will takefive partse of rosin and one parte of turpentyne, adding to it vermilion, as is aforesayd it maketh the better waxe.

[from R.Tottil A Very proper Treatise, (London, 1573).]

Happy now, Google searchers?

Incidentally...I found this doing real work today.

Oooooh, endorphins

One week in to the quickie gym, and so far I'm really pleased. I admit, I tend to be a little...exuberant...when I try something new, so perhaps I'm still in the novelty phase.

I feel good, though. It reminds me a little of Spinning, which I loved when I had good instructors. (Bad instructors, eww, horrible experience.) My old gym, the one next to my office, the torn-down-to-make-room-for-another-stupid-midrise-office-building gym, had great instructors. They actually rode real bikes and the winter I spent Spinning led to my best season of cycling. Well, except for the knee surgery, but that wasn't Spinning's fault.

I digress. Anyway, this week, doing the workouts, I have definitely slept better and had more energy when I'm awake. (Still having trouble hauling my ass out of bed, but it's cold and dark, for pete's sake. Amphetamines wouldn't have me popping out of bed before sunrise without a struggle.) At work, which continues to be just this side of Hell, I have been laughing at the utter absurdity and leaving on time (what are they gonna do, fire me? Don't throw me into that briar patch!) to go home and mop up dog pee so I can work out. And since I'm home from the gym in under an hour, the dog hasn't even peed all over the floor again.

I don't know if I'm gaining any strength, but I'm keeping my heart rate in the aerobic zone. I'm also noticing that through the day I'm better aware of my posture, and when I start clenching things in stress, because I'm spending just that little bit of gym time being aware of how my body moves. Ah, muscle memory.

If I get really motivated maybe I'll add some yoga, though that might be the endorphins talking.

The cost of obesity: $175

This has been a frequent subject of my posts, and today I saw that a study (to be published Friday...medical journals are such teases) in Obesity Research actually puts a price tag on what obesity costs taxpayers.

The Associated Press reports

The public pays about $39 billion a year -- or about $175 per person -- for obesity through Medicare and Medicaid programs, which cover sicknesses caused by obesity including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, several types of cancer and gallbladder disease.

Now...thin, fit people can get "type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, several types of cancer and gallbladder disease," but the connections between obesity and disease are well established. I'll be interested to read the full report to see the methodology of the data collection. But even if costs related to treating some otherwise fit diabetics slipped in, this estimate only covers Medicare and Medicaid. There are still increased health insurance premiums, increased disability claims, and decreased productivity.

Housekeeping

I had some links to add, and a few dead ones to remove, and I realized that my attempt to order the non-sports, non-food blogs had failed. I thought about trying to figure out more categories...Spirituality. Sarcasm. Beautiful Writing. I ended up with more categories than blogs.

So I said "screw it" and went with alphabetical. Unless I screwed up the cut & paste, which I often do, then the order is back to random.

I sometime wonder, though, what sort of picture of me my link list paints (besides that of a well-fed sports fan).

An abstract one, I guess.

We got movie sign!

I'm not a Disney fan, nor do I go to the movies...but I may have to see this.

I'm not sure how to take this...

I heard that word got back to my boss about how disgruntled I was last week.

Today I saw him for the first time since my meltdown (we don't actually work in the same building, which is part of the problem sometimes.)

He said "I have something for you."

My company has lots of little award programs...cash, gift cards from Starbucks, that kind of thing, to use as small bonuses for when somebody does something particularly well, or when you need to massage an ego or soothe a hurt feeling.

I'm thinking, finally, here's my coffee.

"I need a piece of paper," says my boss. He writes and hands it back.

It's not a dollar amount of a bonus.

It's a wine recommendation.

Easiest babysitting job ever

We ate some pizza, the kids put on their pajamas, we turned on Finding Nemo, and they fell asleep on the sofa. It was almost too easy.

Now that I think about it, when I was in 6th grade a neighbor hired me to babysit about once a month on Saturday nights, and they put the kid to be before I even arrived. That was the easiest job I ever had.

Worst babysitting moment was when my young charge tied me to a chair, but I don't want to talk about that...

A day is just a day

I tend to label my days...Monday was a bad day. Wednesday was a better day. But really...the days are just days. I went to the new gym this morning and had a better workout that I expected...good day. Then I took Bob to the vet and realized it was time to put him to sleep...bad day. Tonight I babysit my niece and nephews...good day. Unless they are being beast-children...bad day.

Somebody somewhere got married today, saw the birth of a first child, or found out test results are negative. Somebody else realized the love is gone, burried a parent, or found a lump.

