D. Fish. Antsy

At a recent Drs. visit my  physician mentioned that they're seeing more and more vitamin D deficient patients this year than ever before.
"Moi", I interjected sternly " certainly, not, there isn't a ricket to be found anywhere near my person"
"True that, but you are deficient. Oily fish my friend, and a pill, that's what you need. Get outside and walk around in the sun."

I won't lie, the whole thing made me crabby. Walk around in the sun? It's gray everyday, the ground and the sky are the same imperceptible hue. I used to adore snow globes but now that I live in one, not so much. This IS the Winter of my discontent, thank you Shakespeare (or Bacon).

Take another pill ? I already have migraine maintenance twice a day,  and cholesterol pills, now another? It seemed crazy and I began to think the most intelligent thing to do would be to stop going to the doctor.

I walked into the local chemist to fill my new script and was horrified when the nice girl behind the counter not only recognized me but knew my address.  I had unwittingly crossed a line into some sort of medical zone that's reserved for OLDER people who require numerous prescriptions and special boxes to put them in.

I could end up that way. It starts out quite innocently I would assume. At first it's just a box to keep all the pills in one place, then it's a box just to sort one day from the next. From that point it moves to morning, noon and night and the next thing you know you're hooked on a box labeled days of the week, hour by hour and you have a registered nurse on the payroll to sort them out for you. I swore an oath then and there on a stack of diabetic magazines that I would never let that happen to me and handed over my script for vitamin D. The counter girl quietly slipped one of the magazines in my bag for me. I was appreciative.

I'm in the market for oily fish, sardines or mackeral and things to do with these oily fish. Salmon, is a staple for me, I love it and eat it frequently. I think Costco has fantastic Salmon and I usually just toss it in the oven with a spritz of olive oil, dill and a sprinkle of Kosher salt. I have no idea where to get mackeral, it sounds British.

I walked around in the, ah, sun and enjoyed it very much this morning as well as my breakfast of spinach and egg beaters. I can't help but feel a little bit antsy though, I'm anxious for the ground to be less slippery and the sun to actually peek through. A blue sky would be nice!

All the best, Kate

Lost in Lifetime

I feel as if I've been awake but adrift in my own life for the last few weeks or so. It's been an adjustment of sorts to a new maintenance migraine medicine that's working but the side affects are somewhat strong. The first weeks were tough, I couldn't focus, words on a page seemed foreign to me and I was convinced I would never play the piano again. Ah Bach!  I imagined my fingers flying over the keys only to have them stick and tingle like thousands of pins pricking me and I experienced panic attacks for the first time in my life and for the first time in my life I was taciturn. I stuck with the meds but the side effects didn't improve. I had to find a way to escape.

Dorothy had her poppy field, Alice had her looking glass and I, quite innocently stumbled onto 'LMN', the Lifetime Movie Network. One day I finished work early, curled up under a quilt on the couch and watched a movie and I enjoyed it, so I watched another. It drew me in. I slept, I watched, I watched, I slept. it was wonderful. I didn't have to think and I felt so safe with the world at bay out there somewhere. It became my haven from reality and I enjoyed every lifetimelovingminute of it.

Now the fog is starting to lift and some of the side effects are starting to disappear. Things are starting to come together and the LMN halo is starting to tarnish  for me. I've been mulling  over L.M.N in my mind and it's taken on new meaning for me, something like 'Lost My Nine-to -Five' and I'm beginning to think this is where actor's career's go to die.

Patty Duke, Martin Sheen what were you thinking? I saw you play a married couple and your acting was so over the top I buried my head in a bag of hershey's kisses and didn't come up for air for 2 and 1/2 hours. Maybe the script was at the top of a big stack of erectile dysfunction commercials and you felt you had no choice. Maybe you just couldn't take another minute of retirement. To this I say, learn to cope, take a vacation, reflect, live the good life, you did your part and when all else fails.... WWJJD. What would Janis Joplin do? Tequila my friends, tequila.

Truth be told, every so often there is a standout movie. In one shining moment Shannon Dogherty rose like a Phoenix out of the ashes in a movie about a couple falsely accused of killing their child only to fall like an over gummed Garcia Vega into the ash pit of 10 other ridiculous movies. There are so many familiar faces on LMN that it reads like a hollywood high school year book. It's unfortunate that some of those actors weren't clever enough to get a regular gig on Syfy like Bruce Boxleitner. He seems to have a cameo on just about everything and it doesn't matter if some of it's low rent, it's meant to be. It's tongue and cheek, the kind of thing that hits the spot when you need a mental health day.  Bruce could end up on any number of shows that will go Cult classic and some idiot like me will buy his action figure on ebay for $3.00. I've yet to hear of an LMN action figure and I bet if you're a regular on LMN your chances that someone has a cardboard cutout of you in their living room go down by 50%. Of course that's just one pastry girls' opinion.

