Yesterday I filled my car up for nearly $60. I have a mid-sized Ford Fusion so can only imagine what it’s costing owners to fill up an SUV or truck. Prices are definitely on the rise. After leaving lighter at the pumps, I stopped at the market for a pound of hamburger and some bread crumbs and left there $12 to the bad. This, not to mention, I checked out my own groceries and paid ten cents to place them in a bag.
Looking at my finances lately, I have decided I need to pare down on frills and extras such as premium movie channels, etc. I have a fire stick so really don’t need another well to draw from. As it is, I spend most of my time looking for something I want to watch. When I switched tv providers, included were a bank of premium channels for a year. This because they righteously screwed up the original installation and felt they owed me something for my inconvenience. Remembering another time when I got a similar “deal” and forgot to turn them off after the time they were given to me, I called my cable company and asked them to discontinue the free channels on the date they would become my responsibility. A half an hour later I hung up after listening to three hundred reasons why I should keep them and other deals I could involve myself in for less cash on the line. Proud of myself, I stood my ground and they are all going off next month. Yay.
I noticed immediately following that conversation ads promoting my cable company began showing up on my computer. Amazing isn’t it how they track us these days? The other day I had a conversation with my son-in-law about inflatable pools for kids. My phone was on, but sitting on the table next to us while we were talking. When I picked it up an ad popped up with a link to an inflatable pool sight. Someone, as they say, is listening. Wow. All of us with devices are being seriously tracked. I’m sure most of you have noticed you search for something on line and that item keeps showing up in ad form every site you go on after that. Kind of scary to think we’re being monitored that closely. Makes me feel like a lab rat in a cage. Next they’ll be inserting chips like Miss Boo, the Queen of Cats, has under her skin so they can really keep tabs on us, or tabby as her case might be.
As you might be able to tell I’m feeling a little out of sorts. Last night I had the most ridiculous dream, which I will share with you. You’re welcome. Makes me wonder what manner of mind this is resting underneath this blonde head. In the dream I had ordered a sandwich from Subway to be delivered to my door. This is less a dream really then a reality, because since I moved here the Door Dash guy and I have added our names to each other’s Christmas lists. At any rate, as I often do, I ordered turkey. When the doorbell rang I opened the door to find a portly gentlemen standing there wearing a chef’s hat and a red bandana looking for all the world like Chef Boyardee. In very broken English he began yelling at me while shaking my sandwich wildly over your head. “Youa, not Italian”, he’s screaming. “Where’s the meata”? “Meata”, I replied? “I ordered turkey.” “That’s a no meat” he went on as parts of my sandwich began flying through the air. “Meata, likea, pepperoni, ham, salami”. “Oh”, says I. At that point I woke up to find myself giggling. There you go. I’ve completely snapped a twig. I knew it was coming after a year and a half in this house.
Finally, they say we can go about our lives once vaccinated. I cannot tell you how much I want to embrace that. There are still, unfortunately, a lot of people out there who are vaccine hesitant or consider not getting the vaccination some sort of political statement. Here we are in a country with too much vaccine in supply with people turning down what is available, while other countries who are suffering and begging for it don’t have any. Life at times, is so confusing. Once I was at a lecture on eating disorders. The speaker said, “Only in America would you find people eating the food provided for them, and then bringing it back up”, while other countries don’t have a bowl of rice to feed their children. Words to live by.
Eating disorders are sort of a consistent vein running through our family. I believe my grandmother on my mother’s side might have suffered from one. Back in her day they didn’t know much about eating disorders, but if she was around now I’m pretty sure that might have been her diagnosis. The woman weighed about ninety eight pounds soaking wet. Every day I can remember her strapping herself into a whalebone corset. Even as a child I wondered what on earth she was holding in. Also, though she was a phenomenal baker, my guess is she didn’t consume a lot of what came out of her kitchen. My mother told me once my grandmother took a laxative daily, which is a big warning sign, and as I recall she ate half of everything she put on her plate which is another one. Mother has always been hyper focused on calories. Having a chubby kid must have been sort of a puckish trick the universe played on her. Even today with the dementia she still talks about calories when sitting down to a meal. My grandfather was a doctor. Mother said he didn’t approve of excess weight, as he felt it was unhealthy, and I believe that is where some of this might be rooted. He was a kind man, so I’m sure it wasn’t ill intended, but sometimes ill intended or not the arrow still hits it’s mark.
Growing up food was always an issue in our house. My stepfather was a naturally thin person. He could consume a half a brontosaurus, lie down for a two hour nap, eat a gallon of rocky road and lose three pounds. Just how he was wired. If you got up to get seconds from his table, he would announce loudly if asked if he’d like more as well, “No, thank you. I eat to live, not live to eat.” Whatever. Thin people don’t understand the struggle of people who simply glance at a Twinkie and gain ten pounds. They simply don’t get it.
In middle school I lost my baby fat. This didn’t occur naturally, like the sun setting in the evening. My mother initiated a diet regimen for me as I requested, coupled with exercise during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. That, along with sprouting up from 5′ tall entering high school to 5′ 6 1/2″ by the time I graduated I had whittled down to fighting weight. Apparently I have also inherited my mother’s speedy metabolism, which helps to allow me to keep my weight at a manageable level, where it has remained up until this point. Nonetheless, I do show tells here and there of tendencies towards eating disorders. I watch what I eat, I never eat sweets (or very rarely), I exercise daily, and before I used to weigh myself daily (I stopped that several years ago). When I snack I usually have four soda crackers and some cheese or an apple. My one real weakness though, my dirty little secret, are my Pringles. Got to have my salt and vinegar Pringles. Should they ever run out in the stores, guaranteed I’ll be standing on a street corner somewhere negotiating a deal with some tattooed guy with a nose ring for however many cases he has in his trunk.
Will Smith posted a picture on social media of his weight gain during the pandemic. He’s not alone for sure. Almost everyone I know has packed on some pounds over the past year and a half. I’ve got a few extra I’m trying to ignore myself. Always when summer shows up and the bathing suits come out of storage I begin to survey the damage done during the winter and dust off the weights in my closet. I don’t use them mind you, but I do dust them off.
So we come out of hibernation and feel the sun on our faces once again. Wonderful. Unfortunately, our sun is shining a little too often so we are in a bad drought situation here in California with our largest reservoirs looking pretty darn sparse. I have already packed my to-go in a hurry bag just in case. With all this dry fuel, fire season could be relentless and I want to be ready to move should the need arise. The urge to relocate again is upon me and I find myself looking at other states and what they have to offer. No matter where you go the weather is becoming a problem, but boy I do hate these fires and find myself dragging my feet about stepping into summer once again.
So with that general mishmash of everything and nothing I’ll leave you for today. Have a safe and smile packed weekend.
Thanks for sharing the story of your family and its relationship with weight and eating.
I’ve always been a heavy kid, and then as an adult, I really blew out.
It’s taken about three years, but now I’m at a more healthful weight, and I’m hoping to continue to lose weight until I’m well within the healthy weight zone according to my body mass index. I know BMI is not the be-all and end-all of health and weight, but it’s not a bad measure for my body shape and age.
Other than the aesthetics, and how hard it is to carry around excess pounds on your heart, it really comes down to general well being. I am a pretty healthy eater and I rarely eat processed sugar which I think is a big part of it. Keep it up you’ll get there. 🙂