Experiencing pop culture in a time of grief

When someone you love dies, blogging about pop culture, news, travel, and food drops off the priority list.

Doesn’t mean that these trivialities drop our of your life, though. Just that your relationship to them changes, at least for a time.

Music

You know, if you break my heart I’ll go
But I’ll be back again
‘Cause I told you once before good-bye
And I came back again

Music is an emotional mindfield, isn’t it? I don’t think The Beatles “I’ll Be Back” would make anyone’s list of saddest songs ever, but on a day of bad news, I couldn’t handle it. I frantically searched through my playlists for safer havens. I finally settled on “High Energy”, a gathering of uptempo rock and dance numbers, generally with pleasingly dumb lyrics. I stayed locked on that for about a week and a half, ‘til it finally seemed just too incongruous. (Then I switched to Classical.)

Adam Lambert’s excellent album Trespassing was just the sort of uptempo music I needed for a time

Food

I was interested to discover that I still got hungry, still wanted to cook, was still able to eat. Because certain forms of stress and worry make that difficult for me. But not this one, this situation with a known but sad outcome. While I didn’t eat more, or drink more—I didn’t find comfort in that—I still enjoyed the routine of preparing and eating meals.

I certainly became a distracted cook, though. Leaving the milk out on the counter, putting the vinegar in the wrong pantry, forgetting to start the timer. Like the energy of pushing the sadness away enough to follow a recipe was not leaving enough mental space to remember anything that wasn’t written down.

Things are now improving on that front.

Movies and TV

While actually going out to a movie seemed like too much effort, watching stuff on TV was an appealing distraction. Since I don’t watch much medical stuff anyway, there wasn’t much I felt I had to avoid. Howard’s mother died on Big Bang Theory (as the actress had in real life), but it was handled with a light touch and didn’t set me off. In picking HBO movies, I decided to skip Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow for now, given its premise of the lead character dying over and over. I instead watched and quite appreciated the comedic In a World, one of the more overtly feminist movies I’ve seen in a long time. Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZHBjLFu5is

In a World trailer

News

The human interest stories—little boys lost in the snow, Oliver Sack’s terminal cancer diagnosis—were best avoided for a while, but I still found the theatre of politics a surprisingly useful distraction. Especially in Twitter form (about the length of my attention span, at times). I couldn’t truly dig up my own personal outrage at some of what was going on, but I could still appreciate and retweet other people’s. #StopC51 and all that.

Books

So just a few days before all this my book club had selected Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal as our next book. It’s about getting older and end of life care, and how the medical profession has been dealing with it, and how it should.

Of course, there were days I wasn’t up to reading much of anything at all, but when I did feel up to it, I did read this, I seriously doubt I would have selected this particular book if left to my own druthers, but I feel it was in some ways helpful. It’s an excellent book, anyway, and much of it was more abstract and factual, which appealed to my logical side. Stories did become more personal and touching later in the book, but that was later in this whole saga for me too and—I don’t think it made anything worse. It certainly presented a number of scenarios I’m so glad my loved one never went through.

Blood donor

I first tried to donate blood many years ago, while in university. I succumbed to peer pressure and joined my friends on a campus blood drive. On checkin, I was asked how I was feeling.

Fine, I said, except for this stupid cold.

Dismissed! You can’t donate blood when you have a cold.

The second time, I was still in university, and this time not ill. I had, however, been particularly successful in battling my freshmen 15. In fact, I was so successful, I kept on dieting and exercising until I lost another 15, then another, then…

“How much do weigh?” I was asked on checkin.

“99 pounds!” I said proudly.

Dismissed! Too skinny to donate, apparently.

I’ve since, of course, long ago attained and stuck at at a much more sensible (higher) weight, but I made no further attempts to donate. I blamed blood tests, as I never found those much fun. They always seem to have trouble finding a vein; sometimes they’ve even had to make two attempts before succeeding. The needle feels uncomfortable in the vein the whole time it’s there [with pardon to needle-averse readers; but then, they would skip this one anyway, right?].

But I did volunteer for the Ontario Health Study, and as part of that, they asked me to give a blood sample. A few blood samples, really. And those tests were a breeze! Likely I just had a particularly talented nurse, but it did get me thinking maybe I should, finally, try that whole blood donation thing again.