LMN runs movies, 24/7  all with familiar themes, cheating spouses, abused children and lots of murder. They're formulaic as hell. The victims are always innocent, but the cops never believe it. The victims do all the leg work and always find the killers, but the cops never believe it until the very end and then they respect and even sometimes fall in love with the victims. It's a crazy maze of twists and turns and it got me through a rough couple of weeks.

I'm not saying I'll never watch LMN again. I'll admit a certain morbid fascination with True Movie Thursday which makes me sound like a complete psycho when I send my kids cryptic text messages warning them of possible fates that have befallen others. Right now it's run it's course for me and that's a good thing.

All the best, Kate

It's not a tumah...

Great news! I get to take new medicine for the headaches. This time it's preventative, not maintenance, which is apparently what pain pills are. Not so great news, I have to take it everyday, twice. I haven't picked it up from the chemist yet because I'm a bit worried about the cost. It sounds expensive but then what do I know. I was the one that thought we'd have a replicator and sonic showers by now, it's twenty ten afterall.

The nerve cells in our brains fire electronic particles, all the time. Migraine sufferers supposedly have overexcited nerve cells and they fire too fast and too frequently. It's a better problem to have than nerve cells that fire too slow I suppose.

Slow things drive me crazy. I'm very type A, rush, rush. Waiting is anethema to me. Let's get it done and move on. But that's not important. I'm told I can eat a more balanced diet and get on with my life. I just need to take pills. Here's what bothers me. Do I want to take pills and more pills, and more pills as I age? It's not just the carrying them around in little boxes that bothers me, it's the thought of living past my natural life expectancy. I don't want to live forever and I certainly don't want to live just for the sake of being alive.

If there is some vast eternal plan at work I suppose I'll die when I'm supposed to whether or not I'm taking pills. By that logic it doesn't really matter. The thought of extending my life expectancy just because I can doesn't really appeal to me. When I get old I'll slow down and I don't want to.

All the best, Kate

Purse-peration

I have a love/hate relationship with purses, always have. No matter what style, type or size I have, one constant remains, my purses are never functional. I do enjoy sculpting purses out of cake. It's my new favorite thing.

I have had a variety of purses, all serving their purpose for small increments in time. There was a backpack phase when I was playing the piano for a job but I had to supplement that with a bag. It was fine for music but I could never find a pen, guitar pick. or saint's be praised, my phone.

I went from that to a tiny 'alwaysreadyforadate' purse with only enough room for a license, a debit card, and a lipstick. I could have gotten used to that if it weren't too small to fit my phone which I had to carry in my hand or a pocket. I had to retrace my steps a lot in search of my phone since I left it EVERYWHERE.

The thought of a bigger purse with comparments appealed to me and was great for the first 24 hours before it became disorganized. I stuck with that one for awhile though until I started having shoulder problems. I kept throwing my change in one of the compartments and it became heavy and hit the floor with a thud everytime I put it down. Discovering there are so many things I can't live without I began to fill it with everything. The only way to find anything was to turn it upside down and shake until everything fell out. When I got to the point that I started carrying my Star Trek action figures I decided it was time for something else.

I went from that to a ziploc bag. Not my highest point but it was very functional. I could always find what I wanted, when I wanted it. There was one big drawback, aside from the fact that everyone could see exactly what I was carrying, it looked ridiculous and stupid. It's virtually impossible to carry a concealed Captain Picard action figure in a ziploc purse. Kids want to play with it and adults think you're weird.

It occurred to me that Ebay may be a place to look for a nice purse selection, and I was correct. I found  a  nice leather purse that I like, simple and functional and midsized. It works pretty well and I've taken to cleaning it out every other day or so just to stay organized. I still have to dump everything out of it to find my phone but at least I'm remembering to empty the change out. As for Captain Picard and the away team? They're resting comfortably on a shelf.

All the best, Kate

P.S. Still have a headache, still eating well. What's up with that?

Headaches Continue, and not just the self inflicted ones.

Of the last 14 days of my headache diet I've had 12 headaches. I suppose it could be taking me that long to detox, but it seems unlikely. Looking back on my food diary it dawned on me that I can't think of anything. Wheat maybe but I don't eat a lot of it, or a lot of carbs for that matter. I haven't been drinking. I think I've only had a small glass of wine since Christmas, so it continues to be a conundrum to me.

Last year I took a daily medication and it worked but it was a hard adjustment. A couple days after my first few pills I was commissioned to play the piano at church. I felt tipsy and totally lacking focus. There were leaves dancing in the breeze and they shone through the stained glass window and caught my attention, holding it there until I completely spaced out the church service  The minister broke my trance and had to remind me to play the next hymn. I felt like the heroine in a twilight zone episode.

