bouganvillia.jpg
The monster Bougainvillea crawling up the back wall of our house is in spectacular bloom, so I figured I would take a photo and post it for all to see. It is truly magnificent. Besides, I just got a new little pocket camera that I purchased for the European trip so that I can photo blog from there, and I wanted to test it out.
While I was at it, I decided to take a picture of our breakfast table right inside the door you see opened on the picture above. The door with my practice golf clubs leaning behind it. If you walk straight in that door you run into MD’s chair at the table. Mine is at the end on the left with my back to the windows the Bougainvillea is draping over. Until I started this blog (and really up until just a few weeks ago when the comments really started coming in) I got up early every morning, made a cup of Americano and read both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal from front to back. Over the past month or so I’ve gotten up early every morning, fixed my cup of Americano and started dealing with comments. By the time I’m finished it’s late and I have to be off and about my business. I’ve taken to stacking the unread papers in a pile to the left of my chair. MD brings the day’s papers in and lays them to the right of my laptop, where you can see today’s sitting under my reading glasses; I usually read them, cut out an article if it interests me, and toss them. Lately, I’ve been simply stacking them as you can see.
MD has finally gone over the edge with all the papers stacked high enough that they’re ready to topple. She’s tired of seeing what she calls my boar’s nest at my end of the table festooned with stacked books, medical articles, and newspapers, so she’s making me (actually, she asked me very nicely) go through them – which is my plan this weekend – and get rid of them. In looking at the photo I can even see my pre-Mac Think Pad sitting on the back of the couch peeking through all the papers. God only knows what else is lurking under there once I get all the crap cleaned off.
I’m posting this just to prove that I really am overwhelmed with all the comments. Here is the photographic proof.
kitchen-table.jpg

16 Comments

  1. The beautiful bougainvillea reminds me that I wish your book was published in Spanish.
    A couple of them are.
    MRE 

  2. Which ones?
    Hi Virginia–
    I misspoke (misswrote?).
    There is only one book translated into Spanish.  That is The 30-Day Low-Carb Diet Solution.  The Spanish title is: La Dieta de Bajos Carbohidratos de 30 Dias.
    The other books I thought were in Spanish were in French and Portuguese.
    Cheers–
    MRE 

  3. Your beautiful Bougainvillea is amazing. All I have is a sprig that I pamper through the winter in order to get a few measly blooms in summer.
    And, you have an ‘ENORMOUS’ pile of stuff too? I cannot get through my pile, ever. It just keeps growing and growing. It sure is nice to see that other people live with an ‘enormous pile’ as well. It is certainly an endless amount of work.
    “God only knows what else is lurking”… yup, only The Shadow knows. Good luck!
    No response required.
    Here I am on Sunday night still going through the great amorphous pile (as MD calls it).  I want to come in to a clean end of the table tomorrow morning.
    Cheers–
    MRE 

  4. You really are having trouble with this not commenting on every comment thing, aren’t you!?
    (No answer required. Ha!)
    Yep!

  5. Glad to see some things never change! 😉
    Hi Michelle–(I’ll spare the world your nickname)

    Good to hear from you. I hope the fam is all doing well. Say Hi to Dandy Don for me and tell him to send $$$ 🙂
    Cheers–
    Dr Mike
    (Michelle was MD’s and my long term assistant both in Arkansas and Colorado.)

  6. Your integrity is apparent in every word that you write so please ration your time wisely and produce another book rather than comments on your comments.
    My only lingering request is your evaluation of Fiber Menace. The thesis makes sense but my life also makes sense and I’ve been healthfully eating very high fiber for more than 60 years.
    Hi Marly–
    Thanks for the kind words.  I’ll get to Fiber Menace in due course.  I’m almost finished, but it gets so dreadful near the end that I almost can’t bear to go on.  If I were you,  I wouldn’t worry a whole lot about the totally contradictory advice given in the book.
    Cheers–
    MRE

  7. This is getting pretty far from the bougainvillea, but one of the first articles I remember about diet in the popular press was how healthy the cowboys of Argentina were, who subsisted on a diet mainly of beef. This was apx. 1966. Then I worked as an OR tech and a doctor who had been on a trip doing surgeries in Africa commented that they seldom saw diverticulitis (the reason for the surgery being performed) or appendicitis while there. He had no explanation, but a year or so later, fiber was being touted, and I guess I thought that was the probable answer. It was probably the vitamin A in the yams?
    Who knows why?  It’s been pretty much shown, though, that it wasn’t the fiber.
    MRE 

