“He Ate The Whole Thing!”
Food becomes the enemy as we age.
In my high school days, food didn’t matter. Feel like a burger? Off to McDonald’s you’d go. Want a coke? Stroll up to the corner store.
It never matters. Even in to my mid twenties it doesn’t matter. Back then, we went to a softball tournament. And between two games, it was lunch time. At McDonald’s, our pitcher got a full pizza (back when McDonald’s made pizzas). He ate it all.
I still remember the shock of one of our outfielders. Four of us sitting together, he turning to look a the pitcher finishing up the last slice, and then turning back to us table mates with wide eyes… “he ate the whole thing!”
From McDonald’s we went to our next game. And the pizza fuelled pitcher was none the worse for wear.
Today, if I eat more than three slices of pizza, I’m in need of a bottle of tums and twelve hours of paying for my gastro greed.
There were nights, as a teenager, when I’d sit down to watch a movie or two on TV. I’d tear open a big bag of chips and pop a two litre of coke. By the end of the second movie, both the chip bag and the plastic bottle would sit empty.
Today I buy coke by the mini can… allowing myself one a day. And chips are for special occasions. A big hockey game… the season finale of a favourite TV show… or a rare poker night (once or twice a year). I have clips to snap on chip bags to keep the three quarters of a bag fresh for a later treat.
My friend and I would prepare massive plates of nachos in my high school days. An entire bag of cool range chips coated with a pound of shredded cheese. We’d save the biggest mounds of melted cheese for the end… being able to hold up a hand size portion of the yellowy-orange goodness before throwing it into your mouth with glee was a celebrated moment in our feasting. After the movie… and with the nachos done… we’d part. The visitor heading home… the host to the kitchen… both preparing themselves for what was to follow our nachos… supper.
Today that big bag of chips and pound of cheese are enough to supply three or four servings of nachos… with chip clips and zip lock bags needed to maintain the extra food. And even with only a third or quarter of the portion, I finish with the knowledge that I’ll likely need the tums before bed and my stomach would gurgle the evening away.
And the funniest thing about it all. Back then, I’d eat all this food with not only a lack of effect on the body immediately… but long term as well. I was skinny as a rake. Ranging from 140 to 165 pounds throughout all this feasting and gorging.
Yet now, when I am forced to eat less and watch my coke consumption, the weight gain slowly comes. Bit by bit. Even with me eating carrots and celery and substituting milk for my coke… I haven’t dropped below 200 pounds for a few years now.
I was more active back then. But most of my activity was the actual playing, or practicing, of sports. I burned off my calories on the ball field or during the parking lot street hockey games or even the occasional game of basketball.
Now the sports do me harm. Even slow pitch softball angered my shoulder or torqued my hip or swoll up a knee.
That leaves me with the boredom of the gym or a walk of the neighbourhood. Neither are as inspiring or invigorating as the competition of the games. And so the weight continues to climb even though the food is decreased.
Ah how I miss the days of long ago. When we’d venture off, care free, to McDonald’s between tournament games. What sporting food paradise it was… when my teammate “Ate the whole thing!”
SUNDAY…
--- Work is pretty slow going. Vancouver game on PVR afterwards. Good one for the Canucks… now one win away from the finals.
MONDAY…
--- Work on a holiday means a quiet day there. Some TV in the evening but I stopped by the new house on the way home… checked out things… the foundation is now up and the birch trees are much more summery than when I saw the place the first time.
TUESDAY…
--- Physio, nap, work. Work is ok… a bit tiresome.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Sleep until about 11:30. Some TV after that.
--- MRI time. Sucked into a little tube for twenty minutes of slightly uncomfortable times. But it’s sort of a neat experience all the same.
--- Work is fairly ordinary after the MRI.
THURSDAY…
--- Jetlag day. Up earlier than I should be, considering bed time, and lazy the rest of the day. A few movies and a few naps.
FRIDAY…
--- Rainy day. It seems like a regular thing that when I’m off work, it’s raining.
--- Hit the bank to pay some on my line of credit. Get a few things at Farm Boy. And hang around the house.
--- Edena’s birthday. So I talk to my sis for a while on the phone this evening. Looking forward to seeing them soon.
SATURDAY…
--- Physio in the day… UFC in the evening. Phil, Sarah and I get together for it. Eat too much nachos… but oh well.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Making It Up As I Go Along #464
Writing Outdoors
Trying to write outside today. With sunny skies and warm temperatures, the outdoors call.
