Last week I fed Toby as normal, but she was still hungry. So I gave her more food until her belly bulged. Dumb move. The next morning at 6:30 I was awoken by a big, wet splat. She had vomited on the toilet seat cover, down the front, and all over the bathroom floor. She vomited that night’s meal as well and became very weak and wobbly in her back end.

She had this same problem a few months ago. She became incredibly weak and was drinking enormous amounts of water and urinating frequently. She fasted for several days, and I waited until she was feeling better before taking her to a veterinarian. I mostly wanted to get a potassium supplement.

I hate going to the vet, as do my cats. Most veterinarians have the same philosophy and methodology as physicians, which is to give lip service to diet and treat symptoms without finding the underlying cause of illness. They want to take charge with therapies and pharmaceuticals, and for some reason they think that cats are better off with dried kibble made of grains, waste product meat, additives and preservatives than than actual MEAT. Come again?

So when I took Toby and I also took Tibbs, because Tibbs hasn’t been grooming herself well and I suspect problems with her teeth. She doesn’t like chewing her meat and insists on a slurry.

Toby is a very cranky girl. Always has been. The vet techs took her “into the back” to draw blood. Isn’t it funny how they never want to do that in your presence? I heard Toby screaming and walked into the back to give her a recognizable voice and smell. Toby was slightly dehydrated and her veins were difficult to tap. The tech was inserting, wiggling, pulling out the needle and Toby was just miserable. They had to flip her over and try a vein on another leg. They finally got their blood and Toby’s blood glucose shot up (as evidenced on the blood test).

This is one reason why I don’t like taking sick animals to the vet. What sick animals need most is warmth and sleep. They don’t need three people holding them down by force and repeatedly shoving needles in their body.

The blood work came back:

RBC: 10.32 M/µL (normal range 5 – 10)
BUN: 83 mg/dL (normal range 16- 36) too high
CREA: 2.0 mg/dL (normal range .8 – 2.4) so this value is good
K (potassium): 3.3 mmol/L (normal range 3.5 – 5.8) got a supplement for this

Naturally the vet wanted to hospitalize Toby and put her on an IV solution to hydrate her. The last two cats I hospitalized ended up being put to sleep in short order. So no, Toby’s not staying. I compromised by allowing them to inject some fluid under her skin. Again, they took her into the back room.

I went back when I heard Toby screaming again to find three people holding her down her down trying to get a needle in her. They told the vet the needle kept popping out. Kept popping out? How many times had they stuck her? “This can’t be good for her immune system,” I said. They gave up on the hydration. That’s it. We’re finished here.

The doctor wanted to sell me a reduced-protein food for kidney damage control on the idea that it’s protein that damages the kidneys. I’m reading conflicting information on the net saying that reduced protein diets don’t seem to make a difference in BUN and creatinine levels and that phosphorus is the more likely culprit.

I was informed that if Toby didn’t improve in a week that I would have to bring her back and she would be hospitalized. Suppose Toby doesn’t improve because she’s simply dying. Do we submit her to invasive procedures in a foreign environment and herculean efforts to try to save her life? Or do we just let her die at home or spend as much time at home as possible and then put her to sleep when the pain becomes uncomfortable. Why are we so afraid of death? I mean, this girl is 16-1/2 years old. She’s something like in her late 70s in humans terms.

I don’t want her to die, but I certainly don’t want her spending her last days in a cage surrounded by strange people and smells. That’s what happened to Tiny, and it was awful.

I mentioned this situation to a woman whose research and efforts reversed her child’s autism via homeopathy. She recommended I try homeopathy. I took Toby to the homeopath yesterday, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I encountered.

The new vet walked in looking like a diminutive Jed Clampett with a pot belly smelling faintly of bad breath and, wait, was that alcohol? I explained the situation and he came back with a needle of “remedy.” I asked what it was and he said, “It’s for detoxification.” I replied, “Okay, so how does it work?” “It detoxifies,” he replied. “Do you know what detoxification is?” I tried getting across to him that I was interested in how it worked physiologically, and he said, “If you’re scared of it, we won’t use it,” and walked out the room. “Wait!” I cried.

