Biggest Loser

Oops, I did it again. I made my daughter feel bad about something she shouldn't feel bad about. My weight. She's a fan of Biggest Loser as are about 300 of my closest associates and friends. I've watched it, but I liked it a lot more two years ago right after I'd lost 30 pounds. Now that those pounds have found me again, the show is not my favorite and I get defensive when anyone a) watches it, b) talks about it, c) finds inspiration in it, and d) wonders why I can't just hunker down and lose the extra 80 pounds that are tearing my seams and my self-confidence apart.


To be fair, the people I know only do a, b, and c. But I suspect them of d. I mean, I wonder why I can't do it. Eat less, move more. It's an easy solution when you break it down. True, the contestants on Biggest Loser have a support system like no other, but I have everything I need. Meanwhile my daughter is quite sure that my weight is going to cause health problems that will shorten my life. She's probably right, but not many of us are motivated by what may happen some day. No one in the world would smoke if they could see future lung cancer or emphesema in a crystal ball (or a hazy ball as the case might be). The odds are pretty overwhelming that I will have weight related issues--I already do, but that likelihood doesn't seem to keep me from eating four extra cookies.


Have I mentioned that I eat too much of certain kinds of foods at specific times? Actually, I could come up with all of the usual excuses: slow metabolism, carbohydrate addiction, my mother's hips, my father's height, too much stress at work, too much stress at home. And exercise? I have a little sign on my desk that sums it up pretty well: I get enough exercise just pushing my luck. Also, I run late all the time. Does that count?

Here are some other pithy little sayings some of my dear, if rare, readers may enjoy:
*The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.
*Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate.
*The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it. (Joan Rivers)
*I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm
going to use up mine running up and down a street. (Neil Armstrong on jogging)
*I might as well exercise - I'm in a bad mood anyway!
*I'm in shape. Round is a shape... isn't it?
*I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain. (Carol Leifer)
*Jogging is good for your heart, but it makes your feet mad!
*Running is very good for you, if you don't overdo it. You should stop when you know
your body can't take it. For instance, I stopped running when I was eight.
*People who exercise regularly are prepared for pain. Take joggers: you see them

plodding along, clearly hating every minute of it, and you think, "What's the point?" But
years from now, when you're struggling to adjust to the pains of the aging process, the
joggers, who have been in constant agony for 20 years, will be able to make the
transition smoothly, unless they're already dead. (Dave Barry)
*The trouble with jogging is that by the time you realize you're not in shape for
it, it's too far to walk back. (Franklin Jones)

Now for the moment of truth. Since starting this entry, I have spent 6 weeks following a protein shake diet my son suggested. I have lost 15 pounds (re-lost, so I'm not thrilled yet, but when I've lost another 5 or 10, I will start losing weight I gained 15 years ago and that will be cool). I have been riding my bike, putting 10,000 steps on my little pink pedometer, and I feel pretty good overall. I've thrown away the voodoo doll I made of my son after he yelled at me for eating watermelon ("I did not yell at you Mom; I just told you not to eat fruit in the morning or your body would burn those carbohydrates and not the stored fat on your body.") and called to thank him when I put on a previously tight dress.

Let me just say this to those of you who are naturally thin and who enjoy exercising as much as I enjoy reading: Sometimes I don't like you very much.

An addendum to "Hilarious"

The minute I hit 'post,' I knew I would remember lots more funny things. And I did. A few need recognition:
1. The time that Leslie, Jeanette, Jana and I went geo-caching at the Boise mall when Jana was a few days from giving birth to my first grandson. Never mind that we're acting like Nancy Drew wannabes searching for some invisible prize, crawling around behind shrubbery, looking into the potted plants in the mall itself (yes, we found it). What was hilarious was when Jana had to go to the bathroom. HAD to go. And was laughing. And was outside the mall. No, she didn't do that!! She just ran (as only a 9 month pregnant woman can) into Sears, demanded that the nearest clerk tell her where a bathroom was and then gave him a withering stare when he whispered, "Upstairs." We were right behind her and the man was literally trembling. She made it!
2. The Pam and Jana Detective Agency. Our most famous case (infamous--that means more than famous, Three Amigos quote) was tracking down an elusive painter on his lunch hour in the Collister area. We staked out one poor house for an hour whose workers had taken some time off, only to not recognize our painter when they came back. We went into a nursing home to ask directions (? to what? we didn't have an address) and somehow cleverly found the person, who married Jana anyway even though she and her mother are dorks.
3. Cody driving backwards in the middle of Missouri or some nearby state while we were looking for Amish people. "It can't be over there--I see power lines." Sam, you missed that trip. Another reason to be thankful for your mission.