It's all just there: good, bad, indifferent; mine, yours, theirs. Just a day.

Wasting time

I may get around to writing more about the National Science Foundation stuff. Or I may sit here all afternoon popping virtual bubble wrap.

But Alley Oop rode a dinosaur!

This is funny or sad, depending on your point of view...

...in 2001, only about 50 percent of NSF survey respondents knew that the earliest humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs, that it takes Earth one year to go around the Sun, that electrons are smaller than atoms, and that antibiotics do not kill viruses.

(From Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding, Science and Engineering Indicators–2002, Division of Science Resources Statistics, National Science Foundation.)

Quickie gym

I was really excited to see a gym opening in the shopping center next to my house. To be honest, although I talk the health & fitness talk, I haven't exactly been walking the walk.

Here's the thing...I hate the gym. When the weather is good I love to walk, to ride, to lift 25 bags of mulch, whatever, to be out in the sun. When the weather sucks...cold, wet, dreary...I hibernate. It goes against every natural inclination I have to haul myself back out to the gym after work. I tried working out at home but I don't stick with it consistantly. (My best home-based workout involved a physio ball and televised hockey...when play was on, I bounced. When play stopped, I stopped. It actually worked pretty well, but I got a little too excited during a breakway once and didn't notice that the ball had rolled, and instead of bouncing I crashed painfully to the floor...hard to explain that injury.)

Anyway, the gym next door turned out to be one of those 30-minute workout, women-only places with a circle of hydraulic resistance machines. I was bummed; that seemed too much like a step backward. I mean, as much as I'm not a gym fan, I was in pretty decent shape once, and I'm not scared to move weight plates.

On the other hand...for the last several months I have been doing nothing. I decided to check the quickie place out, since something is better than nothing and it is five minutes from the house. I went up tonight, and the first person I saw was my neighbor, an older lady who has had a couple of heart attacks. Hard to believe I could get a decent workout on the same routine she uses.

Cut to the chase, I decided to give it a shot anyway. The focus of this place isn't really strength training, despite the resistance machines, it is cardiovascular conditioning. For the whole 30 minutes you keep your target heart rate up (they encourage heart rate monitors), and frankly, cardio is my weakest point. The resistance with the hydraulic machines felt almost absurdly light when I first tried them, but I was moving like I was lifting weights, slow and controlled. You aren't supposed to flail around uncontrollably while you use the machines, but you are supposed to do as many reps as you can in 30 seconds, then move on.

I did a test circuit and realized it was work. I go in Saturday to be weighed and measured and get started. I don't expect to lose weight (in fact, if I were to go back to real strength training, I'd gain weight; I'm ten pounds lighter than I was at my most fit) but I'll be happy if my jeans fit a bit better. The quickie gym may not be the best but it's better than plopping my butt in front of the computer as soon as I get home, and I had one other reason for joining, the same reason I did the AIDS Ride, and the Race for the Cure, and all the other health-related charity 5Ks...

they gave me a free t-shirt.

There's got to be a morning after

Things are looking up. I talked to my boss this morning and he's agreed to bring up some of my concerns (demands) at his meeting with the bigger guys tomorrow, which made me slightly more gruntled.

I got to visit with my nephew a little bit today. We watched part of Finding Nemo, a scene where some sharks have a 12-step meeting about fish being friends, not food. I couldn't answer Nephew's queries of "Why funny, Aunt Nic?" but I appreciated his breathless "Oh, nooo" when the action grew serious.

And, the dog didn't pee all over the floor and Bob didn't die. Sometimes that's enough to make it a good day.

Taxation without representation

Today is D.C.'s primary. It has nothing to do with choosing the Democratic nominee (it is nonbinding, it ticked off the Democratic party, and the only "major" names on the ballot are Howard Dean, Carol Moseley Braun, Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich) and everything to do with trying to raise awareness of the fact that Washington D.C.'s 527,000 citizens do not have voting representation in Congress.

The Vote. Pretty fundamental. So fundamental that I don't think very many people outside this area even realize that residents of D.C. are disenfranchised, which is why D.C. added "Taxation without representation" to license plates a few years ago.

When I lived Down South (and in this case I'm not knocking the deep South, I'm just using it as an example of a part of the country removed from D.C.) I got the definite impression from people I met that it never occurred to them that people live in Washington, that real, honest-to-God American taxpayers who have nothing to do with (shudder) politics work here, send their kids to school here, mow their lawn here, buy their groceries here, walk their dog here, get sick and die here, and are ultimately buried here.

