Handicapped or Inconvenienced ?

At the left is what I think most "handicapped" stickers should look like.

I've got a handicapped sticker. I got it after my heart surgery. And I did use it some after that surgery and for a while after my below the knee amputation. After that it has been stuffed away in a hard to reach compartment of my van.

Especially after the amputation I was happy to use the sticker. For a couple of weeks I was in a wheel chair and then spent some time on crutches. But I really never liked thinking of myself as "handicapped." One ought to be careful about accepting that sort of a label. I was afraid that it would slow down my recovery and make me older sooner.

Having only one foot and dealing with a prosthesis is sometimes a real pain in the lower regions. Any shoes I buy have to fit on to this non yielding plastic foot. That means lots of pretty cool dress shoes don't work. Walking more than three of four miles is sometimes pretty uncomfortable. Most pants have to go on before the prosthesis and I can't wear cowboy boots.

But, I can travel anywhere I want. I can negotiate bathrooms and showers and locker rooms. I can walk through airports and stand in line when I need to. When I first tried to swim laps I had to learn to swim in a straight line with only one swim fin. When I get the chance I can play a competitive game of racquet ball (with my peers). Basically I can do whatever I want. (I can't play the piano now, but I never could play the piano.)

So why would I call myself "Handicapped?" I'll settle for "Inconvenienced"

Cup a Coffee - The Most Important Thing I Know

Took a few minutes this morning to reshelve some books I had lying around and stumbled on to a copy of a book titled The Most Important Thing I Know. It's a collection of handwritten letters from famous people (75 of them) telling in a sentence or two what they felt was the most important thing they knew.

I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, so diverted from my clean-up campaign, I thumbed through the book and read most of the seventy-five entries. (They're short.) I was looking for the gem, the needle in the haystack which was exactly right. The one that said it all.

Maya Angelou, Poet, wrote: My grandmother told me that every good thing I do helps some human being in the world. I believed her fifty years ago and I still do.

Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, wrote: True excellence requires a worthy dream, a good idea of how to realize it and the courage to risk failure to achieve it.

Eileen Ford, Founder, Ford Modeling Agency, wrote: My parents always believed that I was The Best! With thoughts like that behind you, it's impossible not to strive for excellence. No one wants to disappoint their parents.

Greg Norman, Golf Champion, wrote: The journey is the reward.

Julian Bond, Civil rights pioneer, wrote: Excellence and equity are inseparable - a good society cannot have one without the other. Any society that abandons either is imperfect.

The longer I searched the more futile the search became. My grandmother was the mother of 15 kids, a good lady, but not a great source of inspiration. I am one of nine kids. My parents liked me but I was not the BEST. I am always dreaming. Are my dreams worthy dreams? What does it matter? The most important things these 75 people knew were not the most important things to me.

So just what is the most important thing? For me, today is the most important thing. Today I have to exercise, and then pay attention to what I eat, so as not to shorten my time on the planet, my time with my sweetie, my kids, my grandkids, my friends. Today I'm going to enjoy the clean, thin mountain air and the incredibly clear blue skies. Today I am going to work on a canoe I'm building in the garage.

Cup a Coffee - Live 30.9 Years Longer

Fill up your cup, sit back, enjoy the aroma, and take a moment to have fun with some great information from . . . studies.

Statistics can be a constant source of amusement. A little newsletter titled Bottom Line/Health showed up in the mail yesterday, with an article called Drink Coffee... Eat Chocolate... & Other surprising ways to Live Longer. Michael Roizen, MD (coauthor of You, Staying Young) was interviewed and here is what I learned we need to do.

1. Sleep deep. Deep restorative sleep can add 3 years to your life.
2. Dance at least 30 minutes a day. Live 6.4 years longer.
3. Learn stuff and do puzzles. Good for 2.5 more years.
4. Get a dog and live for another 3 years.
5. More sex. Twice a week, 2 more years. Once a day, 8 more years.
6. Rest more often, (Seems to me like you'd have to) 8 more years.

Other good news is that studies have found that caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee are a main source antioxidants in the average American's diet. Caffeine in your coffee decreases the risk of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases by 30% to 40%.

Roizen also recommends eating one-half ounce of dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) twice daily. Chocolate has powerful antioxidants know as flavonoids. You can also find these flavonoid guys in your brussel sprouts. Wonder if anyone is making chocolate covered brussel sprouts?

These look like great recommendations to me. I don't have a dog (wouldn't be fair to the dog), but I am going to work on 1, 2, 3, and 6. Number 5 ? . . . that would be just TMI. So do the math. Looks like another 30.9 more years are possible (if you are up to it ;-).

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Apologies to Dr. Roizen and Bottom Line for messing with some really good recommendations. Don't you just love studies and statistics. Anyone know where I can get some chocolate covered brussel sprouts?

Cup a Coffee - The Last Lecture

Coffee this morning wasn't from Starbucks, not today. The nearest Starbucks is in Show Low, an hour and a half from here. It's been a great morning here in the White Mountains. It is starting to look like spring, at least it hasn't snowed for almost a week now. Fill up your cup, and be sure it's at least half full, not half empty and consider this.

