The Fluffbucket Diaries

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.

Birthday Eve takeout dinner, straight outta Skokie. Jollibee’s pancit still isn’t as good as Mom’s. No one’s pancit is.

A birthday gift that I really needed arrived in the wee hours, as I was attempting to fall asleep with a lectio divina meditation via the Hallow app: a reading of Psalm 27.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom should I fear?
The Lord is my life’s refuge;
of whom should I be afraid?
When evildoers come at me
to devour my flesh,
These my enemies and foes
themselves stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me,
my heart does not fear;
Though war be waged against me,
even then do I trust.

One thing I ask of the Lord;
this I seek:
To dwell in the Lord’s house
all the days of my life,
To gaze on the Lord’s beauty,
to visit his temple.
For God will hide me in his shelter
in time of trouble,
He will conceal me in the cover of his tent;
and set me high upon a rock.
Even now my head is held high
above my enemies on every side!
I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and chant praise to the Lord.

Hear my voice, Lord, when I call;
have mercy on me and answer me.
“Come,” says my heart, “seek his face”;
your face, Lord, do I seek!
Do not hide your face from me;
do not repel your servant in anger.
You are my salvation; do not cast me off;
do not forsake me, God my savior!
Even if my father and mother forsake me,
the Lord will take me in.

Lord, show me your way;
lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
Do not abandon me to the desire of my foes;
malicious and lying witnesses have risen against me.
I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord, take courage;
be stouthearted, wait for the Lord!

(Psalm 27 [NABRE])

At last Job spoke, and he cursed the day of his birth. He said:

“Let the day of my birth be erased,
and the night I was conceived.
Let that day be turned to darkness.
Let it be lost even to God on high,
and let no light shine on it.
Let the darkness and utter gloom claim that day for its own. …
Curse that day for failing to shut my mother’s womb,
for letting me be born to see all this trouble.

“Why wasn’t I born dead?
Why didn’t I die as I came from the womb? …
Had I died at birth, I would now be at peace.
I would be asleep and at rest. …
For in death the wicked cause no trouble,
and the weary are at rest. …

“Oh, why give light to those in misery,
and life to those who are bitter? …
Why is life given to those with no future,
those God has surrounded with difficulties? …
What I always feared has happened to me.
What I dreaded has come true.
I have no peace, no quietness.
I have no rest; only trouble comes.”_

(Job 3:1-5a, 10-11, 13, 17, 20, 23, 25-26 [NLT])

I don’t think I’ve always hated birthdays. In retrospect, though, I can think of only a small handful of birthdays (that I can remember) that I actually enjoyed.

(I distinctly recall two I liked: a 21st birthday surprise party in college, and – oddly enough – eight years ago, when I ended up having emergency gallbladder surgery.)

Otherwise, birthdays have become increasingly depressing for me. I’m not even taking the day off from work for the big day. I figured that if I was off work, I’d just spend the day brooding. And no matter what, much self-pity and irritation with my immediate loved ones is likely to be had by all.

No matter how I choose to spend my day (and, more and more, the day[s] before and after), I end up sitting around craving people’s attention and loud, enthused good wishes – and, when I don’t get it, wanting to go away and be left alone so I don’t think about being forgotten. It blows over after a day or two, but it’s not fun when you experience it.

When you stop and think about it – and part of my problem is that I’m stopping and thinking too much – humans just want to be remembered and have their existence recognized. That’s all anybody wants.

(And ironically, or perhaps not, I’m increasingly thoughtless and terrible about remembering and acknowledging others. And appreciating them. I used to be really good at it and made an effort to remember birthdays and such, but then the favor was rarely returned, so I stopped. But that’s a topic for another post.)

Two days before the big day, I’ll be heading out, running errands, and figuring out what to do with myself as I turn a whopping 55 years old. Happy birthday to me.

This plastic bag is F’s ticket back to in-person learning five days a week.

Each little vial represents a weekly COVID-19 saliva test; our district intends to allow kids in grades 6-12 to return to school full-time before the end of this month, provided they are screened this way.

The road back to school in Elmhurst, Illinois, is coated with spit.

Why do I post and tweet more lately on social media about baseball than about church stuff?

It dawned on me: I want to post about things that make me happy.

Baseball these days makes me happy. Church stuff, with all the Catholic infighting and anger and holier-than-thou crap, does not.

