Hunger pains

It seems the refrigerator fairies were conspiring with my mother to make sure I had a steady supply of food – just not the kind I would often buy.

A week ago my dad was diagnosed with cholesterol and told to lose weight and healthy up his eating habits. This was the perfect excuse for my mom, who can’t understand why people continually eat chips, chocolates and all those other unhealthy foods, to put him on a diet.

She got the soup diet from a friend, who lost quite well on it, and roped me into dieting as support. This is a diet and not an eating plan, designed to be followed for a week at time and claims rapid weight loss – and now I know why!

This is not to say that I can’t stand to lose a substantial number of kilos, but I’ve never really had the correct motivation. Supporting my dad in his journey to a healthier him is a great motivation.

The basis of the diet is fruit and veg, so it’s not a nutritionally deficient as some fad diets. They throw in the odd carbohydrate and protein to balance the nutrition intake.

Mom cooked up about 20 litres of vegetable soup, the main ingredient in this diet and packed my rations on Saturday so that I could start the diet bright and early on Monday morning.

So Monday I had fruit salad for breakfast, soup and apple sauce (delicious) for lunch and again for dinner. But it wasn’t just pieces of fruit – mom prepared raspberry sorbet and paw pay with freshly squeezed orange juice (really yummy).

When I sitting at my desk, longing for the sweet chocolately goodness, I kept telling myself that my dad wasn’t cheating, so I couldn’t. It kept me strong.

Tuesday was the vegetable day – dried fried mushrooms, onions, cherry tomatoes, peppers for breakfast (really not great unless it’s in an omelette), soup and salad for lunch and soup with baked mushrooms and roasted veg salad. As a reward you’re allowed a baked potato. I never thought I’d miss eating fruit, but man, was I jonesing for something sweet.

Wednesday was fruit and veg, and soup. Not so bad, but still no protein.

Thursday was soup, bananas and skim milk. I dry fried my breakfast banana, which was tasty, but not nearly filling. There was a banana for tea time, soup and banana for lunch and soup and a banana smoothie for supper. Mom has really gone to a lot of trouble to come up with different ways to make the legal foods tasty and varied.

Mom and Dad had both lost between 1 and 2 kilos by this stage.

I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to get up in time to beat the traffic to the office, so I worked from home for an hour or so and dragged myself to work at 9am. I was irritable, hungry and by the end of the day I’d pretty much lost the will to do anything – even eat! I sucked down my bowl of soup just because I had to.

Today, I’m 5 days in, with 2 more to go. It’s protein day today – 500g of steak, with tomatoes and more soup. So I had a piece of steak for breakfast (no way was I eating more bloody soup), soup, steak and salad (technically cheating, but come on, what damage is a few lettuce leaves, cucumber and red pepper going to do?) for lunch. Steak and soup again for supper. I’m supposed to eat tomatoes, but I really hate these little red spheres unless they’re pureed into pasta sauce.

I’m still miserable, irritable and would be quite happy to be dumped into a hole and left alone to waste away. I couldn’t be bothered to eat a packet of chips if you said I could.

But I’m hoping this diet will help break my bad eating habits and cravings. Already I’m thinking things like “if only I could have a few spoons of yogurt with my fruit salad”, and “if I could add a small tin of tuna to this salad, I’d feel better”. It used to be “I could really use a chocolate”, or “McDonalds is on the way, I’ll stop for a quick burger”.

On the up side though, I haven’t had to buy or prepare food for 5 days! And my tummy has been regular as clockwork – something that hasn’t happened in nearly 4 years.

Refrigerator Fairies

When we get close to pay day, I always remember a story I heard about Refrigerator Fairies*. They’re kinda like Tinkerbell, but instead of sprinkling fairy dust that makes you fly, they fill a fridge with delectable, delicious noms.

But I’m starting to think that these fairies are dying out, or at least favouring others with their magic dust instead of visiting me. I don’t remember when last my fridge was this empty. Sure, there’s bread and milk (so I'm not going to starve), but I definitely remember buying those myself.

