Posted on March 4, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

The raw facts

 

“I like bread and butter,

I like toast and jam”

Bread and Butter – The Newbeats

You are what you eat (Part 2).

Occasionally (but rarely!), I’m at a loss coming up with an idea for my upcoming Monday and Thursday posts. I mean, you can’t talk about nothing for ever. I was tempted today to talk about The JWR interview (Canada) and the Cohen interview (U.S.) but decided I couldn’t start off a new month writing about things that make most of us distraught.

So, when in doubt, I fall back on the one topic that never gets stale. Food. Besides the weather, political follies and our aches and pains, food is a topic that everyone has something to say about.

So let’s see how your math skills are these days. If a person walks 20 kilometres a day for a month and gains 5 pounds, how much weight would he/she gain if they walked 8 kilometres a month? Factoring in “seasonally adjusted averages” and wind chill, one might come up with something like 12 pounds. Even the late Sister Cordeau, my high school math teacher would be puzzled with the answer. How does -7 pounds sound? Is this the “new math” that we heard so much about in the 1970s?

Hardly.

A short time ago (Feb.11^th), I wrote a piece about my addiction to sugar, a malady suffered by many of my readers, it would appear, according to some of the messages I received. Sugar is insidious and may be a silent killer. When I came back from the west coast in early February, I decided that I had to do a sugar purge for at least one month. I immediately stopped eating desserts (you saw a list of 50 of my favourites) and replaced these with fresh fruit. For one month, I ate a banana, an apple and an orange every day.

As a replacement for snacks (can you say potato chips?), I subbed in with raw carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber and mushrooms using one of the many delicious low calorie dips that you can make or pull off the shelves at the grocery store. I also reduced my carbs by about 50%. My other addiction besides sugar is bread.

I’m sure everyone of you knows this. You can beat your brains out in the gym, you can run or walk marathon distances and do Zumba till your butt falls off but none of these things will result in any significant weight loss unless matched with sensible eating habits. It is SO difficult to maintain consistency when it comes to eating. I told someone the other day that when I’m good (eating healthily), I’m very good but when I’m bad, I’m f…ing awful.

Speaking of f…ing. Get your minds out of the gutter! You can call it flatulence, its polite name, or you can just come out and say farting. (Put the art in farting!).  I noticed that when I started eating raw veggies, I was perpetually gassy. I’m even less fun to be around than usual. Of course, the lentil soup I made, along with a big pot of split pea and ham soup, also contributed to the “breaking of wind.” Actually, the wind inside has been almost as brisk as the wind outside lately. I Googled “raw vegetables that cause flatulence” and the first three on the list were broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms. While possibly a little less nutritious, I now steam these vegetables much to the relief of household occupants.

Can I maintain this regime? I don’t now but I’m going to try. Being overweight is hard on the heart and the rest of your body.

I find that I am doing embarrassing things more frequently in my 68^th year. Yes. I often head into a room in our apartment and forget why I went there. Sound familiar? The other day, I was in the Credit Union. It was one of those bitterly cold days which is no excuse for what happened next. As I was exiting the front doors leading to Main street, I wasn’t paying close attention and walked into a very thick plate glass window beside the front doors… face first. I didn’t break my glasses nor did I draw blood from my nose being pressed up against the glass. Mercifully, there was no one in the lobby of the building to witness my foibles. I didn’t suffer any injuries other than a bruised ego.

Have a great week and watch where you’re walking.

Posted on February 25, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Free Books!

Sometimes, I think I’m a Luddite. I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up. A Luddite is someone who opposes new technology.

My wife bought a new car last week. We have been driving the same trusty vehicle for ten years but decided it was time for an upgrade. Ten or twenty years ago, going to pick up a new rig was pretty straight forward. You were handed a couple of sets of keys and the owner’s manual. You shook hands with the salesperson and drove away. The entire transaction may have taken 15-20 minutes tops.

Our old car had old technology which suited us fine. You walked up to the car, unlocked  it (manually), sat in the driver’s seat and inserted the key, put it in drive and off you went. If you wanted to open the windows, you grabbed the handle and turned.

After a perfunctory welcome, we were brought to the staging room. Our car sat alone in a temperature controlled, well lit room. The salesperson got in the driver’s seat, my wife in the passenger seat and I sat in the back seat with a new set of tires. Charming. For nearly 90 minutes, we learned about new car technology. It was both spell binding and headache inducing. There is no way a technologically challenged person like me will ever figure out all of the features. Give me my 1970 VW Beetle!

This reminded me of a day last summer when our washing machine was on the fritz. My sister in law offered us theirs. She wasn’t home when I went up to do the wash. More new technology. I loved the old washers and dryers that had an on/off button and a timer. I thought about calling NASA to see how to get liftoff but wisely chose to wait until our repair man was back in town to fix our washer.

