Pictures!

(We’ll get into the numbers another time. Honest. The scale is up on a closet shelf where it can’t do any damage).

Housekeeping: My “troll” cherry has been broken with the following comment:
“LOL just take the stick out of your ass, and stop trying to pretend there is any kind of discrimination in this ad. BTW, why did the joke backfire? Because YOU didn't like it? You are so pretensious on Follow Up to "I'm Not Laughing"”

I published it because I’m not afraid of criticism, even if it comes from a spineless wonder. Anonymous? The definition of P-R-E-N-T-E-N-T-I-O-U-S is people who attempt to impress by using words they have not mastered (being able to spell it demonstrate mastery). Like Sarah Palin. The “LOL” and “BTW” are indications of a lazy intellect as well. I may be pretentious, but by the grace of God, I’m not a spineless ignoramus (would you like a definition for that?). Of course, if I had your piss poor spelling skills (and insufficient good sense to use Spellcheck when it may count), I don’t think I’d use my real name, either.

 And since Newcastle immediately yanked the ad in question, I doubt I’m the only one who had a problem with it.

This is a pictorial demonstration of progress. Not only mine: clearly, my good friend, Sandy, has eclipsed me in a year. Look at that smile! Yea, Sandy! AND, I have another friend who has started hitting the gym before work, telling me I’m a good influence. PLUS, I’ve noticed more people bringing fruits, vegetables and nuts to work for snacks instead of the sugary stuff.
You’re doing it for yourselves, Guys . Keep it going.

Okay, this is me (and my good, lovely friend Marie) in 2010 (July 4):

(My shirt is from Boston’s on the Beach in Delray Beach, FL. I love the design. Fantastic use of the Red Sox logos. And I do love my Red Sox).

And the two of us July 2, 2011:

(I am smaller. Really)
And this year, July 7:

Yeah, see, not much progress, but Marie looks great.

Now, check out my friend Sandy. June 2, 2011 (my 50th birthday celebration):

And June 1, 2012:

Wow. Just wow.

Cousin Margaret Thatcher once said, “Sometimes you have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
How right she was. I haven’t reached my goal. Yet), but I haven’t given up or gone back to the old ways. I’m still hitting the gym and I’ve adapted my eating to Paleo style. I keep slipping there. By the way, Scrabble, affogato is NOT Paleo. The bacon-wrapped dates and the grilled asparagus, yes. Affogato, no. Next time: fruit and grass-fed cheese, maybe some nuts.
And Anonymous? Suck on it.

What Makes a Man?

In light of recent developments among my friends (and some soon to be ex-friends), I feel compelled to ask and answer: What makes a man?

It’s not what’s between the legs or the ability to impregnate or the Y chromosome. That’s just what makes a male.

A man is a grown-up version of a human male.

“Well, duh,” you may be saying. “We all know that.”

My friends, let me explicate.

The difference between an adult male and a man is that a man does not run from responsibilities. A man is not a coward. he also does not create confrontations just to prove to himself that he's a man, because that proves exactly the opposite.

An adult male will taunt the fans of sports teams that rival his favorite and be particularly offensive about it. A MAN will suffer those taunts becasue he knows that except for joy or sorrow at a game's outcome, a team's actions have no real impact on his life. Sports is exercise and entertainment. If he's counting on the outcome of a game to make the month's rent/mortgage, he is an adult male, not a MAN.

An adult male will cry victim and use it as an excuse to indulge himself (alcohol, food, women, drugs)  and shirk his obligations to the detriment of those around him/counting on him. A MAN will acknowledge pain and focus his energy on completing his duties.


A male may create a child or children, but a MAN sticks around to raise that child with its mother. And a MAN shows respect to that child’s mother. A man knows that he is always teaching and children are always learning. How a child will treat others is learned from observing the MEN and WOMEN around him. If the household only has children and adult males and females, that child will never learn ways of respect and consideration.

 A male is usually stronger than a woman or child, but a MAN uses that strength to provide for and guard his family. A MAN does not use his superior strength to beat his children or their mother to maintain control.

