The Fluffbucket Diaries

It’s half past 11 p.m., and I’m thinking about pizza and Tibetan food in Montmartre, listening to a British ska mix on YouTube, and desperately wanting a better sleep score on my Fitbit for tomorrow.

Despite my best efforts — and a cup of lavender tea before bed — I remain cooped up in a restless sense of nostalgia that I can’t shake. Time to turn on the White Noise app and attempt to call it a night.

After at least a couple of weeks of snow-free weather — even a few downright balmy days when the icy mounds surrounding our house finally melted away — this happened.

Eve Tushnet, on today’s news out of the Vatican: “The Church can guide our loves. But nobody’s gonna trust Her if Catholics focus on protecting doctrines and ignore the need to defend people. Jesus defended the woman taken in adultery before he said anything at all to her … this is the right order of priorities.”

Down another pound, despite a day or two of inadvertently going over my 100-gram carb limit. This means a grand total, so far, of 23.6 pounds lost since January 11. That’s 8.3 percent lost. Feel free to do the math.

Losing a whole person’s worth of weight takes time. I have to keep reminding myself of that.

Off kefir in the mornings for a while; I found myself queasy and feeling loaded down after having my usual breakfast smoothie. Opting for almond milk with the other smoothie ingredients instead, plus a boiled egg chaser for the protein. Feeling no discomfort as a result.

I also need to figure out how to recalibrate the Fitbit. The past couple of days, I logged nearly 4,000 steps daily – not much for most people, but a lot for me – and I know I wasn’t quite that active.

I ❤️ Daylight Saving Time.

Found that painting some new ornaments for our all-season tree (more on that later) helped me with my Saturday funk.

Between today and last weekend’s pre-birthday gloom, at least I’m starting to get better with managing my moods.

Kitty’s first boiled eggs.

#WhiteSox

Still feeling unsettled. Can’t decide if it’s because I took my meds later in the day than usual. Grazing more than I usually do, albeit with slightly healthier things (cheese stick, avocado and milk, boiled egg) than I might have eaten three months ago.

Beautiful day in greater Chicagoland. It’s a shame I’m a little scattered and off so far today.

TIL Maryland is in the Big Ten Conference now. 🤨 Thanks, Juwan Howard, for getting tossed from a game last night and generating headlines involving Maryland in the Big 10 Conference.

Finally got around to registering for a COVID-19 vaccination after I read this Washington Post article about obesity qualifying some folks for the vaccine. Turns out I’m eligible now for vaccination here in Illinois by virtue of my fatness. Yay, I guess?

The fact that obesity is a COVID-19 comorbidity factor is a big reason I’ve placed myself under a bariatric doctor’s care now, so I’m certainly grateful for qualifying. (Really, it was the tipping point for me in my decision.) That said, I’m also fine with waiting in line — at least I have the relative luxury of being able to work from home and self-isolate more than most — while others who need it more get the vaccine.

A particularly stressful day at work yesterday had me thinking about whether stress affects weight loss. If this article is any indication, the answer is yes.

So, rather than stay up late for work last night, I went to bed at my usual time. Got the best sleep I’ve had in days. Hope I don’t regret it as the work day begins.

Best. Infographic. Ever.

The Sox color guy is trying too damn hard to pronounce the Spanish names during today’s broadcast. It’s distracting and annoying (and reminds me of this old SNL skit). Kasper’s presence just can’t make up for that.

Had to turn it off. Couldn’t take it anymore.

I really miss Benetti and Stoney right now.

I really need to clean up the clutter under my desk.

This site is slowly becoming a scrapbook of my mainstream social media activity, past and present.

This year’s birthday artwork, reflecting F’s recent interest in the video game Dragonvale.

Thanks all for the kind birthday wishes! It’s been a good day — better than anticipated — of reconnecting with a few dear friends via email, text, and social media. Very grateful.

If, somehow, you’ve wandered to this site for the first time today, welcome.

I write largely about random things that often cover one of three topics (in alphabetical order): baseball (though not really in depth), faith, and weight loss.

Nice seeing you.

A former colleague and unofficial keeper of “media figure” birthdays still posts my birthday on Facebook to his thousands of followers for some reason, even though I haven’t been in the news business in more than 10 years. I guess I should appreciate that, no matter how ridiculous the idea of me being a “media figure” is. Whatever. It’s not killing me.

Anyway, he posted a link to this site in his post. Maybe 5 minutes after it showed up, I asked him to remove it, which he did.

“You do know that’s on your Twitter profile, right?” he messaged me.

“I know,” I replied.

Perhaps idiotically, I figured that with my meager Twitter following, nobody would notice my website link there. But I always forget that some people still know to find me there, and that maybe they’d bother to check out this blog. (Though why they would do so is beyond me.)

Still, it’s one thing to have friends check in occasionally here. It’s quite another to relay the URL to a bunch of media strangers – a crowd I don’t even run with anymore.

Whatever. I removed the blog link from my Twitter profile.

Update (March 16, 2021, 4:43 p.m. Central): I forgot that I posted about this annual rite of, well, something last year. It didn’t annoy me so much then. It annoyed me this year.

Despite indulging last night in Jollibee fried chicken and a peach mango pie in a pre-birthday feast, I still managed to weigh in 3.2 pounds down from last week.

Went out for a birthday breakfast at a local diner (masks and plexiglass partitions everywhere), and C speculated that maybe my body is so used to my eating patterns now that it can accommodate a variance like last night without my weight going haywire. On the other hand, I’m wondering, since that splurge was just last night, maybe some weight gain will surface later.

I might have another peach mango pie (which has a whopping 49 grams of carbohydrate) tonight; otherwise, I don’t anticipate veering off track again for a while. (I celebrated this morning with a feta and spinach omelet, decaf, and a fruit cup; no toast, pancakes, or hash browns.) I may get bored with these eating habits periodically, but I’ve reached a comfort level with them now.

This makes me so unbelievably happy.

You know it’s a special day when your car dealer wishes you a Happy Birthday.