I made an appointment online, and last week went for lifetime attempt 3 at donating blood.

It’s a bit a time-consuming process, though would have been faster if I’d known what I was doing. As I had made an appointment and it was a medical-ly kind of setting, I sat around waiting to be hailed by name until I realized it was more of a lineup situation, except with chairs. So a couple people arriving after me got in ahead. Then as a first-time donor, I had a bit more of a registration process to get in the system.

The first part of the fun is the finger-prick test to check my hemoglobin levels. Those turned out to be fine. Not dismissed!

I then had to fill in half of a questionnaire, largely focused on my general health, travel destinations, and current medications. Then do some more waiting to see another person, in a private room, to go over those questions and fill out the rest of the questionnaire—the more “delicate” questions about the sex life and the intravenous drug habits. She also took my blood pressure. Which turned out to be fine.

On the sex and drugs stuff, I noticed she was pretty much filling in the No boxes before I actually managed to get the denials out. What took longest was determining if the previous day’s migraine pill was an issue (it was not) and making a special note of the aspirin I had taken that day (not a disqualifier, but does require different blood treatment).

And, I got orange juice.

As a final step, you’re left alone in the room with a barcoded Yes or No sticker to affix to the form. This is to cover those cases where you don’t want to admit verbally that you shouldn’t be donating blood, but for some damn reason still want to go through with the procedure.

[One thing they never asked? How much I weighed. Is that no longer a thing, or is it just that I’m obviously no longer under 100 pounds?]

Then you actually lie back and donate blood. I think at least 45 minutes had already passed by then. Maybe more.

They did have a bit of trouble finding a vein (though did get it on the first attempt). And, the needle didn’t feel great in there. And it’s a bit ookey to see blood coming out of your arm into a tube.

But it wasn’t that bad. Jean, who’d kindly offered to drive me there, joined me at this point, as he had more than exhausted the possibilities of the small mall the clinic was in, by this point. The actual donating didn’t take that long. Afterward, you sit there about five minutes, then you get bandaged, then you go sit at another table for another 10 minutes or so and enjoy cookies and more orange juice. And that’s it.

The arm was a bit sore that night, but it didn’t last too long. I didn’t notice any particular lightheadedness or fatigue afterward.

Would I do it again? Well, I have 56 days to think about that…

On sitting less

So back in June were another spat of articles, like this one at CNN.com, saying that sitting for many hours a day was bad for you. Even if you exercise.

It is somewhat amazing how non-helpful these articles are.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends mixing noncomputer-related tasks into the workday…

The article says. As if that was actually possible in every job.

Like mine, for instance. What’s a break from my computer work? Well, meetings. The vast majority of which are, in fact, sit-down and not stand-up meetings. Also, I do like to sometimes be retro and work with pen and paper instead of monitor and keyboard. But you can’t write on paper while walking around, either. It pretty much also requires sitting at a desk.

Basically, if I’m not working at a computer, attending a meeting, or writing on paper, I’m not doing my job.

So 2 or 3 years ago now, I implemented the only solution I could see other than changing careers: I bought equipment to raise both my monitors and my keyboard off my desk, so I can work at the computer, standing up.

It was completely weird at first, but I’m used to it now, as is everyone I work with—none of whom have followed my lead, mind you. I did get a lot of queries about in the first few months. But my company won’t pay for it unless you have a doctor’s note that you need it, and I’m not sure doctors write those based on CNN articles stating that sitting 6+ hours a day reduces your life span by 20%.

And it wasn’t cheap. I needed three pieces of equipment, all of which I acquired from http://www.ergocanada.com: An LCD arm to hold two monitors (yes, I get two 21″ monitors at work), an arm extender to make the monitors high enough, and another arm to raise the keyboard tray. All together, that cost around $750—more than people typically want to spend on equipment for their work desks.

(Also, though, I think a lot of people really enjoy sitting down.)

So, I was no trendsetter.

But once I had invested in sufficient pairs of comfy (yet cute) shoes to avoid foot pain, I did find some health benefits that I didn’t have to wait decades for: reduced hip pain, reduced lower back pain, and a slight loosening of my clothes, which might be due to the fact that you burn more calories standing than sitting.

Woman at stand-up desk — Completely impractical shoes for working at a stand-up desk. Also, I think her monitor is too low.

