Beating the Odds-- So Far

Not mine, but illustrative

I don't believe in food-as-medicine.

Yes, I believe in getting one's nutrition as much as possible from healthy, wholesome, locally-grown food eaten in reasonable amounts and proportions.  But when it comes to the esoterica of when and how and how much and in what combinations, my response is "Non credo."

You've seen them.  Articles from nutrition pundits who tell you to eat a cup of fresh blueberries three times a day every day for the rest of your life.  I like blueberries, but not that much!  Or blog posts insisting that all grains are inherently bad for people and one should never eat them.  Or the book that tells me I should never eat red meat after three in the afternoon, and then only if I've done four impossible yoga poses before sunrise.  And don't forget the earnest folks who tell you you can't possibly be healthy unless you consume some exotic fruit or herb found only on some South Pacific island the Polynesians have never heard of.  No.  Can't swallow that.

But there's a way lately that I have been taking a more therapeutic attitute towards food, and to some extent it's paying off.

A couple of things dovetailed this spring, and a very portly dove it was, too.  The first is that the low blood sugar I've put up with since my college years at least seemed to be getting worse.  I found myself getting lightheaded more frequently, and even feeling I was going to faint a time or two.  Yeah, some people would say I should run off to the doctor and get tested for diabetes.  That's not me.  If I can deal with it myself, I will.

The second thing is that I noticed that I'd gained a lot of weight since my last post-chemo weigh-in in late February.  Above the waist, where I generally don't put it on.  Rolls of flab on my back.  No more definition in my upper arms.  The pot around my belly button greatly increased.  I hadn't changed my eating or activity habits at all, but here it was getting difficult if not impossible to fit into my clothes.  What's this all about?

So towards the end of May I decided to tackle both these problems at once.  I'd change my eating habits.  I wasn't going on a diet, oh, no.  Nor would I renounce any particular food.  I've been at this weight loss game long enough to know that that's the recipe for desperation and disaster.  No.  Instead, I began to stretch out my meals.  Instead of eating three largish meals a day four to six hours apart, I'd spread them out.  Have the protein at one little meal, then two to three hours later have the starch I would have had with the protein.  Be conservative about portion sizes, and learn to enjoy, say, new potatoes boiled with just salt, pepper, and parsley, no butter or gravy.  Of course I had to go back to enforcing my no-eating-after-9:00-PM rule.  By all this I hoped to keep my blood sugar even and kickstart my metabolism so maybe I could lose a little weight.

I'm still at it.  It's been interesting the past month.  My birthday is in mid-June, and customarily I share the celebration with my friend Frieda*, who was born in late May.  We celebrated this year on the 2nd, and I made our favorite sour cream chocolate layer cake.  Sent a good two-fifths home with her and shared a couple more pieces with a small neighbor boy who has no compunction about opening my fridge and begging for whatever treats he sees inside.  This left me about half the cake.  You know it took me three and a half weeks to finish it?  I could say I'm "restricting" myself to one dessert "meal" a day, but the fact is, I don't feel like having more than that.  The cake was a little dry by the time I ate the last piece the other day, but it was still good.

Sometimes stretching meals out can backfire.  Couple weeks ago I ate something that was evidently past its use date.  Evidently, judging by all the painful pot-sitting I had to put in that morning and afternoon.  Banana bread.  Spoiled banana bread.  Ordinarily, I would have finished that ages before, but not this time.  I've learned to put things in the freezer if I'm not going to eat them in a reasonable time.

Happily, this regimen seems to be working to even out my blood sugar.  I might still feel a little lightheaded when I finish one of my snacky-meals; normally, that would justify my eating more right then.  But with a shallow nod to the food-as-medicine advocates, I tell myself, "No, let the food work.  You wouldn't take another dose of aspirin if your headache wasn't gone the moment you swallowed the first two tablets, would you?  All right then."  And most of the time, the airheadedness soon goes away.

