For my birthday present my daughter arranged a visit with my grandson Jacob. Here's an old picture (he's six now):
I can't believe how much he reminds me of my late daughter, Rachel:
Not only does he have her coloring, but his lanky, athletic movements and supreme distractibility make for a behavioral copy as well. His mother had auditory ADD, and just like with her I had to tell him five times not to step on the pumpkins at the pumpkin patch we visited, whereas with my other daughters once was sufficient. He's a free spirit with boundless energy and it's really hard to get his attention sometimes. I do give credit to his father and grandmother for teaching him good manners.Anyway, though it had been over a year, he bolted right up into my arms and we played all day. I bought him a play set of Vikings and he said, "Oh Grandpa! I love Vikings! How did you know?" Being Nordic myself, I told him: "You are a Viking."
We carved a ginormous pumpkin later with both a ghost and a bat design. He lost interest in that project quickly and went back to play with his Viking set.
My youngest daughter, Sarah, which means "Princess," while I was there, never traveled with an entourage of less than five. Then she's always been like that, surrounded by friends and admirers. As a stage performer she has charisma, which is hard to explain given her parents' retarded social skills at the same age (19). This only goes to show that personality is 75% genetic, and when the DNA dice roll, you get what you get, even if it doesn't look like or behave like you.
Here's Sarah at her high school graduation with a proud Papa:
In a marathon effort I drove six hundred miles from Long Beach to Mendocino yesterday, averaging 60 mph including gas and food stops. It amazed me since driving down I took two days. But I wanted to see Kathleen so badly and couldn't face another Econolodge.
For any interested in my upcoming book, a hardback for $17.99 due out February 15, you can do me a great favor if you have any connections to literary magazines for potential reviews. I've lined up three already but hope to have ten times that amount prior to its debut. Cross your fingers for me, or better, direct your fingers to a friendly editor to pitch the possibility of a review. And you can also write your own review and submit it (Are you listening, Norm?). To any so inclined in either capacity, I'd be happy to mail you a PDF copy prior to publication, with the hope that having a cyberversion will not dissuade you from buying the actual book.
J. Alfred was, of course, ecstatic to see me and he licked most of the hair off my bald head, I fear, in his excitement. Nice to have a pack animal around.
In all, The River of Life pushed me with a strong current through all the affairs down south, and things went swimmingly. I surprised myself. My usual reaction to the polyglot concrete playground of LA was held in abeyance with an assist from the Grateful Dead blasting as I entered the web of endless freeways.
Did you know California roads rank second to last in the nation? It is estimated that in LA alone, maintenance for a car is increased $800/yr by the bad roads. And rather than repairing our roads, this year's ballot has a proposition to fund a high speed rail between the Bay Area and LA at the cost of megabillions. New jobs are promised. I suppose the relationship between borrowing and job creation is only par for the course in our presently upside-down economy. Who coulda thunk, 100 years ago, that the world would constantly borrow from the future to pay for the present? I wonder what Eliot would have thought of that. Certainly Pound blew his mind over it.
Nothing more to report this morning. I am well. I've also lost more weight, having broken the zero of 260. The key is eating less. Duh!
I mail my ballot today. I may actually vote for the high speed rail as I tire of driving 1200 miles to see my daughters and grandson, though next time I expect I'll fly.
And to Ralph and Eric: Thanks so much for joining me at a historic bar for a three-hour, three-beer lunch. It was divine.
2 Kilobunnies,
Dr. Chaffin
That is a driving marathon. Been there done that. Sometimes it's well worth it to get to where you want to be, and it sounds like it was that way for you. I hope being home feels so great.
ReplyDelete"The key is eating less. Duh!"
ReplyDeleteIt's the simplest mathematical formula in the world, yet it eludes most of the population. Create a caloric deficit via decreased consumption of food and increased physical activity, and miracle of miracles, you lose weight!
It eluded me for years. I still remember my aha moment when I realized, finally, that the only way I was ever going to lose weight and keep it off was to eat less and move more. It was so....simple. Too simple. Yet there it was, right in front of me.
Funny thing about weight loss is it's like giving up drinking and smoking and all the other vices. You can't be successful until you realize that you're really ready to commit yourself to the task--because it IS at times a task, and you have to do it for you. You can't do it for your spouse. You can't do it because you think it's going to make you happy or attractive. You have to do it because you really want to do it. For you. The happiness and relative attractiveness are merely perks for all the hard work.
It ain't easy. If it was easy, we'd all be thin, exercising, non-smoking, non-drinking, non-drug-taking freaks.
I still, to this day, 7 years after I started exercising daily, consider that hour a day of physical activity a gift to myself.
That hour is mine.
Congratulations to you on your weight loss. Keep at it, eh?
Immi, being home does feel great.
ReplyDeleteLKD, three steps forward and two back. I think I pigged out over my caloric needs today. But tomorrow is another day.
CE
If it's any comfort, I just saw a piece today on the news about some new diet theory which involves fasting every other day. Not literal fasting, mind you. Not sure if it's based on research or what, but apparently, some folks have successfully lost weight and kept it off by indulging and eating what they want one day, then cutting way back and eating sensibly the following day.
ReplyDeleteMe, I eat what I want when I'm hungry. But I only eat when I'm hungry. That's the trick. And I stop eating long before I feel full. That's one thing few people understand. If you eat until you feel full, you've eaten too much.
The bottom line is you have to know how many calories you need to run your body and then you have to learn how to consume only that amount of calories or less. I know it's old school but counting calories is what works.
Now that New York has made it law that all the restaurants have to post the calorie amounts on menus, everyone's freaking out. It's amusing to see how clueless most folks are about how highly caloric most of the food they eat is. I've never been a partaker of those fancy schmancy coffee drinks at Starbucks (frankly, I don't want whipped cream and chocolate and caramel and god knows what else in my coffee) but knowing that some of them are 300-400 plus calories would prevent me from partaking if I were. I want to EAT my calories, not drink them.
I just read an article about the amount of calories in those "fun-sized" candy bars that everyone hands out on Halloween and was horrified. No one I know can eat just one, because, heck, they're fun-sized. I guess eating fun-sized food turns one into a fun-sized person, alas.
I just lost four pounds and feel absolutely fluffy. I tend to gain weight in the summer and lose it in the winter which is the opposite of most people. This year, the 4 pounds of summer weight was really weighing me down and going nowhere (it usually just falls off in the autumn--my metabolism seems to rev up in the fall) so I cut back just a bit in my eating, upped the physical activity, and lost the four pounds in a handful of weeks.
Keep at it, CE. It's worth the effort.
LKD, four pounds? That's less than my daily fluctuation. I like to eat late at night, then fast or eat very lightly the next day. Seems to be my pattern. But I'm holding the line, though I ate a little too much candy last night. I can't resist candy sours and such like Starburst! Mmmmm.
ReplyDelete