This guy had no idea what I was after. All he could tell me was that nobody knows how homeopathy works and this substance helped the body detoxify. He threatened several times to leave the room. I finally let him give it to her. In went the needle, squeeze, a little protest by Toby, and it was all over.

He assured me that he has reversed many cases of renal failure, and he’s had his patients go back to their original vet to have lab work redone to find the values have normalized. He gave me a liquid and some capsules to give to Toby twice a day.

I asked him if he had done dental work on cats, and he was confident he could take care of Tibbs’s teeth for a much lower cost than other vets. But after I got that whiff of what I thought was alcohol, I got the feeling I shouldn’t trust him to put my beautiful Tibbs under.

I’ve had these moments of intuition, which I’ve largely ignored. The last time was when I took some shoes to a cobbler to get fixed. I went back the next week to pick up the shoes and drop off a couple coats for new zippers only to find he had lost my shoes. I went behind his counter and found them. My intuition said, “Don’t leave your coats here,” but I ignored it.

Two weeks later he said the coats had not been brought back from the business that did work for him. I went to that business, and they didn’t have the coats. I went back to the cobbler and found my coats hanging in the back of the room. He wanted $30 for replacing two zipper pulls. I only had $20, which he took. I visited the other cobbler who put on the zipper pulls, and they said they could sew in an entirely new zipper for $22. I had been had. I vowed then to begin listening to my intuition.

Even though it may be cheaper with this vet and easier than finding another vet with a better price, Tibbs is too precious to take the chance. So I’m following my intuition this time for sure. Here’s the estimate for dental work from the vet:

Dental cleaning – Level 3: $210
VetTest Profile PAP: $59
Miscellaneous Prescription Product $30 to 45
ECG Diagnostic: $49
Local Anesthetic Block: $32
Dental Xray over 5 films: $94
Clndamycin Inj 150 mg/ml: $26
Oral Surgery: $120 to 240

Total: $620 to $755

Do you suppose they clean the teeth and then extract them?

There’s another veterinary service in town that specializes in dentistry and they offer free consultation. I’m going to take her there and see what they recommend and charge. But this needs to happen soon, because bad teeth poison the whole body.

In the meanwhile, I’m humbling myself and placing a ChipIn widget on the right side of the blog. This connects with PayPal and allows people to make donations. If you find it in your heart to help, Tibbs and I would be most grateful.

To everything there is a season, and this is my season of rut. Or rather, being in a rut

My usual routine is to get up in the morning, make a cup of green tea with a squirt of lemon, and read my emails and blogs to which I subscribe. I’ve recently joined several Yahoo mail groups, and I find myself spending far too much time on email. I love the many things I’m learning, but I am being pulled in too many directions and not getting anything purposeful accomplished.

Sometimes I want to write something here. But the last time I had substantive content was several weeks ago. So there’s this pressure to produce something BIG, and since I’m in a rut, nothing BIG is being produced. And so I don’t post, even though I have something I’d like to write about. I suppose I’m going to have to get over that.

Update on Diet

I’ve continued with a relatively low-carb diet high in meat and fat with the occasional fruit and vegetable. I’ve cheated a lot since November when I intended to give up sugar. I still indulge, but nowhere near as often. I’ve had three Starbucks mochas since then, and have eaten even more portions of ice cream. But most days I have very little sugar, and it’s in fruit if I have it.

For a time I was eating two pomegranates every night after dinner, and now I’m completely finished with pomegranate season. I had my last one last night.

Since November I’ve lost ten pounds. Almost enough to get into the smaller pants that have been waiting for me for over a year. Almost. I’ve dropped two sizes since moving here, and in a few weeks I’ll probably drop another.

But with the weight loss has come a realization of the damage I did to my skin from such high sugar consumption and years of stress. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get a handle on stress. It’ll wreck your body like nothing else.

I went out to dinner with a few friends over the weekend and ate some wheat bread. The next few days brought back and rib pain, a reminder that wheat just doesn’t work for me anymore.