Helena joined F and me for our nightly reading of the talking feral cats (the Warriors series of badly edited adventure books that we enjoy anyway). I’m still brushing cat hair off my face, out of my eyes, and from my nostrils.

One of the few things I’m accomplishing so far this Lent is reading through the Gospel of Mark (using the Message translation).

Granted, Mark is the shortest of the Gospels, so getting through it is really nothing to brag about. That said, Mark’s brevity belies its substance as a rich and vivid portrait of Jesus; it’s exactly what I needed this season.

I found out recently about Michael Pakaluk’s “new translation” of Mark, “The Memoirs of St Peter,” and bought a barely used copy; it arrived today. Only recently did I learn that church tradition holds that Mark, a follower and “interpreter” of St Peter, generally reflects the apostle’s narrative of the life of Christ. After reading an excerpt online of Pakaluk’s book, I was hooked. I look forward to tearing into it after I finish the Message version of the Gospel.

Another 1.1 pound lost. This makes for a total of 19.4 pounds lost since January 11.

I’m kind of surprised, given some intestinal issues the past few days. Been dealing with several mornings of mild nausea, queasiness, and constipation. (TMI, I know.) Except for Saturday – when I had some extremely comforting matzo ball soup plus half a cabbage-based Reuben salad – it’s meant a bunch of middays of minimal, if any, eating.

I felt mildly well enough by lunchtime today to have a little something (two cheese sticks, some turkey cold cuts, and the rest of my Reuben salad). Left out the Amazing Grass superfood powder in the morning kefir smoothie to see if debulkifying breakfast might help ease the discomfort. (But I did have an Amazing Grass effervescent tablet in some water, and I’ll probably have some of the chocolate superfood powder in almond milk for dessert tonight.) I also realized that I’d been drinking slightly less water recently, so I’m trying to step up my water intake.

Also, the old Fitbit died over the weekend. Got a new one, and it seems to be a little too generous with my step count. Meanwhile, I was too queasy and uncomfortable to work out at all since Thursday or Friday. I have some catching up to do.

The idea of Fresno having a “historic center of progressive bohemia” does, on the surface, sound laughable. But the L.A. Times calls it exactly that in its article today about the Tower District neighborhood, where I spent my happiest months in the city. More specifically, the Times is focusing on the uproar over its centerpiece theater being sold to – gasp – an evangelical church.

I have fond memories of living in the Tower District, which did somewhat live up to that bohemian label, even 30+ years ago – well before the Rogue Festival and gay film festival that apparently started well after I left.

I named one of my cats after a Tower District bar, which I’m thrilled to see is still around, even though the wonderful Chicken Pie Shop – where I’d take my family for great weekend breakfasts of linguica and eggs long ago – is not.

The White Sox on TV!

Real, live baseball!

Real, live fans in the stands!

And as Jason Benetti introduced him, real, live “Steve Stone in a box”!

Life is good.

Disappointed to find the only Jewish deli I know in DuPage County is out of hamentaschen. Settling for a Reuben salad, matzo ball soup, and diet Dr Brown’s diet cream soda to go.

(The soup alone was worth the drive to Naperville AND the carbs.)

Rough day yesterday on the eating front. Second straight day of intestinal discomfort that seemed to stem from my morning kefir smoothie, leading to minimal appetite at midday. By dinner, I’d be in major hangry mode. Thursday was unpleasant, and Friday was even worse, because I had to be meatless. I find having to plan meals and pick foods annoying.

I wish I hadn’t hit a wall just five or six weeks into this, but it’s official: I’m already bored with low-carb eating.

As with so many things, I’ve turned to Dr. Google to figure out how to climb out of this rut. (I stayed away from keto-specific links because, frankly, keto is a cult and I’m sick of hearing about it.) Linking to some worthwhile advice below.

• Avoiding Boredom on a Low-Carb Diet
• 9 Creative Ways to Make Your Low-Carb Diet More Fun (and Less Boring)
• 7 Things You Shouldn’t Do on a Low-Carb Diet, According to Dietitians
• 6 Ways to Overcome the Sadness of Low Carb Diets
• Sticking to Low Carb for the Long Term
• 10 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Low-Carb Diet
• Top 10 Tips for Getting Back on Track With Your Low-Carb Diet