In fact, I liked it enough that I decided to go for the same with the home computer. Well, not exactly the same. I wasn’t about to spend another $750. But my husband found this Visidec dual-monitor arm for more like $120. Like my one at work, this monitor arm was also too short on its own, but he was handy enough to just mount it in a solid piece of wood sitting on my desk, raising the monitors to standing height.

For the keyboard and mouse? Raised via a cardboard box, with a board on it that allows the mouse to slide easily. Hey, it’s home. Doesn’t have to look “professional”.

Another advantage my fancy work monitor arm has—besides looking good—is that it is extremely easy to lower and raise (as is the keyboard tray). So I can, in fact, still sit down to work at the computer, which I do for a bit each day. (I aim for 6.5 hours standing of the 8-hour work day.)

The home Visidec is possible to lower and raise, but not nearly as easily. It takes two people. So instead I intend to just leave that one in the standing position. I have replaced my desk chair with a bar stool, so I can sit on that should I weary of standing.

So, guess I’m OK now, til they come out with the unhelpful articles about the health hazards of standing for too long each day…

I made kale chips

Google tells me that kale became “suddenly hip” in 2012, but by end 2013, we were “so over it”. My timeline was a bit different. I never ate kale as a child or teenager, that I recall. I believe I first encountered it when I started getting food baskets from organic farmers; maybe 15 years ago? Then I had to figure out what to do with it.

Raw kale is quite disgusting, but I found that once it cooked and lathed in butter and balsamic vinegar, with maybe some raisins and pine nuts, it’s actually pretty good. And it is this nutritional powerhouse, all vitamins and flavanoids and omega-3s.

Today, as the subject line suggests, I decided to try preparing it a new way: As kale chips.

Those were remarkably good! Jean and I were both surprised. They get all crispy, and a bit salty, and the baking mellows out the bitterness… (Of course, this wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Nothing is everyone’s cup of tea, not even cups of tea. But we definitely liked it.)

Plus, it’s super easy to make. You cut up the kale leaves (don’t use the stems), toss them with about 2 Tbsp of olive oil, spread them on a baking sheet, then sprinkle with sea or kosher salt. Bake at 400 F for about 14 minutes. My guide was my Gwyneth Paltrow recipe book, but there are similar recipes online.

Movie review: Dallas Buyer’s Club

**** Dallas Buyers Club (November 2013) – Theatre

Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner. A promiscuous, homophobic Texas cowboy is stunned by an HIV diagnosis during the mid-1980s, when that is most definitely a death sentence. He finds unlikely alliances among gay men as he fights for treatment options to prolong his life.

She says: Much less sad a film than I was expecting, given that it is about young men who are dying of an awful disease. But this movie focuses on their fight for life, and while not everyone survives (hardly a spoiler), the movie doesn’t wallow in those moments. It never goes for cheap sentiment.

The gaunt Matthew McConaughey is almost unrecognizable but very good in the lead role of Ron Woodroff, who is not always sympathetic, yet you can’t help rooting for him, even before the prejudice he encounters due to his diagnosis gradually causes him to evolve into a somewhat better man. Jared Leto, as his transsexual partner Rayon in the “buyers club”, is also very good, and I wish the movie had spent more time on his rather fascinating character.

The “buyers club” is formed when the medical establishment has nothing to offer these men. They look for alternative and experimental drugs and therapies, try them on themselves first to test efficacy, then sell them with no guarantees to people who have no other hope. The response of various officials—medical, legal, regulatory—to the club forms the crux of this film. Really interesting.

And often funnier than you’d think from that description!

He says: Wow! I liked that movie! About time. (Although it was disturbing just how good-looking a “woman” that Rayon was…)

Bad year to skip the flu shot

Jean managed to stay up for over 12 hours straight today!

Normally this wouldn’t be worthy of note, but for the past three days, sleeping has been his favorite activity—over eating, computers, everything.

At first I had misdiagnosed his lethargy, sniffles, and moaning as a particularly bad cold, but the missed work day on Monday, the third day he spent mostly in bed, convinced me it was actually the flu. I suppose the signs of fever (too cold, then too hot) and the reports of sore muscles should have been a clue, also.

Not that it particularly matters, as the treatment for both is about the same: Rest. Fluids. Tylenol. Citrus.