But the distractions are so much out here. First little birds chasing each other from tree to tree. I’m sitting here with laptop atop lap and a little red bird sits in a branch, no more than twelve feet away, trying to coax his wife to be out to join him. A load of bird gibberish comes out as song and then the two fly off across the lot to another tree… only to return in front of me a few minutes later… starting the show again.
A wasp buzzes by. Sharing my attached Adirondack chairs with me for a bit. Me sitting in one and he crawling over the other. I’m reminded of the article I read about bees and wasps. How a bee will leave you alone if you leave it… but a wasp… well… wasps are mean spirited and will have a go at you if you look at it funny.
I remember my wasp encounters. One as a kid in Victoria, feeling a pinch upon my wrist and looking down at this great insect that seemed to entirely engulf me as a giant watch, hiding my flesh with winged black and yellow. The pain and fear coming together to bring me terror.
Then another wasp which came at me on a hiking trail. And me with hands full, carrying a great found chunk of quartz… a chunk which sits, today, in my kitchen nook. But on that day, my sacrifice for claiming the quartz was to be unable to fend off the wasp attack. And my leg took on a stinging welt as a result. Less terror involved in this encounter… but annoyance.
And so I’m apprehensive of the wasp sharing my seat… and consider moving indoors… when he decides he’s had enough, and lifts off… buzzing away.
Fire trucks zip along Tenth Line Road… causing me to lift my head once again. And during my looking out there, over the grassy plain, a spot a great bird, ambling along within the grass.
From here, I can’t tell if it’s a heron spending some time away from the lake… or a wild turkey, too stupid to know what it’s doing in such a place. But either way it’s there… too far for a definitive identification.. .ambling in and out of view as it passes grass and mound.
The little red bird and it’s mate return… in and out again. And a bumble bee drifts over to the tree with them… looking happy to be in the sun and making me wish it was he, and not the wasp, who visited before.
With that, the wasp returns. It looks like he’s biting off bits of wood for a nest or sucking out some nourishment before flying back to his wasp brood.
Another bird comes to the little red bird tree. A bigger starling, or some such bird. Fresh from his time around the lake, as he flaps wet feathers dry and beaks some stragglers back into place. The red bird is annoyed and heads off… but quickly returns to sing his gibberish song, once the bigger guy is dry and moving along.
A robin combs the ground, poking for worms, and I’m drawn again to the area of that far off giant, hoping for a better look in order to ID the mystery.
To my left, the neighbours prepare lunch. Voices of mother and child coming out from their kitchen nook with music drifting from their kitchen radio. “In the Air Tonight” brings back teenage summers as it drifts into the summer air.
The red bird returns to his branch, chirping to get my attention. And I see it there, chirping with a beak full of twigs… before he and his lady fly off to the other side of the parking lot, I assume to do some work on a nest. He quickly returns empty beaked… and his chirping is much clearer without the muffle of twigs.
A beetle drops atop my computer… playing dead upon my scroll pad… hoping I don’t notice. And a couple wander by in the lot beneath me… bringing their dog to the same pond the bathing bird came back from some ten minutes ago.
And that’s why it’s hard to right your blog outside, on a warm summery day, during the May 24 weekend.
SATURDAY…
--- Quiet, rainy day at work. Unable to bring myself to doing a movie with Phil and Sarah tonight. It would be late and I’m on 5 hours sleep with day shift #2 coming tomorrow. By 8:30 tonight I’m already getting sleepy.
SUNDAY…
--- Another quiet one at work. Vancouver game tonight. Good one as they score two in the third to win 3-2.
MONDAY/TUESDAY…
--- Pretty typical night shifts. Physio before the shift on Monday… and gray and rain both days.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Up around 10:30… so afternoon nap will be likely. Again… gray, cool and rain. So not much to be done other than that nap.
--- Nap is had… followed by meeting up with Sarah to get some Wendy’s for supper… and the hockey game. Canucks win big San Jose play like idiots… and we get boobs on the TV (a girl flashing Ben Eager in the penalty box).
THURSDAY…
--- Physio and then a meeting at the bank. I walk to the bank… nice to go for a stroll. Groceries and some evening TV round out the day.
FRIDAY…
--- Lunch with Karl. It’s nice and warm today… about 25 degrees… so we eat on a patio and get some Dairy Queen on the way back.
