Tag Archives: health

Reading, Uncategorized, Writing

Early spring ruminations

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Photo credit: nyegi. Unsplash license

We’re at the dirty end of spring right now. It was cold for a couple days, but we got up near 50 (Fahrenheit) today, and the whole week is supposed to be mild. (Thank Providence, I defrosted my freezer last week.) Most of the snow is gone now; just some crusty edges left – which doesn’t mean we won’t get more snow. We probably will. But that will be short-lived. The ground made visible now is unlovely – dead grass and black dirt. A monochrome, frostbit world.

This week is for me a wild social whirl, which means I had/have two things going on. Or three, if you call a doctor’s visit a social event. That was Monday. I had to see my clinic’s Diabetic Educator. As it says somewhere in Job, “The thing I have greatly feared has come upon me.” (Norman Vincent Peale quotes that repeatedly in his Positive Thinking books.) It actually wasn’t as bad as I feared. The nice lady didn’t put me on a diet. I’ve got some documents I need to get around to reading, but what I took away was mostly that I needed to consume fewer carbs and more fiber. Fiber, apparently, can buffer the carbs in your digestive system, reducing insulin spikes. Good to know.

(Note: I don’t have full-blown diabetes. But I am On the Road. Enough to make lifestyle changes advisable.)

The day before, Sunday, when I was still ignorant of this wisdom, I attended a Swedish Meatball Supper in a church basement. Meatballs for protein, and green beans for fiber to counteract the mashed potatoes. Could be worse. We were fed by Swedes, and it’s always pleasant for a Norwegian to be served by Swedes, after the humiliation of the Outrageous Union of 1814, which we have never yet forgiven.

I was impressed that they served us off china plates. I’ve eaten many a church basement meal, but I think it’s been a decade at least since I last ate in a church basement off anything but paper or Styrofoam. I cannot but salute the diligence of the organizers, who took the extra trouble to wash dishes afterward.

I must also salute my friends, Mark and Renae, who invited me along.

Friday is going to be less pleasant. I’ll be attending the funeral of one the guys from my men’s Bible study. A fine guy who loved the Lord. He used to wear bowties to church, so several of us from the study will be wearing them in his honor. I had to order one from Amazon, but I got next-day delivery, and it’s here now.

Reading notes: The book I’m reading right now (I’ll review it soon; maybe tomorrow) did something that pleased me a lot. A small thing, but it delighted me.

One point I’ve thought about occasionally, over my many years as a reader and writer, was a very trivial issue – the lack of same-name characters in fiction.

This is what I mean – in real life, people with the same first name often show up in the same circles. My Bible study group, for instance, though numbering only eight men on a good night, has two Toms and two Daves in it.

But in fiction, this rarely happens. The reason is obvious, and entirely sensible – it confuses the reader. Unless a plot point requires it, it’s so much easier to just give two characters different names. And since the author is the god of the fictional world, that’s his prerogative.

But in this book, there’s a scene where somebody says, “I was talking to Kate and Kate….” This wasn’t confusing to the reader, because Kate and Kate are throwaway bit characters who never appear again. But the line adds just a half-millimeter of verisimilitude, since we all know that such things happen not infrequently in real life.

That’s a nice literary touch. Wish I’d thought of it.

Music, Uncategorized

Dispatch from the sickbed

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=aGDZc9bdUZM

I am not well.

This goes without saying when it comes to my emotional health, but the malaise has spread to my mortal coil.

I’m at an age when digestive complaints are more the rule than the exception. But when my latest discomfort turned out to be the equal and opposite problem from my usual torments, I grew concerned. Once I’d dosed myself and, shall we say, eliminated the problem, I was left utterly enervated. No energy. Even more alarmingly, I had little appetite.

I did a web search for DELTA VARIANT SYMPTOMS, of course. But whatever I’ve got doesn’t sound like that. I’m hoping things will be better tomorrow. I had a reasonable supper tonight, and enjoyed it, but found in my heart no desire for further snacks. That’s not normal. I’m running out of groceries and need to go to the store, but I lack motivation.

