My morning ritual

of nourishing my infirmed body back to health would not have happened if I did not take sick leave from my employer. Tho the disease is a lifetime of pain and medications thus, manageable, I am forced to take a step back and take a closer look at my life and what I'm doing. The constant movement, travel, partying and not taking care of myself was running me into the ground. The pain of my disease, rheumatoid arthritis has given me a second chance to turn things around for myself. No longer do I eat at the airport restaurants (if my friends treat me to a salad, I won't say no) and fast food outlets, was a matter of convenience.
Now I eat breakfast everyday consisting of oatmeal or Malt-O-Meal showered with non fat milk and sprinkled with a healthy dose of wheat germ, no sugar, and two pieces of wheat or white toast, generously buttered.
Lunch might consist of a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, banana and yogurt, granola cereal or a blackberry smoothie. A hot water kettle lives on my sink and is always hot for generous amounts of a variety of teas provided for by Lynn from her pantry.
Dinner varies on what is in the freezer and what I can thaw out in time. Baked salmon with lemon, Beef tomato stew, Enchiladas with green sauce, pork chops, kalua pig, rice a roni, brown and white rice and the ever faithful crock-pot for just about anything else. A big hit in my household has been tortilla wraps. The construction of my creation starts out with any type of cream cheese, vegetarian or chive with onions, as the base, then layering a generous amount of spinach and like a pizza topped with whatever you have in your refrigerator. I top it off with deli turkey meat, nonfat cheddar cheese, carrots, zucchini (sliced lengthwise) and when I'm done, I roll it up. I can either eat it like a burrito or cut it up in slices for bite sized pieces for a healthy snack. I AM A SNACKER!! I love junk which will be my downfall. Cheese puffs and Snicker bars are my weakness and won't resist them if offered. I have cut back on it but only slightly and it shows in my weight that I have picked up during these past four months off. Alas, I can truly say that I am eating healthier and better than four months ago and I feel better.

Time together

I'm very glad that Lynn brought an extra jacket, scarf and gloves for me while we enjoyed lunch on a concrete table under the winter sun at Coyote Point Park in San Mateo. She had neatly packed some turkey, cranberry relish, sweet gravy, bread and salad for our entree in travel sized Tupperware. Dessert consisted of the last of her chess pie and homemade pumpkin pie. After our Delicious lunch, we made our way to the Coyote Point Museum. With a little under two hours left for us to visit, it was more than enough time to see the exhibits. With the sun going down and the winter night getting chillier, we made our way over to Burlingame's Starbucks. There is nothing like a Venti Caramel Macchioto to ward off the last of a December chill. Lynn and I talked of our week and where we will be. She has a gig this weekend singing in a funeral that a friend was not able to do in San Francisco and it starts early in the morning on Saturday. I'm hoping that she could spend the night at my house, since I'll be chauffeuring her there, to lessen her commute and to spend some much needed time together after our week of misunderstandings and the need to communicate to one another. We were both in agreement of that idea. With our warm libations all but gone, we sat in her car and conversed more and to also complete our gift exchange since she had forgotten it during our last weekend together because that was her busy concert week. I received a much needed set of sea green bath towels from Lynn, along with some candles and perfume. I was still missing my ring that I had left with her last week that she had given to me during our second year together. This was the first time that I had been without it and was missing it very much since we had reconciled. She said that is was being repaired. I trusted her with it and I trust that I will be receiving it back soon. Darkness had fallen and it was time to go. With a kiss on the lips, a meaningful hug and a long embrace, we are on the road to recovery.