My body is becoming more sensitive to food with quicker responses following violations. Sometimes I’ll eat something and my heart will start beating really hard and fast. Coffee causes an almost immediate heat and flushing to my face.

Most aches and pains I’ve had over the years are gone, but now for some reason my left shoulder is hurting. I’ve read that some people are sensitive to arachidonic acid, an amino acid found mostly in red meat (but also produced by the body), and the reaction is usually inflammation. I’m hoping that is not the case, considering my stockpile of meat. But I’ve got to get the bottom of this shoulder thing. Maybe it’s from lying on my left side watching TV. I used to lie on my right side, and that’s when my right hip started hurting.

As for memory, I’m not as prone to asking myself, “Why am I here?” in the sense of standing with my head in the fridge and wondering what I wanted. I don’t forget as often why I went to a particular room. And if I do forget, I remember quicker.

My body is also warmer than last year. The heater is set at a slightly lower temperature and my hands are usually warm, which is significant improvement. However, my feet are usually always cold.

I haven’t exercised in years, and I’m now realizing how weak I’ve become. Any sort of exertion and my heart begins pounding like mad. It’s kind of scary. Is something wrong with my heart or am I just out of shape? I’ve started exercising with a kettle bell. A little at a time.

I’m also easily out of breath. I have really done some damage to my body, and it will take time to heal it all. The best step I took was giving up gluten grains. Once my gut is healed from the damage inflicted by inflammatory responses to gluten, it’ll begin absorbing nutrients better and keeping out foreign proteins.

I always wondered why I lost the outer half of my eyebrows. Turns out that’s a sign of low thyroid. I quit using iodized table salt in preference to sea salt. Then I found out that sea salt has no iodine in it. The thyroid needs iodine, and mine wasn’t getting any. Couple that with a few years of emotional stress and voila! Low thyroid. This is simplistic, I realize, but a good starting point. I’m supplementing with iodine, and my eyebrows are slowing growing back.

My eyesight hasn’t improved at all but seems to be getting worse.

Benefits of a Sugar-free Diet

The greatest benefit to going off sugar is the lack of swings in hunger and appetite. When I used to eat predominantly plants, I would obsess about food and eat quite a bit at each sitting. I would eat often. Consuming mostly meat and fat is very satiating and my appetite is much more controllable. I can often go from dinner to dinner without any discomfort.

I’ve also noted that my moods are much more even. Less up and down. It takes more to irritate me. In fact, I’m usually in a very good mood despite being unemployed and in a rut.

Some Simple Things I Learned Last Year

I learned why some cutting boards have a shallow moat around the edge. I learned that the first time I put a roast on a board to rest and the juices dribbled onto the floor for the cats. I also learned why meat must rest: to allow the juices, which have been migrating toward the outside of the meat, to settle back into the meat.

I learned how to cut up and consume a pomegranate with the least mess and most gratifying oral pleasure. I’m not only anal but oral. Maybe from being bottle fed.

I learned how to deglaze a pan.

I learned how to make stew and chicken broth and brined beef tongue.

I learned how to skin, disembowel, and cut up a rabbit.

I learned what chateau briand is. It’s the big, thick part of a beef tenderloin.

I learned that saturated fat is good, vegetable oils are bad, cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease, and sugar spikes insulin which causes fat deposition.

I learned how to play Texas Holdem.

The Social Scene

Oddly enough, I have developed quite a social life since moving to Erie, and I met most of the people I’ve befriended at Starbucks, a mere five blocks from my home. As is usual, most of my friends are men. I have one female friend and several male friends. But no romantic interests.

My friend Neal introduced me to Texas Holdem. A few taverns host the games. You pay $2 for a drink (water for me) and you can play a tournament. Several tables play at a time, and as players lose their chips, they leave the table. The player with a short stack of chips at a table with many players gets moved to a table with fewer players. Eventually you end up with one table. The winner gets $40 and second place gets $20.