Things That are Hilarious

I've noticed a rather somber tone in my blogs thus far. Since what I'm writing are essays, I could just excuse myself by saying I'm a serious person writing about serious things. That would be false, though. I'm a funny person writing mostly about serious things. So, in the event that I'm creating a downer blog for the huge group of 5 people I've given this address to, I'm going to record things wherein I find humor.

Really stupid jokes. Here are my current favorites: What did the fish say when he ran into the concrete wall? Dam. What did one cannibal say to the other cannibal when they finished eating the clown? Did that meat taste funny to you?

Really funny movies. 1. Sgt. Bilko (Steve Martin version) Ooh, bad turnout.
2. The Three Amigos (again, Steve Martin, hmmm) Could it be Jefe, that once again you are mad at something else and are taking it out on me? (not verbatim) 3. Get Smart I'll have to wait and see it again with Quinn to find my favorite lines. We laughed so hard it hurt.

Pretty funny TV shows. Anything Tina Fey writes or stars in is hilarious. It's true.

Sam.

Memories. Singing a hymn in Church with David about 40 years ago in Twin Falls. We'd finished the third out of 4 verses when he vigorously closed the book and prepared for the closing prayer when we immediately (duh) noticed everyone else was still singing. We laughed so hard during the prayer I could feel the pew shaking.

Playing any number of games with Hunters at their house with all or several of their children and mine. Justin and Ryan are almost as funny as their father and their Aunt Pam.

David and Sage introducing us to the game Who, What, Where. If you've never heard of it or played it, I feel very sorry for you.

Playing golf one year with Larry and maybe David but mostly I remember Ryan and Justin and Quinn. Quinn was playing for his first time and Ryan kept calling him Lucy or Sally or something. I just remember it being very very funny. And since I believe we were playing on Dec. 17, the anniversary of my father's birth, it's nice that I remember laughing and not freezing.

Telling jokes, watching Get Smart and My Favorite Martian, and just hanging around my father, the original very funny Hunter family member.

Flocking a Christmas tree in our patio in Twin Falls and Larry and David making me laugh so hard that, thank you very much, I did actually wet my pants, not that it's any of your business!

Moods--Good, Bad and Ugly

Emotional lability. Not many people know what this term means, and sometimes confuse the second word with liability. They are not far off. Sometimes emotions can be a liability. Even though an excess of emotion or a lack of control of such has been a burden in my life, I have always maintained that I would rather battle too many moods than too few. It's like seasons; I'd rather live in four seasons than have mild weather all year round, even though I dislike winter and loathe summer (just the heat). As long as I can see out of the windows of my warm house in December and my air conditioned house in July at the beauty of the world, I like all four seasons. But I digress.

Emotional lability in a person tends to make their moods swing more often for less reason. It can be a profound symptom in something like bi-polar disorder or an annoying symptom of PMS. I don't know enough about it to label it a condition on its own accord or solely a symptom of other conditions, although I do know something about the latter. I am not bi-polar, but emotional lability is a symptom of a disease I know well. Multiple Sclerosis.

I was diagnosed with MS about 12 years ago. It's as scary as they say it is to be diagnosed because the unpredictability of the course the disease will take is considerable. Over a decade in, I appear to be one of the lucky ones in many respects. I look okay. Only in the heat do I limp and them almost unnoticeably. No one sees out of my left eye but me, so they don't know things get blurry. There are a few symptoms I actually spare my friends and family from knowing about and some that come and go. Fatique is my constant companion and although my IQ is as respectable as ever, there are times that I know my memory issues are MS related rather than because of age. This past week, I have discovered that something I have been dealing with a great deal in the past year may very well be a worsening symptom of my MS. Emotional lability.

Here's a short synopsis of the way my emotions malfunction, especially when I'm tired. (I teach middle school 25 miles from my home and am an assistant coach for a high school debate team which has many Friday night and Saturday tournaments. I'm always tired.) My feelings are fragile. My students don't hurt my feelings. I am an adult. Other adults hurt my feelings. Unintentionally. My adult children hurt my feelings. Regularly. Although my kids know I misinterpret their comments and am hurt, they think I should be mature enough to realize they don't mean anything bad and that they love me profoundly. I cry when I don't mean to. I don't mind crying if I have a good reason, but it's humiliating to cry when I think someone has been mean to me. My goodness, I'm not seven years old.

As I look back over the last twelve months, I realize that things have been worse for awhile. The daughter I adore can barely say a word without me taking it in the worst possible way. One administrator at school finds reasons to send me emails at least once a year correcting me for something I'm not doing right and I react to these emails with about 6 different emotions, all of which make it worse. The thing that bothers me most is my own reaction to my over-reactions. I am not only embarrassed, but demoralized. Questions run through my mind as to why I'm not more mature, why I need approval, and most of all why I keep doing things that make other people mad at me. Now I wonder if they're any madder at me that any given person is toward any other given person. Am I paranoid or is there really someone out to get me?

