Gwool's Open Salon Blog

Holidays and the Weight Gain Fears of People Who Love Them

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:11:39 -0500

The vapid news feeds on the banner always give reasonable indication of what's on our minds when less than completely occupied. It is the "Oh, look! Something shiny!" component of our daily lives once served by Man Bites Dog headlines in newsprint. (Shirley you remember newsprint?)

The holidays have hit, and with it come all the various fad diets and admonitions about how to keep the weight off without really even trying.

An anorexic high school friend with an awe inspiring tolerance for alcohol summed it up as the three F's: "Food, face, fat." More food to the face; more fat. Less food to the face; less fat. Big boned, little boned; high metabolism; low metabolism; the universal truism holds.

But the latest drivel breathtakingly mentioned a critical vitamin to help you keep the weight off. Seems higher levels of vitamin D in tests kept an additional 1.6 pounds off over a period of 6 months. A pound is 3,500 calories, so 1.6 pounds equates to 5,600 calories.

There's pie slices awaiting you on your grandmother's table at Thanksgiving with more calories in them than that.

Assuming you got a little liquored up the night before at a high school gathering at some dive bar, the carbo cravings to snap you out of the doldrums means you likely super size at the dessert table, anyway. Assuming, of course, you did not chow down at the chip and dip segment of your gorging experience to load up on salty snacks and fight off the hangover-induced hungry horrors.

But, hey, do not worry. Six months on vitamin D, and the added weight will just melt away.

The other little shocker this time around was to glibly talk about what liquids to forego in order to watch the pounds melt away in the event you cannot load up on the Vitamin D.

Work real hard here, readers. This one really stretches credulity.

Sugared drinks. Cut out sugared drinks.

What do you think? A slow news day or what?

Some of those 16 oz sodas pack as much as 350 or 400 calories. Alas, the calorie count lists the bottle as being 3.5 serving sizes. It's a nice touch. I guess if you cannot do the math on the fly the makers figure you deserve what you get.

But, really, how earth shattering a revelation does this happen to be? Is it really hard to figure out that swilling Coke or Pepsi rather than Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi or, perish the thought, water, would reduce caloric intake in a reasonable way without a whole hell of a lot of deprivation?

So, if trying to drink away the dysfunction at the family gathering, go for Rum and Diet Coke, rather than Rum and Coke. How hard can this be?

Now some may wind up fleeing -- or being exiled -- to the kiddie's table. Child like innocence abounds in the outback where the family patterns have yet to fully scar the psyches. You, as the adult, need to help with this.

So here's a suggestion.

It has been well documented that dropping Mentos into soda bottles leads to an explosion of sorts. I say you get a little liquored up, and have the kids table help you work with that.

Give yourself a fleet enema.

Just make sure it's Diet Coke rather than sugared soda.

Either that or load up on the vitamin D.

Do not try this at home:

Nicotine Withdrawal Is For Quitters

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:11:02 -0500

Seems to me I am on day three of the latest effort to give up cigarettes, with the first 72 hours allegedly being the hardest. It has been a torrid love affair with the devil stick started in my mid teens by a long time friend who gave up the dastardly coffin nails decades ago.

I huffed on them as a cross country runner in high school. Even got caught smoking one before a regional meet in which I placed fairly high.

I huffed on them in college where a cup of keg beer was as much a fixture as the cigarette.

I huffed on them in a high pressure work environment made to feel like a safe haven compared to the blast furnace that was a home life of renovations, young children, and contention.

We both smoked. Either one of us tried to quit the roof came off the house, and it was easy to relapse into smoking again. No blame shifting there, just a reality. Two trying to quit at the same time would be a great reality series. The words "Cage" "Death," and "Match" should definitely appear somewhere in the title.

Similarly, it is easy to grab a smoke when they are in your partner's possession.

So I have made concerted efforts to quit probably a dozen times in the past 25 years. I have also likely gained 60 or more pounds in aggregate trying to give these things up. As I type this I can feel an anxiety/withdrawal spike of physical uneasiness hitting me, and yet I realize it will pass if I just blot it out and take a few deep breaths. Mind over matter, baby.

I am really good at quitting. The problem then becomes quitting after quitting, or lighting up again. I am really good at that, as well.

I would hammer the butts on weekends usually with some correlation to alcohol and then try not to smoke on weekdays. Nicotine allegedly hangs in the body for those 72 hours before passing the blood stream, so I did that regular torture dance for years as a way to moderate the smoking intake.

Yeah, I know. Punishment gluttony. Nothing in moderation. The body as a blast furnace. Name the joke; I got it in the arsenal.