This is a home town just as much as any home town. In Detroit a lot of people have jobs related to the auto industry, but not everybody, and their interests are represented by Congressman John Conyers and Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. In Las Vegas, a lot of people work in the casinos, but not everybody, and their interests are represented by Congressman Jon Porter and Senators John Ensign and Harry Reid.

And in D.C. a lot of people work for the federal government (not those senators and congressmen; remember, those politicians are sent here by their constituents, but they aren't Washingtonians) but not everbody, and their interests are represented by...well, there's Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who can't vote for anything, and subcommittees in the House and Senate, and Maryland and Virginia take an interest in D.C., but they aren't accountable.

If you think there's something wrong here, there is something you can do: write your congressman and senators. Unless, of course, you reside in Washington, D.C.

Got nuthin'

Actually, I got a lot. I am seething...today was one of the worst days I have ever had at work. At one point I looked across my desk and said "I've got it! I understand. I died over the weekend, and NOW I AM IN HELL!"

But to properly rant I'd need to fill in six years of back story, and frankly, I don't feel like typing that much.

I'm going to Monster.com now. I hope to be back here soon in a pleasant mood.

All better?

I think it is fixed.

I had a lot of things I should have been doing over the last few hours, and playing with the files on my server wasn't one of them. I guess it shows how I have let the web page (and the blog in particular) take over my life. Not the worst addiction I have ever had, but something for me to think about...

!@#$%^&. And then some.

FUBAR'd my web site today. I'm mainly posting this to see if it "takes."

Dumbass me, trying to install software I don't need...

Well, not that I need any of this. But...!@#$%^&.

Smoking

I was talking to Heather the other day about smoking. I'm an ex-smoker myself, which often surprises people who have met me in the seven years since I quit. This is the why I smoked/why I quit story:

I started smoking when I was a senior in high school. I can't remember why, what made me light the first cigarette. My best friend smoked, and we used to sit around the basement watching Humphrey Bogart movies, and I guess that had something to do with it. You can say smoking isn't cool, but there is still a dramatic quality...using the long pause to light up, dismissively blowing smoke, angrily grinding out a butt.

When I was little, almost all the adults I knew smoked. In old family pictures (I just inherited a box, that's why they've been showing up on my blog) I keep seeing someone holding the new baby in one hand and a cigarette in the other. There were ashtrays on every end table. My friends and I bought candy cigarettes from the ice cream man, and chose boxes to reflect our preferred brands.

I smoked through college. Where I worked at the time my boss and several coworkers smoked, and we discussed work in the smoking room. (Smoking had just been banned from individual offices.) I got to know smokers on other projects and in other departments. I started learning office politics because of what I picked up on smoke breaks.

After college I got married and quit smoking for awhile. My husband didn't smoke, so I didn't smoke in the house. If we went out to bars I'd usually bum a few or maybe buy a pack, but I didn't start smoking regularly until I found a job.

Interestingly, the job involved interviewing people about asbestos exposure during their work history, so I was meeting a lot of people with lung disease. Most of them smoked, or had smoked, which certainly didn't help their health.

I interviewed a client one morning. This guy had lost an arm in an industrial accident, he was on supplemental oxygen, and unless the O2 tank was on, he was chain smoking. His wife chain smoked. Their trailer was the worst-smelling place I've ever entered, and in just one hour there my hair and clothes reeked so bad the smell made me ill. I went home after that interview, threw my cigarettes away, and took a shower and washed my hair.

It didn't last. In my next job I made friends with the smokers, and started going outside with them on their breaks, going to happy hours. Next it was smoking O.P.B's...other people's brands...and then back to buying my own.

So why did I smoke? There was definitely the addictive aspect...chemical addiction to the nicotine. A cigarette did calm me down. I did like the taste. There was the social aspect...not peer pressure, but I did appreciate belonging to the club. And I admit I made some useful business contacts during the time I was smoking.

Another question...what about the adverse health effects?

The answer to that was, I didn't give a damn about dying.

During the time I smoked, I really didn't have any joy in life. I was never actively suicidal, that would have been too painful to my parents, but I was not a happy person. I was not content. The idea that I was shortening my life was not disturbing.

I hit a point where I wasn't doing much of anything healthy. I smoked, I drank too much, I alternated between not eating and eating nothing but garbage (bar food, pretty much, since I was spending most evenings in bars.) My husband and I were separating.