He finally seems to be somewhat on the mend today, though not exactly feeling well yet, but gotta say, this past weekend didn’t look like it was much fun for him.

And yes, for the first time in many years, he didn’t get the flu shot. To be fair, he did try to get it one day, but the timing didn’t quite work out, and then he dropped the pursuit. Unfortunately, per KW Record, turns out that this year, “Waterloo Region has 103 confirmed flu cases, the highest number in the province at about a quarter of the Ontario total.”

As for me? Well, I did get my flu shot, and long enough ago that it should have full effect. So knock wood and all that, as I know the shot doesn’t offer guaranteed protection, but so far so good. I feel fine.

On things sporting

Have watched The Olympics, but not obsessively. I prefer the winter ones, as more of the sports are more interesting, and Canada is more competitive. The time difference is also difficult, as most events take place before I’m up or when I’m at work.

Live-streaming is a nice thing, though. The most thrilling thing I did get to view live via that technology was the end of the women’s soccer match, including that one goal! Though I didn’t watch much of the heart-breaker soccer match between Canada and the US, I heard so much about it after, I felt like I had. So I was vested in that Bronze medal match. Christine Sinclair is a good choice to carry the flag.

Another fun live-stream was that incredibly long tennis match between Miloas Raonic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Live on TV, I enjoyed the men’s 1500-meter swim, which was surprisingly exciting for such a long race, and I managed to catch the women’s eight rowing team final.

But I am really looking forward to the Closing Ceremonies, with its promised focus on British music, including Ray Davies, Queen, and The Who. Great Britain proved themselves athletically in these games with the amazing performance of their team, but they long-ago demonstrated that they were unsurpassed in producing great rock musicians.

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For various reasons, my main workout choice these days has been via exercise DVD. I like to get new ones semi-regularly to shake things up, and avoid boredom. Looking up my collected titles, you might think I’m desperate to lose weight:

Dance Off the Inches! Hip Hop Party
10 Pounds Down! Cardio Abs
Fat Burning Fusion!
Super Slim Down!
Secrets to a Great Upper Body!

Which is just starting to get on my nerves. I know it’s all marketing, and there are a lot of overweight people that might be sold on such promises, but… Does “thin-ness” have to be the only selling point for these things? I mean, I have one called Fat-Burning Yoga, for heaven’s sake. Yoga. And it’s not some funky fusion of yoga and aerobics or whatever; it’s just your basic yoga stretches and holds, maybe a little more peppy. But not so you’re going to break much of a sweat.

Thing is, inside, they’re really good workouts that will do good things for your heart, lungs, muscles, stress level, sleep, and so on. In most cases, by the end of these workouts, I feel great. That’s why I do them. Yes, I’m sure it’s helping me maintain a healthy weight as well, but that’s not what’s motivating me to keep it up.

Is that so unusual? Reminds me of having been stopped by someone selling gym memberships, and asked why I exercise. I said, “To stay healthy”, and she looked down her list of possible answers and said, “Huh. That’s not on here.” So maybe it is that unusual…

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And that big toenail that I damaged on my Amalfi hiking trip? Gone! Leaving just the stub of toenail that had been growing underneath it.

It’s kind of gross, of course. And the timing is really bad, because it’s still sandal season. (I’m thinking, cover it with a Band Aid, I guess?) But it’s still making me feel unusually athletic. Me, the marathoners, and the cross-country skiers: Losing toenails in our pursuit of extreme sport. 🙂

Working upright

It’s been a little over a month since the installation of my stand-up desk. It has certainly garnered attention around the office, particularly in the wake of CBC’s recent report on the dangers of sitting, and Andrew Coyne’s mostly serious commentary that excess sitting is a public health hazard. I’ve given numerous demonstrations of how it works, with several people declaring they want one for themselves (most of them don’t have pricing info), and one other person actually having it installed (the price of hers actually covered, as a medical requirement).

At first it felt weird to be standing up while working, but it didn’t take long to adapt. Turns out I can type, read, and edit just as well standing as sitting. The one thing that isn’t so hot is writing with a pen on paper (because sometimes I’m retro like that). For that, I either have to sit and use my desktop (my real, not virtual one), or grab a book to hold and write on while standing.

