Remembering Rod

Earlier this morning, our good family friend, Rod, passed away. My dad (on the left) and Rod (on the right) met during the Vietnam war, when they both served in the Army and were stationed in Japan. I heard lots of stories about that time in their lives, because Rod moved in with my dad and mom when I was a little girl. He had fallen on hard times, and they took him in. I have such great memories of him. He was the kind of guy who treated everyone equally, was honest, and treated me like a person and not just some kid. And he was so smart. He read so many books, and taught me so many things. I'll never forget him explaining how lightening and thunder happen, or even teaching me about his struggle with diabetes.

He was part of our lives on and off. After my parents divorced, we didn't see him for awhile. I later came to understand that he was upset by their split and didn't want to choose sides, knowing that my dad was making a huge mistake, and yet being unable to change the outcome. Rod loved my mom a lot, too, and it was hard for him to see the happy family he'd known and lived with come to an end. It wasn't until some years later that my dad found him again, living in some crappy apartment in Seattle, and then recently in a crummy motel before needing to go to a nursing home for 24-hour care. He never had a lot, but didn't seem to care. Never got married (wasn't the marrying kind, he said) and never had kids.

A couple of months ago after we'd reconnected, he mentioned that he'd like to see my mom. So, she and I went to visit him at the home and they finally got the chance to talk though the hurt that happened all those years ago. Turns out that my mom was frustrated with Rod at the time for not trying to do more to convince my dad to stay, and that Rod just knew it wouldn't make a difference at that point and was sad to see it end but felt guilt over not doing more. She was able to ease his guilt and sadness by explaining that she's gone on to have a good life with my step dad and that things happened the way they should have. She understands now that nothing Rod could have said or done would have changed my dad's choices at that time. And he got to know that she was no longer upset with him about that. So, there was some closure there.

It wasn't diabetes that claimed Rod's life. It was surely a complication, but not the whole story. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and outlived his oncologist's expectations by over a year. L. and dad and I spent Christmas Eve with him, and were visiting him at his nursing home a lot toward the end. A couple of weeks ago he went to the VA hospital with pneumonia, and unfortunately due to my having a cold, I could not visit. Again, I didn't make it in time. I planned to see him this weekend with my dad so that I could say goodbye because it seemed that he had really taken a turn downhill.

I suppose that in some ways it might be better to remember him as I do. Christmas Eve. Outback Steakhouse. Love and companionship and good memories of other times and places. The promise of getting together again.

But, it doesn't feel better. I didn't make it again. Again.

Swimming

Tonight after work, I went to the Pro Club and swam laps. It felt good. I alternated between the butterfly, breast, and back strokes. When I was a kid, I LOVED to swim, and even after a full day of working on my grandparent's farm, we'd still all dive in to cool off and swim, swim, swim the evening away.

I was a little apprehensive about 1) being in a swimsuit in front of people (at a health club, no less) and 2) the etiquette involved in sharing a lane with someone. Luckily, they had a sign at each lane explaining how to warn another person in the lane that you're entering, etc. And I just had to get over myself about being in a swimsuit. In front of people. A lot of healthy-looking people. At a gym.

So, I managed 20 minutes straight of alternating the strokes before things started to get a little busy. So, I hopped out of the lane to give others a chance. But it was a good start, and if I can leave about 15 minutes earlier next time, I should be able to get in a full 1/2 hour before it starts getting full.

The nice thing about swimming is that it's easier on my joints, such as my elbows and knees, than some of the other activities I've tried like weight lifting and running. I think once I lose a bit more weight, those other activities will be easier for me to do again without injuring myself. But swimming will be a good low impact, yet challenging way to get my endurance back and lose some of the weight I've gained.

You know what?

I can't stop listening to that song, Set the Fire to the Third Bar by Snow Patrol (featuring Martha Wainwright). I'm not a huge Snow Patrol fan, but this song has been featured on the Dear John movie trailer and I really connected with it. Of course, I love Rufus Wainwright, so it's neat to hear his sister, Martha, on this track. Good stuff, that.

Time machine

Sometimes I really wish that I had a time machine so that I could go back in time and do things differently. But I suppose that would introduce that whole sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind thing where you wouldn't reap the benefits of what you learn along the way. Also, in related news, I wish that the economy would improve and that the real estate market would recover a bit.

That's it for the fantasy portion of today's entry. In other news, I'm down 7 pounds over the last couple of weeks. That's with doing South Beach diet (sort of) and taking the dog on a few extra walks. We haven't really started Phase 1 of South Beach, since we had some good carb foods around that I didn't have the heart to throw out. So, we've been working on eating better overall and not surprisingly, it's working. I cooked a couple of things last night and put everything in the fridge so that it's easy to grab something healthy instead of going through the drive through on the way home. And I've been much better about drawing the line between work and home life recently. It's still hard for me to not check my email a lot in the evenings, but I'm getting better. And I only had one late night last week. So, it's a start. Progress, not perfection.

I also watched the Biggest Loser tonight to see what it's all about. It was interesting when they had a segment where the female trainer had to eat food (read: junk) that one team was eating before starting the show. She gagged and spit it out, then talked about how awful it was and berated them for eating it in the first place, asking them how they could ever eat such stuff. I get her position, but it seemed to be more of the shaming behavior rather than an actual discussion about why they began to eat that way and why it continued. Truth is, there are probably many reasons they ended up eating that kind of "food" and shaming them about it isn't going to help. Addressing why they started eating that way, and why their bodies alter to crave and tolerate such foods would be a better tactic. Education, not shame. There's already enough shame with being overweight as it is.