A male may be tempted by  other women (or men), but a MAN will not let that temptation take control of his actions.  This is real strength.

A MAN takes pride in what he creates and nurtures. An adult male takes pride in childish things because he doesn't understand the rewards of actual achievement.

If you don’t want the responsibilities of properly raising a family, don’t create one. Wear two condoms and get a vasectomy. Have gay sex; humans haven’t evolved to the point where same-sex activity leads to conception. Yet. You never know.

There’s a lot of American political talk going on about “nanny states” and “socialism” and since the Supreme Court just upheld Romneycare (for that is the root), states are already screaming over increasing their Medicaid coverage to accommodate more people. Where’s the personal responsibility? We’re all rugged individuals and we should take care of ourselves and our own.

Yeah? How about you members of the Tea Party who, by walking out on a wife and two kids (including an infant)  just put their families in danger of needing food stamps, subsidized housing and Medicaid? Hypocrite much?

And while I’m thinking of it, even though the kids are still pretty young, one of their first lessons is going to be this: you matter less than whatever piece of ass Daddy is chasing. Proceed accordingly.

Girls have a hard enough time keeping and building their self-esteem. Add to that seeing Daddy treat Mommy like something disposable and she’s going to have a bitch of a time learning about healthy relationships. In the ads for “Ted” right now, there’s a scene with the bear sitting with 6 hookers and the bear says something like, “I’d like to thank the 6 bad fathers who made this night possible.”

Congratulations, Pal: you just joined their ranks. And you're about as good as John Edwards, whom you said you despise.

Your son will grow up learning the same lesson: women are disposable and there’s no need to honor your commitments. So much for that much-vaunted personal responsibility. Nobody’s going to be there to show him the way.

Maybe, if your family’s lucky, they’ll be like shelter dogs: adopted by a responsible parent who WILL love them and care for them the rest of their days.

Hey, I don’t think my father was completely happy with his life, but he stayed married for 55 years, came home every night and made sure the family he created was sheltered, fed, educated  and learned self-reliance (okay, well some of us bobbled the financial part of the lesson, but we’re learning).   When it came to “for better or worse”, he stuck it out (he created some of it, but the stuff he didn’t, he stuck it out) Dad was a MAN; according to a friend of mine, a family man, “Men handle their shit.” They don’t play with it, they deal with it.

MEN understand that freedom isn’t free; yeah, you can follow a path of your choosing, but you WILL be accountable for your actions. Life isn’t consequence-free; adult males try to weasel out of situations they create (or pay lawyers to help them). MEN step up. If you hit another car in a parking lot when nobody’s there to witness, how you respond is the difference between a MAN and adult male: the adult male will quickly move away to park somewhere else. The MAN will leave a note on the other car with contact and insurance info (and if you’re driving without license or insurance, you’re not only not a man, you’re also a damned  fool. You put me and everyone else on the road at risk, you had fucking well better be prepared to handle all consequences).

Like I said, MEN know that they are always “on” and their kids are watching. MEN know they are role models, whether they want to be or not. Adult males will deny the responsibility.

There was a movie in the 1980s titled “Men Don’t Leave.”

Real men don’t.

If I Didn't Talk to You Today, Here's Why

This post may get me a Nastygram from someone who can’t be bothered with me except to bitch at me.

Fuck you and if you have the temerity to e-scream at me, I WILL forward your email address to people who will “go full on Redneck” on you. And various other things from other folks.

If you’re not a friend on Facebook, you haven’t seen my most recent post about feeling fragile today. If you are a regular here or know me in “real” life, then you know that a) my father, Clifford R. Thatcher, Jr. passed away December 16,2011 and b) (you may correctly surmise) that I had a complicated relationship with same.
Picture of paternal DNA source with a counted cross-stitch I spent MONTHS completely that he decided looked best in the bathroom:

I never needed to marry my father as women are said to do. I AM my father. It’s not an attractive personality as far as men are concerned.