The last time I played about 40 people showed up. I made it to the final table. This is my third time at a particular tavern where I survived until the final table. I lost my chips at third, sixth, and seventh places. Not bad for a beginner. It’s a lot of fun but completely nonproductive, which means it fits in well with my season of rut.

It’s an interesting crowd. Lots of smoking, cussing, fondling and slamming of chips, and the occasional emotional outburst when someone loses or wins. Most players are men. Many nights I have to shove something in my ears because it’s so loud.

My Furry Family

My life is enriched by the relationship I have with my cats. They are annoying and messy. But just engaging a cat for a few minutes makes me smile and fills my body with love.

Pinegar has taken (the late) George’s place at night. He usually starts off at the foot of the bed, but by morning he’s curled up in my arms under the covers. Some time during the night Lyla sneaks under the covers too. She likes to crawl down deep.

Every night Lyla and Pinegar sleep with me, and sometimes I let Arthur and Puddy in as well. But around three in the morning I’m awakened by Puddy mounting and biting someone in the neck. Then he gets kicked out.

Chester Longtail Wobblehouse will visit in the wee hours and scratch the bottom edge of the door. I don’t let her in until morning, and she heads straight for the bed. She’ll scratch the sheets until I lift up the comforter. Then she slides in, I slide in, and we have our little love session. This is the ONLY time she is affectionate with me. The rest of the time she runs away from me. Little freak.

Toby is sick again. She was sick several months ago. Didn’t eat much, vomited, urinated a lot and drank a lot of water. She’s been drinking more water than usual since then. The other day I fed her her normal ration, and because she was still hungry I let her have a bunch more food. Her belly filled up like a ball, and I heard the splat of her vomit in the early morning.

The next day she was hunkered over a box of books I was going to sell on Amazon. I took her off and made a mental note to cover the box because I thought she might throw up in it. I forgot to cover the box. She threw up in it, all over a $130 book and some other expensive books. Intuition worked for me but I didn’t follow up and paid the price.

So What To Do About the Rut?

What’s odd is I hear people say how bored they are. I remember the days when I used to be bored. But these days I’m never bored. I’m happy reading all day just about, and a few days a week going to Starbucks to talk with friends. The occasional poker game. I’m watching Stargate SG-1 again, which was a great show. And I have a ton of books to read.

I’m in a rut. I’m unproductive. There’s a temptation to DO SOMETHING. But sometimes it’s best to just relax and see where it takes me. The trees have all dropped their leaves and they too are in a rut. But they don’t fight it. They just wait until spring when they can begin their new growth.

To everything there is a season. And seasons of rest are followed by great growth.

Hey, dog lovers! I just watched this video and I had to share it. It’s so adorable. (Thanks, Tim.)

I watched Avatar today at the theater in 3D. What a show! This is a movie that no fan of sci-fi or fantasy should miss.

Humans are hoping to mine a rare and extremely valuable ore from the moon Pandora, which is inhabited by a species called Na’vi who are 12 feet tall, blue skinned, and who can interface with nature using tentacles growing from their braided hair.

The humans failed to create a relationship with the Na’vi despite creating schools and teaching them English. So the scientists grew cloned Na’vi bodies–avatars–using Na’vi and human DNA from a few highly trained scientists. These scientists can then enter a closed chamber and connect their minds to the avatar and “live” in their bodies. Perhaps the Na’vi will listen to humans when they look like Na’vi.

But one of the scientists died before his time came to connect with the avatar, so his brother Jake was given the opportunity. This is exhilarating for Jake, a marine who lost the use of his legs. Jake’s assignment was to learn the secrets of the Na’vi so the military could oust the natives from their settlement on a rich area of ore. But Jake falls in love with the people and their moon.

It’s the same story of the Europeans destroying the habitat of the Native Americans and plundering its wealth. And that part is predictable but still infuriating. It’s basically Dances with Wolves with a little Last Samurai and McCaffrey’s Pern thrown in.

But I’ll tell you, this moon and its inhabitants that James Cameron created are absolutely breathtaking. The colors delight the eyes, the flora and fauna are rich and diverse, and the Na’vi are frankly beautiful and sexy. And they are above all things deeply spiritual and attuned to their moon which, as it turns out, is a living entity where all things are connected.