One of the better attempts was actually promoted by my spouse's employer through the health plan. It mentioned the muscle memory association between caffeine and nicotine. Give up coffee for a week or two, and THEN drop the butts.

Worked great to reduce my coffee intake, but didn't make a dent in the cigarettes, and certainly did not make that nicotine withdrawal seem any easier that failed time around the quitting track.

That's also the strategy with Wellbutrin (generic name buproprion), which has worked several times quite well for me. My GP turned me onto that one. Wellbutrin happens to be an anti-depressant drug that seems to have a 50% success rate helping people give up smoking. Go on the anti-depressant for about a week. Throw away the butts, and away you go.

Given various shifts in my life that have mellowed me considerably, I fear ingesting Wellbutrin this time around might lapse me into a zombie like state, so this one is simply white knuckle time. Besides, all that money on self help books has to be put to a test within my control, damn it. And smoking a butt is certainly within my control. Relationships are not, unless talking to a 900 number line.

No butts. No pills. No nothing. Not even a patch. Think old movie western: "Patches? We don't neeeed no steeenKING Patches!!!"

The only depressing aspect will be monitoring weight gain. Smoking a pack of butts equates to burning 200 calories a day. Do nothing else, and you will be on a course to gain weight, anyway. Given I was huffing two packs, that's 2,800 calories a week, and a pound equates to 3,500 calories. Add a little food intake, and you can see an additional pound a week added to the frame just by not smoking.

Not Good. Not good at all.

So endorphin chasing will be the order of the day. Kicking in the endorphins will mean having exercised. Having exercised will hopefully be a caloric burning offset to polluting the lungs. Besides, exercising is the second best way to trigger that endorphin-buzz in the body, and the only one totally within one's control.

A wise, high school friend mentioned to me that you never really give up addictions, you simply transfer them from one vice to another. So the hope will be to obsess on endorphin chasing rather than nicotine ingesting. If it's from nicotine to some sedentary pursuit like, say, rapid fire blogging, then I likely will turn back into a bloat fish, and we do NOT want that happening.

I'd rather make the headlines for being brought up on charges for excessive affection with an elliptical machine. Far less embarrassing than having to have the fire department chainsaw a wider opening than my sliding door in order to life flight me to an emergency room for some obesity-related ailment. That would be akin to some beached whale being helicoptered far enough out from shore to save it from its own stupidity of beaching itself again and prove Darwinism right were it not for the excessive human intervention.

Three days. The hard part is over. I know. I have done it countless times.

Who needs discipline when you have a high pain tolerance?

That, of course, and pride. Public declarations go a long way towards raising that bar.

Friday The 13th? Bring It On!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:11:30 -0500

Ever wonder why Friday the 13^th is bad luck? We all did it. I remember that as a kid, and actually do double takes on this date, wondering how Karma might dope slap me.

I don’t lie in bed with the covers over my head wetting myself, mind you, but I do wonder with curiosity what evil might lurk that day that I can blame on outside influences. Let’s face it, it’s always more fun to lay it off on outside forces than look at yourself for the answer, right?

Rationalizing: Keeping people sane and unaware of their faults since Eve blamed the snake. Or, more appropriately, since a bunch of old guys wrote the story and blamed it on a woman.

An internet article today had some interesting tid bits:

The British Medical Journal reported that in 1993 on such a day that hospital admissions due to traffic accidents were 52% more than on regular Fridays.

How can this be? Does this mean people go into defiance mode like Lt. Dan lashed to the mast in Forrest Gump daring the fates to test them by thinking “Come on! Is that all you’ve got?” Does it mean some folks get a case of the yips behind the wheel and are more cautious than normal, causing THEM to be rear ended more due to their caution?

Come on people. If you are that skittery take the subway and hope the operators have had cell phone failure so they won’t be texting “OMG! LOL!” to their girlfriends shortly before running a red light in a tunnel.

Naturally there are some roots in Christianity. Given Jesus was crucified on a Friday, some Christians believe the sixth day of the week to be bad luck. How does this square with “Thank God It’s Friday?” Is TGIF really just an expression that says we are spoiling for a fight with Karma? Heading to the bar early to get a little alcohol aboard and channel our inner ugly drunk might explain that one.

Likewise, 13 were at the Last Supper. So, Friday the 13^th seemingly comes from the story. Had there been 32 at the last supper, would we have more days in the months for a Friday the 32^nd? Can we blame this on the advance men who couldn’t raise a big enough crowd for said supper? Maybe the Father was ticked at the small send off party for his only son he felt was woefully unappreciated by we mere mortals?