Then in a completely uncharacteristic move, I decided to register to do an AIDS Ride...bicycling 350 miles in four days. I didn't even own a bike. I joined a gym with a woman at work and I started riding (bought a bike, obviously). For a few months I actually used to light up cigarettes on my way out of the gym's front door after a workout. One evening I attempted to walk up the inactive escalator at the Dupont Circle metro station. About halfway up I was wheezing. At the top I was shaky. I still instinctively lit a cigarette at the top, then thought "Perhaps smoking is incompatible with endurance sports."

Going to the gym was cutting into my bar time anyway, so I was smoking less. That New Year's Eve I decided to quit, at least until after the ride.

While training, I made a lot of friends, and the weekend rides spilled over into social events. Most of the people I met had healthy lifestyles without being health Nazis, and some, I learned, had added incentive to take care of themselves because of their HIV+ status. I started feeling a little guilty that I, who didn't care if I lived or died, was healthy, while other people were having to fight to live.

It wasn't an epiphany, I didn't wake up one morning with the sudden realization that life was grand and I loved living. I also didn't set out to intentionally change, it was more that I started noticing good things in the world, and appreciating them. Crap was still going on...my grandfather died, I got laid off, I did end up divorced. But I also got to know Victor, I started a volunteer job at an HIV/AIDS service organization, and my niece was born. It was an odd transformation, cynic to optimist. It's an incomplete transformation, but complete enough that I take care of myself now. I don't enjoy every moment of every day but I want to see what's going to happen tomorrow.

Along the way I never craved another cigarette. When I'm in a smokey bar I get headaches, and I don't even like traces of the smell of smoke.

I can not think of a single good reason in the world to smoke a cigarette, and...I hope this doesn't sound insufferably smug and condescending...I feel sort of sorry for people who continue to smoke and don't even want to quit. I wonder if they are like I was, indifferent to their own health because they are, in the end, indifferent to their life.

My dream job

is not the one I have. Some days I am reminded of the line from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit: "The only reason I'm willing to spend my life in such a ridiculous enterprise is that I want to buy a more expensive house and a better brand of gin."

Anyway, I think my dream job would be working in one of those mailbox/shipping places. I am very good at packing boxes so the contents don't break. I love filling out airbills. I was a key operator for a very complex photocopier at one time. I have an office supply fetish.

And those stores are usually closed by about 6 or 7 pm and on Sunday, so except around the holidays the hours don't look bad.

I'm guessing I'd need to give up on the more expensive house and better brand of gin, though.

LATER THAT SAME DAY: Working in a bio lab would not be my dream job either, but a friend of mine called me on her way home tonight and told me she heard the best quote ever in a meeting this afternoon: "We aren't going to sit around eating each other's brains."

(They were discussing doing BSE testing; a microbiologist was explaining why they don't need to worry about catching vCJD.)

That reminds me that my geekiness has rubbed off on Victor. After I described some bizarre behavior on the part of some coworkers at an office lunch, he remarked "Was the rye bread moldy?"

I'm not being unfaithful

By the way: Yes, hockey and the Capitals are my major sports love, my deepest and most enduring sports love, and my recent euphoria about the Redskins (and the Terps, for that matter) is not infidelity.

In 1975, when I finally got the Redskins jacket, you couldn't buy Capitals gear. I know; I tried. When Herman's World of Sports didn't sell jerseys, I sent my $70 (saved from allowances and washing cars and skipping the ice cream man) to CCM. They sent back a check and a note that Capitals jerseys were unavailable. I spent the money on a bike. (This was the reason Victor gave me the jersey this year.)

But lack of Capitals clothes aside...I was also a Redskins fan before the Caps were a twinkle in Abe Pollin's eye, and I can prove it:

Last giddy Joe Gibbs entry, I promise

(Until the season actually starts, I mean.)

I am thrilled (no kidding? is it obvious?) about Joe Gibbs returning to coach the 'Skins. There are a few reasons...his talent, of course. The hope of returning to the glory days. And I'm glad to have someone back with the organization that really commands respect.

Thinking back to those glory days...I do that alot, don't I? If I had kids, they would hate me: "Here goes Mom with one of her 'in my day' stories...she had to walk to school in two feet of snow, the Redskins won Super Bowls, the Capitals had a defense..."

Once upon a time...

...this really was a solidly Redskins town. Even people who didn't give a darn about football got swept up in it, especially for epics like the Cowboys games. That rivalry was so intense American Express used it in a national commercial (with Tom Landry doing the "Do you know me?")