My two friends and I (and I imagine the entire audience) sat spellbound watching this feast of entertainment. Don’t miss this. Don’t wait for the DVD. Go see it. I’m going to go see it again.

On a Personal Note

I cried several times during this movie (which is pretty usual for me, being a softy and all), and when I left the movie I felt like my life was completely meaningless.

Here were these beautiful creatures completely connected to their land, their world. They were all slim and fit and belonged to a community that included not only their own kind but the creatures around them. They respected their world and cared for it like a mother cares for her children.

And what do we have? We have people living in boxes who hardly speak to their neighbors. Most of us couldn’t live off the land if we had to. I won’t even bother fishing in Lake Erie because the water’s so polluted there’s a limit to how many fish you can eat per month.

Me, I’ve got a body wrecked from years of poor diet, lack of movement, and stress, and I’m just trying to figure out what food is. I’m trying to heal my body and my mind and my soul. And I’ve got 20 pounds of fat that still needs to go.

We went to dinner afterwards. I had an overcooked beef filet made from feedlot beef, mashed potatoes, and tasteless, rubbery broccoli. These three foods would never exist in the natural world.

I look at the people around me, and they’re sick and fat and mostly unhappy. What happened to sitting around the campfire laughing and loving and beating drums and dancing? Do neighbors even borrow sugar or eggs from each other anymore? Why are we all holed up in our locked fortresses?

What happened to reaching for our dreams? Why am I not acting or collaborating on creative projects? Why am I writing a friggin’ blog? What happened to the life I imagined when I was 12 years old? And the wonder and joy and energy to pull it off?

Why have we all SETTLED?

I read about farmers getting arrested for selling raw milk while the pharmaceutical companies legally continue to crank out drugs that kill people. I read about Monsanto gobbling up the seed market and the USDA trying to regulate small farms out of business. I read about the Bilderberg group and their quest for domination of the planet. I read the fraud that is H1N1 and the corrupt WHO and the CDC. I watch my civil liberties picked off one at a time by the rich and powerful.

There’s so much corruption and our nation’s citizens can’t even join together to overcome it. Did we run out of energy in 1776?

Our world is facing a mass die off of many species because of loss of habitat and poaching and global warming. And people still wear furs and still bulldoze rain forests and still buy too much crap that they don’t need.

We breed too often and create children who are weak and sick. The most natural of events–breastfeeding–is an inconvenience, and sometimes it’s just harmful to infants because of the toxins passed in the milk. Then the children enter an educational system that doesn’t believe in critical thinking. Then they get a job working for someone else while the dream they had when they were 12 slowly dies inside them.

We are a sick species, and unfortunately we’re the dominant species on our world. And we keep taking.

If only I were an optimist.

Sorry this post is such a bummer.

I picked up my side of beef a couple weeks ago and made a video of the cuts. The butcher skins the steer and removes the organs, head, and feet and then weighs a side. They charge the per-pound fee based on hanging weight. My side weighed 330 pounds. After cutting and packaging, the usable portion was 245 pounds. The rest was waste.

Below the video are a couple pictures of the herd from which my steer was selected. These are Piedmontese cattle, known for their lean meat rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

Unlike their grain-eating counterparts, these cattle lived a life of leisure, free from predation and fed year round from the grasses and hay that grew on this land. They consumed no grain, which is given to cattle to fatten them and provide the marbling that we’ve been convinced is so desirable. They received no antibiotics or vaccinations, because they never needed them. They had only one bad day in their lives. (Well, perhaps the steers had two bad days, if you get my meaning.)

Anybody hungry? Dinner’s on me! Here’s what half a cow looks like:

Additional reading:

Shopping Local Farms for Pasture-raised Lamb, Pork, Beef, Poultry, and Eggs
Illegal Federal Raids on Food Co-ops Should Make Us All Ill

How “Innocent” Wheat Is Ruining Your Health by Drs. Vikki & Richard Petersen, D.C., C.C.N.

