Just a bunch of odds and ends, none of which is worth an entire post.

Low-carb gains a foothold.

First, I’ll start off with the good news, then I’ll finish with the bad.

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A couple of days ago I ran into an old friend of ours, whom I hadn’t seen in about a year. She is a highly successful, intelligent, middle-aged woman who, the last time I saw her, was at least 30 or so pounds overweight. She is now slim and trim. In fact, I almost didn’t recognize her.

I told her she looked fabulous and asked her what happened. I knew that she had been a perennial low-carber, but, like so many people, never really got into it seriously for any length of time. She knew how much better she felt when she stuck to her regimen, but a million things kept coming up – parties, weddings, business travel, etc. – preventing her from really taking her diet seriously. As she put it:

There was always a valid reason that I couldn’t really get going. I had a friend’s wedding coming up, and I knew I was going to eat and drink. So, I put off starting until after the wedding. Then it was a business trip, then it was something else. It seemed that there was always something lurking in the future that kept me from getting serious today.

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I’ve been looking for a theme song for this blog for a long time when one came to me over the in-store music system.  I heard it when my eldest son and I were grabbing the fixings for dinner at a natural foods grocery in Dallas a few days ago.  As the infectious beat thumped down around me, I hustled to position myself under a speaker so I could hear better.  I listened and was taken back to what was probably my social awakening as a gawky, pimply teenager.

My father had been transferred to Detroit, Michigan when I was just starting junior high.  We drove from our home state of Missouri to Motor City, as it was later to be called.  Prior to this, I had grown up in small towns and had just been living with my parents, two brothers and two sisters in an old army barracks in Jefferson Barracks, MO, which was on the Mississippi River near St. Louis.   There were eight families living in each one of these barracks, and each living space had a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and one bath.  Needless to say, the seven of us were in cramped quarters.

We moved to a blue-collar suburb of Detroit and I started junior high.  I met a girl in one of my classes who invited me to a party at her sister’s boyfriend’s house.  We went to this party – my very first teenage party experience – and I thought I had hit the big time.  My date and I were the youngest ones there – all the other kids were in high school.  I couldn’t believe that I – a real social neophyte – was there hanging out with actual high schoolers.  And not only hanging out with them, they acted like we were a part of their crowd.

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View of field from skybox

I am posting this from inside a skybox at Qwest Stadium in Seattle.  MD and I have been up here for a few days and have been unbelievably busy the entire time.  We’ve had a little time for fun, but not much.  One meeting after an other for the last three days.  Plus, we haven’t had reliable internet service and my Blackberry is on the fritz.  My thumbball won’t work and I’m not going to be able to get it fixed until I get to Dallas tomorrow.  I can use the phone part, but can’t scroll to get emails or get online.  So, my comment answering and emailing have all been hamstrung for the past few days.

We landed in a snowstorm in Seattle on Thursday and have been battling the weather since.  Here is a photo of the Pike Place Market in the snow last night.

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