One of my friends recently (like within the last month) lost her dad (with whom she was far closer than I was with mine). And we had Father’s  Day last week. Not that CRT, Jr. was a big fan, but he did appreciate the gifts when we got inspired. And there was a legendary Father’s Day when he gave HIS dad (Gramp) a very nice (expensive) woodworking tool and we gave Dad an expensive gift (I forget what). My grandmother, KLH Thatcher was somewhat jealous (although, while she was on this plane, going and genuflecting on Mother’s Day was required unless you wanted to be frozen out). Over the dinner table, she made the comment a couple of times that “I wish I was a father. You get such nice gifts.” MY father, her only son (begotten or otherwise. He could have been Jesus: as far as we knew, my grandmother never lost her virginity), looked at her (after several martinis) and said, “You may not be a father, but you certainly are a mother.”

You could hear the sphincters snap shut around the table.

What got me today was the thought that I would never again hear him snoring from down the hall. Oh, we raise Olympic level snoring champs in our family.  Gold medalists, all.

That sound (lucky for me, from down the hall) was the sound that gave me comfort. If I heard it, I knew Dad was home and everything was okay (for the most part). I didn’t need to concern myself with household security, paying the bills or any of that stuff.  That snore meant that if I got sick in the night (and you had to barf to get out of school), there would be someone to help me get back to bed and check on me the next day. I didn’t have to be responsible; someone else had it covered.
I stayed pretty tightly wrapped for most of the day. I focused as much as I could on my work and ignored people so that I wouldn’t cry. Yeah. I was that close.

I’ve been in Shark Mode for 6 months: keep swimming forward or else you’ll die (or end up as a metaphor in a Woody Allen movie).

Those of you who have something CONSTRUCTIVE to contribute, please do so.

Turn, Turn, Turn Part 2

Long delayed, perhaps the wait is worth it.

One of the biggest surprises of this blog has been the popularity of one post: Turn, Turn, Turn (http://50tonormal.blogspot.com/2012/01/turn-turn-turn.html ) from January 1 of this year (2012). In it, I described the practice of walking meditation using a labyrinth and included pictures from the Prince of Peace Episcopal (I think it’s Episcopal) Church in West Hills, CA (off Shoup).

As a follow up (who knows? Maybe people are looking for pictures of the Minotaur. Sorry. Not here), I offer the Bellflower Library Gardens of Bellflower, CA. I went back there a few weeks ago because the first time I hit the place, I was thoroughly charmed by the park and its theme. If you go, I would recommend going in at least pairs as there were a couple of homeless man hanging around. I am not anti-homeless, but one never knows how unknown people will behave and in this situation, there is safety in numbers.
The pictures that follow show why I love this place:

 The sculpture and fountain are most charming.

The labyrinth

And the tiles donated around it...C'mon, meditation and Yoda (and this is so true)...

And a little encouragement from a local boy for the "X Files" fans...

You Want a Side of Slaw With That Hubris?

For right now, screw the scale.

