April 2011

Hungry.

The healthy eating bit is moving along fairly well this week. I am maintaining am building new eating habits again. They don’t really stick unless you’ve done them for at least 30 days in a row, and it’s only day 10. Ock. The only issue I’m having right now is I have a constant urge to gnaw on the side of my desk or something because I am always hungry. For lunch I had a beautiful sandwich made by the husbear and a little granola square chocolate thing that I ate in two bites. I have an apple waiting at my desk for when I get back to the office, despite the fact that I am not a teacher. Nevertheless, I am hungry right now, have been hungry for the past 20 minutes (since the completion of said granola square consumption) and I am eyeing the myriad of drive thrus that currently surround me. I am reciting the venomous chant of “saturated fat, saturated fat” to keep me motivated.

I added fruit back into the diet yesterday: a banana at breakfast and an apple at lunch. First of all, I am discovering that I’m not really an apple fan unless it’s in a pie or in a crisp. Raw apples do very little for me. I blame the fruit for making me feel hungry; I always feel hungrier after I eat the fruit versus prior to eating it. I do okay with bananas but the thing that bothers me about a banana is the “banana stomach” that comes about 30 minutes after consumption. Plus, I’ve heard that bananas might not be the best fruit for one to snack on. It’s got to be better than durian.

I’m trying to decide if the oncoming headache is related to being hungry or instead to the fact that the outside temperature yo-yos between 30 and 70 depending on the hour. Today I’m wearing a winter coat, tomorrow I’ll probably be want to be wearing my shorts to work.

I think I need to go through the DD drive thru and get an iced tea or something. I don’t want to be surly.

19 April 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Family.

On the drive in this morning I took the opportunity to listen to the news. I don’t do this very often because hearing about the stupidity that is rampant in our country has a tendency to raise my blood pressure and sure enough, this little nugget of news did the trick.

The Town of Clifton Park (outside of Albany) is defining what constitutes a family in an effort to control the number of people living in a residential home. They’re trying to avoid the problem of single-family homes becoming boarding houses. They’re apparently worried about the wrong kind of urban sprawl (in their eyes). I see a veil of masked white supremacy, but then again, I can be cynical at times.

Quite frankly I hate this kind of shit.

Here’s the thing. First of all, I have the best biological family and in-laws in the world. I would not change one branch of my biological and related family tree. I love them and they love us and I am always quite grateful for that. But in addition to that which we were born and or married into, Earl and I have our own family. It might not be the traditional family unit that could be found next door to The Cleavers back in 1961 but it’s our family nonetheless and as a family unit, we are quite happy. There’s common ideals, there’s common hope and most importantly, there’s love. So if we lived in the Town of Clifton Park, we wouldn’t be able to have our family living under the same roof. Our home, which contains Earl and me, Jamie, Scott and the regular visits from Dave wouldn’t be possible, because we’re not blood related, Earl and I haven’t adopted anyone and the state of New York isn’t letting anyone of our ilk get married anytime soon. So basically, if we lived in the cranky town of Clifton Park, “do-gooders” (as my grandfather was fond of calling them) would be serving us papers, people would be picketing, Girls Scouts wouldn’t be allowed to sell us girl scout cookies (not even a box of Samoas) and then there would be lawsuits, a lack of a finely manicured landscaping around a beautiful house in ways only the gay can do and then I’d have to end the whole ordeal by firing a shotgun in the air like Ma Ingalls did when they were fighting over who was going to own Walnut Grove.

Why can’t the Town of Clifton Park just let people live and let live and not worry about defining the “family unit”. What makes a family? I’ve seen blood relations damn near kill each other. Would you want your neighbors to be the group that lives with one another in harmony, even though they’re not blood related or married, or a bunch of biologically related people who hate each other, throw knives, blow up cars and let their dogs poop in the lawn, but by god they’re blood related and/or got married in Vegas at a place where the Minister yells the vows back through the clown’s mouth at the drive thru stand?