However, it didn't seem that I was losing any weight.  I have two body scales in the house, neither of them accurate, but their inaccuracy was not encouraging.  I was still being squeezed by those fat rolls above my waistband, and the post-hysterectomy pot below my waist was as protruding and obtrusive as ever.  What was wrong?  I can swear I'm eating only two-thirds to a half of what I was before, so why aren't I dropping the pounds?  It's not like me to get cancer head before my post-chemo checkups, but I found myself wondering if something was Wrong.  Especially since my digestion isn't totally back to normal after that bout of food poisoning.  Oh, lord, what if the cancer had come back and got into my intestines?

It didn't bear thinking of.

So I didn't.  Instead, I went online and looked up "menopot," a cute name for the very uncute bulge we women often develop in our midsections post-menopause.  None of the articles I read was specific about the precise location of the bulge, above or below the waist, but all agreed that it was endemic, annoying, and about impossible to get rid of.  I gathered also that I shouldn't gripe that I'm fighting it now, after my cancer surgery.  The remarkable thing, apparently, is that it didn't set in seven years ago when I hit natural memopause.

So my triannual post-chemo checkup was this morning.  And withal I braced myself for possible bad news.  But all my test reports came in normal, all my numbers are good.  So with my former ovarian cancer, I am continuing to beat the odds, so far.  And as to my weight on the doctor's official scale . . . ?  Down.  Five pounds from my February weight.  Being weighed in jeans.  Which may mean I've lost six or seven pounds since the end of May, since I know I gained some since the February weigh-in.

And I have to admit that those jeans are size 8 slims, and it's easier to zip them.  And my tape measure says I've lost a half inch off my waist in the past month.  So enough with the pessimism!  When it comes to post-menopausal weight gain, it looks like I'm beating the odds there as well.

So far.

Cold Turkey

I've been thinking of deleting the Games folder and all its contents off my computer.

Ever since my first computer, acquired in my second year of theological college in the autumn of 1993, I've given up computer games for Lent. I don't say this to brag on myself; rather, it shows how addictive I've found them. I needed to wrench myself away for a time each year, and I definitely needed Outside Help to do it.

Back then, it was Tetris. I'd get so engrossed in playing it (instead of working on my essays) that during chapel services, while kneeling for the Intercessions, I'd see tetraminos floating down the screen of my closed eyes.

Later, it was Freecell and Spider Solitaire. I came to understand that seven weeks of abstinance was not enough to give me mastery over my obsession, so four or five years ago I began to fast from playing computer games during the four weeks of Advent as well.

But I've been attending a very reformed Presbyterian church this past year (when I'm not preaching, myself), and they're very big on not being bound by purely man-made rules, like the idea one should give things up for Advent and Lent. So this Advent immediately past, I played Spider Solitaire all I jolly well pleased. And sometimes when I didn't really please. I'd get on and start dealing and redealing and keep going and going . . .

And I'm thinking, this has got to stop. I have too much to do to waste whole half hours two or three or four times a day placing one virtual card on another. Which means radical action: Delete!

But why don't I just make a New Year's resolution to control myself and just play a game a day? Or save the fun for Saturday evenings or whenever?

Because if I had any resolve I wouldn't be frying my brain with these toys the way I do now. I need to go cold turkey and get rid of them.

True, if I do that I would miss the enjoyment I get out of playing them. I'd lose the pleasure of knowing that here, at least, something is going where it belongs and staying there. And how else will I while away the minutes while waiting for files to download? And what will I do to allay the truly visceral desire that seizes me to click on the Spider Solitaire icon and play and play? I know that if I delete that file it's going to drive me crazy.

Which is why I gotta stop. That's physical addiction, and it just ain't right.

Then there's the weird state of mind I get into when I play computer games. Some psychologist should study the phenomenon. I could claim they put me into a very creative state, but nothing ever comes of it.

One part of my consciousness will be focussed on playing the game. But in another part of my mind, I often begin to see . . . scenes. Scenes from a play, or maybe a movie. Nothing I've ever seen or heard or read; something original and new. But always seeming to take place in the past, and always with the exchanges in some sort of dialect. Brooklynese or Yiddish or Irish. Trouble is, even though I can make out the drift of the dialog, I can never make out what the characters are actually saying.

