Monday, June 27, 2011

Don't Forget to Be Happy

I just responded to a post on one of my teams. The team leader was asking what we did to stay positive. I liked my answer well enough to share it as a blog.

My Dad is my role model for a positive attitude.

He was born in 1913.

He remembers the great flu epidemic of 1918. The whole family got sick, but they all survived.

His older brother drowned in the Mississippi River when my Dad was about 16. Because the family was poor, my Dad had to drop out of high school after the tragedy and go to work. He was happy to be strong and healthy and able to find work.

He survived the Great Depression. He worked for a while in a Civilian Conservation Corps Camp in northern Minnesota. He says he enjoyed it. They fed him well and he earned money to send home to his mother and younger siblings.

He survived World War II. He was in the Signal Corps, and he says that kept him alive. The radio boys weren't the first ones ashore in the South Pacific, so fewer of them got shot. He was proud of being a soldier, and he met my Mom in New Zealand during the war, so he is always positive about his war experience.

He did factory work, supported my mother and 4 kids. My mother went through college with my Dad's support, and he was immensely proud of her. He taught me that I could accomplish anything with hard work and education.

After retiring from his factory job, my Dad worked another 10 years as a cook at a church operated day care center. He loved cooking, and loved the little kids.

My Dad is 97 now. He forgets what day it is, but remembers his long life with happiness. He enjoys the VA home he's in. He says they feed him well, and the bed is soft, what more could he want.

Any time I get discouraged I think of my Dad, and all that he was able to overcome and accomplish and survive. I'm going to keep working hard, and stay happy.

Billy Collins wrote a wonderful poem about forgetfulness that I'm going to share today. It makes me think of my Dad, too.

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses good-bye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of you spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins


Friday, June 17, 2011

Two Friends Met for Lunch



This blog was written for my weight loss web site, exploring some of the differences in people's attitudes towards food.


Two friends met at a diner for gossip and lunch. I’m calling the thin friend Bitsy and the ample friend Betsy.

Bitsy barely glanced at the menu and set it aside. She knew what she wanted. Betsy studied the menu avidly, looking at all the options, and wondered what she should eat. She was on a diet, as she always was.

The waitress came and Bitsy ordered a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato, fries and a coke. Betsy sighed and ordered a chef salad with (after some hesitation) blue cheese dressing, and iced tea. “Sweet tea or regular?” asked the waitress. Betsy hesitated again then said “sweet – after all, I’m getting a salad – and I love sweet tea”.

The waitress brought the drinks. Bitsy set hers aside. Betsy took a long swallow and said, “I wish I was thin like you so I could eat anything I wanted. You must have a good metabolism. Everything I eat turns to fat.”

Bitsy shrugged. “I never really thought about it.”

The food came.

Bitsy removed the top bun of the burger, along with the lettuce and tomato and both slices of cheese. She took a paper napkin and blotted the top of the burger, turned it over to blot the other side, studied the cheese for a moment, then replaced one slice and left the other sitting on the discarded top of the bun. She added back the tomato and lettuce, picked up her fork and knife and cut off a small bite of burger, being careful to get a bit of tomato, lettuce and cheese in the bite. She put down her fork and knife, took one small sip of coke, and began to share some juicy gossip.

Betsy picked up the gravy boat full of blue cheese dressing and poured it over her salad. In the salad bowl was a head of iceberg lettuce, a tomato cut in wedges, 2 hard boiled eggs, cut in halves, a chopped cucumber, an ounce of American cheese, an ounce of Swiss cheese, an ounce of turkey and an ounce of ham. She mixed in the dressing and started to eat steadily, stopping only for long swallows of sweet tea.

Bitsy studied her fries, carefully picking out those that were too dark or too pale, setting them aside by the cast off bun and cheese. She ate half a large fry, another bite of burger, and had a small sip of coke.

By the time Bitsy had eaten her third bite of burger and her third French fry, Betsy had eaten half her salad and was signaling the waitress for more sweet tea.

I think you can see where this is going. Betsy consumed her entire salad, along with half a cup of blue cheese dressing, two glasses of sweet tea, and two packages of saltines. Bitsy ate about ¾ of her stripped down cheeseburger, eight fries, and drank half her coke.

Bitsy left satisfied. She hadn’t eaten a lot of fruits or vegetables for lunch, but she didn’t really think about it. She’d eaten a big bowl of strawberries for breakfast, and was planning to have salmon and green beans for dinner, with a baked sweet potato.

Betsy felt deprived. She thought of her lunch as “rabbit food” and was already anticipating a candy bar mid afternoon to make up for her “diet” lunch. She still blamed her metabolism for her weight problem.

Which friend are you?


Here is a poem I’ve always like. It reminds me of the special relationship between parent and child.

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?

Don't fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge

My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?

What he doesn't know
is that when we're walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand

Robert Hershon


Thursday, June 02, 2011

Pick One - Get Moving

Adapted Aquatics
Bowling
Circuit Training
Dancing
Elliptical
Free Weights
Gardening
Hiking
Inclined Treadmill
Jump Rope
Kick Boxing
Lacrosse
Miniature Golf
Nautilus
Off Road Biking
Pilates
Quoits
Rowing
Swimming
Tennis
Ultimate Challenge
Volley Ball
Wii Fit
X-treme Fitness
Yoga
Zumba

Come up with a list of your own.



And if you happen to find Jesus at the bowling alley, think of this poem.


Heaven on Earth

I saw Jesus at the bowling alley,
slinging nothing but gutter balls.
He said, "You've gotta love a hobby
that allows ugly shoes."
He lit a cigarette and bought me a beer.
So I invited him to dinner.

I knew the Lord couldn't see my house
in its current condition, so I gave it an out
of season spring cleaning. What to serve
for dinner? Fish—the logical
choice, but after 2000 years, he must grow weary
of everyone's favorite seafood dishes.
I thought of my Granny's ham with Coca Cola
glaze, but you can't serve that to a Jewish
boy. Likewise pizza—all my favorite
toppings involve pork.

In the end, I made us an all-dessert buffet.
We played Scrabble and Uno and Yahtzee
and listened to Bill Monroe.
Jesus has a healthy appetite for sweets,
I'm happy to report. He told strange
stories which I've puzzled over for days now.

We've got an appointment for golf on Wednesday.
Ordinarily I don't play, and certainly not in this humidity.
But the Lord says he knows a grand miniature
golf course with fiberglass mermaids and working windmills
and the best homemade ice cream you ever tasted.
Sounds like Heaven to me.

Kristin Berkey-Abbott


I originally posted this blog on my weight loss site, where exercise is a key component of weight control.