My late father was fond of saying to me, “Judge not lest ye be judged yourself.” Of course, this was usually followed by a list of my shortcomings, but that’s beside the point. As you know from reading this, I have been working on improving my health since last year and cleaning up/improving the diet has been a huge component of that. In fact, according to various sources, a healthy diet of nutritious food is more important than exercise (although you do need to get off your butt every now and then.  (Give your couch the day off).  To this end, I have adopted the Paleo way of eating: meats, fruits, veggies, nuts. No sugar, no grains, no processed foods.
Got it? Okay.
Now, I work at a job with assigned seating and fairly close quarters. We are allowed to snack at our desks and, as previously stated, I have gotten comments about the bags  of baby carrots and raw almonds and grapes I bring to work. I have also commented on the breakfast potluck that happens every Friday. And I have commented that I like bacon.
Got that? You’re still with me. Good.
The company has been  providing lunch for us for the past three weeks on Fridays. I’ve worked around the sugar and grain components pretty successfully (trading cookies for fruit. I get melon; I win).
I discussed the bacon briefly yesterday with one of my seatmates who said that he didn’t eat pork “because of what pigs eat.” I tried to tell him that there is organic, pasture-fed pork as there is organic, pasture-fed beef but he wasn’t interested. Fine.
Today, the company brought in Panda Express for us today and the choices were orange chicken or beef with broccoli. I collected my beef with broccoli and sat at my desk to eat it (I picked around the fried rice and lo mein noodles for the beef and vegetables. Okay, I ate the egg roll. My scalp is all broken out, so I’m paying for that particular sin). The seatmate looks over.
“Did you get chicken?”
“No, I took the beef.” (Chicken in orange sauce is 1) coated in a flour-based batter, 2) deep-fried and 3) drowned in orange-flavored sugar syrup).
He looked disapproving. “Beef is bad for you.”
WHAT? “No, it isn’t.”
“It causes problems. You should have gotten the chicken.”
(Jaw clenched) “No, there is nothing wrong with the beef.”
He wouldn’t back down. “It takes your body longer to break it down. You should have gotten the checkn.”
ARE YOU MOTHER-FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT?
Let me clue you in on the food cop here:
He is a nice man and knows the job we’re doing forwards, backwards and sideways. Since A) I sit next to him and that isn’t going to change and B) I do need his expertise, I was not about to tear him a new asshole.
Unfortunately, even the nicest of people need the social equivalent of one of those shock collar and invisible fence combinations every now and then.  I hope this doesn’t turn into one of those cases.
For starters, Judge Fed is about 6’ 2” and weighs over 300 lbs. himself. I bring in snacks. He brings in snacks. That’s where the similarities end.
Understand: this guy is telling me how I should eat. This morning’s potluck breakfast (which I didn’t eat) was fried chicken and waffles (as well as scrambled eggs with cheese and other additives). He had waffles, eggs and doubled down on large hunks of fried chicken.
As I said, I pull out carrots, raw almonds, cucumber pieces, dried or fresh fruit for snacks. He has: Nature Valley granola bars (loaded with sugar), crackers and Jif peanut butter, fruit roll-ups. Oh yeah: his morning ritual is a small cup of oatmeal, but during his morning break, he usually heads down to the café for a breakfast wrap with a side of tater tots.
I drink coffee, tea or water (mostly water). He downs a large Gatorade: not the sugar-free kind (regular Gatorade is loaded with high fructose corn syrup).  And soda.
This guy is sedentary. In addition to the large body, he has no muscle tone to indicate that he exercises.
And he feels free to pass judgment on what I’m eating and whether I should be eating it.
Oh, I forgot: he gets in on the afternoon root beer floats that get distributed to the potluck participants.
Running side by side with “Judge not lest ye be judged” is “live and let live.” Now, I have watched this guy shovel quantities of crappy processed food into his “overfed pie hole” (a Facebook commenter) and held my tongue except to offer to share my snacks with him (I did try one of his Blue Diamond habanero barbecue almonds. Tasty, but loaded with sugar and other stuff I don’t want to eat).  He feels hot most of the time; I know because he constantly needs to fan himself. According to another Facebook commenter, this is common with larger people due to additional insulation. I get hot, but that’s menopause.
And he got the orange chicken. That was two meals in one day of battered, deep-fried chicken with ample side starch. I haven’t seen dining like that since Morgan Spurlock and “Super Size Me.”
Like I said, this is a nice man and I need to get along with him because we sit and work together. That’s why he didn’t go home with his still-beating heart in his lunchbox.
Look, if you want to criticize what I’m eating, you’d better look like this before you open your gob:

If I wanted this kind of hypocritical bullshit, there is a small group of people with whom I’d reconnect. Hell, they’ve got a forty year head start on trying to make me feel small, bad and guilty over my appearance and health habits while indulging in alcohol, tobacco, over-eating and sedentary lifestyles themselves.
And, as a corollary to my “If you’re not going to make changes, do not bitch to me about how shitty you feel” rule, there is the “deeds, not words” rule aka “talk is cheap.”  You’d better be looking and living the part before you tell me how wrong I am in my approach to health.
Or you may get a hunk of fried chicken up your nose.