The Last Supper. Nothing But A Remake?
(Picture Courtesy www.johnmariani.com)

Naturally, there’s a link to an older human story which makes one wonder if the Last Supper is just a folklore remake akin to the way Hollywood revises old classics like Mutiny On The Bounty. Brando’s was better than the first with Charles Laughton and Clarke Gable, but Mel Gibson’s was kind of a clunker. Stands to reason. Only actor in there with one-name-recognition is, well, Brando. Gibson had it for a while, but we all know his little tailspin of late. Maybe he spent too much time in bars on Friday yelling “TGIF!” when he should have been praying. Might have made better movies about religion, too.

In Norse mythology the most reviled Norse God, Loki, showed up uninvited at a dinner party for 12. As the 13^th guest he was said to have caused Balder’s death. Balder was the god of light, joy, and reconciliation.

Balder. Gable, (Young) Brando or Gibson Could Pull It Off
(Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Sounds to me like Judas and Jesus were simply reprising the roles of Loki and Balder, in the story Dinner Party Gone Horribly, Horribly Wrong, no? Constantine obviously liked the story as he kept it in while vetting the Gospels down to four to conform to the four directional quadrants when he bought the franchise and headquarted it on his home turf.

Downsizing is not a new concept, people.

Another story has been given a new boost through Dan Brown’s best selling novel The Da Vinci Code that had some religious scholars less then pleased. (A remake gone bad, perhaps?) This story revolves around the Knights Templar, taking place on October 13, 1307.

According to an article by Katherine Kurtz in about.com, officers of King Philip IV of France carried out a dawn raid rounding up several thousand Templars, or knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren, and throwing the book at them with charges of heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities and homosexual practices. (Were blasphemous, obscenity laced utterances blurted out in the midst of homosexual ecstasy, per chance?) The usual interrogation techniques took place, with many dying and some being burned at the stake.

And these were the guys first formed as warrior monks (odd turn of a word, wouldn’t you say) to be out on point in the Christian Crusades against Islam.

So this last story doesn’t really tie to the dinner parties gone wrong, but maybe it was a way to cover tracks on having plagiarized the Last Supper story from Norse Mythology. Maybe the Templars knew this and were more than a little ticked off at having battled hell out of Islamic fighters. Perhaps they had a literary agent who had done a little too much digging trying to find them the right book deal and uncovered the linkage.

If they’d been smart, perhaps they’d have selected their top 12 warriors to throw a dinner party for King Philip and dusted him off.

Who knows? Then perhaps Christianity and Islam would all get along, and Friday the 13^th would be heralded as the day that brought about World Peace through religious understanding.

Eve would be off the hook, and we could blame the French.

Either way, it’s no more outlandish than other folklore. Besides, it is something to ponder while staying inside the bunker. I mean, it’s Friday the 13^th after all. I just hope I don’t get a computer virus or slip a disk throwing spilled salt over my shoulder today.

Election: Jekyl and Hyde Republicans on Parade

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:11:47 -0500

Parties ax handled in presidential elections with coattails into the house and senate have to undergo what in business parlance and pyschobabble parlance is second order change. The old rules do not work, so they have to redo the entire playbook. The same goes for the democrats, frankly, as some key incumbents were broomed out of office.

This happens when parties hew too far to an extreme. It happened to democrats in 1972 and 1984, and they really did not get it figured out until Bill Clinton came along in 1992 giving a forearm shiver to the NAACP with his Sister Souljah renunciation after the two previous candidates had offered Jesse Jackson all sorts of paid perks under that banner. Dick Morris came along to coin the term “Triangulation” which was just a new phrase for what Dick Nixon had done so masterfully in his election cycles.

The silent majority is far more moderate than party activists. So it has always been; so it shall always be.

Some republicans seem to be rediscoovering it. Some do not. Tim Pawlenty was pressed on the MSNBC show Morning Joe on whether or not there was room for someone like Olympia Snowe in the Republican Party, and he did the Ralph Kramden “humina, humina” verbal dance in response. Today RNC Chairman Michael Steele was on that show and interrupted host Joe Scarborough asking the same question of him to simply say “Absolutely.” Drink more of that Kool Aid, Mr. Steele, its an electoral elixir.

The Republican Mr. Hyde was in play in the New York 23^rd district where moderate republicans were driven off, and a candidate running on the Conservative Party banner gained traction. In this race a socially liberal Republican, Dede Scozzafava, finished a woefully distant third, followed by Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Democrat Bill Owens captured what had previously been deemed a fairly safe Republican seat. Scozzafava, in a rare move, endorsed Democrat Bill Owens while Republican Party honchos raced in to endorse the Conservative.