From one episode, I can't really say whether their approach is that good or not. Surely it has helped many people, but I'm not sure how realistic it is. I could feel the pain of one contestant who weighed in tonight and had lost a few pounds this week, after having lost 17 pounds last week. She was so disappointed, and she looked so defeated as her trainer explained that her body would have to adjust. Someone should explain that losing 17 pounds in one week (or rather a significant amount of weight depending on someone's total weight to lose) is more common in the first week due to water loss and that it starts to balance out as you continue to move and eat better. That's why it's so easy to fall off the wagon when things start getting tough. You have big losses at first and then it starts to even out and become less and less. That happens even more frequently when you have less to lose. So some of the contestants will continue to lose huge amounts of weight because they have a much larger percentage of weight to lose and it will be easier until the difference between their ideal weight and current weight dwindles. I dunno. I'm not sure I'll continue to watch it, but I thought it might have some good information and be inspirational. We'll see...

Start your engines

It's that time of year again when I start my New Year's resolution. Usually, my resolution has to do with making my ass smaller. This year, that is part of it, but my real resolution is to live my life with more balance. As I sit here the night before starting work again, I'm reminded of how nice this last week and a half was with my family and friends. I had time to take better care of myself, sleep until I felt rested, read books for fun, and (gasp!) go to a movie with L.

It could go without saying that I do not do those things when I'm in full swing at work. But I am saying it to remind myself that my life in 2009 was wwwwaaaayyy out of whack. And therein lies the problem. My career has led me to a degree of financial security that I have not previously had. However, my financial rewards come at a rather high cost to my personal time, health, and relationships with people I care about. While I always strive to overperform and deliver on my work commitments, everything else falls off the face of the earth and that's just not healthy.

I'm not entirely sure how I will be able to balance everything, but I know that I have to try and get things under better control than they were last year. Of course, I'm hopeful that 2010 will bring less family problems and death as well.

My goals to be in better balance are:
1. Eat more healthy, more often throughout the day. This includes cooking more meals at home and making better choices when I eat out. L. and I are starting up the South Beach Diet tomorrow, which is similar to, but not quite as strict as, what I did on 20/20. If I can get to a place where I do that even 3/4 of the year (allowing for inevitable setbacks, holidays, etc.), I would be a much healthier person than I am today. If I can get to even that level of accomplishment, I will be happy. I know that I need to eat more frequently throughout the day to keep cravings from creeping in, too.
2. Move my butt. I really hate exercising. Everyone says to find something that you like to do, but honestly I am really not an active person and finding something interesting that doesn't make me want to bash my head in after 5 minutes is pretty tough. Coming off of the fall where I started having some joint problems, early carpal tunnel signs, and tennis elbow, I've learned that I need to be a lot more careful with the kinds of exercise I do. For now, I figure if I can get in 2 days a week of good cardio, that will be a start. I'll alternate that with more walking each day. So, I'll look for a couple of good classes at Gold's Gym for the 2 days of cardio, and aim to walk Oli more frequently around the neighborhood on at least 2 other days of the week. It's a start. Of course, this will require me to get home at a decent hour to do said exercise, since exercising in the AM puts me into a day-long coma, and a longing to just go back to bed and pass out.
3. ...which leads me to #3: leave work at a decent hour. And when I work from home, shut the computer down at a decent hour. No more leaving the office at 11 PM, or conversing with members of my team at 2-3 AM. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get everything done in just 40 hours a week, but if I could even get it down to 45-50 hours a week, I'd feel pretty good about that. Hopefully my reviews won't suffer too badly.
4. Make weekends a time for relaxation and doing things with family and friends. This is pretty straight forward, but I'd like to get my work done during the week and not have to work weekends whenever possible.
5. Get to sleep at an acceptable hour. No more rolling into bed at 2-3 AM. Part of this will rely on my getting work done and being able to let go of the things that are beyond my means. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.

So, that's it. One of the things I finally did was hire a house cleaner to come in twice a month. It's a luxury that is totally worth it, and I think we'll hire someone to come in this spring to do the initial yard cleanup also. Then we just have to do the maintenance.

Some other things we hope to do this year:
* Sell my condo. We're renting it out now along with L.'s properties, but it's a lot to keep it all going and is more stress than it's really worth.
* Replace the windows in the house. It will make the house more energy efficient, and needs to be done as a few windows have blown their seals now.
* Replace/repair the fence. I think some sections are bad enough at this point to just be replaced, but some could probably be repaired without too much trouble. We'll have to find a good person to come take a look and let us know.
* Remove the overgrown pine tree in the backyard. The tree makes a huge mess with pine needles, and it's situated in a horrible spot right in one corner of our fence and outgrowing the spot. I'd like to pull it out and put in something that is smaller and more suited to growing next to a fence.
* Read more for fun. Lately I've been reading books like crazy, and I've been having a blast getting into the stories and character development.

That's it. At least I have a year to work on it, and I know that I won't be perfect or make it happen all at once. But hopefully by 12/31/2010, I can say that I have things under better control and more balanced in a healthy way.

Happy New Year

That is all...