When I was a kid, kids were Redskins fans. (And those were the George Allen days.) I can remember going to Sears, where I begged for (and finally got) a Redskins jacket with a (synthetic material that looked like) burgundy wool body and (synthetic material that looked like) gold leather sleeves and a Charley Taylor jersey. I don't remember Dolphins or Cowboys stuff for sale at Sears, nor do I remember very many kids wearing the colors of other teams. (Okay, there was a boy who moved here from New York in 3rd grade who wore a Buffalo Bills jacket, and a few from Pittsburgh families who inherited the Steeler genes.) Now I rarely see kids wearing Redskins jackets. I see more Ravens stuff...and Oakland, and Dallas.

It might just be that things are marketed differently now. The team jacket is less of a sign of allegiance than it is a fashion statement, and individual players are marketed more than teams. And as that trend rose, the fortunes of the Redskins fell.

In my office, I am the only Redskins fan, or at least the only one who admits it openly. The other football fans teased me all year while they wore their Cowboys and their Patriots and their Ravens shirts without suffering comments. (Not that I would talk trash back, but even if I'd been so inclined, what could I have said?) Some people here were a little bemused, amused, or confused by the media frenzy about Gibbs and I figured out why...they didn't live here when this was a solidly Redskins town. They don't remember the Smurfs and the Fun Bunch and the Hogs (so they really don't get the Hogettes!). Joe Gibbs is a retired coach out of context. What's the big deal?

I'm heartened by the enthusiasm with which Gibbs is being welcomed back. I've not been alone. The Redskins fans are still here. Not only is Gibbs' return a big deal, I'm finding people who understand why!

That's a glorious day right there.

Happy dance

I've been hard at work at work today and have missed the minute-by-minute updates. When I heard it on the radio this morning I was afraid it was too good to be true, but here's the headline at the Post:

Gibbs to Return to Washington

Ted scoffs, but my fellow 'Skins fans, Rob and Victor are believers.

Undeck the halls

So, how long can one keep up one's Christmas tree before one is in danger of being known as a freak?

Most of my neighbors put the trees out for recycling already, several of them last week on New Year's Eve. That seems too soon to me. Christmas doesn't even end until January 6, with Epiphany.

Which is today, of course. That reminds me...it drives my mom nuts, but I have always played with the Wise Men in her nativity set, moving them to the opposite side of the room when she put every thing up, then moving them closer to the stable as we went through the season. After all, Epiphany is when the kings showed up, right? Let's make this thing realistic.

I wanted to think some deep Epiphany thoughts and write some deep Epiphany notes, and these three things played a constant background Epiphany soundtrack in my head today:

• We Three Kings
• TS Eliot's Journey of the Magi
• James Taylor's Home by Another Way

After all, even in my state of diminished religiosity, I think there's more to today than bringing down the Christmas tree.

On the scientific side, I had some interesting stuff about frankincense, gold and myrrh.

But instead of actual blogging, I'm telling you what I would have wriiten had my brain not been crispy-fried today by the dog thing (no surgery after all; she had a low platelet count and they took x-rays and serum samples to try to find out why) and a work thing ("Nic, did you make this decision? Can you justify it in writing and have it on my desk by 9:00 tomorrow?") and a traffic thing (I eventually did go home by another way, as it happened, but two hours late.)

I'm just going to sit here for the rest of the night looking at my tree, which I've decided not to take down.

I wish I could just go to the vet

I had a doctor's appointment today for my Depot-Povera shot. The dog had a vet appointment to look at a cyst. Compare and contrast:

Nic: Arrive at office at 1:07 for 1:15 appointment. Receptionist collects copay before I sit down. Sit in waiting room until 1:50. Listen to receptionist field phone calls; people calling today are offered appointments on Feb. 23.

Dog: Arrive at vet at 3:15 for 3:30 appointment. Receptionist greets me by name and asks how the holidays were. A technician grabs our chart and takes us to exam room immediately. Dr. G sticks his head in to say hi even though our appointment is with Dr. T.

Nic: I ask doctor if oral progestin would control cramping and bleeding more consistantly than the shot, since the cramps have become debilitating by the last month of each Depot-Provera cycle. Doctor offers me Seasonale, an estrogen-progestin combination with periods every three months instead of monthly. I try explaining again that the cramping is bad enough that I need to call in sick, and I don't want it even every three month. "Then have a laparoscopy," the doctor says, while cursing at the sharps container she can't open.

Dog: Dr. T arrives just as vet tech has finished history. He remembers, without looking at the chart, the dog's previous cardiac problems. He gives her a complete physical check before examining the cyst. He doesn't think the cyst is anything to worry about, but cautions that it is filling with fluid and may burst "like the biggest, nastiest blackhead you can imagine." Or we can have it surgically removed.

