What a beautiful sunny morning in the lead-up to Thanksgiving! I thank God for a day like this.
Notice my mood is enlivened? Did some research last night to correct on a dietary matter. For some time now I've been in the habit of two meals a day, never three. I take the maximum dose of a medication called Metformin. Seems that many people know about this med.
To fill the vacuum of no third meal, I opt to "graze." I believe that's the accepted term for eating something in place of a standard meal. I made what I thought was good judgment re. this: leaning on fruit, often with emphasis on oranges which are so tasty when they're at their best. You can't go wrong with fruit, can you? I mean, compare to the days when I'd grab a frozen pizza at Willie's, bring home and slap in the oven. A little portion of Mountain Dew too.
Fruit instead? Would appear ideal in theory. As you age and are prescribed medication, dietary matters often get sensitive. I'll turn here to an old quote from the great movie reviewer Roger Ebert. He was "the people's critic." He evaluated cinema not on the rarefied air criteria of the Greenwich Village crowd or however you'd like to describe it. Ebert just asked "did this movie accomplish what it set out to accomplish?" He was not automatically biased against a movie that just seemed dumb and loud. People who like "dumb" movies are not dumb themselves.
I did think Ebert got overly generous in his review of the Adam Sandler treatment of "The Longest Yard." But back to the subject of diet/health. Ebert was focusing his attention on the movie "The Bucket List." So, two guys who have been told they have terminal illnesses are trying to cram some excitement into what remains of their lives. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starring: "name" actors in a top-of-the-line Hollywood product.
The term "bucket list" gained currency because of the movie. I happen to think it's a stupid term but I digress.
Ebert wrote that he was actually offended by the movie. You'll recall that Ebert went through tremendous personal adversity with his own health. He slid downward in an arduous losing battle but sought to keep up his movie journalism. It got to the point where we didn't care if his sharpness might be slipping a little, as we lauded him on his indomitable spirit.
Ebert wrote that having a terminal illness is nothing like what was suggested in the movie. The movie showed the two guys who you'd guess were completely normal, who had been told as a merely academic thing that they'd be dead by a certain date. A calamitous illness does not work like that.
In my case, I wish to stress that I do not have a terminal illness. I don't have an expiration date yet. But we all die of course. I am losing more old friends and acquaintances all the time, while almost never making any new ones. So it dawns on me that my Christmas list for email greetings is having more names get crossed off. This is distressing.
Ebert wrote that in real life, to have the kind of terminal illness conditions of the two characters in the movie would spell discomfort and inconvenience. No, you wouldn't go around with complete aplomb to do your fun-seeking. You might be immobile some of the time. You'd nurse anxiety. Look what all Ebert endured with his extreme cancer treatment. It is believed he got cancer because of radiation treatment for an ear infection that he had as a child.
Many older people around us are dealing with concerning health issues that prevent the kind of uninhibited circulation in public that we once took for granted. So Ebert lectured us on how you needn't assemble a "bucket list" of thrilling activities to fill out what remains of your life. Skydiving? C'mon.
People in failing health need to relax, avoid excitement most of the time. And be thankful for what? Ebert's payoff line in this piece was so dead-on. He advised his readers that when the time comes in their life that the walls are closing in, as it were, with health disaster, "you'll find that nothing is more satisfying than a good bowel movement."
At present I have made the discovery that I was eating too much fruit, oranges in particular. I made the mistake more than once at Willie's of passing on 3-4 "loose" oranges and instead grabbing a whole sack. It's hard batting a thousand with your diet. After some distress over a couple weeks, I decided to consult the Internet to get my answer. The advice: oranges can cause the kind of problems I was having.
So I'm tremendously relieved on this Saturday that the issues were solvable. I feel like a million bucks. I don't have to go sky-diving.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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