Whoops.

But there are just as many Lessons Learned to glean from disasters as from successes ... if one is objective.

Hoffman had appeal for his fiscal conservatism. Therein in lies the silver lining. He also banged away on social issues, and therein lies the storm cloud that keeps raining on Republican parade routes. The party jumped the shark federalizing the Terry Schiavo issue when the nation wanted action on matters such as, oh, I don’t know, the Iraq War, maybe?

Republican Dr. Jekyl showed up in Virginia and New Jersey where they picked up two governorships. Republican Chris Christie, a former prosecutor known for corruption busting, focused on high taxes and financial issues to oust Governor Jon Corzine, a wealthy banker turned politico for whom Obama made last minute appearances.

Corzine did what any person has done in the past in tight races. He went negative and personal focusing on Christie’s rather rotund appearance. This kind of sniping is about as repulsive today to the average voter as republican nanny state lectures on abortion, gay marriage, and family values while decrying democrat nanny state lectures on health care and other matters is as well. It’s not that social conservative republican dislike big government intrusion, it’s just that they do not like where it intrudes. It’s not principled, it’s agenda-driven.

It rings hollow.

In Virginia the results were somewhat more alarming. Won by an 20% margin just last year by Obama, this state gave the Republican, former state attorney general Bob McDonnell, nearly 59% of the vote over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds for an 18 point win, or a 38 point swing in just one year. McDonell’s promise, much like Obama’s a year before, was to work on job creation. A social conservative who focused on fiscal matters. Imagine that.

So two Governorships gained, and one safe congressional seat lost in a comedy of errors. The congressional seat followed the old playbook of railing on social issues, with those within the party not on board with such sermons derided as RINOs, or Republican-in-Name-Only. Presidential hopeful, Rick Pawlenty played the same card on Olympia Snowe, one of the few moderate republicans left.

The Governorships were won focusing on fiscal prudence with nary a mention of down-the-nose admonitions on social matters. Virginia’s margin of difference, according to the exit poll tea leaf readers, stems from Independents breaking 2-1 in favor of the Republican whereas last year they split between the two parties in the presidential election.

To steal from James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

So therein lies the second order change the republican party has to make. Social issues do not build majorities. They solidify an increasingly smaller and smaller portion of “the base.” Parts of the RNC from that core group swooped into the NY-23 race to bolster the Conservative candidate. So, sure, the guy had a close run at it, but he lost a safe seat.

The two successful republican candidates in New Jersey and Virginia did not focus on social issues. At least in the case of Chris Christie, he eschewed negative ads simply reiterating messages about the economic fears gripping virtually the entire nation right now. In each case the candidates did some rather profound things that ought to give Democrats pause.

Democrats could be headed for 1994 all over again in 2010 based on fears of over-reaching and lack of focus, or trying to take on too much too soon. That will be on them. Republicans can capitalize on that if they realize they have to throw out the current version of the rule book masterminded by Karl Rove of divide and conquer over social issues and seek to pull the nation together on some universal concerns over economic stability and fiscal austerity. Healthcare discussions with glib sidesteps on real costs do not sit well, frankly. Americans fear fiscal irresponsibility these days almost as much as they do health concerns. Each goes right to the core of every American and their sense of security.

So Democrats have to watch out for pulling a Terry Schiavo on healthcare and other nationalization policies that highlight national fears of THEIR party’s excesses and poor reputations, and Republicans have to pull in on the national fears of their overreaching on social issues that did bring them down in 2006, by stressing fiscal austerity and job creation while leaving the moralizing to the professionals in the pulpits and pews of our personal choice.

In short, Republicans, to capitalize, have to do what Democrats did in 2006 by finding more centrist candidates to run against the opposition. The successes in the Governor’s races provide as much positive examples of that for the Party as the exploding cigar that was the NY-23 congressional race does in a negative way.

Social conservative aficionados Pawlenty ,Palin, and Armey handed out those cigars. Smart pols with a tad more temperance such as 1994 architect Newt Gingrich (Odd to think of Newt as temperate, but in this climate he is.) and business professional Mitt Romney declined the opportunity. Gingrich knows well the missteps soon after 1994 with 73 freshman congressmen deluded by the tidal swing into believing it more what they had to offer rather than a rejection of Democratic party excess in the early part of the Clinton administration. Romney, if he knows nothing else, knows economics.

