My new heart-throb

Timothy Olyphant is my latest heart-throb.  I haven’t had a crush like this since David Cassidy.  Actually, it seems to be the particular character that he plays in the TV series “Justified” that I find so attractive.  I’ve seen the actor in other shows including Deadwood and Damages and barely noticed him, but I love his gun-slinging, cowboy with attitude character in Justified.  I’m trying to get Aldo to buy a pair of cowboy boots or a hat, but he doesn’t seem interested and I don’t think I want to ask him to strut around with a gun.  This photo doesn’t quite do Olyphant justice and the TV show isn’t all that outstanding.  I just like watching the Raylan character act all cocky and adorable.  Almost as good as reading a trashy novel.

Hoarders

I’ve been hearing a lot about this show.  I’m sort of addicted to TV shows like Clean House and What not to Wear and I’m fascinated by how people express psychological issues through what they wear and how they keep their house.  I have the same sort of dysfunctional attachments to clothing and clutter that apparently millions of other people have.  The level of compulsion from Hoarders participants was initially beyond my comprehension.  One woman admitted that much of what she was hoarding was literally trash.  Most can’t get around in or use their homes and many break down into anger/crying fits if they think a particular item was taken from them intentionally.  I was impressed though, that most of them had enough insight to admit to a problem.  Most also have control freak tendencies.  This show made me realize that most of us have problems with attachments to inanimate objects, control issues and compulsions (Biggest Loser).  I believe that this is why reality TV is so popular these days.  We like to know that other people have some of our same issues.  My attachments to inanimate objects are very similar to those expressed by What not to Wear and Clean House participants (I’d like to think my pathology is less severe).  My compulsions are mostly computer game related.  Where is the reality show about people who play computer games all day?  I guess it would be hard to make that entertaining.  Control issues and relationship issues come up in reality shows that focus more on personal interactions.  Bridezilla, Housewives of Orange County/New York/Atlanta etc.  I still curse the TV writers for the writers’ strike; that is when all this reality stuff took off.  I also wonder if the sucky economy doesn’t contribute to our focus on the mundane.  Do you think we learn anything from watching these shows or is it just another compulsion?

Diet, exercise and stretching

I’ve been eating my nutrisystem meals (left over from my diet last year) for lunch at work.  I’ve discovered a new dieting tool.  Kitty seems to think that if she went on the nutrisystem diet she would have a tendency to snack in between meals and counteract the diet altogether.  However, I think there may be a psychological advantage to eating diet food that is really bad tasting.  I’m sitting here eating this cup of “hearty minestone soup” which is by FAR the worst item from nutrisystems (visually, texturally and taste-wise and this is after I dump about ¼ cup of hot wing sauce into it).  I figure if I’m going to eat such a nasty lunch, then I’m darn well gonna stay in calorie deficit today because I wouldn’t want to counteract the effort that it took to swallow this nasty stuff.  Yuck.  The exercise is coming along.  I’m trying to do a long run, aiming for 8 miles, every week—not sure if I’ll have a chance this weekend with Al coming out for the Viking game.  I’m also trying to do the hand weights 2x/week.  The push-ups or sit-ups first thing in the morning isn’t panning out.  I did 5 push-ups one morning, but can’t seem to make it even a weekly habit.  I’ve been stretching about 3x/week now for at least 3 months and I can touch my toes.

I want to be able to do this when I’m her age.  By the way…. boy is this lady famous.  I remembered this photo from a while back and all I did was search “old lady stretching” and I found this photo on dozens of sites!

My ‘happiness’ goal may require some more effort on my part, although I do think my ‘seasonal affective disorder’ (self diagnosed) may be a bit better than it has been past years.  Maybe I need to set aside time to ‘meditate’ or set goals of some sort.  I remember Haus Frau once told me that she sets happiness goals that are small and acheivable.  Such as clean house, clean car and clean husband.  Aiming for all three in the same day….not quite as easily acheived.  As for keeping track of friends/family, I look at my facebook page periodically which makes me feel like I’m keeping in touch with people; but I’m not great about actually sending notes and I’m worse about phone calls.  I had hoped to host a wine tasting at my house this month, but I seem to have excuses for not actually doing it.

Stuck on a treadmill

The most useful thing that I’m doing for my health these days is training for a ½ marathon (July 4^th).  Since we’ve had mostly below zero temperatures and it is extremely icy outdoors, I’m stuck on a treadmill for now.  My fitness level always drops significantly this time of year (probably due as much to weight gain as inactivity).  Right now, I can’t even run 3 miles comfortably.  My strategy is to run a mile, let my heart rate recover, then run another mile.  Since I go to the gym with Aldo and he likes to stay for nearly 2 hours, I have run up to 8 miles using this strategy.  I’m seeing minor improvement in my rate of heart rate recovery.  I can now recover to just under 130 bpm in less than 5 minutes even after mile 7 and my recovery after mile one is excellent (takes less than 2 minutes to get my heart rate below 100).  Now I need to come up with a plan that will keep me running and get me to add some weight training and diet improvements.  I did some small hand weight exercises on my yoga ball while watching TV about a week ago, but I was sore for a week.  I’ll try to stay motivated to do this more than once a week.  I also read about a sort of clever idea which was to do something first thing in the morning to get your heart rate up; a few push-ups or sit-ups or something like that.  Maybe I’ll try that once or twice a week—I could definitely use the sit-ups.  I still can’t seem to get Aldo to buy veggies, so maybe I’ll have to add a trip to the grocery store once a week.