Lunch with Casino Brothers

My favorite co-workers and friends, Mel and Jaz, treated me out Hokkaido's for lunch today. Talk about the mother of all buffets, this is the one! It is a Japanese buffet located in Foster City at the Bridgepoint Mall where the Ice skating rink is and is very inexpensive. Their food is served and presented exquisitely and the buffet stations are strategically placed so that they utilize both sides of the food bars. You've got your sushi of all kinds and is to die for, crab, stuffed oysters, tempura, soups, more than 10 different entrees, fruit, salad and dessert stations all at an affordable price. The gastronomic rule of eating at this type of buffet is to pace yourself. Make sure the foods that you eat mix well with a diet that you're used to otherwise, you'll be in the restroom all day with a sour stomach. Our conversation ran the gamut of work, holiday party and Casino's. Mel and Jaz are Diamond members at the Rio All Suite Hotel in Las Vegas and can literally request a hotel room at their convenience. I am a mere Platinum member and I'm less than six hundred points away from a Diamond. They are planning on a trip to Harrah's in Lake Tahoe sometime this month. I'm going along for the ride and haven't seen snow since my girls were 4 and 6, almost 18 years ago. With goodbye's being said, it was time to go.
I had a dentist appointment at 3:45 and had to go home to brush and floss my teeth after that big lunch. Dr. Naeimi at Gentle Dental in Daly City is a wonderful dentist. She really takes the time and care to explain what she is going to do as far as shots of novocaine to numb you to the health of your teeth and gums. Her assistant recreated a bridge for me last year to fill in a missing molar that I had. He shaped it so well that it feels like a part of my teeth structure. I told her about my RA and the medicines that I'm taking and seemed concerned about my health. Dr. Naeimi explained that since I hadn't been back in more than a year, my mouth developed bits of calcium deposits on random areas of my teeth. She didn't sound too happy with the x rays that she viewed and said that I'll need to come in every four months to have my teeth cleaned. I'm hoping that this won't be too expensive. For today, she did a deep cleaning on my right side and will do my left side next week. She also found a small pocket in the upper part of the gum where it had receded a few milliliters letting in the deposits and slowly eroding and causing bone loss. With the quarterly cleaning regimen, she'll make sure to put antibiotics there to prevent any infections. After my co-pay of three hundred some odd dollars, I saved a little over nine hundred dollars! I don't know what hurt more, the novocaine or the co-pay. I said my goodbyes and got an especially long winded goodbye from a "futch" (femme/butch) woman I haven't seen there before. She must have been hired to help take care of all the back log of patients that they receive. I definitely got a vibe that she was "family". After I said goodbye to the ladies behind the desk and they replied a short goodbye, she was turning off the Christmas lights and turned to tell me, looking beyond her Harry Potter glasses, "Goodbye now, drive carefully and see you soon". I mustered a Novocaine smile and said, "G'nite" and thought to myself, yep she's family.

My son the Chef

Last night I had my 14 year old son help me make meatloaf. We took 5 pounds of ground turkey and mixed it with eggs, bread, seasoning and some catsup. I had him mix all of that together, since my RA was acting up and my fingers weren't being too cooperative, mold it and placed it into a pan and put it in the oven for about an 1 hours and 30 minutes. After letting the meatloaf rest, we sat down to a great dinner. The meatloaf turned out fantastic, almost better than grammas! It was moist, tender and well seasoned. Add some turkey gravy, mashed potatoes and veggies and that's dinner. He was very proud of himself for making such a tasty entree and we gave him unending compliments because it was really good.
I met Lynn for lunch today so that I could collect a "white elephant" gift that she was saving for me and I exchanged a 3 CD package of nursery songs that I was saving for her. Lunch was at a place in San Mateo called Wing Fat. It's a hole in the wall just on the corner of 3rd Ave and their lunch menu is great and very inexpensive. I had the chicken curry and vegetables over rice with hot and sour soup. Lynn had the chicken and snow peas with hot and sour soup. She looked a little tired from her night because had gone to sleep early. Then her daughter and husband were talking in a bedroom adjacent to hers and woke her up at 1am. She quietly told them to whisper or talk at the other end of the house. Then at 2am, her dog woke her up and needed to be let out to the garden. Then to wake back up at 7am and get ready for work, she was tired and I could see the tiredness as we ate lunch. With gifts exchanged for white elephant and her needing to go back to work and my needing to go to the lab and get my blood work done, we were off and running. I have a standing order at the lab for tests and need to come in every month. Next week is my doctor appointment with my RAtologist and I'm hoping everything will go well into the next phase of my medication.