Nic: I ask about laparoscopy details. Doctor heaves a huge annoyed sigh and tells me to come into her office, where she left my chart. She doesn't do surgery but can refer me to someone who will if I have trouble with the cramps again this quarter. She asks how long the cramps last then says "Two days of cramps every three months isn't that big a deal." Receptionist tries to collect my copay again as I check out.

Dog: I prefer surgery option because I am afraid cyst will burst when I'm not home and dog will get infected. Since we are talking anesthesia, I ask about a teeth cleaning; vet checks again and agrees that since she'll be under it is a good time to do that, too. He gets me antibiotics to start tonight and schedules her surgery for tomorrow. Receptionist tells me she'll do my bill then too, no reason to make me wait for it to print.

My vet spayed my rats. I bet he could do my surgery. I wouldn't even chew the stitches.

Taking stock

Because my birthday is so close to New Year's I use this time to take stock and nudge myself back on the paths I prefer, as opposed to the paths I've been taking because they require less effort.

I've been lazy, in other words, and when I really think about that, I'm not so happy with myself.

What I'd rather be doing:

At work I need to actually work. I've been disgruntled lately and using that as an excuse to goof off. The boss hasn't caught on...yet...but at the end of the day I'm pretty disgusted with my own lack of productivity. I'd go home feeling better if I'd put in a good day regardless of what's going on around me. So...more mindful concentration on work.

Back to the gym, or at least back to regular workouts at home. My weight bench became another flat surface for accumulated junk, and my knees are letting me know this is not a good idea. The endometriosis flareups may also be worse because I'm not exercising.

Today's Jeanne Marie Laskas column had a great summation of what I've been trying to do with my attitude toward others:

Kathy tells me she's happier now than she's been in years. The reason, she says, is her new mantra, which I think is funny, because I don't even have an old mantra. "That person is doing his or her best." Kathy has learned to say this when someone wrongs her, when someone is unkind or steps on her toe, or when a man says he'll call but doesn't. "You can get angry, you can get hurt, you can get vengeful," she says. "Or you can just say: 'That person is doing his best,' and move on."

Along those same lines, I'm continuing my effort to avoid labeling or objectifying people...the customer who doesn't get our web site, the clerk who doesn't get my order, the blogger with whom I disagree. Instead of just faking courtesy I will try to remember that I'm not dealing with an idiot, a dolt, or a jerk, but a person who deserves respect.

And while trying to act properly toward strangers, I'll try to be more mindful of how I act toward my closest friends and family. Too often I have given them my worst instead of my best, because they know and will forgive me. I'd rather give them my best.

Mindfulness is the key to all of it, I think. I stop being mindful, I quickly slip back to an easy, half-assed, self-centered indifference.

There was one other thing...oh yeah. Stop wasting so much time on the computer.

On this day in 1971...

It seemed like a much bigger deal back then...

When is a Duh not a Duh?

Heather over at Angleweave has another diet-related post that has me saying "yes, but..."

This one concerns the portion-control research done by Brian Wansink at the University of Illinois. Dr. Wansink was a presenter at a recent FDA Obesity Working Group meeting, so having read his research presented there, I thought that the AP article Heather referenced was a little superficial.

I know a lot of people have a negative view of the "food police" types. Wansink isn't from the nutrition and public health arena, though...his degrees are in Business Administration, Journalism & Mass Communications, and Marketing...and his Food & Brand Lab focuses not on what people should be doing but on what they actually do.

And then the food police can use this information to beat people over the head with what they need to change. Personally I'm in favor of this, because (as I explained last time I got on my soapbox) this too-fat-too-inactive habit is getting expensive.

Anyway, back to Wansink's research. It is more than the Duh conclusion that people who eat too much get fat. For example, they studied how people perceived their portions of liquid in short, wide 22-ounce glasses and tall, slender 22-ounce glasses and found that "[p]eople given short wide glasses poured 76% more than those who had randomly been given tall slender glasses. They believed, however, that they had poured less."

Implications?

A wide range of people and institutions would like to better control a person’s consumption of a product. Those in the hospitality industry want to decrease costs (via serving size) without decreasing satisfaction. Those in public policy want to decrease waste. Those in health and dietetics fields want to decrease over-consumption. Those on restricted diets want to decrease calories, fat, or sugar intake. If short, wide glasses encourage people to pour more than tall glasses, the selection of glasses has an impact on costs as well as on calories.

