Not My Good Foods

What is it about other people's good food? If I buy apples, grapes, oranges or carrots, I wont eat them. If I go to work and someone gives me a carrot or piece of an orange, I grab it up like hotcakes!

Just tonight, I grabbed an apple from the big bowl at the hotel (I'm out of town for work) and ate an apple for the first time probably in 3 years.

I can have wilting grapes in the fridge, old carrots, and cold apples in my fridge for weeks. Never to be eaten, to eventually just need to be thrown away.

Yet let me find carrots with ranch dressing on a veggie tray at a group meeting and I'm all over it! Grabbing more than I should and even go back for more.

Weird...

Edited to add: in the morning after I wrote this I had diarrhea... so I guess my body didn't like that apple!!! I guess my body definitely isn't used to good foods, LOL!

My Sweet Experience

My Mom wanted me to buy her some sweet potatoes when I went grocery shopping for us. I walk over, grab what looks like a sweet potato, but it says "Yam" on the sign. I look confused, I look around, I look some more at the funny looking things in front of me.

Sweet Potato

Yam

While I don't like or eat (or ever tasted) sweet potatoes or yams, I'm pretty sure this is a sweet potato.

I ask a very striking, early 30-something, tall black woman, "are these sweet potatoes?" She looks at me like it was my first time in this part of the grocery store. She looks at me, then the things in front of me, as I point to the sign and she replies with no emotion and possibly sympathy for me, "yes, sweet potato."

I pick out several small ones, per Mom's request.

I check out in the "self check out" lane for the first time in many months b/c the other lanes are long, I am tired, and I have less than 20 items or so.

At the point of grabbing the bag of small yams, I choose the "Y" from the menu on the screen for fruits/vegetables to beat them at their own game - they can't fool me anymore! But I don't see Yams listed!! I am now amused with myself and choose "S"... and now no Sweet Potatoes are listed! I am now thoroughly confused but somehow (almost unconsciously) decide to search "P" and many choices of potatoes show up, one of them Sweet Potatoes!

I race home, cuz I am real tired and sick of arguing with Wal Mart pharmacy idiots and also arm wrestling the damn "self" photo printer in the store.

I search for yam photos and sweet potato photos for this blog entry and found this GREAT blog explanation!!

Enjoy: http://eatingbirdfood.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/sweet-potato-vs-yam/

Death hits home in weird ways

A coworker who lives in Florida found out she had cancer. She was doing chemo for several years and was told it was in remission.

She had been emailing me off and on to see how I was doing with the divorce, my Mom being in the hospital, my Dad passing away, etc. all the while going through tough times herself.

Here's an email from April 2008 she sent me:

I didn't want to make you cry. I'm sorry!!! You need a vacation - something fun. I need one too. Even tho we did go 4wheeling in the Everglades a few weeks ago. That was a blast! We rode 22 miles on trails, saw some deer and got swooped by an owl.

Some days I am pretty sore. Just achy. My husband is a trooper for putting up with me. My boss is too! What gets me mad is I am not able to do what I used to do. But everyday I think what a beautiful day and do what I can. Mostly just try to keep my customers happy and my house clean. For the most part they are really great guys = and they always act so
happy to see me. I can't believe I've been here almost 4 years. And we just finished unpacking last week. A lot of stuff went to Goodwill - and there's more to go.

I must go be busy now.
-Peggy

I heard from her again in June, then July. Then September 2nd comes and I get a call from her boss who sends me this email she sent him:

Hello Rusty,
Its time you know that my condition has taken a terrible turn for the worse. I have been advised to get my affairs in order and to call in hospice. Even with all of the treatments, the cancer has suddenly recurred with a vengeance and is shutting down my body. I had one course of chemo option left available but weighing the odds have opted not to go that route.

I have some sick leave which I will use up, then my annual leave. I would like to talk to someone about my retirement and need a point of contact.

My customers are pretty much self sufficient. Steve (husband) will take me to the
office to tidy up and fasten up loose ends. I pretty much have a SOP done for office routine and a contact list that will be essential for my replacement.
I know you've been through this before, and I am counting on you and your secretary to help Steve with the paperwork process. Hes always been really bad with paperwork...

I wanted to tell you this in person, but a drive to Miami is too much for me now.

There is no cure for cancer, treatment only prolongs the agonizing pain that accompanies it.

-Peggy

To hear the news was brutal, to read her words, worse. To read the last sentence, heartbreaking.

A week later, I get a Thank You card from her:

Melinda,
Rusty told me you had nominated me for the Improvement Award. That was REALLY nice of you - I was totally surprised - thank you!

It's great that someone noticed (you) that I'd been trying really hard to increase the numbers. I think I built a bit of camaraderie with quite a few customers. and I hope that that continues on.

On September 9th, we get this email from her boss:

I know with Hurricane Ike apparently headed for Texas somewhere you are extremely busy but I wanted to send an update on Peggy. She is at home still, but extremely swollen because her liver cannot do its function for her body, and hospital people must come to drain the fluids. She is not mobile at present, I do not expect her to return to work, at least not anytime soon. She has about 10 weeks of sick leave/annual leave combined, but I am working on getting her on the leave donor program.

I spoke to her on September 10th - she wasn't very talkative but trying...and she assured me she was on lots of pain medicine.

On September 12th, I came in to work, a year ago that my Dad passed, and read in an email that Peggy had passed earlier that morning.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. One Sept 2nd she told us her doctors told her to get her affairs in order. In less than two weeks, she was gone.

What hit home even worse was when they sent a photo around that would accompany her bio. I have never met Peggy in person. Tell me her death doesn't hit home when you see this photo of her; it makes it more real:




BTW, Peggy had a grandson born on September 23rd. Their first grandchild! Peggy was 50 years old when she passed.

Time Change

Time change occurred last night. The sun is already going down and it's not even 6 o'clock! I hate this time of year... it's already tough for me to get up in the mornings, so when my body slowly gets out of bed in the morning, it feels like it's an hour earlier than all Summer... which makes me more tired. Damn the luck of the cold winter air and less sunlight in the evenings. :(

UGH!