A typical episode: Three people, two men and a woman, in the disorderly kitchen of a cheap apartment, probably somewhere in the Bronx. I see it in black and white. The men, both in shirtsleeves, one with a hat on, sit at the kitchen table, intently discussing something. The woman, a bleached blonde, hovers between the table and the stove, bringing coffee when demanded and putting in her 2 cents whether asked for it or no. She is the wife, I think, of the man without the hat. The men seem to be plotting something, I can't tell what. A bank robbery or a hijacking or whatever. At one point, they nearly come to blows. Not over whether to do the job; rather, over how to pull it off. The woman intervenes. She seems to be saying they're both wrong and should listen to her. She's as deep in it as they are, she simply has a more level head. Her advice may well guarantee the success of their plan. Will they listen to her? Do I want them to listen to her and be successful? Who is the hero of this little play? One of these guys, or a detective somewhere? How can I know? That's all I get!

But more often, the effect of a strong dose of computer games isn't so dramatic. More often, the unoccupied part of my brain sends up . . . old songs. I mean, really old songs. From the first part of the 20th century, or before. Songs I haven't thought of for months or years, songs I have no reason to think of.

Songs like "Hello, Ma Baby" (1899). Yesterday, it was "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" (1934). Today, I channelled "I'll Take Romance" (1937).

Where do they come from? Why do they come when I'm trying to decide whether to use the free space to free up that black four to move it to the five, or to shift that red king? Is this some wondrous facility I'll lose if I delete that file?

Yes, maybe. But what about all those other things I'm losing out on now, like balancing my accounts and writing my novel and stripping the hallway floor?

(I'm thinking . . . I'm thinking . . . )

(Excuse me a minute.)

I . . . I . . . did it. At least, I dumped the folder with the shortcuts in it. Which means those games may still be someplace on the machine, but I can't get to them.

Aaaaaagggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

And You Wondered What's Wrong with America's Public Schools (Part 4)

Part 3 is here.

All day I'd meant to call the Castellcoch district's substitute teacher dispatcher Mrs. Rockslide* as soon as I got home. I meant to find out what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks was going on. Miss Birdsong* told me this morning that Mrs. Rockslide had called her on Wednesday to tell her to come in on Friday. Mrs. Rockslide told me on Tuesday I'd be in all week. Did she just get mixed up?

I called Mrs. Rockslide. And I was nice about it. It's not Christian or pastoral or fair to go ripping on people without cause. So I said, "Mrs. Rockslide, I was wondering what happened today . . . "

And the short version is that the whole thing was the principal Mr. Chummy's* decision. He found out after two days that I (in cahoots with Ms. Haluska--shock!) was actually expecting the students to do some work, be I sub or be I none. And, says Mrs. Rockslide, Mr. Chummy doesn't believe in substitute teachers actually teaching or getting the students to work. He thinks it alienates the kids and makes them think the Administration Is Not Their Friend. And as the new principal, his first goal and intention is that all students should know that The Administration Is Their Friend. So, "He prefers young substitutes who won't stand up to the kids and won't make them do anything."

Said I, "Is he suicidal? I talked to one teacher today who says discipline is so bad at Castellcoch, there'll probably be attacks on teachers by next May!"

"I know," and I could visualize her head shaking in perplexity. "Discipline is the worst it's ever been. A lot of substitutes refuse to come here."

"Does he have a death wish for the school? Does he really want things to get so bad nobody can learn anything?"

"I know! I told Mrs. Berlin when she called Wednesday that you were in the Biology class till Christmas break. And I had Miss Birdsong scheduled in for Mr. Chucovich* [a Social Studies teacher] on Monday. But she said Mr. Chummy wanted it changed, and I couldn't do anything about it."

Apparently she wasn't allowed to call and tell me about the switchover, either. So all yesterday I'm thinking and planning and working--?

Yes.