Gluten plays a role in more diseases than you can imagine

Food that enters the intestine goes through a complex digestive process. It must be broken down to molecules that can pass through the intestinal wall. The intestine is also a major part of the immune system, producing antibodies that destroy harmful bacteria entering the digestive tract.

But some foods we ingest contain proteins that the body does not recognize, and so the intestine mounts an immune response. One common protein that is relatively new to our species and abundant in our food supply is gluten found in wheat, rye, and barley.

For those of us who are sensitive to gluten, this immune response begins to inflame and damage the intestinal tract causing what is known as “leaky gut syndrome.” Gaps in the intestine then allow uninvited molecules into the bloodstream. As the body mounts a defense against these intruders, it often mistakes its own tissues as the same foreign bodies. And thus many develop autoimmune diseases. Additionally, the body’s ability to absorb nutrients is compromised, resulting in malnutrition.

Please support this site. I earn a small commission for every Amazon purchase through my site. However, if you came here from Amazon and then click back to Amazon, it doesn’t count. The best way is to close all browsers, come back here, and then click through to Amazon. Every little bit helps. Thank you!

This book provides a comprehensive explanation of gluten sensitivity and how it contributes to diseases such as celiac, ADD, ADHD, arthritis, diabetes, IBS, fatigue, sleep disturbances, thyroid disorders, osteoporosis, malnutrition, depression, fibromyalgia, obesity and many other unexplained symptoms–both physical and mental.

The book emphasizes finding the cause of your illness and eliminating it, as opposed to the common practice of drugging the symptoms while the underlying disease state progresses. I wish this book could be mandatory reading in medical schools.

The authors teach when and how gluten sensitivity testing should be done, and they provide numerous case studies of patients they have treated who have renewed their vigor, improved their mood, lost weight, and reversed many chronic diseases.

I highly recommend The Gluten Effect for anyone suffering from autoimmune diseases, general fatigue, or unexplained illnesses, aches or pains. The information could completely change your life.

Buy The Gluten Effect.

The Long Drive to Warwick

I went to Warwick, New York, to spend Thanksgiving with my niece, Reagan, and her family. I haven’t seen her in 11 years. She was 21 when I last saw her, and now she’s a grown woman with a husband and two young girls.

The drive took about 6-1/2 hours. Much of the highway in Pennsylvania was in such poor condition that it was patched all over. The constant hammering of bumps began to give me a headache. I took a cup of coffee for the trip, and passed the first rest stop; next rest stop 19 miles. I can wait. Next rest stop: No facilities. (Maybe they should have mentioned that back at the last rest stop.) So park, trot and squat in the bushes.

When I crossed the border into New York, the signs said, “State Speed Limit 55 Miles per hour.” At least I think it was New York. I was on a four lane highway with a fenced median (two lanes on either side). The car ahead of me continued to speed along at 75 miles per hour, and I slowed somewhat. As I crested a hill at about 67 mph, there in the median was a highway patrol SUV. After I passed I looked in my rearview mirror and saw red and blue lights flashing. Busted!

Damn! No! No! No ticket! My adrenals seem to be in working order, because my entire body was flooded with adrenaline. I could feel it in my skin, my chest, my legs. The lights receded as traffic prevented the SUV from entering the lane. I cast about for an exit, some way to escape this monster bearing down on me. Then the lights were gone. Maybe I was safe.

The lights reappeared in the mirror. Damn! I can’t believe I’m going to get a ticket. But the radar god was gracious that day. The SUV pulled someone else over. Now, what to do with all this adrenaline?

New York is really anal about their seatbelt laws. Solar-powered signs littered the highway with “Click It or Ticket. It’s the Law.” Why is this so important that you need all this hardware every 30 miles? Fines double in work zones. Two tickets for work zone violation result in suspension of license. Cell phones verboten.

A Trip Down Musical Memory Lane

My back was hurting and I was tired as I got close to Warwick. (I was listening to Eckhart Tolle on CD, which is probably not wise on a long trip. I switched to the radio.) I saw a sign saying, “Welcome to Florida.” My reptilian brain panicked! How could I have gotten to Florida??? Then my evolved brain intervened and read the sign again, “Village of Florida.”