After a few weeks my spirits raised, I started sleeping better and the headaches started to go away. It happened so gradually I almost didn't notice. It was like one day I woke up and suddenly realized I didn't have headaches anymore. I began to adjust to the feeling  of being continually toasted. It was like having a central line with a conituous flow of whiskey, a perpetual happy hour. Never too drunk, never to sober just steady and kind of numb. I felt dull and uncreative. It was terrible, I had the ability to function but no desire, just the opposite of me with a headache. This is my brain on meds, ( nothing but us brain cells, shriveling with boredom ) this is my brain on headaches ( imagination soars to unbelievable heights and imaginary friends come out of the woodwork but they never shut up). It's all or nothing, intoxicating creativity or watching paint dry.

Such is my fate. I need to pick a lesser of two evils. Go back on the meds or keep experimenting with diet or whatever I can think of. I could try tai chi, hypnosis, energy healing, acupuncture or heated glass therapy. I tried chiropractic but it felt like a downward spiraling vortex that sucked me of money, not too mention a heightened awareness of spinal cord injuries. That's probably just scratching the surface of various therapies. I wonder if there's a therapy that involves fast cars and reggae.

I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing I guess and hope something  brilliant comes across the wire.

All the best, Kate

Really !

It was just one of those ridiculous days. You can't escape them because it's just part of the universal order of things. Call it Murphy's Law or whatever you like. It's the weird little oddities that are inevitable, really.

I finally found a great tasting sugar free cookie and it has 12 grams of fat in it. 
I visited my parents today and they have their thermostat set at 975 degrees, yes 975. It was so hot I got a sunburn, lost 4 pounds and started to peel on the drive home. They also pass gas alot and don't care who hears it.
I had a blood test today and I had to hold the tubes for the lab lady so she could use both hands.
Starbucks makes fantastic oatmeal with nuts and raisins for a mere $3.00
I drove 80 mph on the freeway and some idiot still tailgated me.
It only took me 6 minutes to drive to the bank which is 10 minutes away because I had all green lights.

To all of these things I say... REALLY...

I am about to scrounge the fridge looking for something for dinner. I may head back to Starbucks. That oatmeal made a lasting impression on me. So did it's 350 calories. I didn't have to eat the nuts and cranberries but I did, and it truly was delicious!

All the best, Kate

Sunday! Day of rest? By who's standards.

I'm beginning to understand the wisdom of eating small meals several times a day. It keeps one from making poor choices. I made a poor choice today, getting out of bed.

The day was a just little more stressful than I like but it was nice. I like when that happens. I did have to keep reminding myself to keep Christmas in my heart every other minute or so but I managed.


Long story, short version. I agreed to do a bridal show of the 'show your wares and samples as fast as you can to 500 brides' ilk. In the past I've done it and it's always come down to big investment, long hours and little return, but I'm hopeful. It's twenty-ten afterall and the brides were both beautiful and receptive. The organization and locale was stunning. The show was fun indeed. I was also booked to fill in for the musician at church. I thought it was supposed to be next week, but the dates were confused. It's usually a fun gig but today, today there was pressure.

My gentlemen husband, (he's so kind) left with me this morning, helped me set up our booth and then stayed at the show by himself while I ran out to play the piano. I played like the place was on fire! It was glorious. No fuss, no muss, just play, pray and on your way!!! I rushed back to the bridal show just as brides were beginning to trickle in and then that trickle turned into a flood and we were busy working our cake magic. Again, glorious!!

Is there a point you say! Truly, and here it is. I ate nothing all day but a 100% whole wheat english muffin with sugar free blueberry jam. My stomach started singing along during the sermon and continued right on through the offering. Thank God, for the communion, literally. I had a Homer Simpson moment.... brreeaad...hooo, and holy bread at that. Doh!

By the time we left the bridal show at 5:00 I was practically hallucinating. A nice man from a local restaurant strolled through passing out cookies and what did I do? I tackled him like a linebacker. I ate one cookie, but only one.

The poor choice was setting myself up to fail. Eating the cookie wasn't so terrible but  leaving myself with no other choices was nonsensical.  I should have gotten my keester out of bed and packed some carrots, fruit, rice cakes, anything!!  When we arrived home I inhaled a cup of decaf, vegan pizza, salad and a few kernels of last nights popcorn.. blaech!

Kids, I've learned my lesson. I will no longer venture out of the old homestead with nothing between me and the beast that is my hunger, but a mere tic tac. I'm determined to carry healthy snacks all the days of my life (and keep Christmas in my heart).

All the best, Kate