  8. Hey Mike,
    Every though of a Spanish version of the LifePlan? I can help! 🙂 (Actually, that is a serious offer…)
    Well… I’ve translated a lot of that book (unoficially) so I can actually explain it to Spanish speaking friends. But no worries… nothing has been left written anywhere where it can be taken and print it ‘officially’.
    You said in your blog about Cafe Americano that I inspired you to play around with your own blends… now you’ve inspired me to go clean my desk! If there is something that’s really my ‘clutter-point’ is paper… I could be like an ant and accumulate massive amounts of paper. Thanks for the inspiration; now I feel without any scruples so I can thrown away every piece of paper that comes across my desk!
    Hi Gabe–
    Thanks for the translation offer.  I wish it worked that way.
    Warner Books owns the world rights to the PPLP.  If they get an offer from a Spanish publisher, they (Warner) then sells the Spanish rights and gives me part of whatever money they collect.
    Glad I inspired you to clean your desk.  It’s a constant battle with me.
    Cheers–
    MRE 

  9. When I see bougainvillea I always have to smile. When I was five and still in Cuba, the stuff grew everywhere without any help, since it is a tropical island after all. During the summer when I was five, my little friends and I made leis and bracelets out of the stuff and pretended we were in… Hawaii!
    From one kind of tropical island to another! Hawaiian decor and culture was big in the US at the time, and made its way to what was a very pro American Cuba way back when.
    Hi LC–
    You were there in the Batista days?
    MRE 

  10. It wasn’t the fiber for me, because I had an emergency appy, 4/30/07. I get plenty of fiber from whole grains and veggies.
    I wrote to the contact on your home page with a question 2 weeks ago, and they suggested I try getting it answered through your blog, so here goes.
    In “Protein Power”, you state that hydrogenated fat is not a problem. I recently read that it is, and wondered if it’s still o. k., or if any research has changed your mind regarding it. Thanks.
    Hi Virginia–
    Depends on what you mean when you say ‘hydrogenated fat.’  If you mean partially hydrogenated fat, i.e., trans fat, then it is definitely bad.  If you mean fully hydrogenated fat, then your talking about a saturated fat, which is fine.
    You’re probably talking about trans fats, though, and they should be avoided.
    Best–
    MRE 

  11. Just barely. My parents considered the Batista regime very corrupt, and initially supported the Castro revolution, until he declared himself a Communist. My father still has a copy of the radio broadcast where Castro declared he was aligning himself with the USSR. His sense of betrayal is still fresh. Right after that evening, people started applying for visas to leave.
    Coincidentally, the first scene in the documentary “Outfoxed” is a group of American businessmen dividing up a cake in the shape of Cuba, symbolically divvying up the island among themselves. Batista was very much on the side of this group, and my parents and their fellow Cubans knew that Batista was selling Cuban business down the river to the highest bidder. It was in this atmosphere that they supported the only man who seemed to be doing something to save the island from foreign ownership. Too bad he turned out to be just a different brand of narcissist from Batista.
    Hi LC–
    One wonders whether the millions of people in Cuba would have been better off under the ‘corrupt’ Batista regime (and his followers) these last 50 or so years than they have been under his executioner’s rule.
    It has always amazed me that Castro achieved power because the populace thought Batista was selling out to the Americans, when the very same people supporting Castro got wind of his true intentions, they (or at least those who had the wherewithal and foresight to do so) split for … America.
    I suspect that if Castro had failed, the worst that would have happened to Cuba – at least in terms of Americanization – would have been that it becomes a protectorate as has Puerto Rico.  Cuba would have retained its charm and countless thousands of people wouldn’t have been lined up against the walls and shot or been imprisoned.
    Once again the old admonition to be careful what you wish for holds true. 
    MRE 

  12. Uh.. you do know that Batista executed and disappeared plenty of people himself?
    A dictatorship is a dictatorship. It doesn’t matter whether it’s right or left–any dictatorship takes away democracy-the will of the people.
    It’s rather patronizing to think that a people as proud and nationalistic as the Cubans would have considered for one nanosecond that being a protectorate of any other country would have been desirable. Please remember they overthrew Spain for many of the same reasons we overthrew England.
    There is no doubt that Batista wasn’t a saint. And I’m not being patronizing. Ask yourself this question: If the “proud and nationalistic” Cubans had to do it over again, would they opt for spending the last 50+ years living as a US Protectorate or under the tender mercies of Fidel, Raul, et al? I would bet on the former.

  13. I’ve read every label on foods for years, (actually, if they contain more than 8-10 items, and a lot of chemical names, I just don’t read or buy them), but I bought an item recently that said, “hydrogenated coconut oil”. It had the most innocuous list of ingredients for hot cocoa mix of those available. So…..I assume it’s not partially hydrogenated, as I have seen that on hundreds of labels.
    Regarding Cuba and other such nations past and present: Poor, poor people of the world. It’s amazing how one despot, with a
    small group of radical followers can control a large population. They do usually gain power because people think their situations will be better (Hitler and the Germans), and by the time they realize what they’ve supported, it’s too late.
    Hi Virginia–
    I’m not absolutely certain, but I’m pretty sure that hydrogenated coconut oil is completely saturated.  Most of the fats making up coconut oil are saturated, but a few aren’t.  I suspect that completely hydrogenating these few increases shelf life substantially.
    Best–
    MRE 

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