She was glad I called, as this has been bothering her. She knows it wasn't fair to me or to the kids. She tries to stand up for the substitutes, but feels she's alone in the battle. And what was she to do with Mr. Chucovich's classes on Monday? Mr. Chummy definitely has said Miss Birdsong is to take the Biology kids that day as well. Could I, would I?

I really wished I could have said, "I'm sorry, no." But, as I admitted to Mrs. Rockslide, I'm on emergency unemployment compensation. And if I miss "any available work," I lose not only the money I would have made, I also lose the same amount in UC benefits. I am poor and struggling. You, Mrs. Rockslide, have just offered me "available work." You have me over a barrel. Yes, I will substitute for Mr. Chucovich on Monday.

"But wait a minute," I said. "If I come in for Mr. Chucovich, I'll make his kids work as well."

"Yes, but the thinking is, it's only for one day."

"Oh, yes, right. Of course. I can't do that much 'damage' in that short a time."

"Yes. He wants the substitutes young and inexperienced."

(Let us pause for grimly ironic laughter.)

Shall I now draw an explicit moral on the egregious state of public schools in these United States? No, you may come to your own conclusions.

And You Wondered What's Wrong with America's Public Schools (Part 3)

Part 2 is here.

I hung up my coat in the Biology room, started to take Homeroom roll, then, oh, crap! in walked the ingenuous Miss Birdsong*, the substitute's substitute. So the ground is lost. I see.

But at least I could save the kids' chance to actually do some thinking during this interim period! I finished taking roll, then went over the research paper handouts with her. Nod, nod, nod from Miss Birdson. And, Miss Birdsong, here's the computer time schedule I've booked for all today's Biology classes. Nod, nod, nod.

Just then, Mrs. Berlin* over the intercom began to lead the school in the Pledge of Allegiance. No way I was going to go on talking during the Pledge; it would set a bad example. I raised my eyes to the flag and saw--

The back of Mr. Chummy*, the Principal, saying the Pledge. What the hell? Did he think I would refuse to leave and come up to throw me out? He approached and said, "You'll be taking Mrs. Evans* classes today. Miss Birdsong will teach Biology." Then he left, as the 1st period students were coming in. Seeing me with my bags and coat ready to leave, one of the kids took in the situation and made loud salaams to his version of the Deity: "You're not in here today? Oh, thank God! Thank God!!"

"Never mind," I told them all. "Your papers are still due on Monday. Miss Birdsong has all the information and will help you with them. See you around!"

As I walked downstairs, I thought, "Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Evans . . . oh, damn and blast [yes, my friends, the preacher cusses. Within good taste and reason]! That's the Choral Music teacher!"

You'd think I'd enjoy that, wouldn't you? But I've subbed for Mrs. Evans' classes before and it was the absolute worst. Combine someone like me who loves music, with a bunch of students who don't give two hoots for it and don't even want to be in there at all, with a big room with risers perfect for running amok in, with a regular teacher who thinks entertainment films and kindergarten-level busywork are enough to keep the kiddies pacified all the long day, and you have the cacophonous full score for Variations on a Disaster. Adventures in substitute teaching? More like adventures in babysitting!

And meanwhile, upstairs in the Biology classroom? I saw some of those kids last period, but didn't ask them what had gone on. Maybe I didn't want to swear in front of them. But I did ask a couple students from the one section of Human Anatomy that I'd also inherited from Ms. Haluska, whether Miss Birdsong had gone on with the Muscle Groups overheads I'd begun teaching yesterday.

"Oh, no," both of them said. "We just worked on our question packets. She didn't teach us anything, she sat back there at the teacher's desk the whole time."

"She didn't teach at all?"

"No."

("Good grief!") muttered under my breath.

Now, I have to be fair. These Anatomy students did have those packets to complete for Monday. And maybe Miss Birdsong wanted to look over the Muscle Groups material just in case things are still weird on Monday and she has to come in then, too. Maybe. But if these kids were being honest and she really "sat back there the whole time" and she didn't walk around keeping a close eye on things, that doesn't lend any strength to this possibility. And it gives me very little hope that the Biology students did any research whatsoever on the computers today. Played online games the whole time, more like it.

