Some Thoughts on 2014

OK, what are you looking at?  Yes, I've been on a diet for almost five weeks now.  I was trying to get a head start.  Yesterday I received a pedometer in the mail from my diet coach.  It came with instructions on how to use it.  One of the first things in the instructional pamphlet was "Do not ingest the battery, battery cover, or security strap."  They must have contacts inside the NSA.  I was just thinking how I'd kill for a nice tasty Lithium Coin Battery.  Sorry about not getting out the Christmas Letter this year.  I was trying to delete spam e-mails and "Like" all of your Facebook posts.  My life is a blur of excitement.  When I am not reading dieting instructions, measuring food amounts, and recording my daily activity in my diet journal, I am watching football. I'll bet you didn't know this;

No wonder I can sleep for three hours and still get the most important parts of the game.  The rest of the time is spent on time outs, commercials, booth reviews, penalty explanations, sports babe blathering, ex-player/ex-coach analysis, aligning the ball, equipment adjustment, regaining consciousness, waiting for temper tantrums to subside, and finally more sports babe interviews. What a rush.  I rarely go to games at the stadium because you end up watching it on T.V. anyway, and the ticket costs are about the same as my yearly Medi-Care premiums.

It looks like there is a lot of money in professional football.  Next year, the lowest paid rookie will make $420,000 a year.  Knowing that, I was surprised to find that;

My meager interest earnings are taxed along with just about everything else in my life.  Thank you IRS.  You may need those billions of 9 mm bullets when I let this cat out of the bag.  No wonder Jerry Jones does so well.  He's found the perfect racket.  I'll bet you didn't know that;

I'll bet if he saw basketball today, he would recommend helmets for it too.  I don't even recognize the game anymore.  Players maul each other the entire length of the court, they travel, double dribble, palm the ball, and hang from the basket rim.  I don't know how the refs even recognize a foul in all of the mayhem.  Well, I digress.  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that you will have a blessed 2014.

I must go now and update all of my electronic devices.  The daily update ritual is about to begin.  Just when I get comfortable with one site, they change it entirely.

Dieting

I am always being told by the doctors I see to lose a few pounds.  At one time in my life I could lose 30 pounds in a month with no problem.  I also could keep it off for more than a week.  Now I am lucky to lose 10 pounds in three months.  I wrote this poem long ago and it still seems to fit today.

            DIETING

No, low, free, light;

words I often see

when browsing through my pantry

or refrigerator door.

Let us have some lettuce

with our sprouts and tofu.

One more glass of water if you please.

Measure out a steak

no bigger than my palm

and I shall chew it slowly

while moving Brussels sprouts around.

Adjust the bathroom scale.

Move it ‘round the floor.

Take an average weight for best results.

One more glass of water if you please.

Do you have a public restroom?

I ask every where I go.

One more glass of water if you please.

How many times should one get up at night?

I wonder how much pressure

waistband closures can take?

Isn’t there a pill out that doesn’t make you shake?

One more glass of water if you please.

I’m fasting today.

I really think it’s water weight.

Dennis Price

"Food is an important part of a balanced diet."
       -- Fran Lebowitz 

Sometimes I just want to dance.

I was chided by a reader yesterday for not posting in several days.  It is not that I don't have anything to say, it is rather, I have too much to say.  Recently Bebe and I took a turn or two around the dance floor at my 45th High School reunion.  Her arms have gotten shorter over the years.  My hair spray was working.  I much prefer remembering "the night" than trying to find some way to explain the half truths and mis-information we get so much of these days.

After looking at the reunion pictures posted on Facebook, I decided it was time to put down the tortillas.  Bebe has decided to join me for moral support.  I know a skinnier me will still have the liver spots, gray hair, worn out teeth, and saggy skin, but it won't be so hard to get off the couch.  My motorcycle tires should also have a longer tread life.  I was working in the yard many years ago during one of my building phases when a smart Alec neighbor yelled "Are you going to the beach today?"
I replied, "No, why?"
He yelled, "You have your inner tube on so I was just wondering."

I have over the years traveled up and down in weight.  If I need to weigh on a cotton scale, I know it's time to push back from the buffet.  Once when the girls were younger, they went to visit my sister.  She cooks the old fashion Southern way.  They rejoiced when they looked in her refrigerator and found nothing with the label "No, low, free, or light."  I wrote the following poem while suffering hunger pangs during a previous diet.

No, low, free, light;

words I often see

when browsing through my pantry

or refrigerator door.

Let us have some lettuce

with our sprouts and tofu.

One more glass of water if you please.

Measure out a steak

no bigger than my palm

and I shall chew it slowly

while moving Brussels sprouts around.

Adjust the bathroom scale.

Move it ‘round the floor.

Take an average weight for best results.

One more glass of water if you please.

Do you have a public restroom?

I ask every where I go.

One more glass of water if you please.

How many times should one get up at night?

I wonder how much pressure

waistband closures can take?

Isn’t there a pill out that doesn’t make you shake?

One more glass of water if you please.

I’m fasting today.

I really think it’s water weight.

Dennis Price

If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.
  - Pierre Gallois