The Facebook Message

For some unknown reason, Facebook decided that my email address at work was no longer viable, so they changed my address to me home address. This means in essence that all messages delivered to my email come to me at home. This is no problem at all, as I am usually in one of those two places.

A friend of mine on Facebook, who I know through a professional relationship had posted that she was moving to Calgary. I responded to her post on Facebook, that I used to live there, and still had many friends in Calgary, and if she needed information, I could always hook her up with a group of artists who may know the answers.

She responded with thanks etc., and I am not sure what happened next but at some point she said it was nice of me to offer help. I had made her feel better.

On my email page her message appeared, along with her photo because it’s a Facebook message. She is a beautiful young woman. The message says something about helping her to feel better etc.

My wife opened the email and my email appears first. She sees a photo of a young woman who she does not know (the professional relationship) who is thanking me for making her feel better.

I hardly have to explain the follow up conversation.

Fat Fun

I have had a long time problem with digesting fats. When the problem first appeared in a meaningful way, was when I thought I was having a heart attack, sometimes in the late 1990’s.

I drove myself, late at night, to the hospital and was taken in immediately when I told them I had chest pains. I was released several hours later with what they thought was indigestion. I realized that I had had a number of “incidents” in advance of this, and thought it uncomfortable and did nothing except found ways to relieve the pain and uncomfortability. I won’t go into ugly details but no doctor figured out what was wrong. I did, however, with my trusty computer self-diagnose to “fatty liver” and even better, through trial and error; figure out how to end the problem with a reduction of fat in my diet.

If I have too much fat, it seems to accumulate and pool and the trouble will begin. At the first sign of the problem, I need to stop fat intake for a while and it will go away.

I haven’t had a problem for five or six years.

Last night for Valentines Dinner we went out and had some specials at a local pub. I had a salad and a steak on a mound of garlic mashed potatoes, quite rich and covered in thick, rich brown mushroom gravy with a few veggies added. For dessert we split a chocolate tantin (I think it was called that) which was a soft, warm chocolate pastry baked with with cherries and pistachios, and homemade vanilla ice cream.

I had not considered this as a fat problem as it had been so long it never entered my mind, About 4 a.m. I awoke. I tried to return to bed and ended up getting a Zantac, drinking mint tea and watching TV for an hour. I did get back to bed for an hour before I had to get up.

I do have some memory left and remembered how bad it can be, and have vowed not to let that happen. My mother it turns out had the same problem which I remembered after she was gone, and would eat egg rolls but not the crust, or denuded fried chicken, to get the flavor but not the full fat. My Aunt reminded me of the situation.

My oldest son seems to have a version as well, so we have a pattern here.

Tonight’s pizza has been cancelled!

 

Visiting

I’ve been listening to old radio shows lately and they reminded me of “visiting”.

When I was a kid, we used to go visiting on Sunday afternoons sometimes, which seems, to my memory, almost a random stop at the homes of friends and relatives to say hi, and maybe share a coffee or a coke and a cookie or two. This started when I was a toddler, and so my memory of these times is flawed.

We had a car which made us mobile. Many people didn’t have cars, or didn’t have or wouldn’t use the gas rationing coupons to get there. I may not really have this memory, but I still have my ration books from the Second World War and this may just be a thought for me. However, cars were not owned by everyone.

In my neighbourhood as I remember (I was 5 when we moved there), there were cars but not one for every family. During the war cars weren’t available, and there were not models produced from 1942 through 1945. In 1941, more than three million cars were manufactured in the United States. Only 139 more were made during the entire war.

Basically, the used car was at a premium.

We may have had more reasons to visit, as my father was home for a year or two, and my mother was probably trying to get him out of the house, although by the time we moved to the newer place that was over and my father was working. My memory gives out a bit, but visiting is still the focus here.

I think we may have called first to say we were coming, but I’m not sure on this point. Everyone didn’t have a phone, and many people lived in the same neighbourhood and I believe we just dropped in on people, which by today’s standards seems rude.

I remember we visited many people who didn’t have children, so I sat around and drank hot chocolate and ate cookies which may explain my continual eating obsession. Later in the 50’s I can remember visiting my Aunt and Uncle giving me a chance to watch TV, something I had never seen before (and have a coke and eat cookies).

Visiting has gone from my life. It just went out of fashion. Maybe as someone who lives not near family, it has gone, and families still do it. I have not lived near family since 1978, and therefore my relationship with visiting seems to have ended. As well, everyone has a car, and lots of extracurricular activities to keep them busy, so it never occurs to people to just visit. I also am an only child so I eliminate brothers and sisters and their family and my wife’s sister lives in Texas.

Last weekend a friend had broken his leg, and we went and had a visit. We brought a bottle of wine, had a few snacks and went home, happy and smiling. Everyone had a good time for a few hours, and no one had to do anything extraordinary.

It was a visit, of course. There were no kids directly involved, and we talked about our kids and our mutual friends and the broken leg, and it was good.

I want to visit more often.

A Valentines Memory (not so good)

I was living many years ago in a small, semi-detached home in downtown Birmingham, Michigan, long since torn down to make way for the new. I was newly separated and enjoying my bachelor life. It was about this same time of year, but the weather was pretty good, a mild kind of day.

I was upstairs in my bedroom, the college dorm room I never had as a commuter student, with my single mattress on the floor. I was “entertaining” a young lady, and while we were in the midst of an inter- coital moment I heard a banging at my door. I don’t think I had an actual bell, so banging was what it was.

I knew that I didn’t want to be interrupted and that my car and my friend’s car were both parked outside. I did live however, downtown, so that one could easily walk to shopping, and since it was after work hours, about 5:00 p.m., I could easily not be home. My friend’s car was not noticeable, unless you knew her, so we were safe from anyone knowing we were there. My door also was locked, thankfully, because the person at the door tried the lock.

I heard my name being called out and I froze. I knew who it was. At my door was a young lady I was dating at the time, and there was no way I could explain being in here with another, unless we were downstairs dressed and sitting in the living room drinking tea.

I jumped up and crouched (we were after all quite naked) and looked out of the window to confirm my suspicions. I saw her car outside and knew I was caught!

My answer was to explain to my companion that the young woman at my door was a sort of stalker who was pestering me, and it was best if we left her alone and she would eventually go away. As luck would have it, she eventually went away and I was left with a lame excuse and had a devil of a tiome trying to reset the mood of a few minutes before.

Later that evening, my partner left, and we walked to the door together.

Pinned to my door was a 3’ Valentines heart and a box of chocolates was placed on my door stoop.

I felt very bad. First of all my partner realized that perhaps I had minimised the relationship with the mystery stalker and my valentine guest needed a lot of explaining to get me out of the situation.

Being single after 20 years plus took a lot of learning. I had no excuses, I just screwed up.