Mishmash Musings

I haven’t posted about my weight-loss progress in a while, but I’m happy to say that I’m continuing to make inroads and am pretty much satisfied with where I’m at right now. I weigh myself at the gym once a week, and at the last weigh-in was 117.5 pounds. I would love to lose an additional 2.5 pounds to get down to a nice, even 115, but I’d be okay with staying at 117.5.

Before anyone goes off on me about wanting to lose weight when I’m “just” 117.5 pounds, let me say that I’m a small person. I’m approximately 5’2″ tall and have a small frame, so 117.5 pounds looks average — not anorexic or anything like that!

So how did I manage to get my weight under control? A combination of cardio, weight training, green tea, and even a few diet pills every now and then. I didn’t substantially change my eating habits (I still had pizza, McDonald’s, potato chips, etc. whenever I wanted), but did try to watch portion sizes a bit better.

Just imagine the progress I would have made if I eliminated junk food from my diet altogether! I always knew that eating was only one part of the equation. Personally, being active and mobile has always been more important to my weight loss (or gain) than what I actually eat.

As I was browsing around various blogs and news sites tonight, I noticed that Alexis Stewart, daughter of homemaker extraordinaire Martha Stewart, was garnering lots of attention. I had no idea why, since I didn’t think Alexis did anything except work for her mom and have some talk show on a Sirius station.

Finally, I came to Oprah’s site and saw that Alexis Stewart was on the Oprah Winfrey Show today talking about fertility issues she’s been having. Apparenlty, Stewart, 42, wants to have a baby very badly and is undergoing expensive IVF treatments to try to make that happen. Yeah, she’s apparently spending $28,000 a month on this.

Hmm, I’m not sure why this story is so newsworthy or why so many people are talking about it. Is Alexis Stewart the first (pseudo) celeb to have fertility issues? Is she the first celeb to openly discuss this sort of thing on Oprah? Seriously, what’s all the fuss about??

I have my next-to-last orthodontist appointment tomorrow. My ortho is basically just waiting for me to give him the green light to take my braces off, which is what I fully plan on doing tomorrow. I doubt he’s going to remove them on the spot, so I’ll have to go back again for that procedure, and then yet again for my retainers.

The thing is, I received a voice mail message (which I just heard this morning) from the receptionist at the office saying I need to bring $525 for my retainers… tomorrow!! I’m really angry about this, as I don’t have that kind of cash on hand right now. If they had told me a bit earlier, I would have easily been able to supply it. But I went and bough a Kindle, so will now have to use my credit card at my appointment.

People can be so clueless sometimes. My orthodontist is probably a pretty well-off guy who can afford to vacation in luxury Hilton Head rentals whenever he wants, but that doesn’t mean his patients are in the same income bracket. He should be a bit more considerate of potential financial difficulties and give notice of at least a week or two before asking for a $500+ payment!

Earlier this evening, I started seeing news stories pop up on Yahoo, MSN, and CNN regarding an apology from the Rev. Jesse Jackson to Presidential candidate Barack Obama. The articles were quite cryptic, however, and only referred to some “disparaging remarks” that Jackson apparently said about Obama. What those remarks were was anyone’s guess, as the articles didn’t actually come out and say.

So I had to do some digging, but I eventually found what I was looking for. I guess Jackson was talking about Obama’s speeches about morality (this was in answer to a question a reporter asked Jackson), and he said that Obama “can come off as speaking down to black people”.

Jackson then went on to say that Obama should spend more time talking about other issues “such as unemployment, the mortgage crisis and the number of blacks in prison.” (I’m quoting from the article this time, not Jackson.)

Personally, I didn’t find Jackson’s remarks to be that bad and can’t figure out what all the fuss is about. Why does everything have to be blown out of proportion like this? Isn’t it funny how everything is a non-issue until the media grabs hold of it? Sheesh!

So in the midst of all the ongoing madness at work, I’ve been given a couple days off this week just to regroup. See, I’m just supposed to be a consultant anyway, which means I’m not really required to be in the trenches on a daily basis. But because the company has been so shorthanded recently, I’ve had to fill in for regular employees.

Anyway, the company has things covered for tomorrow and Thursday, so I don’t have to go in. I plan on hitting the mall and perhaps treating myself to something nice as a reward for all the hard work I’ve done in the past two weeks. I’m not talking about diamond rings here, but maybe a cute top or a pair of sandals for the summer. Heck, I don’t even have to buy anything at all… just being able to stroll around at my leisure while snacking on a soft pretzel and Coke will be enough of a treat for me!

So were you one of the people who helped make Hancock another box office success for Will Smith over the long weekend? I wasn’t, but I’ll probably end up seeing it on DVD at some point — which is why I’m currently staying away from detailed reviews and message board postings about the flick. Apparently, there’s a major plot twist in the film that has fans divided, and I don’t want to hear anything about those discussions!

I mean, imagine if you went into The Sixth Sense knowing that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, or imagine if you knew the girl was a actually a guy in The Crying Game. Being clued into a major twist ahead of time takes all the fun out of a movie, so I’m going to do everything I can to avoid mentions of what exactly the Hancock twist is!

I know it’s pretty late in the day to be posting this, but I hope you all had a very happy Fourth of July holiday! We actually didn’t go anywhere this year, which is unusual for us. I’ve been working so much lately that I just wanted to relax at home today, so that’s what we ended up doing. We grilled up some hamburgers and chicken at lunch and watched a couple of ballgames while my son played with his toys out in the yard.

All in all, it was a nice day with the family. The only thing missing was fireworks, but we TiVo’d the Macy’s display that aired on TV a bit earlier and are about to go watch it now!

I’m currently listening to a series of literary lectures, and one of the topics being discussed is the heroic code as it applies to classical epic poetry. In ancient Greece, for example, there was a sort of “contract” between the hero and the city he represented. During the hero’s lifetime, he would enjoy elevated status in society and would always have the finest food, wine, women, armor, and horses available.

He would repay this bounty by laying down his life in battle — with the understanding that his fame would live on through the centuries. (Think of Book II of The Iliad, which contains a seemingly endless list of names of Greek warriors who were fighting in Troy.)

That brought up an interesting question: would you rather live the high life and die young (with everlasting fame as your reward), or would you rather live a long, full life and die peacefully in your sleep at a ripe old age and be forgotten forever?

I would have to go with the latter, since I don’t see much value in dying in a brutal battle far away from home. I would much rather live a long, quiet, happy life surrounded by friends and family. (Then again, I’ve always been a homebody anyway!)