Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Monday, November 28, 2022
Goodbye Ringo
I found Ringo this morning in the driveway next to the road. I checked to see if I could render aid, but it was too late. I suppose he was hit by a car.
Friday, November 25, 2022
Fluffy Come Home
A few days ago I saw Fluffy on the kitchen counter. Oh yes. I remember. The day my legs betrayed me and I fell. I had turned the kitchen upside down trying to find Fluffy. All I found was a tuft here and there of a cozy place in the making. Anyway, I think I may have overdone it, causing the leg collapse.
So, the cats were never going to be of any use against Fluffy. If anything, they made things worse. "Fluffy is our brother!" they cried.
Their brother has finally left the building.
I bought a package of sticky traps, having seen on Youtube how cruel they are. I put two on the kitchen counter. I checked every time I was in the kitchen, but of course, nothing. Then today I was surprised to see Fluffy and his friend caught on the trap. Yay!
The two little mice had already managed to be glued up in a way that was fatal, so I didn't have to worry about dispatching them somehow.
It's a big relief to have Fluffy move out.
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Monday, November 21, 2022
Fe Fi Fo Fum I Smell the Blood of an Englishman
This is Ole Gray, the tomcat. Ole Gray was the paramour of the first feral cat that showed up at my door. He was vanquished by Ole Yeller, since Ole Gray is not a great fighter. Ole Yeller disappeared too, one day, and after a few weeks Ole Gray showed up again with a new lady. I tried to take all the feral cats to the vet to meet their new destiny, but Ole Gray and his tabby lady got away. Ringo, aka Orange Man, also eluded me.
After all this time, Ole Gray still hisses when I go outside. I sometimes relent and give him cat food. This puts him in a bad mood. I haven't concerned myself too much him. Until now.
I went outside and put food in a dish on the porch for him, and he started snarling and hissing as usual. Then he surprised me and attacked me and scratched my hand. I suppose in cat thinking this was not a deal breaker type attack. Or maybe it was a first attempt at escalating his little war with me. I immediately picked up the dish and shouted at him, taking all the Kit N Kaboodle goodness back into the house with me.
I began to plan out my response to the war with Ole Gray. Maybe it was time to shoot him. Well, why bother? A siege would work. No more food of any kind for any outdoor cat. You lose cat.
Sunday, November 20, 2022
Saturday, November 19, 2022
A Scary Fall
Sometimes I lose my balance, but I hardly ever fall.
Yesterday was different. I was walking around the house, took a step, and suddenly it was as if my leg wasn't there at all. It had just had it with me. I was airborne and falling backwards with nothing to break the fall. I supposed I was about to break my arm. Boom. I landed on the floor, and just lay there feeling sorry for myself for a minute, trying to decide if I was injured. Nothing injured but my feelings. I managed to pick myself up and cautiously walked to the bedroom to rest for a while.
Since then I've been wearing a back brace, or a hernia brace. I don't like to wear this because it feels like the pinching of a thousand bras. Well, I'm afraid I might fall if I don't wear it.
What a crock.
Friday, November 18, 2022
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Egg and Sausage Breakfast #2
Recently I wrote about an easy mug breakfast. I put about two oz of sausage in a mug, microwave it for a minute, remove it, scramble an egg in the same mug and microwave that for a minute, and a nice breakfast is ready. It's also nice that it reduces cleanup. So, this has been happening a lot around here. But wait. There are some variations.
A long time ago my husband was astonished, being from Pennsylvania, that I put sugar on top of sausage routinely. Whaaat?! After I went keto I used artificial sweetener. Well, it's not that strange. People think nothing of putting catsup or barbecue sauce on chicken, pork and beef. It's mostly sugar. The meat and sugar combo is nice.
Therefore, I decided to put a liberal amount of artificial sweetener on the sausage patties, and also scramble about a teaspoon of artificial sweetener with the eggs. I thought it was yummy. Then it occurred to me to add raspberry preserves on top of both the sausage and the scrambled eggs. This was sugar free but still, there were a few carbs. Yes, yes, yes. This was way better.
So should eggs and sausage become too boring, sugar or sweetener will perk it up, and also jelly or preserves.
Something I noticed about the sausage. The brand I've been using, Jimmy Dean, tastes good, but it has 2 carbs per oz. If you have 2 or 3 patties this adds up when you are limiting yourself to almost no carbs per day. I read the label finally. Hey, the ingredient after pork was high fructose corn syrup. This is double bad. Then sugar. Then monosodium glutamate. Oh no! No, no, no. I looked at the label on the JC Potter. Pork, spices, salt, and finally some sugar. Zero carbs. Not really zero, but not much.
So that's life in Paradise.