Crossing the Minefields

No, I’m still here.

I am actually living in a house (renting a room), working a good job that I like and have blazing Internet access. Life is good.

New job means working among other human beings again and facing the pitfalls of office work. There is the obvious “hours at a desk” issue, but that’s dealt with by getting self to gym after work (my day ends early enough that  I avoid most of the rush). And if you turn to www.nerdfitness.com (Like I keep telling you to…), you’ll see that gyms are not necessary to getting exercise (they are for me. I can’t play outdoors for too long. I should be a theoretical physicist like Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory”)

No, the big challenge has been avoiding temptation and sticking with the Paleo plan. This particular workplace has a potluck every Friday morning and I can smell the bacon (ooh, lovely) and see the big poofy croissants coming in. And in the afternoons, there are other treats.

In addition to the above challenge, there are the desk treats,  like a Sam’s Club sized jar of peanut butter pretzel nuggets available to all and one of my co-workers is married to a Mars (as in Snickers, M&Ms and Kit Kats) employee and he frequently brings in full-sized candy bars to share. He’s nice guy.
People will look askance at my bags of raw almonds or grapes or baby carrots. “Oh, you’re eating healthy,” as if I had just shut down a party or announced that I was going to vote for Nixon (yes, I know he’s dead).

Time to put on the armor.

Actually, if you’re eating Paleo, it looks more like this:

Well, maybe it looks more like this.Let’s slay these Komodo dragons one at a time (Steve Kamb, if you’re reading this, I’m stealing a little from you. Only a little. These are small dragons but you have to get past them to get to the big guys):
1) The potluck. I eat before I leave the house and come with lunch (generally grilled chicken and salad greens) and snacks aplenty. I remind myself that if I eat the big poofy croissants, I will have oozy blisters on my hands and scalp the next day as well as goopy sinuses and ears (yes, gluten does that to me). One of the ladies lectured me on eating turkey bacon (“You know, for some people it’s going to save their lives”)instead of the real deal when I commented on how pork bacon smells better and I bit my tongue to keep from replying “Yeah, it’s a highly processed food. All yours.”  For the record: pig tastes good.

2) The desk treats: they can be tough to ignore. BUT, if you have an adequate (and then some) supply of good stuff like almonds, carrots, grapes,etc., temptation is reduced by 90%. The “and then some” comes in handy to share. Carrots seem,  to be received more readily than almonds.

3) “Oh, you’re eating healthy.” Yeah, I am. Of course, this can lead to the following conversation: “What are you doing?”

“I’m eating Paleo/Caveman.”

 “What’s that?”

“No sugar, no processed food, no grains, grass-fed meats, no dairy (well, I get organic grass-fed dairy when I do indulge).”

 “That’s Atkins.”

“No, it’s not Atkins. You can knock yourself out with vegetables and fruit (well, be reasonable with fruit).”

 ”Don’t you go crazy with no sugar and no bread?”

“No, I have fruit. Look, check out this website: www.nerdfitness.com. It’s funny and informative.”

“How long do you have to eat like that?”

“It’s lifetime. It’s like someone allergic to strawberries not eating them.”

“Yeah, I could never do that.”

 And then, I get to listen to ongoing whining about how the person who inquired just can’t lose weight no matter what. Usually, this is between pulls on a straw inserted into a Subway or McDonald’s super-sized cup of Coke or Diet Coke. No comment.

We all chart our own paths. Mine seems to be through a minefield and requires the occasional tap dance. Lucky for me, I have the map, thanks to Nerd Fitness.

Don't Drink and Blog

What happens when you mix Two Buck Chuck Merlot with a  Microsoft Word? You’re about to find out.