I was hoping I'd get less fed up as the day went on. But between the chaos of that Chorus room (complete with kids running and tackling one another, kids tipping over their chairs, and near-universal lack of attention), hearing the frustrations of other teachers vented from time to time during the day, and thinking about the chance those sophomores were being cheated out of, by the time I left this afternoon I was beating my dashboard in barely-suppressed rage.

(To be continued)

And You Wondered What's Wrong with America's Public Schools (Part 1)

Durdy werdz, durdy werdz, durdy werdz!!!

As I mentioned last post, I probably should have been consistently recording my Adventures in Substitute Teaching. It sure would save work and verbiage now.

First, some background:

1st of December, I got called in to sub in the junior high Science classes at the Castellcoch* Junior/Senior High School. Seems the regular teacher had been kicked upstairs to become the school's principal. I saw the first day that he hadn't left them at all enough to do, so I added to it and yes, the kids did the work. When it became obvious I'd be there until a new permanent Science teacher was hired, I asked the embryo principal to give me some real work for the kids to take on. He did, and with the help of the other junior high Science teacher, we proceeded, even though I have no Science background.

We didn't get on as quickly as I hoped, though, because the classes were thoroughly undisciplined. I soon discovered it was not just Let's Be Rude to the Sub behavior. No. The kids would say, "But Mr. Chummy* always lets us . . . ("eat in class, play our iPods in class, take any seat we want, finish tests the next day if we don't happen to get finished today, use each other's notes and talk out loud during tests"-- you fill in the blank). And when I'd ask him about this, more often than not, they were telling the truth!

Too bad. Mr. Chummy wasn't their teacher any more and their new teacher-to-come wouldn't be interested in that kind of thinking. So we soldiered on, and after the untangling of some bureaucratic red tape and nine class days that seemed like half a year, the new junior high Science teacher came on board.

Ms. Haluska* is not new to Castellcoch School. She'd been teaching high school Biology and had her own reasons for wanting a transfer to the junior high. Finally approved by the school board, she started this past Tuesday.

Oh, good, thought I last Monday night. I will have a well-deserved rest. But I got called to come in anyway, because Ms. Haluska had a doctor's appointment Tuesday afternoon. Oh, all right. I'd come in in the morning to do coverage then take the 7th graders again after she left. And wouldn't it be a hoot to see their faces!

So what happened Tuesday morning? School office tells me I'm to go upstairs and take Ms. Haluska's former Biology classes! Hey, I can fake it with junior high Science, but I've done no Biology since my own high school days!

Worse, Ms. Haluska had thought her replacement would also be on board last Tuesday, and hadn't left all that much material, to give the new teacher a clear field.

But I got on the phone to Ms. H. and between us we arranged that the kids would watch a film depicting the problems with the toxic waste at Love Canal back in 1978, then write a summary of what they'd seen. For credit. That took us through a couple of days.

And having watched the film, I got an Idea. On Wednesday, I decided it'd be good for these sophomores to do a little (2 pages handwritten) research paper on the effect of the environmental chemical of their choice on human health. For a lot more credit. I ran it by Ms. Haluska and she agreed it was just what those students needed to do. And me, I don't know a lot of the details about Biology, but as an Oxford grad, I certainly can teach kids how to do research.

So I typed up and ran off an assignment sheet and gave it to the kids at the beginning of their classes yesterday. There was some threeping and wailing, but once the kids got into the computer lab (I'd also managed to arrange that), most of them actually started to work!! Woot!

Final period yesterday, one young person protested that "We don't know how to dooooo this!" I told me what he needed to do was on the assignment sheet, and I'd help him once that class could get into the computer lab today. But I got to thinking: Maybe they don't know how to write a research paper. So I went home, and on my own time, I composed a sample outline, with examples so outrageous there's no way they could copy them and get away with it.