This reminded me of a trip I took to Italy, intending to go to Rome. Instead of driving south through Austria and down the west coast of Italy, I took a wrong turn and drove east through Austria. When my boyfriend Dennis woke up, he discovered my error. Whoops. We ended up in Lido di Jesolo and pitched a tent. We went sidewalk shopping and kept seeing T-Shirts and posters with the word Venezia on them. What is Venezia? Oooooh, it’s Venice! the place of $6 cokes and dirty waterways. Not a bad outcome after all.

I was listening to Seventies on Seven and John Denver was singing Rocky Mountain High. An avalanche of memories fell on me. From when I bought John Denver albums as a teen. A girlfriend who was in love with John. Memories of my grandfather’s house in Chico, California, and hearing the feather bed song, hunting the creek for crawdads. I began to cry, deeply touched by the beauty of the John’s voice. For a lost childhood, a lost innocence, a whole life ahead of me. A time when mortality was never considered.

The next song was by KC and the Sunshine Band. Now I was back at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, in the summer for Army basic training and AIT. Time off was celebrated in hot, stifling bars dancing to 70s disco, and getting ripped on cheap beer, dripping with sweat, meeting lots of boys, falling in love with a drill sergeant (or two).

Then Mr. Bojangles played. My memory of this song was painfully jumbled with memories of other depressing songs of loss that my mother played after my father left us for another woman, a woman we all knew because our family was friends with her family, and she worked for my father. But then her husband died, and my dad took his place. Sammy Davis Jr.’s version of Bojangles was my mother’s favorite.

Bette Midler singing Breaking Up Somebody’s Home and Skylark. Barbra Streisand, Peggy Lee, Neil Diamond, a rotating playlist about broken love to intensify the effects of her drinking and pain. My favorite heartbreak song was John Denver’s Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas.

I finally arrived at my niece’s. Here, another piece of my past, held in my arms. The only family I’ve seen in a couple years. Perhaps the only family I care to see.

The last time I saw her was when I visited my sister (her mother) right after her husband left for another woman. It was a visit to hell punctuated by the crying and screaming of yet another drunk woman suffering another crushing loss. And my niece, a young woman, trapped in the same home.

I chose not to have children. Didn’t want to pass on this legacy, and didn’t feel strong enough to overcome it. Will my niece embrace the tradition if her husband leaves her, and pass the legacy to her girls? I hope it never comes to that.

I just heard about a six-figure Consumer Alliance between the Coca-Cola Company and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

The Consumer Alliance is a program that allows corporate partners like The Coca-Cola Company to work with the AAFP to educate consumers about the role their products can play in a healthy, active lifestyle. As part of this partnership, The Coca-Cola Company is providing a grant to the AAFP to develop consumer education content on beverages and sweeteners for FamilyDoctor.org, an award-winning consumer health and wellness resource.

You’ve got to be kidding me? The scary part is the term “award-winning.” Who’s passing out the awards?

For those of you who don’t know this, Coca-Cola is not a food! It’s a chemical concoction full of HFCS and caffeine that is highly addicting and contributes to obesity and disease.

Its high calorie content also displaces nutrients in food. In other words, if you drink 600 calories a day of Coke, then that’s a potential 600 calories of nutrient-dense food you won’t be eating. Additionally, converting the sugar to usable energy takes up vitamins and minerals from your reserves, so it’s an anti-nutrient.

Yes, it tastes good, but chemists could make my cat’s crap taste good by adding flavor chemicals.

Dr. Rhona Applebaum, vice president and chief scientific and regulatory officer at The Coca-Cola Company, said:

Our partnership will help provide Americans with credible information on beverages and enable consumers to make informed decisions about what they drink based on individual need.

Credible information? At least reading this article is good for my health because it makes me laugh, which makes my nervous and immune systems happy.

But what happens when an organization receives funding from another organization? Well, it doesn’t want to risk offending its contributor by posting negative information and the information it does post is largely informed by the one with the money. You know, like politics and lobby groups.