Thought so.

Just another reason to add to my famous quote of: “Albany blows”. (I know, it’s Clifton Park, but it’s still in the general area, and if they’re going to be general, I’m going to be general).

18 April 2011 by J.P. Let's All Rant. 2

Cycle.

As we entered the office a week ago last Friday, we found one of our third shift co-workers holding the door open and watching for an ambulance. One of the technicians on the floor was experiencing chest pains, numbness and shortness of breath. The ambulance arrived just after we did, in the meantime I went int my stash of aspirin and offered the technician two of them, because I heard that’s what you should do when you’re having those kinds of symptoms. The ambulance came and the technicians did their thing before taking him away on a stretcher. They took him to a hospital in Albany.

I had spoken with this person only a couple of times since our shifts didn’t really allow us to cross paths, but he seemed nice enough and appeared to have a pleasant disposition. He probably would have been considered a ‘straight bear’. He had thanked me for the aspirin.

He passed on this past Friday evening. He had been in the ICU since arriving at the hospital. We had taken a collection for his family to help with the cost of staying in a hotel near the hospital. This morning one of his sons was given the money to help with the cost of the funeral arrangements. Services will be out of state near Chicago.

The cycle of life.

18 April 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Kitchen.

The kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen again and Earl and I are both thrilled.

Friday evening we received word that the dishwasher and refrigerator had arrived, so on Saturday morning we headed out to Syracuse and picked them up at the warehouse.

Saturday afternoon it was all about teamwork as Earl and I disassembled, moved and then reassembled the refrigerator in the the kitchen. The installation only took an hour or so once we had it in the general vicinity of where it needed to go. After that was done, it was onto the dishwasher where we installed that like the home improvements experts that we strive to be. No leaks on the first try on both the refrigerator and the dishwasher, so we were pleased.

Today we’ve spent most of the day getting the kitchen back into shape and finding new gadgets and doo-dads to populate the countertops.

The observant viewer will notice in the picture above that we are still without a stove. That’s coming from Lowe’s and it will be here within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime it’ll be about the panini grill and the crockpot when it comes to supper assembly.

17 April 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 3

People.

People fascinate me. I know I rant about people from time to time, and I do subscribe to the theory that our society is in a nosedive at e moment, but on the whole I find people to be quite interesting. I could sit in a secluded spot and watch people all day. I can even be motivated to interact with folks from time to time, but I’m happiest just watching people get through their daily activities. It would seem that this would attract me to the reality shows, but there’s very little that’s real in a reality show.

Sitting in the parking lot and typing on my iPad at lunch time affords me an opportunity to see what’s going on. I park in a corner, facing out, so I can see people come in and out of the stores in the plaza. There is usually a small row of cars situated near me where I presume the occupants are doing the same thing as I am; enjoying their lunch and watching the goings on of the natives. I find this to be very relaxing. Plus, it keeps me on diet.

Earlier in the week I ranted a little bit about parking habits and the disregard of following the law of the parking lot lately. It still irks me, but I have noticed that its more likely to be true the more expensive the car is. There are exceptions to this observation, age seems to play a factor as well, but nonetheless, just formulating the observations is interesting in itself.

One of the reasons I enjoy commercial flying is because I can sit in the airport and watch complete strangers navigate their way through mazes of corridors, expensive eateries and ridiculous security procedures. The way people handle these things is intriguing. It’s unfortunate that the new security precautions prohibit this from becoming a weekend pastime, but those outside of the sacred, radiation/xray free area are not nearly as interesting as those that have had their toothpaste confiscated.

People watching makes me feel relaxed and grounded. It’s probably odd that I want to do this from a distance, but that’s what odd folks like me do.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

15 April 2011 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept Ponderings and Musings 1

Healthy.

I just had two pieces of pizza for lunch. This isn’t very healthy, but it was for one of the charity organizations at work and I always support these groups at work when I can. Today’s charity was suicide awareness and prevention. I should get more involved.