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Monday, November 14, 2022
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Cherry Cola
The first time I drank cherry cola was when I was 11. My grandparents liked to go to the Elks Club in Miami on Friday evenings and took us along. My, it was a wonderful experience. First I sat in the lounge at the bar and ordered cherry cola. This was cherry cola like no other, extra delicious from the fountain of goodness they kept behind the bar. And a bottomless bowl of cheese popcorn. Wow wow wow. This was the lead up to dinner, which was also marvelous.
But if you think for one second that you can buy a can of cola that says cherry cola and replicate that experience, you are sadly mistaken.
What to do?
Lately I've experimented with packets of sugar free drink mixes from several different companies. They're really on to something. I got some cherry flavored drink packets and yes, it was cherry-ish. But then it occurred to me to enhance a Diet Coke with the cherry drink packet. Oh my. Cherry cola was back. It tasted just like my first cherry cola that I drank in the lounge at the Elks Club. Yay!
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
Blood Moon 2022
Early this morning, around 4:30 am, there was a lunar eclipse called a blood moon.
Some are finding prophetic significance with this event. Well, it was Election Day today, so it was a nice touch. Some have said that the moon being red signifies a red wave in the elections, with Republicans taking the House and the Senate and governor races. I think this will happen, but I'm not convinced about the blood moon being involved.
I did vote today. The polls were like an anthill. There was no where to park, and I pulled onto the shoulder and parked there, along with a lot of other people. My ballot was a "red landslide."
There were some amendments, but I only voted on one of them. Should this state have freedom of religion EXCEPT.... Except when it interfered with the government. What? I voted against that.
Monday, November 7, 2022
My Niacin Experience
I read a book recently about niacin called Niacin - The Real Story, by Abram Hoffer, and Andrew Saul. It supported high dose niacin, in some cases 3000 mg per day. There were numerous conditions they felt this would help, one of them being rheumatoid arthritis. So I decided to try it.
Niacin in large amounts causes something called the niacin flush. I was horrified the first time this happened to me and quit niacin for a while, but there was actually no harm caused by the niacin flush, so after a while I tried it again. This time I was expecting it and didn't feel frightened by it. It actually did help me, and I was especially surprised a couple of months later when I had routine medical tests done that showed an improvement in cholesterol and triglycerides, all the way down to normal levels. My HDL was 91, which was not how it had been in the past. I wasn't much concerned about cholesterol, but it seemed important to have perfect triglycerides.
About a year ago I had heard of another form of niacin called NMN. It stands for a long chemical name. There is another form like it called NR, nicotinamide riboside. They both have about the same effect, which is to improve the energy output of the mitochondria of the cells, resulting in higher NAD levels, which is an important long named component of the blood. It is something people would do well to have more of, so I started taking NMN.
At first I didn't feel well from taking NMN, so I gave up on it. But then I found out that the NMN sold on Amazon was actually not NMN at all. Just some expensive fake which was documented to not contain NMN by lab testing. I had tried a couple of brands, both times with the same bad results, but also, both bought on Amazon. Then about two months ago I bought NMN from a company called DoNotAge which is certified NMN. The third time was a charm, and I was able to tolerate a one gram dose with no problem.
My experience with NMN was really surprising to me. My energy levels have been higher and I just feel like doing more things. So this was wonderful.
A couple of other things I started doing lately are quitting dairy, except some butter and goat cheese, and taking 5000 mg of glycine at night for sleep. Glycine is an amino acid, and I noticed that it helped me with better sleep. Along with the glycine I started taking NAC, N acetyl L cysteine. Why? Why not? I had seen it recommended by Dr. Alan Green in a video on Youtube.
So, niacin, NMN, quitting dairy for two months now, and taking glycine along with NAC before bed. That's most of my magic lately.
One other improvement that has surprised me is that usually in the norming I take a fasting glucose level with a glucose monitor. I had been shocked a few months ago to discover that my levels were around 108 which is what caused me to start checking every morning. No amount of low carb dieting seemed to shake this number. Then suddenly in the past few days my numbers have been 91 - 94. So that's almost normal, down from pre diabetic. And I've lost 12 lbs. Nice. The only change in my diet was to quit dairy, well, pretty much quit dairy. In addition to that, the sleep problems have been much better. Everyone knows I'm not a morning person, and yet sometime in the last few months I've regularly started getting up between 7:00 and 8:00 am.
That's how life is in Paradise today.
Sunday, November 6, 2022
Battery Operated Tea Lights
I saw a Youtube video on using tea lights to warm food. I've wondered why these lights are called tea lights, and finally saw them used to keep a teapot warm. That's nice.
I decided to buy some tea lights just so that there would be a token amount of light sometimes. Like a nightlight. As far as heating, that seems like a stretch. I saw some battery operated ones, so I bought both battery operated and the ones that burn. These battery operated ones are very cute. They won't warm tea, but they're pretty and would be a nice little bit of light at night. There would not be a fire hazard if you fell asleep with one still on.