(By my own choice) I find myself back at the first hotel I was housed in (by employers, thus the passive voice) in 2005 when I started as a traveling underwriter (mortgages, due diligence, in case some insurance recruiter is reading this blog and getting ideas). I’m dealing with some stress from having packed up my car (no room for anyone but me) and about the same time when I first “hit the road.” Unfortunately, in 2005, on May 19 (because I didn’t want to do this to my cats on the birthday of one of them: Samba), I took my three cats to the Ventura County Animal Shelter because I could no longer care for them. And to any trolls/bullies/Fucktards getting ideas from that piece of information: forget it and fuck you; you cannot torture me to even 1/10th of the level I have been torturing myself over it for seven years.

Alcohol is not my coping method of choice (because, let’s be honest, unless you’re dealing with stress through meditation, focus and healthy stress relief, if you drink/drug/eat to deal with life’s hardships, not only are your problems still there when the carb/drug/alcohol wears off, but you have added the side effects of overeating/drinking/drugging to those problems. Wildly inefficient and pretty damned stupid, you know? The whole “One step up, two steps back” scenario). However, the fully-packed car took my mind back to that desperate time in 2005 and the years afterwards when I was rootless, essentially living out of my car (and sometimes sleeping in it) and managing, but only just.  I hadn’t thought about this shit in years, but here I am and, here’s the warning, Kids: you have no idea how quickly, strongly and effectively those old, seemingly dead triggers will jump up and try to drag you back into hell.

As a kind of “side” illustration: there was an incident when I still lived in New Hampshire. It was Christmas Eve and I was headed to Burlington, VT (about a 2, 2.5 hour drive) to meet up with my best friend to spend Christmas with her and her family. As I got about 15 miles out of Concord, NH, I noticed that the tachometer was close to the red line, even if I took my foot off the gas. If I tried to put the car in neutral, the engine would rev and it WOULD redline. The accelerator was stuck. I didn’t own a cellphone at that time, it was a Sunday Christmas Eve and if you’ve driven Route 89, you know that except for Concord, West Lebanon and Burlington, there is nothing around. The road was empty that day (because people of common sense were already hunkered down with their families). I couldn’t count on a cop coming by. I figured that I had enough gas to get to Burlington where I could get help, so I drove and prayed that no one would try to pull me over. I got as far as Montpelier, VT  and had to go to the bathroom. I pulled off the highway and into a gas station where my brakes were smoking like I’d taken a torch to them.  I lucked out and even though he wasn’t supposed to be there, there was a guy in the station who fixed the problem (a cable had come loose).   My point is that this happened well over 10 years ago and to this day, if I smell burning brakes, I get shaky and sweaty. You don’t know what lies in wait from your memory and subconscious waiting to pounce. However, knowing that they’re lurking out there is half the battle. Write that down.

I have to remind myself that I KNOW this is temporary. The issues that kept me from establishing a permanent base of operations no longer exist. I am in a position to set up my own home (and according to this morning’s edition of “CBS Sunday Morning”, I am one of 30 some million Americans living on my own. Downside?  It can feel extremely lonely and isolated sometimes, especially when I’m worried or scared. Upside? There’s no one to tell me how badly/loudly I snore or criticize my housekeeping (or lack thereof. More lack thereof. I can clean. I just don’t like to) or say things like “I hate the way you blow your nose.”  I am actively seeking a new home. 1 BR 1 bath, reasonably close to work (the 100 + mile commute of the past week was a motherfucker). However, if George Clooney wants to take up with me, I’ll let him (he’s mine. I just haven’t told him yet).

In a follow up to a previous blog (Dear E! Online, You Morons), I notice that Robin Gibbs’s death is getting more attention from them than that of  Donna Summers. I’ve already ranted: E has truly fucked-up priorities.

I finished off a bottle of Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck) Merlot (No, not a whole bottle at one sitting. Half a bottle). Unfortunately, the biggest side effect for me of too much alcohol is a craving for carbohydrates. Wave fried potatoes under my nose and you have my attention. Sadly, there is a Jack in the Box within easy walking distance and I indulged. However, tomorrow is another day, one in which I will be WORKING and I know where the gym is and I shall be fine (and back to eating Paleo).
And that’s it for now…