I’ve heard about this idea of the happiness treadmill more than a few times lately.  The theory is that we all have a set level of happiness and although we can improve our level of happiness for brief periods of time (win the lottery, get married, have a baby etc.) our happiness level returns to a baseline shortly thereafter.  Psychologists say that the good news is that even horrific or traumatic events also change our level of happiness only briefly.  Of course, I’m not sure that someone suffering the loss of a loved one would consider their reduced level of happiness brief.  Some might argue that it takes months to years to recover from some set-backs.  This type of thinking sort of puts a damper on my whole brilliant endeavor to become a happier person.  My first project was going to be to start listing small things that make me happy every day.  Unfortunately, today I found out that my favorite coworker died on New Year’s Eve.  I suppose I ought to start my list anyway.  I need to learn to be grateful for things that make me happy and it isn’t useful to dwell on sad news.

Health and Happiness

My goal for the New Year is to be healthier and happier.  This may sound like a simple and self-centered goal, but my theory is that if everyone focused a little more time and energy toward improving their own health and defining what makes them happy, the world would be a better place.  Of course, if you happen to be so innately hateful and lacking in insight and judgment that your idea of happiness or fulfillment is blowing up a plane full of fellow human beings; then your pursuit of happiness probably won’t make the world a better place.  I’d like to think this attitude is the exception and not the rule.

My goal for this blog is simply to start using it again.  I recently saw the movie Julie and Julia which has inspired me to think that I can write an incredibly fascinating odyssey detailing my pursuit of these two simple yet elusive goals (she wrote about recipes—how interesting could that be!?).  My brilliant insights and creative and witty writing style would get me some loyal readers.  This would lead to a book deal and my ‘story’ would be made into a movie, thus leading to success, wealth and fame (my ulterior goals).  I would become instantly happy because I could quit my job and focus on buying happiness rather of struggling to define it in intangible terms.  The money would also be enough to hire a personal trainer and a personal chef who would rapidly transform my body into the skinny (the ulterior goal) body that I’ve always wanted.  Then again, I suppose I could be a bit more realistic.  Maybe if I force myself to write an entry every week, this will empower me to think more deeply about what makes me happy and why I can’t seem to make food and exercise choices that contribute to my overall health and energy level.

The famous spam monologue

I got this from a website that had the complete transcript of the skit.  This is a condensed version:

Well, there’s egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam; spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.

S’mores for adults

Spread one grahm cracker with nutella; spread one grahm cracker with marscopone.  Put them together.

-Aldo

The land of cheap beer and free restrooms

I am so happy to be home in the USA where I can get a beer for less than $6 and easily find a public or private “WC”where I don’t have to pay another euro to recycle it.  The trip was fabulous, I’ll post when I get a chance.

Employment Related Reactive Affective and Temper Insufficiently Controlled Syndrome (ERRATIC syndrome)

I used to think I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but my depressive mood hasn’t improved recently in spite of the fact that I am seeing significant amounts of sunlight most days of the week.  It is light late enough that am able to run outside at 6pm or even later some days and although warm days are still rare, we have had as many sunny days as overcast days recently so I had really hoped my mood would have improved by now.  Another reason my mood disorder may not be entirely seasonal is that my mood improves quite dramatically to essentially normal if not euphoric when I go on a vacation.  This has led me to a new self-diagnosis which is an affective disorder best characterized as employment related.  I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out given that it is a clearly inherited disorder.  My mom suffered from this condition throughout most of her adult life without ever being formally diagnosed.  In retrospect what she described as Sunday night anxiety was clearly a symptom of the disease and I have this same symptom although probably in a more severe form.  My dad retired at age 58 which in my mind is a clear sign of advanced disease progression.  Luckily both my mom and dad were able to retire at a relatively young age and both are now in complete remission.  My sister is less fortunate, although she clearly had ERRATIC syndrome for the entire 20 years (nearly) of her employment, she can not afford the only real cure for the disease which is early retirement.  She now suffers from a similar syndrome associated with unemployment (UnERRATIC syndrome) which seems to be equally unpleasant and debilitating.  I’m not sure if my brother suffers from ERRATIC syndrome, but I suspect he also has at least a mild case.

OK, the acronym is a stretch, I probably could have come up with a better one if I had devoted a little more time and energy.

The sukiyaki moment

Many years ago, Aldo had a “sukiyaki moment”.  We took the train from San Clemente to  Santa Barbara to celebrate our anniversary.  When we went out to dinner that night, the waiter commented that in his entire career at that particular Japanese restaurant he’d never seen anyone finish the entire sukiyaki dinner by himself.  This inspired Aldo to notice that he had gained some weight and was at a new all time high.  Later, he squeezed into his biking shorts and proclaimed “I look like a tic”.

My sukiyaki moment was a little fuzzier.  I busted the elastic on a particular pair of pants I wear frequently and thought to myself, darn I may have to throw these away.  Shortly thereafter these pants became the only pair I could fit into and they were even becoming a little tight.