What’s a really good way to help you stay on a diet? Write it down! During the eighty weeks I was on the “long diet,” I wrote everything I ate down. Even the bad stuff. I printed out a sheet today which has boxes for each meal, a snack, water and exercise. And so far so good. Excellent breakfast, in control lunch with the excellent null soup of an earlier post, and an hour and a half of singles tennis. Of course, it’s only 4:45pm and that means that the dreaded munchie time is near. Followed by the usually overindulgent dinner. We’ll see.
SOCIAL SECURITY
TODAY’S WORRY
There’s been a lot of talk lately about “fixing” Social Security. President Bush would like to see some of the money we contribute put into personal accounts that we would administer. Putting the merit or non-merit of this aside, I don’t see what it has to do with fixing the problem – there are going to be too many old people and not enough workers contributing to support them. So here are my top 10 ways to fix Social Security.
10. Reduce the benefits to everyone
9. Have a means test; if you are a wealthy retiree then you get less or nothing
8. Create better paying jobs for young people. If they make more, they’ll contribute more.
7. Raise the percentage paid into the system.
6. Tax all the earned income; no ceiling.
5. Raise the retirement age.
4. Have more babies. (this would work well considering the administration’s views on family planning, but it’s kind of a long term solution)
3. Legalize all illegal aliens and get them contributing.
2. Invite lots of new, working-age immigrants to the U.S.
And the number one way to fix the Social Security problem –
1. In any current or future war in which the U.S. might engage, keep all the young people home so they could work, and send all the retirees to fight. This way you get a dual effect – more workers, fewer old people.
American Treasures of the Library of Congress
pyknic
We sometimes play a game in our house where one person goes to our unabridged dictionary, turns to a random page, picks out an obscure word and sees if anyone else can guess what the definition of it is. John is always the winner. So here’a word that I picked at random.
pyknic – Having a short stocky physique. From the Greek puknos, compact.
So if you have a tendency to be pyknic, don’t go on too many picnics. “Picnic,” by the way, comes from the French piquenique, to pick or peck (piquer) a worthless thing (nique.) It was originally a pot-luck social and not necessarilty outside.
Beware the Dollar Menu
In our travels, John and I usually stop at McDonald’s for breakfast. The other day we stopped at the one in Primm, Nevada. Typically, we each get an Egg McMuffin with no cheese and coffee. But, at this McDonald’s, the Sausage McMuffin with Egg was on the dollar menu. Hmmmm, $2.19 for the Egg McMuffin and $1 for the Sausage one. I stuck to the Egg McMuffin and John got the sausage one. In looking at the nutritional information, this is what I found. If you have an Egg McMuffin with no cheese, the values are 240 calories, about 7 grams of fat and 2 grams of fiber. Not the best but not a terrible breakfast on the road. The Sausage McMuffin with Egg (which also includes cheese) is a whopping 450 calories, 26 grams of fat and 2 of fiber. I think spending the extra $1.19 is worth it. Another tip, carry a little plastic knife with you and cut anything you get at a fast food place in half. It makes it last longer and is tidier to eat.
AFTER THE FALL
TODAY’S WORRY
Today John and I went out to play tennis. I managed to step on my shoelace while running and came crashing down onto the court. I survived with a few bruises. I am wondering how many times I can take this 56 year old body and fling it around without doing major damage. How old are you when you become a broken hip candidate?
Ignominious
Ignominious
1.Marked by shame or disgrace 2.deserving disgrace or shame: despicable: 3. degrading; debasing.
I’d say I took an ignominious fall.
Wonton wrappers
Yesterday I made butternut squash raviolis using wonton wrappers. You peel and chop the butternut squash, toss it with some salt, olive oil and maple syrup and bake it until it’s soft. In the meantime, you saute some shallots and add some pecans and sage at the end of the saute. Then you mash up the squash and mix in the shallot mixture. It is really yummy. But when I made the raviolis and cooked them, the wonton wrappers were really flabby and really didn’t add anything to dish. I guess it would have been better to make actual pasta but this seemed easier. I know this isn’t really a diet tip but this is quite a good, not-too-high in calories, vegetarian dish. I served it with a wild mushroom ragu and garlicky greens.
NIGHTMARE
TODAY’S WORRY
Last night I had this dream that my father and mother were in. I enjoy this kind of dream because they’ve been dead 10 and 20 years, respectively, and it kind of gives you a chance to interact with them again. But in the dream my mother, as well as my older sister, were really sick with high fevers and we were living in this creepy house in Alabama (I’ve never even been to Alabama) where the more I ran the water in the bathtub so I could cool them off, the more the water would seep from under the bathtub and flood the house. Usually, you can look back over the past day and figure out where some of the themes come from. But I have no ideas about this one. No wonder I have trouble sleeping.
New Words
I saw in the news today that Webster’s Dictionary has added new words to the dictionary. One of these words is “wedgie.” You know, that uncomfortable underwear prank that middle schoolers are prone to. Anyway, I was thinking how great American English is. We are so flexible and so ready to embrace new words. Now, if we were living in France, a wedgie would probably turn out to be, remonter du lingerie, or in Germany, ziehenobenUnterwashen. (Disclaimer: I know neither French or German so I just looked up some words in a dictionary.) Best of all, though, is that one of the new words for this year is “blog.”
Whole Wheat Pasta
Last night I decided to try a recipe from Vegetarian Times called “Pasta with garlicky white beans and Swiss chard.” I thought it was pretty healthy sounding but I had never tried whole wheat pasta. I figured it would taste like some nasty imitation of the real thing. But it didn’t. It tasted just like regular pasta. Here’s the important point, though, regular pasta has 210 calories and 2 grams of fiber per two ounce serving and whole wheat pasta has 180 calories and 5 grams of fiber per two ounce serving. This is an easy switch to make which will reduce calories and increase fiber.