A Harvard University nutrition expert, Dr. Walter Willett, wrote in an email:

Coca-Cola, like other sodas, causes enormous suffering and premature death by increasing the risks of obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, gout, and cavities… [the academy] should be a loud critic of these products and practices, but by signing with Coke their voice has almost surely been muzzled.

(Where’s Frederick Stare when you need him? He was the former head of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and was dubbed “The Sugar King” because of his support of the sugar industry. Maybe there’s hope yet for Harvard.)

In response, AAFC CEO Dr. Douglas Henley said that the deal won’t influence the group’s public health messages, and that the company will have no control over editorial content. He said the new online information will include research linking soft drinks with obesity and will focus on sugar-free alternatives.

HFCS or Aspartame? Pick your poison, folks. Of course, everyone just knows there’s nothing wrong with Aspartame, right?

The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company, refreshing consumers with nearly 500 sparkling and still brands.

“Refreshing” is not the word I would use.

Hey, do you like soft drinks? Why settle for the run-of-the-mill, artificial, mass-produced, chemical concoctions. Here’s a great video I saw on the different soft drinks available to consumers. If I hadn’t given up sugar, I’d happily try some of these for a rare treat. Now this guy knows his soda! Check it out:

References:
American Academy of Family Physicians Launches Consumer Alliance With First Partner: The Coca-Cola Company

Family doctors group loses members over Coke deal

On November 11 I gave up refined sugar. I indulged in gobs of ice cream and daily mochas the few weeks prior to the big day, and practically made myself sick with sugar. I’ve been sugar-free a whole week. Woo hoo!

For several days I’ve had headaches and aches in the back of my legs, mostly behind my knees. I’ve also had odd aches and pains in my knee joints and hips. The knee pain is reminiscent of when I had arthritis. Mostly I’m just tired. I’ve read that it can take several weeks for the body to switch from a sugar-burning metabolism to a fat-burning metabolism. I am happy to report that I’ve lost three pounds.

Sugar cravings lasted only a couple days, and now I’m pretty comfortable and steady. But at night after dinner I like to watch TV and eat a couple pomegranates. We’re just now starting the pomegranate season and my local Wegmans sells huge beauties at two dollars each. So I am getting some sugar, but all refined sugars are off the table.

On another note, since giving up sugar my salt cravings have diminished. Or maybe it’s just because of the supplements I’m taking now.

I got my side of beef last week. Last night I roasted and ate a chuck roast and steamed asparagus. The night before I roasted a pasture-raised chicken with root vegetables. It’s fun learning how to cook. In a couple weeks my side of pork will be ready for pickup.

My friend Pete and I went to see 2012 on Friday. If you like special effects, then you need to see this show in the theater, not on DVD. The story wasn’t so great (typical Hollywood serendipity with heroes escaping destruction at the last minute), but the action never stopped. WOW! Watching the world blow up is pretty entertaining. Are the Mayans and Hopis right? Will our planet’s poles shift 2012?

I bought us popcorn and when the cashier asked if I wanted butter, of course I said yes. I love buttery popcorn. Then I asked if it was real butter or soybean oil? He let me look at the container: partially hydrogenated soybean oil and butter flavor. Disgusting. Yeah, I ate it, because I had my heart set on it, but that’s the last time I eat popcorn from a theater. How could anyone in their right mind think that concoction is healthier than real butter? We’ve been hoodwinked!

I’ve spent most of the past few weeks learning my Mac and the video editing software Final Cut Express, I’ve published my first interview on Joanne Unleashed. It was originally going to be a Skype interview over the Internet, but I ended up doing it in my home. I used two cameras to record the interview, and I spent probably eight hours editing the two videos into one. I learned a lot, and I really enjoyed it. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I’ve decided to concentrate my health and nutrition information on another blog so I could be a little freer to post different things here that tickle me. I’m still a nut when it comes to health information, so you’ll get plenty of that here, but the other blog will concentrate on informative interviews.

So go on over and check out Joanne Unleashed.

Woo hoo!