Proper footwear is really key to making this work. Heels just don’t work at all, both because they’re not that comfortable over time, and because they make me too tall for my keyboard stand! But even flatter shoes have to have good support to avoid foot fatigue. I don’t like wearing ugly running shoes at the office, so I’m mostly in Rieker shoes, as they manage to be both cute and supremely comfortable. When I get a yen for the impractical footwear, I’ll just wear them in and out and during the sitting times at work, then switch back to the Riekers for standing work.

My back and hips definitely feel better. I was getting some pain in my arm until I propped the mouse up higher on a book. Funny how such a small adjustment made such a difference. I also find it better for keeping up energy during the day.

Overall, it’s been so good I’m now eying the home computer to see what I can do. I don’t want make another investment of ergo office equipment, but maybe something can be jury-rigged with boxes?

Stand and deliver

Since the flurry of stories about how sitting too long at your job can, basically, kill you, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about that short of, you know, quitting my sedentary job to become a waitress or something. Articles on the subject sometimes recommended things like walking around while talking on the phone, but this was not useful to me. What with meetings, email, messaging, and talking in person, I clock maybe 5 minutes a week on the phone. Not near enough to reduce my death risk through pacing.

No, I really needed a way to type standing up.

With all these stories you’d think the options for “stand-up” desks would be multiple and easily purchased, but I did not find it to be so. I saw nothing along these lines at local office furniture stores. Web research led me to an American company that had some options, but these were not cheap to start with, and the shipping from there added something like $130 to the price.

I was nevertheless considering it when the site added a link to a Canadian distributor. Prices weren’t any cheaper (but also not much more expensive—not always true in Canada), but the shipping was way less. This was http://www.ergocanada.com.

But trying to figure out what products would work with the desk setup I have was not the easiest thing. It was often not too clear what accessories you needed with what, and what the measurements meant… Even what everything did. Fortunately, they were really responsive to questions by email and phone, even steering me to cheaper options than I had been considering.

In the end, I bought a dual-monitor stand:

Dual-wing LCD arm

And a keyboard tray raiser. Despite all this effort to get the right stuff, though, the monitor stand ended up being too low to use standing up. I would have had to crouch down to work on it, which didn’t seem that healthy. So that meant another call, another order, and another installation of an extender for the monitor arm.

Now, finally, it works. The monitor arms holds both my 19″ monitors at the height of my choosing, moving pretty easily between sitting and standing height. The keyboard also moves up and down quite well. It would be too low for a tall person, I think, but is fine for me. I have an extra-wide tray, so it does get a bit wobbly at the edges in upright position. I’m not finding that much of a problem so far, with a centered keyboard.

It also arrived at a time when I’m having this irritating pain in my ribs on the right side (from coughing? I have no idea) that is very much aggravated by sitting too long. So whether or not I actually live longer because of sitting less, I’m definitely benefiting now.

Too bad it’s all so complicated and expensive, though. Lots of office workers out there, with little choice but to sit 6+ hours a day…

PS And apparently you can about double the number of calories you burn just by standing instead of sitting to work. Huh. I didn’t even know that part…

Effects of ColdFX

As a former promoter of ColdFX, I feel obliged to report that Marketplace looked into ColdFX’s claims and found them wanting. When I started taking it, it was based on a small study that showed a reduction in both incidence and severity in those who took ColdFX every day, versus those who did not.

Apparently they have since done bigger studies, however, which show only a minor reduction in incidence of colds, but none in severity. Also (and this was also true of the first study) it was only for people who took ColdFX every day, not those who started only at the onset of a cold.

Furthermore, Marketplace showed evidence that the Chinese factory where the stuff is assembled doesn’t maintain the best health standards, and at least one batch of it contained a potential harmful bacteria.

So, as a believer in science and all that, I thought I should stop taking ColdFX. Perhaps the milder colds that I had previously experienced on it would have happened regardless.

But I have to say… My current cold, the first in a few years that I haven’t treated with ColdFX, was definitely worse than any I had while taking it.

I realize that this is also not proof. Perhaps I would have been equally stuffed up regardless of my American ginseng intake. So, I’m just reporting this as an observation.

Fortunately, I’m feeling much better now. That’s the thing about colds. Whatever you do or don’t take for them, they still just eventually go away and you feel better.

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