Yet there are circumstances where there is a desire to stimulate an increased consumption of healthy beverages with the undernourished young and old. For instance, a parent may want to encourage their child to pour and drink more milk at home, and a dietician may want nursing home patients to consume more juice in the cafeteria. In these cases, short, wide glasses would encourage more consumption than the narrow six ounce glasses that are often provided.

Very few people are aware of everything they do and why they are doing it. Another of the lab's studies, Buying More: Why Numerical Signs Make You Overspend at the Grocery Store caused me to turn red...I've bought more cans of soup that I needed because they were "three for." Now that I have read this study, I'll be a little more aware of what I'm doing.

Making people aware of the issues like portion control is one thing, but Wansink's presentation to the FDA was interesting because he focused on the idea that the physical packaging (that's the red potato chip idea) might be an effective way to make people aware of what they are eating while they are eating it. In his testimony he said

So structural packaging barriers appear to decrease consumption. Okay, they can decrease consumption, and they might even be profitable. For instance, it might be possible to develop a healthy portion line of package and sort of price it appropriately.

The key is to make people aware of how much they're eating without decreasing their enjoyment in the food. As we know earlier, enjoying food and having it taste good is the number one thing people look for.

So the summary of packaging research is that we can't rely only on label information, because people appear to ignore it. Are there more effective ways it can be presented? Well, we're working on a few different ideas that we hope might be more effective.

We can't rely only on small portions, because people seem to overcompensate when they eat small portions. Well, are there other alternatives to just having small portions?

And the last thing is that structural changes in packaging hold promise. There are lot of other forums, and there may be situations where it does and doesn't work, and that would be the thing to look at next.

I'm a person who has both motivation and time, and I'd still appreciate having food packaged in a way that makes portion contol easier. In fact, I buy some things in less-economical ways (juice boxes, for example, and trail mix) to help make it a no-brainer. I think of people like my sister, who has a demanding job, a long commute, and three kids, and who relies a lot on convenience foods...it isn't that she lacks motivation, but any improvements in labeling and packaging that makes it easier for her to make healthier choices is a big help.

Speaking of labeling...the question of how to label packaged food, and whether to require labels (i.e., nutritional information) for restaurants, is a big one for the folks in public health and industry. I want more information, but I understand the information and how to put into context. A lot of people don't have that context, which I suspect was the point of the paragraph in the AP article:

Wansink and other researchers hope the results can help the federal government devise more user-friendly nutrition labels for packaged foods. For example, instead of stating that a handful of granola has 200 calories, the label instead could say the consumer would have to walk 2 miles to burn it off.

Another speaker at the FDA meeting was Susan Borra from the International Food Information Council, an industry-funded organization I mentioned in a previous post. She discussed the reasons for putting some context on nutrition labels:

[W]e talked about information needs, and consumers are feeling overwhelmed and bombarded with information. They actually told us, I think we know what we're supposed to do. I have information that I know I'm supposed to eat better. I know I'm supposed to get more physical activity. But I'm not doing it, so please help me get to that point. And it's things like motivation, helping them [get] the tools, the how-to's, versus just general information; and they said that they would hopefully then be able to do it in both terms of nutrition and physical activity. ...

So, in this need for consumer research, what are some of the questions that we need to look at? How do consumers, how do they actually really utilize calorie information on a food label? Do they understand this concept of energy balance or does energy balance understanding really help them in any way? Can calorie information on a food label, can it impact behavior? Will it help them improve their caloric intake? Are there ways to more effectively communicate calories in the context of single-serving, multi-serving packages that makes more sense for consumers? And then what messages about calorie and serving size would be truly motivational, not just informational, helping them to bridge the gap between what they know and what they're doing.

I don't argue with Heather just for the sake of arguing...actually, Heather is a rare Reasonable Person, and if everyone took care of themselves like she does, I'd be looking for another line of work. But she and I have different perspectives on a few things, and that's what caused me to go off at such length this morning.

The popular press is not the best place to get solid health information. It's a good way to steer you toward research, but take the conclusions presented in a popular press article with a big grain of salt. And when you read the actual research, check to see who paid the bills.

And finally, I guess it is my 2004 goal to try to get people to recognize that public health issues like obesity, smoking, and seat belts aren't just mere matters of free choice vs. big government intrusion, there are serious economic consequences of poor health.

An open letter to Ralph Friedgen

Dear Coach,

Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Thank you,
Nic

Aside to Debbie Yow: Next time the kids from the University call to hit me up for a donation, tell them to remind me that Coach wants a raise. I'll probably cough up more money.

