Grugger’s Way

I am Trying to make Friends with the Bathroom Scale.  I swear the thing has a personality and moods;  it is probably female.

WHY can’t a scale give you a straight answer?  WHY does a scale have to have its OWN WAY?   And why does it take a month to lose five pounds and only one day to gain it back?  Why does MY scale only GRUDGINGLY give up one-half pound at a time, but takes back five pounds all at once?

How does MY bathroom scale seem to “know” that I’ve been cheating on her?

How does MY bathroom scale manage to arouse nothing but GUILT feelings in me?

Does your bathroom scale laugh at you? Sneer? Josh?  Become Spiteful and Take Revenge?

I want a new scale, but this one won’t leave me.  I can’t have TWO scales because I would never know for certain just how much I weigh. That would be like a guy with two watches; he never knows what time it is.  The TWO scales would almost certainly show different weights–just to show me where I’m Wrong!  I’ve always suspected that appliances have minds of their own.

Like toasters and microwaves and dishwashers.

TOMORROW:  CONQUERING THE HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE 

My Life is Like a Bowl of Oatmeal.

With apologies to Forrest Gump,  Cherries would be more exciting.  I love cherries, especially those I pick myself and eat right on the spot, because they are free, and not weighed with the basket that I am carrying around the “U-pick” orchard.  Flathead Cherries, up here in Montana.

But I am writing about my new “Oatmeal” lifestyle.  Sounds pretty boring.  It is.

Oatmeal is a wonderful cereal.  With some soy milk, raw sunflower seeds, raisins, and a little brown sugar, it makes a terrific breakfast.  As a noon-time meal, and as an evening supper, it leaves me cold.  Cold Oatmeal.  Sounds like a new musical group.  Anyway, the photo above is a thumbnail that will open for a large-size view of my oatmeal before it is nuked.

I have been dieting.  The Oatmeal Diet.  Never heard of it?  That doesn’t surprise me.  The idea is that my system needs some fiber, carbs, vitamins, and protein, with a minimum of cholesterol and calories.  If I “stick” to this diet, I will lose weight.  Perhaps a lot like the guy eating “slop” on Big Brother, the television reality show.

Removing meat from my diet has had a lot of benefits.  Easier bowel movements, for one.  (Oh, too, too much information?)

I can also eat salad, but without dressing.  I use a little lemon juice.  But sprinking with water also provides some lubrication for the lettuce and brocc.

I recently lost six pounds so I could fit into my suit pants for my son’s wedding.  I made it, but it was a tight fit and I changed clothes as soon as I could.  I gained three pounds during the reception. I did not eat oatmeal.

My Oatmeal Recipe:

3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/4 cup raisins
1 T. brown sugar
1/2 cup soy milk, lite

Into bowl, join the oatmeal with water, sunflower seeds and raisins. Cover with a paper plate, and place in microwave for 1:45 minutes.

Add soy milk and stir a little.  Top with the brown sugar. Cheat a little if you want. Calories:  Oatmeal: 200, lite soy: 70.  Sunflower seeds, raisins and brown sugar: Some. The above photo is also a thumbnail that will open for a large-size view of the final product.

Tomorrow: Making Friends with the Bathroom Scale

Monkey Mind is a Zen Buddhist term.

I’ve read that we have 60,000 “thoughts” every day. We haven’t much control over most of these thoughts; they just “happen.” Zen Buddhism just refers to this as mind-clutter, like a room full of monkeys.

I experience Monkey Mind every day, whether I am sitting at the computer, washing dishes, standing in a room full of people, mowing the lawn, taking a hike, and even during yoga and meditation. My monkeys annoy, distract, and can ruin the present moment. Mind monkeys can produce repetitive thoughts, repetitive thoughts, worry, anxiety, repetitive thoughts, and all kinds of unnecessary concerns, at inappropriate times. They just create busyness. A lot like the world we live in. (With a lot of repetitive thoughts.)

But all these thoughts use energy; energy that could be available for CREATIVE thought. If we could harness or control our monkey minds, we would have a great deal more energy available for better use.

And Monkey Mind can create doubt and ruin our creativity. I am writing now as a writer, of sorts anyway, and when I am creatively writing, my monkey mind will suddenly interject “What’s the use? No one cares what I think. Go do something useful instead.” That negative thought can destroy my entire session if I don’t find a way to get that out of my mind.

So I am still learning about how to quiet my monkey mind. I have also found common references to “taming” the monkey mind. Same thing. Half the battle is being aware of the problem. The other 90 percent is solving it. (Ha Ha, with apologies to Yogi Berra.)

I meditate and do yoga, and one of the tools we learn in meditation is to simply acknowledge the thought and then let it go. With time and practice, the interjecting thoughts diminish, although I’ve never completely cleared my mind. Nope. Not a chance of having an “empty mind” here. Closest I’ve come is just falling asleep during meditation. But that’s a nice way to fall asleep. Just don’t do it while driving.

I haven’t had a cigarette in 19 years, not since July 3rd, 1989.  I still do not say that I am a “non-smoker,” I just haven’t smoked one since July 3rd, 1989.  What finally prompted me was when I nearly passed out from a lack of breath after walking about one block!

That was not the first time I stopped smoking.  Nine years earlier I had stopped and I was smoke-free for two years.  I began smoking again while my wife was in labor with our last child, and I was 6,000 miles away, on a Navy ship.  It was to be three more months before I returned home.  By that time I was borrowing three or four smokes a day from my shipmates.  One sailor told me that he didn’t care if I smoked or not, but if I were going to stop smoking, I should do it by smoking someone ELSE’s, not his.  (Ha Ha.  That guy is still a friend of mine and still in the Navy; a Master Chief Petty Officer now.  I don’t know if he still smokes)

I bought one pack that day.  And, when it was gone, I bought one more.  I continued to buy just one pack at a time…for NINE YEARS!

I started smoking as a 13-year-old.  I would sneak a pack of Camels out of my Father’s carton.  My schoolwork went downhill, I played hooky, I smoked.  My Father lifted me off my feet by grabbing me around the neck and held me up against the wall.  He told me that I was going to get my act together NOW and get my ass to school and STOP SMOKING!  His final threat was that he would nail a “spike” through my hands and “nail me up to the wall” like “Christ hanging on the cross.”  Ya.  I was in seventh grade and I believed him and I quit smoking.  Until high school.   My Senior year, in fact, and then I went into the Navy and EVERYBODY smoked.  During boot camp, and afterward as well, the Navy slogan seemed to be “smoke’m if you got’m.”  There was an ash tray the size of a dinner plate on every Navy desk.  I recall cleaning everyone’s ash trays at the end of the day, when I was a lowly Seaman, and every ash tray was full of butts.

Oh, I tried to quit several times…once it became fashionable.  Girl friends rarely smoked and with one exception, they always pushed me to quit.  I once counted the number of times that I could remember quitting…about ten.  Always I tried but… (Wow, I wonder how many times I have said that…”I tried, but….)

So now it has been nineteen years.  During those years I became physically active and healthy and even ran in a 26-mile marathon. But…when I watch old movies where the hero smokes…yes, the heroes used to be “cool” and nearly always smoked in the movies…I feel that old craving again–that monster.  When the World War Two movies are shown late at night, I see the soldiers hunkered down and sharing a smoke, I feel that old craving again.

Oh, yes. There is no doubt that nicotine is addictive. And smoking is addictive. In fact, I personally believe it is the most difficult habit to break.    I still don’t call myself a “non-smoker.”  In fact, I think if I were to have one today…it would feel just as good and I would enjoy it just as much as the last one I smoked…on July 3rd, 1989.