For five dollars we got two pieces of pizza of our choosing, a tossed salad with dressing, a beverage and a dessert. I opted for the cheese and broccoli pizza (called white pizza in these parts because of the lack of sauce), balsamic vinegar on my tossed salad and a diet pop. I also selected the smallest cookie I could find. I feel I made healthy choices given the circumstances and will adjust my supper choices accordingly, probably by sucking on a breath mint and inhaling the vapor given off by an African violet. I jest, I’ll have a small veggie sub from Subway since I’m in bachelor mode tonight and we have no appliances in the kitchen. So basically I’m swapping lunch and supper. A crude deal-a-meal approach, without the sequins, glitter and bad Afro.

When spring finally began to show it’s face I found myself motivated to be healthy again and I was pleased to see that I have lost five pounds in the past two weeks. If you follow along with my Twitter feed you’ll see that I do quite a bit of walking during my breaks at work and I am getting back into cycling again. The guys at work have asked me to join them on some rides this summer and I’m considering it. I miss riding my bike. The five pounds feel noticeable to me. The walking, along with my morning exercises feels good. I think my mood is lighter too, which is always a good thing.

When I mentioned my delight in trying to be healthier to Earl, he remarked that he was happy that in was being sensible about it; no fad or crash diets, no Slim Fast, no protein powders or no declarations of vegetarianism. This new tendency to stay away from speaking in absolutes is slowly taking root. I feel like I’m progressing again. This makes me smile.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

14 April 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 4

15.

Today I have a big smile on my face. It was 15 years ago today that Earl and I had our first date in the lovely city of Albany, N.Y. The date ended up being a six hour drive through the mountains of Vermont and the beginning of a lifetime journey together. When he put my hand on my leg as I was driving my little ’94 Hyundai Excel, I knew that hand would be there forever.

‘Tis true, the man still makes me see fireworks. And smile. A lot.

13 April 2011 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 3

Lunch.

Back when I was young and full of energy I worked for a couple of agencies that worked with the developmentally disabled. I worked in group home and assisted living facilities. It was a job that I liked, though I knew that I wasn’t destined to do it forever, and it was a job that pulled on my heart strings and helped me grow in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise found. I learned a lot about the human equation during those years.

One of the daily chores that I would help the folks¹ complete was the assembly of their lunches for the next day. These folks, regardless of their age, brown bagged it to the various day treatment or workshop programs they attended during “business hours”. Each of the folks was responsible for making his or her own lunch and as a residence counselor or manager I assisted with the process. My assistance was dependent on the skill set of the individual. Some folks needed help manipulating a knife to spread mustard, others needed to be shown the difference between ham glaze and strawberry jam and yet others had no concept of lunch at all and just knew that whatever came out of the brown bag made them happy. Others could assemble the lunch on their own, they just needed some guidance as to what would be healthy and what probably wouldn’t be a good choice. After a year of addressing and guiding healthy choices with one particular woman, she found a great deal of pride in gaining the skill to assemble a healthy lunch on her own, based on what she had been taught.

A Chicago Area School has banned students from bringing in lunches from home. The students must eat what is served from the cafeteria or else go hungry. Principal Elsa Carmona said that the food coming from home wasn’t nutritious enough so she banned brown bagging it.

So, if a mother wants to make a homemade meal for her child, she can’t. Her kid must eat the processed crap that school cafeterias serve these days. I have been behind the scenes in a school cafeteria. Pork comes in tubes with so much fat that you can pour the pork out of the tube. Hot dogs are a routine staple, French fries are a necessity and there’s always plenty of cookies around.

Not exactly a healthy offering, is it Elsa?

When I first read this article this morning I was became angry, because here we have another example of someone sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong and trying to dictate to others how they should live their life. I’m sorry but the school is not there to be a nanny or to babysit. A school is there to educate, and they are completely missing the mark because they are taking away the responsibility of the parent to teach their kid how to make healthy meal choices. I don’t understand why there isn’t more outrage about this.