Trying to write outside today. With sunny skies and warm temperatures, the outdoors call.
But the distractions are so much out here. First little birds chasing each other from tree to tree. I’m sitting here with laptop atop lap and a little red bird sits in a branch, no more than twelve feet away, trying to coax his wife to be out to join him. A load of bird gibberish comes out as song and then the two fly off across the lot to another tree… only to return in front of me a few minutes later… starting the show again.
A wasp buzzes by. Sharing my attached Adirondack chairs with me for a bit. Me sitting in one and he crawling over the other. I’m reminded of the article I read about bees and wasps. How a bee will leave you alone if you leave it… but a wasp… well… wasps are mean spirited and will have a go at you if you look at it funny.
I remember my wasp encounters. One as a kid in Victoria, feeling a pinch upon my wrist and looking down at this great insect that seemed to entirely engulf me as a giant watch, hiding my flesh with winged black and yellow. The pain and fear coming together to bring me terror.
Then another wasp which came at me on a hiking trail. And me with hands full, carrying a great found chunk of quartz… a chunk which sits, today, in my kitchen nook. But on that day, my sacrifice for claiming the quartz was to be unable to fend off the wasp attack. And my leg took on a stinging welt as a result. Less terror involved in this encounter… but annoyance.
And so I’m apprehensive of the wasp sharing my seat… and consider moving indoors… when he decides he’s had enough, and lifts off… buzzing away.
Fire trucks zip along Tenth Line Road… causing me to lift my head once again. And during my looking out there, over the grassy plain, a spot a great bird, ambling along within the grass.
From here, I can’t tell if it’s a heron spending some time away from the lake… or a wild turkey, too stupid to know what it’s doing in such a place. But either way it’s there… too far for a definitive identification.. .ambling in and out of view as it passes grass and mound.
The little red bird and it’s mate return… in and out again. And a bumble bee drifts over to the tree with them… looking happy to be in the sun and making me wish it was he, and not the wasp, who visited before.
With that, the wasp returns. It looks like he’s biting off bits of wood for a nest or sucking out some nourishment before flying back to his wasp brood.
Another bird comes to the little red bird tree. A bigger starling, or some such bird. Fresh from his time around the lake, as he flaps wet feathers dry and beaks some stragglers back into place. The red bird is annoyed and heads off… but quickly returns to sing his gibberish song, once the bigger guy is dry and moving along.
A robin combs the ground, poking for worms, and I’m drawn again to the area of that far off giant, hoping for a better look in order to ID the mystery.
To my left, the neighbours prepare lunch. Voices of mother and child coming out from their kitchen nook with music drifting from their kitchen radio. “In the Air Tonight” brings back teenage summers as it drifts into the summer air.
The red bird returns to his branch, chirping to get my attention. And I see it there, chirping with a beak full of twigs… before he and his lady fly off to the other side of the parking lot, I assume to do some work on a nest. He quickly returns empty beaked… and his chirping is much clearer without the muffle of twigs.
A beetle drops atop my computer… playing dead upon my scroll pad… hoping I don’t notice. And a couple wander by in the lot beneath me… bringing their dog to the same pond the bathing bird came back from some ten minutes ago.
And that’s why it’s hard to right your blog outside, on a warm summery day, during the May 24 weekend.
SATURDAY…
--- Quiet, rainy day at work. Unable to bring myself to doing a movie with Phil and Sarah tonight. It would be late and I’m on 5 hours sleep with day shift #2 coming tomorrow. By 8:30 tonight I’m already getting sleepy.
SUNDAY…
--- Another quiet one at work. Vancouver game tonight. Good one as they score two in the third to win 3-2.
MONDAY/TUESDAY…
--- Pretty typical night shifts. Physio before the shift on Monday… and gray and rain both days.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Up around 10:30… so afternoon nap will be likely. Again… gray, cool and rain. So not much to be done other than that nap.
--- Nap is had… followed by meeting up with Sarah to get some Wendy’s for supper… and the hockey game. Canucks win big San Jose play like idiots… and we get boobs on the TV (a girl flashing Ben Eager in the penalty box).
THURSDAY…
--- Physio and then a meeting at the bank. I walk to the bank… nice to go for a stroll. Groceries and some evening TV round out the day.
FRIDAY…
--- Lunch with Karl. It’s nice and warm today… about 25 degrees… so we eat on a patio and get some Dairy Queen on the way back.
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