My friend Mike, one of my one of kind friends writes to me and says,

how are you doing
we are having a heck of a blizzard, cant see across the street.
so I need more to do today, just playing at the computer and I run into something that makes me think of you. .......... go to YOU TUBE and watch the LAST LECTURE by Randy Pausch. It will take about 76 min, but I really believe it is worth every bit of it.

So last night I was responding to Mike's note. I really didn't want to watch a 76 minute You Tube thing, but I decided just to take a quick look so I might at least know what Mike was talking about. I got hooked. Randy Pausch is a Carnegie Melon professor, who at age 40 (?) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three to six months to live. His Last Lecture is actually his last lecture and is about what he has learned in life and what he wants to pass on. He has an amazingly positive, humorous, inspiring outlook on life. I spent 4 hours on the internet, tracking down all I could find on Randy. He has a web site where you can find his Last Lecture , a time management lecture (for all of us time is a finite commodity, especially Randy), and postings that track the course of his illness and treatment.

We all know that our days are numbered. It is interesting to see how our perspective and priorities change when we realize our number is getting smaller. Yes, Mike, The Last Lecture was worth spending 76 of the 1,440 minutes I had to play with yesterday.

Skewed Views - Sticker Shock

The turn signal on my three year old van was misbehaving. Left was right, then right was left. Sometimes the signal didn't work at all. Had to get it fixed. Went to the Dodge Dealer and asked for a turn signal fix and an oil change. I knew it would be expensive, but thought I just might pay cash. I had $250 in my pocket.

They did a courtesy inspection, no charge. Came back to tell me that my water pump was leaking. Ouch. Knew I had to take care of the water pump, so I said OK put in the new pump. Then we might as well drain and flush the radiator while we are at it, right? Sure, that makes sense.

Two hours and forty minutes later the work was done.

Turn Signal Fixed

Oil & Filter Changed

Water Pump Replaced

Coolant Flushed

Total Parts $297.64
Total Labor $533.50

Two hours and forty minutes. $533.50 labor. By my calculations that's about $200 an hour.

They did have free coffee in the waiting room, but no donuts. In the morning, while I was waiting to check in, with 20 other unsuspecting victims, a perky young woman pranced up and down the line of cars taking names and giving out cardboard numbers. She was pleasant, and I guess that made the job of the actual service writer much easier. I wonder how much an hour she makes.

I've bought whole cars for less than the bill that morning. Good cars that ran a long time. When they were finished fixing and flushing, I thought maybe they'd wash the car. Nope, no car wash, no donuts. I hope the dealer's kids appreciate me sending them to college.

Why We Eat More Than We Think

By now you know that this old salt is not a big fan of diets.

Here is a bit of support for that theory, which makes sense to me so I am passing it on. It's a book called Mindless Eating, Why We Eat More Than We Think. The author, Brian Wansink, describes his research in which he discovered that we often fool ourselves into thinking that we are eating less.

The answer - smaller plates, tall thin glasses, and simple changes in our eating routines.

Check it out at Mindless Eating. At Wansink's Blog, there is an article today about the halo we float over Subway food, (you know, Subway, where Jared got skinny just by eating Subway sandwiches all day long for the rest of his life). When we order what we have been programmed to think is a virtuous, healthy sandwich, say the veggie six-incher in the picture, we tend to think some chips or a cookie and a coke might go better with that sandwich than a water and that little tiny cup of yogurt.

Loose Weight without "Dieting"

It was really easy to gain weight. Basically my secret was to eat a bowl of ice cream every evening. Put on 10 to 12 pounds in about a year.

So how does one reverse the process. Well, for me, the obvious answer was to 86 the ice cream. And for certain that was a start.

Here are are a couple more specific guidelines for trimming that waistline without really dieting. I really don't have a compulsive bone in my body, so it is hard for me to count calories, or stay with any sort of prescribed program for more than a few days, so these are guidelines that make sense to me. If you resonate with these you might like to track down the books.

• The first is from the book, What to Eat by Marion Nestle (and reviewed by Maria Duncan at Book Reviews for Real People)

  "The basic principles of good diets are so simple that I can summarize them in just ten words: eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. For additional clarification, a five-word modifier helps: go easy on junk foods."

• The second is an appetite guage from Nourishing Body and Soul, the Chopra Center Cookbook. The gauge is designed to help us listen to our body's signals of hunger and satiety and then to eat appropriately, which would mean eating at level 2 or 3, and stopping at level 7.
  

10 Stuffed
9 Uncomfortably Full
8 Rather Full
7 Satisfied
6 Almost Satisfied
5 No Hunger Awareness
4 Could Eat
3 Definitely Hungry
2 Very Hungry
1 Hunger Pains
0 Completely Empty

The key of course is awareness. The amazing truth is that we can probably keep ourselves at very trim weights when we find ways to pay attention to the signals from our bodies.