(To be continued)

Hairy Experience

A couple weeks ago I was substituting in an area junior high school and one of my responsibilities was a study hall. The eighth graders were, um, multitasking at their studies, and besides looking at algebra and geography they had lots of attention left over for chatter and moving around the room. I came back to one boy's desk to get him refocussed on his homework. As I did he piped up, "I really like your glasses! Where did you get them?"

Well, I may be middle-aged in years but I'm young and dumb in public school teaching. Me, I didn't want to seem cold and unfriendly. So I answered him: "At the dollar store."

A little later, same kid calls up to me as I stand at the front of the room: "That's a great skirt you have on? Where did you get it?"

You see how young and dumb I really was, for I took that at face value and answered it, too: "At the Goodwill." I mean, why should I be ashamed to champion reuse and recycling?

Whereat the eighth grader grins impishly, taps his buddy in the seat in front of him, and snerks, "Yeah, I thought so!"

I was alerted to his lack of bona fides now. Awhile later, when I was walking along their row trying to keep things going in the general direction of study, the first kid's buddy pipes up and says, "Hey, I really like your hair! It looks so smooth and shiny! What shampoo do you use?"

All right, that's enough. The glasses I don't really like, they were just the ones I could find that morning that were the right strength. But hey, maybe somebody else might truly like them. The skirt was a classic challis print, not the height of fashion, but a good cut for me. My hair that day, however--! Any references to it being "smooth and shiny" had to be blatant lies. I knew good and well it was a frizzy stack of straw, because I'd had to blow it dry the day before and it was worse than usual. But my hair is naturally wavy, even curly, and what could I do?

Serendipitidous, then, that a few days ago I came across this post on Beauty Tips for Ministers on the trials of coping with naturally curly or wavy hair. In the comments I found a link to a post on the Curly Girls blog, all about how to make the best of your curls. Condition twice if your hair needs it, don't wring out your hair or towel it dry, comb out once but otherwise avoid using brush or comb, apply curl gel or mousse, dry your curls individually at high heat, high speed by laying them in the trough of your blow dryer's big diffuser. Etc., etc.

Hmm, think I, it might be worth taking a shot at that. I waited till today, when I had no summons to come in and teach. That'd give me the extra time.

Okay, hair washed and conditioned twice. Check. Excess water squeezed out only. Check. Combed through, part put in and that's all. Check. Curly hair gel applied. Check. Curls dried individually at high speed and heat in the trough of the blow dryer diffuser?

Not check. Oh so very not check, indeed.

The author of the Curly Girls blog has long hair. Maybe she can get her strands individually into the diffuser. My hair at the moment, however, is chin length. Will you please tell me how I can get any separate strand into that big diffuser? And how can I use the dryer at high heat and speed without it blowing into frizz my entire head of hair?

Maybe she could, but I can't. I reduced the speed to Low and tried a little more, then flipped my head back up. Front was dry-- in all sorts of useless directions, partularly the bangs-- and the back and sides were hanging there flatly in little curvy strands, soon to become frizz.

Phooey.

I've "set" the back and side hair in a scrunchy. I'll take it out when my hair's dry and see how things look then.

And maybe next hair wash I'll try doing everything up to the blowdry point and then just let it airdry, as I was advised by a former hairdresser when I was getting permanents. And take my comb down the basement (where my only shower is) and run it through my hair while it's still hanging upside down, before I even step out onto the bathmat. Just the lag time of going upstairs and getting dressed may have dried some of my hair out too much.

But the blowdryer? Meh. There's a reason I haven't gotten it out for years.

As for those two impudent kids, I chose to be snarky right back. What shampoo did I use? "Same as your mother buys for you!" Not the response most advisable, I now realize. Smart*ss kid doesn't call for smart*ass teacher. No, next time a student asks me personal questions like that, I'm thinking I'll have him look up the meaning of "impertinent" in the classroom dictionary. And make him copy out the entire definition, phonetic markings and all. On the chalkboard. Twenty times.

That'll larn 'im!