There is a cynical side of me that thinks that this has to do with government reimbursements for the cafeteria — a sure way to help the school budget. But I won’t go down that road because it could just be me being cynical. However, I won’t buy one word of the principal’s claims that she is trying to help the students eat healthier until:

anything that can be found in a Happy Meal or at a hot dog stand is left off the menu
all microwaves are removed from the kitchen
all items containing high fructose corn syrup, preservatives or artificial sweeteners is removed from the premises.

I have written Ms. Carmona an email expressing my feelings on the subject, after trying to call her but finding all circuits busy (I guess she’s popular today). I’m interested in seeing her response.

¹ The people I worked with at the homes were just folks. We didn’t call them residents. Chautauqua County had a habit of calling them “the guys”, regardless of sex and Oneida County called then “the folks”. I liked “folks” a lot.

12 April 2011 by J.P. This Ain't No CNN. Why. 1

Rants.

I think I might have a reputation for going on a rant once in a while. I’m not sure that I enjoy this sort of reputation because I like to think that overall I’m a nice sort of guy, but once in a while something puts me in the mood to rant and rave. I’m sometimes told there are more important things to worry about and I should look at the big picture. As I have said before, I’m not even in the same art gallery looking at the same wall, let alone looking at the same picture as most, so I figure I can say what’s on my mind once in a while. I figure it’ll give folks a glimpse at my perspective.

My rants are usually associated with an OCD thing I might have going on. For example, the driver of the SUV on the other side of the parking lot has completely ignored the lines that denote a proper parking space. This makes me insane. Is this woman as haphazard in her approach to life? Does she feed her tiny kids milkshakes because after all, it’s milk? Would she like it if the woman at the beauty parlor drew her eyebrows on haphazardly, say vertically from the nose, instead of where they should be above the eye? Are her panties turned inside out? If she is this haphazard with her parking habits then she is surely just as messy with her everyday life. And if she doesn’t really care about the small details, why should we fund her basic needs with public assistance? If she doesn’t care, why should I care? I say park between the lines or being a victim of thinning the herd. We have more needy people that need the welfare cheese.

America’s fastest 3G network is sucking big time today. Is anyone as tired of the ads as I am? Is anyone a fan of the merging of giant corporations (I.e. AT&T and T-Mobile)? They push us to move our lives to the cloud and then they give us crappy service. Don’t promote it if you can’t furnish the goods. Empty promises. So many empty promises. Do we remember that the voices on our party lines (shared phone lines, not hubba hubba) sounded much clearer than what we accept as golden over our cell phones? We are settling for mediocrity. “The next version will be better with more features, but buy this version in the meantime.” I’m not buying anything. Earl just rolled his eyes.

There is a septic truck pulled up to Applebees making a really loud noise ( though it’s not a farting sound). This seems appropriate for lunch time. How about an appetizer to go with your honey wagon cocktail?

Why do young people start smoking these days? Have we raised such a stupid generation of people that they’ll go ahead and do something that they know will kill them prematurely? Perhaps it’s part of the master plan and we’ll be rid of them soon enough.

The weather guessers are predicting severe thunderstorms tonight. Because of this I plan on barbecuing under a clear sky with a mild breeze. Listen to the forecast and expect the opposite because no one really knows which side of the dice really means rain.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

11 April 2011 by J.P. Let's All Rant. 2

Cat Cam.

Tom is pleased with the decision to return to the older comforter. At around 16 years old, he prefers the well established traditions, eats at 4:30 in the afternoon and mourns the lost opportunity to get an Ames senior discount card.

Future plans include the intention to outlive the current titleholder of “oldest cat on record”.

10 April 2011 by J.P. Random 0

April 2011

Hungry.

Family.

Cycle.

Kitchen.

People.

Healthy.

15.

Lunch.

Rants.

Cat Cam.

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