I know...it's a bit silly to get this excited over college sports. But I went to Maryland during the dark days after Lenny Bias, so I'm a little giddy seeing what Gary Williams and Ralph Friedgen have done with the men's basketball and football programs.

Joe Krivak coached football when I was there. (You either said "Who?" or cringed.) We did get to the Independence Bowl my senior year...with that steller 6-5 record...where we tied Louisiana Tech. The game was televised on a UHF channel. It was the high point.

My dad likes to remind me that I wasn't there during the worst of it. His first year of grad school the Terps were 0-9, and the only thing that prevented them from being 0-10 was that one of the teams on the schedule dropped their football program that season.

So it could always be worse. But it isn't worse now, it is better...even better, I think, than the Bobby Ross football I watched as a kid. And I am giddy with delight, and I thank Ralph Friedgen.

Hoppin' John

There's a southern tradition about eating black-eyed peas on New year's Day to bring good luck for the year. I started making Hoppin' John a few years ago just to try it out...no superstition, I just thought it sounded like another good way to eat beans.

But I have had pretty decent luck since, come to think of it.

I don't have a recipe per se...I looked up Hoppin' John in some cookbooks and on the internet and went from there. It's a good New Year's Day dinner...it can use up some Christmas leftovers (if you happened to have ham for Christmas, say) and since you really just dump stuff in a pot, it doesn't require much thought or attention if you are a bit under the weather from the festivities New Year's Eve.

Here is how I make it:

Saute a chopped onion, sliced celery, and minced garlic in a large pot. Add black-eyed peas (I just use bag of frozen ones), diced ham, rice (I steam it in advance), and tomato (I use a can of crushed and a can of whole tomato with the juice, breaking the whole tomatoes up a bit). Season with salt, pepper (I use the Hot Shot pepper mix), parsley, thyme, and a couple of bay leaves. Simmer...if I'm making it in the morning to eat for dinner I use a Crock Pot, but today I'm going to a hockey game so I'm aiming to eat it during the Gator Bowl, hoping my good luck extends to the Terps, so I have it on the stovetop. Add some water if necessary...it shouldn't be soupy but it needs some liquid. Season further with Tabasco (or Crystal, or Frank's, or the hot sauce of your choice.).

Serve with corn bread and greens of some kind (collard, mustard, turnip)...greens are another good luck tradition, representing folding money or something. I don't like them and don't bother to eat 'em, which may explain why I'm still broke.

Best wishes for a healthy and happy 2004!

The undocumented life is not worth living?

I was talking to my brother (known in the family as "The Boy") over the weekend. He just got a new computer and was installing Dreamweaver to design a web page for his band. He wanted my advice.

My brother is a real artist (although his degree is in fine arts, not graphics) and is from the generation that learned to key things into computers along with writing, but he's never done a web page. I'm not a programmer or an artist, but I started playing with HTML around 1995 or '96. I had a web designer friend who was teaching a lot of us how to code so he could hire us. Although it seemed briefly appealing, I never gave up my day job, but I have cluttered servers with several pages of my pictures and writing as I indulged this compulsion to keep adding web pages to the world.

Back during the summer I started this Rat in a Box project. Like earlier pages I've done, I just typed code into Notepad. That's tedious, so I started looking for an editor and was distracted by content management software...Movable Type, specifically. Then I decided I needed to learn cascading style sheets. My test blog (this one) took over my spare time and RIAB has languished.

Recently I've been flirting with City Desk as a way to get content up quickly, with a WYSIWYG editor, and a less-bloggy look. I'm a bit frustrated by the combination of templates and style sheets there, though, and I can't make my page look like I want it to. Now The Boy is tempting me with Dreamweaver...why learn CSS if I can just buy a program that will do the coding for me?

On the other end of the technological spectrum, my sister has started keeping a family scrapbook. ("Scrapbooking" is actually a verb, and now I know what those four aisles of decorative paper and funky scissors in the craft store are for.) The scrapbooks are bit more than mere photo albums, and I'm being seduced by them, too.

It's gotten me thinking...my brother has a band to promote, hence the web page. My sister has kids, hence the scrapbook. I have...no good reason to be documenting my life, really. The rat thing's a bit shaky...a rat owner can find a wealth of information already on the Internet without my page. The blog thing's a bit shaky...my recipes, I think, are my only meaningful content. As for a scrapbook...what would I put in, pictures of me sitting at the computer?

In other words, I'm documenting the heck out of my life, and I have no real life worth documenting. Perhaps there is a New Year's resolution in there somewhere...