My initial thought when realizing my bounty of emotional responses (when I am happy, I am very, very happy; when I am sad I am hopeless) was quite likely to be linked to my MS, was pure relief. I can accept my difficulties with mood swings much more readily if I think it's part of the disease instead of some unfixable flaw in my character. After all, if my legs were weak and I used a cane, would that bring negative judgment from others? Of course not. But moodiness and depression bring out quite different reactions from people. Most of us acknowledge the weakness and limitations of our bodies, but our minds are not supposed to be weak. We should have control over our minds. Only in the last 30 years has depression been accepted as an illness, and even then, once you're on medication, you are expected to cheer up and not talk about it.

My relief quickly turned to a probable reality. I could imagine what would happen if after a conversation left me in tears, I explained, "Sorry. I have MS." It reminds me of students at school who act out and then say, "It's not my fault. I have ADHD."

I thought about times when my daughter and I have switched roles of parent and child. This role reversal is due largely to my habit of relying on her too much when I was first diagnosed (in the midst of a divorce and my oldest son's downward spiral into life-threatening habits). It's only when I go through overly emotional bouts (which I rarely see coming or even see afterwards) that she and I return to this role reversal, usually leaving me with hurt feelings and her frustrated with my neediness.

Meanwhile, what will I do with these new realizations? I can get away with crying over things that are moving or tragic. I can avoid situations where I might take a comment too personally, but working with other teachers, parents and administrators makes that unlikely. I know getting more sleep would help since fatigue--sorry everyone who stayed up too late last night, but I'm talking about MS fatigue here--makes every symptom exponentially more severe.

One thing I know for certain. My time of denial is over. I have MS. Even though I don't think I'll ever be in a wheelchair or a nursing home because of it, it's time to admit what part it does play in my life. It's not the worst thing to ever happen to me. I am lucky that the course it's taking seems to be slow. Still, although I don't need sympathy, I may need understanding on a level I have not asked for. Maybe people will just have to cut me some slack when I seem to cry over unimportant things. Being loved unconditionally, sensitive moods and all, sounds pretty wonderful to me. For my part, I'll try to act like an adult--but even adults need a little patience once in awhile.

Leaving Children Behind

I wonder who came up with the now infamous legislative misnomer "No Child Left Behind." I'd like to think it was someone who was well-meaning, someone who meant it. The political cynic in me is afraid they knew all along that it would be a shield from criticism of a crummy piece of legislation. Really, who can argue with not leaving children behind? I'd also like to think it was truly a bi-partisan debaucle, just so I don't have to blame the Republicans for one more thing, but it smacks of an example of that kind of "conservative compassionate" attempt to hold a visable hand out to help while using the other hand to block the funding of programs like Head Start, affordable housing and health care. Because make no mistake about this--children are being left behind from conception and no amount of blaming schools is going to catch them up to where they deserve to be.


I'm not completely uninformed about this subject. I am the mother of four children who have all attended public schools, and I have been a public school teacher for nearly a decade. In fact, I have worked professionally with children of one age or another since I received my degree in Child Development 30 years ago. I've worked with developmentally delayed preschoolers, hearing impaired students in grades K-12, autistic students, gifted teenagers and plain old run-of-the-mill middle schoolers, whatever that means. I've taught students who came from affluent, two-parent families and students whose parents were in prison. I've taught children who were abused and students who were abusive. It's not our public schools which are leaving children behind; there are many ways a child can be advantaged or disadvantaged; there are many avenues for a society that wants to help.


Because of the condition the ecomony is in, some changes are going to be made to many tax supported programs on both a federal level and a state level. Rumors of cutting programs are running rampant. Schools are not immune and teachers know that there will be less money to go around. Cuts do have to be made, but when politicians stand in front of cameras and talk about not leaving children behind and then refuse to fund the sort of programs that would keep them from being left behind in the first place, maybe it's time to acknowledge that it may be the lawmakers are the ones who are behind.

STMMTO

I'd like to write my own obituary. With my tendency to procrastinate, I probably won't get around to it. I'd also like to design my own headstone, but the darn things are so expensive that I think I'll just let my children pick out something simple and cheap. If I did get to choose, I'd like one of several favorite sayings engraved on it. "Everyone Needs a Proofreader" is one I've thought of, but irony would step in and someone would misspell my name. I wouldn't mind something noble or even schmaltzy like a quote from Don Quixote or a line from Desiderata but I refuse to have someone be cynical at my graveside, and you've got to know someone would be a smart-aleck about anything sentimental.