It would be nice if the indifference to food lingered on, became my new normal. As long as the stomach cramps don’t come back.

I’ve shared the clip above before. It’s Motown group The Toys, singing A Lover’s Concerto, from 1965. I just like it. Driving around in my loaner car, which has no working radio, I’ve been reduced to singing to myself for entertainment. Last Sunday on the trip to Kenyon, I was working on this one. I’ve always been good at remembering song lyrics and poems, but if I neglect them for a while, bits of the lines slough off. But I went over them enough times to reconstruct them, pretty close. It gave me something to do besides pondering my mortality.

Uncategorized

Blessed aches and pains

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It’s one of the most delightful and inspirational stories of American history. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who started as political allies in the Continental Congress – where they worked together on drafting the Declaration of Independence – became the bitterest of political enemies after independence had been won. Their approaches to government were very different, and their perceptions of dangers to the republic widely separated. The lies and vitriol both men (and especially their spokesmen) employed against each other in election campaigns make the ugliness of today’s politics look courtly and tame.

And yet, in their old age, the two men began corresponding, and became friends again. Amazingly, they died on the very same day – and that day was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration. (Seriously. It’s true. Look it up.)

I’m recalling that story today, not for political purposes, but just to talk about old age – a subject of increasing interest to me.

I haven’t read the Adams-Jefferson letters (I know, I should). But I wonder if part of their reconciliation, beyond the fact that they were nearly the sole survivors of their generation, was the reconciling power of shared aches and pains.

I had opportunities recently to spend time with a couple of people from my youth. One of the particular tribulations to which a just Providence has subjected me in my dotage has been that pretty much every one of the friends of my youth, the people I was closest to, have walked away from the beliefs we shared. I have not changed (much). They have changed their views in almost every way.

And yet we spent time together in amity. Thinking it over afterward, I realized that we spent a lot of the time discussing our health complaints.

This is a topic that never fails among the old.

I remember being young (my memory is still that good), and I recall that one of the things we laughed about when talking about old people was how they couldn’t shut up about their aches and pains, their digestions and their prescriptions.

And I understand. I have no wish to impose tales of my dry skin and digestive habits on the healthy young, who should have their minds set on higher things.

But when we oldsters are together, ailment talk is great. It bridges divisions, awakens sympathy, and arouses our helpful instincts.

All part of God’s plan, no doubt. He has a wry sense of humor.

Uncategorized

Well spoken

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An unanticipated good time. That was what I had last night.

Well, a good time by my rather low standards.

The first thing that needs to be understood was that I felt lousy. It’s become my custom to get a very bad cold in the spring, and then again in the fall. These colds invariably plunge into my lungs and there, in the darkness, foment sedition and unrest. In the end I generally have to go to the doctor for antibiotics. Which, of course, mess up my digestion.

I was in the midst of that cycle, having started sniffing and coughing several days ago. Yesterday I took the day off work and went to my doctor for my bread mold prescription.

But I was worried about the Lecture. Months ago I’d agreed to lecture, on May 1, to Fjell Syn Lodge of the Sons of Norway, in Mounds View, Minnesota. My subject would be the Viking Sagas. I’d lectured to them before, a year ago, and they treated me well. I wanted to do right by those good people.

My fear was that I’d cough through the presentation, spread contagion to immune-suppressed attendees, and be so hoarse I’d be unintelligible.

The weather was miserable. It was one of those chill spring evenings when winter is still holding on, and having run out of snowballs to throw at you, just spits. I wore a heavy parka over my Viking costume going to and from the car. All nature seemed to portend failure and miserable death.

Instead, it went quite well. The audience was appreciative, and seemed to understand when I needed to pause now and then for a sip of water. There are times when you just resonate with a crowd – they laugh in all the right places, and longer than you expected. They nod and smile and you know they’re following with interest and pleasure. This was one of those nights. I enjoyed it a lot, and hope they ask me back yet again.

Plus, several of them bought books, which is impressive when you’re dealing with a group you’ve sold books to before.

Thank you, Fjell Syn Lodge!

I even felt better today (went back to work, sort of on a flyer), and I give them the credit.