There’s also marg, jam, a small block of cheese, a kilo of Woolies peeled onions, coffee and sugar. And yes, I store all of these items in the fridge. But where are the roast chicken leftovers, the bag of apples, the half eaten milk tart? The freezer could use a new tub of Nestlé’s Peppermint Crisp ice-cream, a frozen pizza or two and some chicken nuggets.

No matter how often I open the doors to the magical cold storage box, nothing new appears. The sting of rejection by one of my most loved magical creatures (the unicorn takes top honours, but that’s mostly cos he’s a horse. Pegasus comes in second for the same reason) is hitting hard.

I can just see the little bugger thumbing his nose at me, sniggering “Ha, ha. I got new friends now. You’re just gonna have to survive on peanut butter toast.”

I thought about playing Ready, Steady, Cook – Home edition, with the few ingredients I can scrounge from various storage cupboards, but I’m not really that ingenious when it comes to cooking and I figure I’ll end up throwing away the result, which would be a real waste.

So it’s end-of-the-month-Salticrax-snacks until pay day. Now if only I could find some Salticrax, that idea might work. How many ways are there to prepare a peanut butter sarmie?

*In the interest of complete honesty, it could that I made this story up as a coping mechanism for justifying my complete lack of money at the end of each month.

Old age and ill health

Doctor doctor give me the news

I’ve got a bad case of medical blues

Oh man, I’m tired of seeing doctors. Actually I’m just tired of paying them. And there seems to be no end in sight.

I’ve never been a particularly sickly individual. Aside from tonsillitis, chicken pox, a broken ankle, measles and the odd cold or flu, I’m fairly healthy. But I turned 30 and suddenly I’m making personal acquaintances with doctors and eating through my medical in about 9 months.

I had an accident at the office in about August last year – I didn’t pick my feet up while walking back to my desk and fell up the stairs. I landed on my left knee – hard. I spent a few hours in the ER, was given crutches and generic myprodols and told to take it easy for a few days. It took about 3 weeks before I was walking normally, but a few people suggested I see a physio. As work was paying (I claimed from Workmans Compensation), I figured I had nothing to lose. I completed three appointments so that the doc could massage my kneecap back into place.

At the beginning of October I went to see my GP about my right eye – it was weepy and scratchy. He diagnosed conjunctivas and gave me eye drops. A week later I still wasn’t better so he wrote me a script for another bottle of eye drops. A week after that I had developed a major head and the eye wasn’t any better, so the doc had another look, suspected scleritis and referred me to an ophthalmologist.

The ophthalmologist confirmed the diagnosis and prescribed more eye drops, and myprodol for the raging headaches that split the right side of head like a meat cleaver through rump steak. 10 days later I went back – I was no better. This time I got amoxicillin tablets, which finally did the trick.

Or so I thought.

Less than 2 weeks after declaring to the world that I was once again in good health, the nasty little infection invoked squatter’s rights. I managed it with the same drops from the last prescription, and more myprodols. It seemed to get better over the holiday, but came back when the office opened in January. I went to see the eye doc again last week, and he can’t find any infection (but did find an allergy, which means yet more eye drops). He’s now referred me to a Rheumotologist, because scleritis is usually a symptom of diabetes or arthritis.

That’s not the end of the story.

Last week I was the unfortunate victim of a taxi stupidity. Some idiot stopped in the middle of a two lane road to, I assume, pick up or let off a passenger. I slammed on brakes, burned about 10 mm of tread of my brand new driver’s side front tyre, and narrowly missed the car in front of me. Unfortunately the car behind me didn’t have enough stopping distance and used my poor, elderly little Carlos as a punching bag. I felt the impact in my mid back and figured I’d be stiff the next morning. However, when I started feeling pain a few hours later, I figured I’d better have myself examined. The GP didn’t suspect anything serious. He shot me full of Voltaren, gave me five day’s worth of Cataflam and sent me on my way.

Now I just have to wait and see what the new doctor has to say. If she can’t find a cause for the scleritis, I’ll most likely be making annual visits to the eye doc to manage the eye infection. 

If this is what getting old does to your body, I do hope that my life expectancy doesn’t extend much past 80.