My actual choice if given one would likely be the title of this blog--Some Things Matter More Than Others. STMMTO. In my classroom, I have four things listed that matter: People, Effort, Respect and Attitude. Those are important for a classroom, but if I had to choose what things matter over the course of my life, I would choose these four: Family, Friends, Faith and um . . . no, I can't have a cute alliterative saying on my headstone forever. Maybe I'll lump family and friends into People; Faith is important but so is Hope, but if I added that, I'd have to include Charity and then I . . . . . . no, I can't do that either. The truth is that some things do matter more than others, but it's hard to put that into four words.

For example, I've been a volunteer at our library for a couple of years. I love it. I get to sort books and price them for the store that the Friends of the Public Library have. I usually worked 4-8 hours a week, but I had to stop for awhile. It's a busy year and I was a little over-extended. One of the things keeping me busy are the two cutest grandsons in the world. My daughter is finishing her degree--two semesters to go--four nights a week. My son-in-law works a 6 pm to 6 am shift right now so I'm the designated nanny at least two nights a week. I have my own nanny's quarters (fine, it's a guest room that other people use, too) so I can spend the night. Since they live in the town I teach in, 25 miles from my house, I stay over even though she gets home about 9:30 pm. Volunteering at the library is a good thing to do. It matters. Helping my daughter any way I can to finish her degree matters more. I can't help her financially and while it's a stretch to say I'm helping at all since I'd be at her house seeing the boys at least that often anyway, it is something she needs.

Time is usually inherent in my choice of what matters to me, as is money. I guess anything you have a finite supply of becomes important when you decide how to spend it. And so here's some of what matters to me: paying tithes and offerings, books, visiting friends in other states (and countries when I'm lucky), reading to Clyde and Will, playing board games with my family, attending the Temple, and tending to the plants inside and outside of my house. I spend money on silly things that don't matter, but not too much and not too often. I watch a little more TV than I should, but again, not too much and not too often. There are a few things that should matter more to me like exercise, but I'm far from perfect in levels of self-discipline.

Meanwhile, back to my headstone. My parents actually have four words each on their headstones. My dad's reads, "Husband, Father, Teacher, Friend" and my mom's words are "Calm, Loyal, Loving, Strong." Maybe four words can be meaningful. Maybe I'll borrow from them--Pamela Hunter-Braden, Loving Mother, Teacher, Friend. I like it. No rush though--I need 30 or so more years to practice doing what matters most.

Learning a Second Language--Blogging

I'm fairly old according to my grown children. I tell people that I may not be older than dirt, but that I am older than a major South American capital. I was born in 1954; Brasilia, Brazil was built from the ground up in 1958.

My age does not bother me. In fact, I have yet to feel that I am on the downhill side of life--every year is better than the year past. I've always felt that my days here on the earth will be plentiful and that death will open a door to someplace better.

I have always expressed myself in writing. From grade school stories to junior high poems replete with teen-age angst to essays and papers in high school and college stating my (obviously correct) opinions about everything, I have put my thoughts in print.

First I used paper and pen, then a nifty little portable Smith Corona electric typewriter. I think I adjusted fairly well to using a computer, if for no other reason than the almost magical cut and paste technology. I write in journals, in notebooks, and on a blueberry Mac that I have to say goodbye to because I am reluctantly entering the PC world so that I can transfer my writing to my school computer or to my daughter's with more ease.

Learning necessary technology, however, is one thing. Blogging is another thing all together. "Blog" isn't even a word. (Neither is email for that matter.) I have made unkind statements about bloggers--referring to their need for real lives and assuming that they were a bunch of incompetent writers who couldn't get published anywhere else. Label me whatever you will--I can think of several cutting remarks without anyone's help. Then I read my daughter's blog. She has been a gifted writer for as long as she could write, and her blogs are one more evidence of that.

The truth is that I'm not writing enough. I teach creative writing, but I'm not writing. I start and stop, make and break resolutions, but ultimately I keep moving toward the unacceptable destination of Regret.

I've made numerous mistakes, endured a few life trials and chosen quite badly once or twice, but right now there are no significant regrets in my 54 years. Except the one. Not writing enough--often enough or well enough.

And so I've entered this foreign land of blogging. Not to change the world, not to entertain anyone, not to assuage my guilt for wasting time in the past, but simply to write. I don't require an actual audience; thinking that someone might possibly read this is enough to inspire me to edit, improve and rewrite. And if that means I have to embrace the language of technology a bit more completely than I planned, so be it.

Here's to blogging and whatever future technology has to offer to the world of words.