I’ll keep this brief as I have alluded to this topic probably a dozen or more times. It’s a lineup story but for once, it’s not about me choosing the wrong one. A friend was coming behind me with her groceries. Our lineup was short but when she saw me and knowing my history, she opted for a busier checkout. She exited the store before me. Just sayin.

It’s official. I have booked my flight for Spain on May 1^st. I will spend the month of May walking some 750 kilometres across northern Spain in hopes of completing the El Camino. I have decided that my fifth and final book, will document these travels.

Speaking of books, please keep your eye out for an event coming up in the near future. Most of you know that libraries like People’s Place are chronically underfunded. Tens of thousands of people use the facility in the run of a year. Friends of Antigonish Library (FOAL) are a group of volunteers who raise money to help the library buy extra materials.

I have decided to donate a bunch of my books to the library. For one week, anybody can come to the library and take a copy of any of my first three books for free. They’ll be at the circulation desk. The caveat is that I’m asking you to make a donation to FOAL if you are able. At the end of the week, I’ll be doing a presentation about the perils of publishing books. My first book sold extremely well but numbers 2, 3 and 4 have been less than stellar. If I can’t give them away, I’ll have to do some soul searching. Actually I asked one of my siblings to comment on tepid sales of my India book. In characteristic brutal honesty she said that people are sick and tired of me! I was hoping for something a little gentler like “people aren’t reading actual books anymore.”

African Heritage month winds up at the end of the month. On Thursday, I will be publishing a contributed story. It’s long so grab a large coffee and take a look. It is a true story about the Mason family from down Sherbrooke way. It took place in 1865 and it chronicles the events of a black slave being rescued from jail. I love the story and I’m sure you will to. It was written by a member of the Mason clan.

Have a great week.

P.S. I remain puzzled. In this age when communicating is so simple, why do we end up in this small town with three marquee events on one night? It happens regularly and is so sad. The audience gets dispersed. The entertainers are cheated and patrons have the unenviable task of choosing one over the other. This is particularly troubling for groups trying to fundraise.

 

Posted on February 18, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

Scarfing one down

“The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”

Blowin’ in the Wind. Bob Dylan

“If you’re going to look like a dork, I’m not walking with you.”

This is hardly the stuff one might expect to find in a Hallmark card on the cusp of Valentine’s Day.

Some of you might recall that a week ago Sunday, we had extremely high winds and bitter temperatures. After a long day indoors, my wife and I decided to brave the elements and go for a short walk. I can’t remember it being this cold in a very long time so I decided to layer up and this included a rarity for me – a scarf.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve worn one. Come to think of it, I’m not certain that I’ve ever worn one. I poked around the closet and found one that was very plain. No fashion statement with this one. I wrapped it around my neck and tied it in a knot. This “tying the knot” (not to be confused with one’s wedding day) rendered one end of the scarf long and the other quite short. This is when my wife delivered her verdict on my appearance. With the temperature hovering around -25, I wasn’t expecting the sidewalks to be crowded with fashionistas.

I was asked to remove the offending object and this time, she tied it to make me look less dorky. She commented much later that I actually cut a dashing figure as we exited our apartment to face Mother Nature’s fury.

It was brutal outside and it was hard to keep one’s head up. About 1.5 kilometres into the walk, we turned the corner heading up Brookland Street. We were now feeling the total brunt of the wind causing eyes to water. I grabbed for my scarf to pull it up over my face only to find it no longer around my neck. I turned around and it was nowhere to be seen. We may have been inclined to turn back anyways but this gave us a convenient excuse to re-trace out footsteps. We walked slowly back home looking carefully in all directions. The scarf had vanished.

As mentioned earlier, the streets weren’t crowded. Actually, we didn’t meet a single soul on the outward journey and one lone college student on the trip back home.

I was more puzzled than anything so I decided to go back over the route one more time, checking both sides of the streets on which we had trod. I looked in bushes and trees and even under vehicles. If anyone had been watching they may have wondered if I had misplaced the crown jewels.

The good news in all of this is that the scarf did not come from Mills Bros. in Halifax. In fact, I was told that it was purchased at Value Village for $2.00.

I also coined a new word last week. I have serious issues with weather forecasting. Actually, it’s not so much the accuracy and veracity of forecasting that irks me but the hype by the media when bad weather hearkens. Any hint of foul weather (can you say winter?), brings out a litany of messages designed to increase engagement at media outlets. “Huge system coming our way”, “Blast of winter to hit the Maritimes”, or “Major winter storm to wallop the region” are all catch phrases (Thanks GMD) which encourage people to tune in to their favourite television or radio station.

Whenever I hear these dire warnings, I want to scream “Flake News.™

Have a great week.