Spud

The family went to see Spud at the drive-in and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of production and performances of most of the actors – I didn’t have high expectations going in.

On the way home I made a comment that I am annoyed by all the books that are being turned into movies.

Dad: it’s all about making money

Me: well, it shouldn’t be

Sis: now you’re just being ridiculous

Mom: it’s for the people who don’t read books

Me: well, they should read

Sis: ok, stop being so ridiculous (sorry for having and expressing opinions Sis)

But please tell me what’s ridiculous about feeling like money is not the bee all and end all of life on earth? Or that people should expand their imaginations by reading, or loose out on a story?

Admittedly, this is a new view – I do have Lord of the Rings on DVD, and the first 5 Harry Potter DVDs. And while I’ve read, and loved, each Harry Potter book at least twice, I’ve not read Lord of the Rings (I’ve not felt a need to read it as the movies are really good in my opinion).

It just irks me that I can hardly rent a DVD without finding out at some point that it was book, where the story is inevitably told so much better than what I see on screen.

The Last Song – DVD jacket says that’s a book by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote A Walk to Remember (was pissed off when I discovered that, despite how much I love the movie) and Nights in Rodanthe (broke down and rented the DVD and was not overly impressed with Dianne Lane and Richard Gere, but I figure the book would be really good).

Charlie St Cloud – according to mom, it’s a book, but the movie was apparently so abominable that it’s not worth seeing.

Montana Sky – rented it even knowing it’s a book by Nora Roberts. I love her stories, especially her later ones, and was sorely disappointed at the portrayal of the characters by pretty much unknown actors. I know what her heroes are like, and John Corbette (the only name I recognise) didn’t do this male lead any justice.

I’m sorely tempted to boycott reading books by authors who sell themselves to Hollywood as much as I am refusing to watch movie adaptations of books.

The reason I’m trawling through Mr Video’s appalling collection of movies is because I can rent 5 movies for 7 days for R55. Sounds like a great deal, but then I’m told it excludes all new releases. You’d think there would be some good finds, and there are a few, but for the most part, it’s just films that, for obvious reasons, went straight to video. After 3 rounds, there’s virtually nothing left to interest me. Spending R100 (I never pay more) on a DVD I really like and can watch a million times over, is a far better way to go.

Happy New Year

Call me crazy, but I’m really looking forward to going back to work on Monday. I’m sure I’ll change my mind on Monday morning at 5:30am when I’m supposed to get my butt out of bed, but right now, I can’t wait.

I’ve been on leave for a whole week and I’m bored stiff. There’s not a hell of a lot to do around my tiny home, but I’ve done all that I can – laundry, ironing, cleaning, dishes, changed the linen (the bane of my existence) and spent about an hour cleaning Baylea’s bird cage yesterday after I took her to the vet to have her winged clipped. I’ve been grocery shopping, made muffin mixture (yum) ,so that I could have muffins for breakfast this morning, and spaghetti bolognaise for dinner last night.

I’ve slept late, watched TV (well, actually DVDs), downloaded eBooks for my new ereader, cross-stitched and read books.

I’ve trolled the Net and there’s a basket on Amazon that I’m very tempted to order for my sister to bring back with her when she visits England later this month.

And now I’m bored as hell.

I’ve spent so much time in bed (reading – get your mind out of the gutter!) that by Tuesday I had developed lower back ache, but I’m starting to wonder if there’s more to it than that – I can’t seem to get rid of it. Nothing I do seems to make any difference, except Myprodols, but I don’t want to become reliant on those little babies.

I’ve got a bit of work to do before Monday, which I'll do this evening. In the meantime, I’m gonna see about going to the movies and possibly taking my new ereader out for coffee. But I’ll do that tomorrow. I’m in my PJs (God bless the person who invented the pyjamas) and have little inclination to get dressed. Also gonna swallow more Infludo (now sold under the name Gripless, after pharmacies stopped importing the stuff from Weleda, or some such story) in an attempt to avoid what I suspect is a throat infection.

Happy New Year – hope it’s a wonderful year for you.

PS: For those of you who were wondering who Baylea is, here's a photo. She's a Ruppells Parrot.