As James Carville said with great success: “It’s the economy stupid.” Those, not social issues, are the roots of the Republican Party. It’s high time the party returned to them and put Mr. Hyde back in the closet.

Halloween With a Cigar Store Indian

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 07:11:00 -0500

Halloween generally brings back fond memories. This year triggered all sorts of them. My older kids toured the community in which I live largely via car as we went from neighborhood to neighborhood having a few yuks with friends.

My youngest, 11, experienced Halloween in a very rural community that had citizens donate candy to the school. The town then redistributed the candy to citizens on Main Street. On Halloween the police would perch at either end with blue lights flashing as kids went up and down the Main Street, thereby maximizing their haul-per-step ratio not possible in the outlying areas. We learned this the first year when not one child came to our door, and several local neighbors called to ask when our daughter was coming by as they had bought a candy bar -- one candy bar -- to have for her.

This Halloween she and I were both excited to be in one of 75 townhouse units in the community where my older children had had their experiences. Her excitement came from maximized candy haulage. Mine was mixed with trepidation and fear as to how much to acquire so as to not run out and wind up being harassed by local miscreants through car egging and other indignities.

For weeks we planned this. Each trip to the store had me picking up an extra bag or two. She bought her costume, and I picked up a $3 hockey mask to get ready at the door.

About 5 minutes before game time, with the bowl ready and reserve candy bags nearby, I got the bright idea of dragging my reproduction cigar store Indian out onto the stoop for added effect.

(Yes, the mat says "Go Away," it's part of my charm.)

The Indian was a great hit. The mask, not so much, as a few of the young ones were a little put off by it, and hence it wound up atop my head like I remember from my days as a real hockey goalie when resting between periods or after having been pummeled by shots in practice.

Observations from handing out nine bags of candy in two hours were many. Seeing little kids and hovering families brought back many fond memories of the 6 foot-plus teen boys off doing their own things now. The breathless running, the toddling steps, the flashlights, the strollers were all remembered fondly.

Far and away the best image was this little kid in a Tickle-me-Elmo costume. He was transported around by a young, interracial couple and was clearly their only child. Mom pushed a portable stroller. When she got to the curb, she would put the front wheels up on top of it and then lift the back of it the way the Ads on geezer channels airing reruns of Murder She Wrote and Law and Order show elders getting out of special recliners. The kid toddled up ever hesitantly, struggled up the step and then two fisted the candy bowl. Assuming the bag weighed as much as he did, I grabbed his elbow as he headed back down. From there he toddled to the stroller, turned around, waited for mom to lift the stroller til it hit his diapered behind, and then sat, waiting to be wheeled to the next candy machine.

That kid is going to absolutely LOVE Halloween for the rest of his life.

Halfway through I began worrying about running out. Being a development, it is an easy mark for older kids. I had many, needling discussions with these kids. "For crying out loud, you are shaving. Did you drive yourself here? If I have a 4-year-old crying on my steps because I ran out, I am going to hunt you down and kill you. Get a job, buddy."

Some of the older ones I had try to catch the candy in their bags as an agility test. If they caught it, they would get a second. They dropped it, and they had to give it back. (I would let them keep it, if they choked on the catch.)

I was startled by the attire of some older girls who came by. Pick all the lurid fantasy costumes, and these girls had them. One was a nurse, for example. Her parents had a little common sense and put a lab coat on her.

Another was in a witch outfit with fishnet stockings. Fishnet stockings. She made Elvira look like a repressed, 1880s spinster school teacher.

These girls took me aback, as I was sitting on the stoop next to the Indian, such that when I looked up to talk to them, I was not staring at them eye-to-eye, as it were. It made me rather uncomfortable, prompting me to stand up. I was thankful my 11-year-old was out in a ghoul outfit while biting the inside of my lip wondering what might be a desired costume in a few years.

Near the end came a rather harried mother with a toddler serving as dead weight on her shoulder. As the other kids in tow raced off ahead as she implored them to stick around, I asked if the half asleep one in her arms wanted some candy and was informed he was allergic and could not.

After some quizzing, I was able to discern that Craisins (a great food, by the way) would be acceptable. I scurried into the house where I have a box of 100 calorie packs for school lunches and came back with two for the kid. He headed out of sight clutching them in his hands while his head bobbed against his mother's shoulder.

The Indian made the night. It interested parents, and gave the kids a slight edge of trepidation easily ameliorated. He even was photographed a few times. It also gave me the chance to take mental photographs of various little kids with their breathless excitement and innocence running around or the chance to goof on the older ones a little bit before relenting and tossing them a couple candy bars.

Tough to say who had more fun.