Day 355

Raining here. Not a lot, but expecting some torrential rain tomorrow and Friday. Makes driving a little strange when you drive a car that is low to the ground, so I have to be extra careful. We often have flash flooding issues when the rain comes too fast.

Started the day with cereal, and, like the last few days, it works great. Can’t imagine why I never really got into breakfast as it really does make a lot of difference in how I feel all day long. The wife now has some slivered almond and cheese sticks that I am now taking for the middle of the day. I have a break between classes and instead of eating a fired chicken sandwich (or something similar), I have been eating the cheese and almonds and they work pretty well as a stop-gap sort of lunch.

Dinner tonight was some chicken with oven roasted red potatoes and it was quite good. Started having a glass of wine some nights and that is pleasant. I bought a wind cooler a while back and we have it stocked with several reds and whites, so I’m experimenting with different ones each night. I tend to like slightly sweet wines, and there doesn’t seem to be many that are red. Most reds are relatively dry, and while I like most red okay, I am still looking for that best one for my taste. When we are in Chicago (twice a year to visit family), we sometimes meet with my wife’s two brothers and often end up at one of the outstanding Greek restaurants there. The red they use as a house wine is excellent, so I will look for some of that to add to the small collection.

Classes are going pretty well, but it is really early and may be too early to tell just yet. Most of my students tend to be freshmen – which I like – but they also are often a wild card. Something like 40% of freshmen now don’t make it to graduation, so I sometimes find myself trying to read them to see which I think will, and which will not. I also am what my wife calls a rescuer – I do some work with a local big dog rescue so I guess she is right – and I try to save all my students if I can.

Speaking of rescuing, I helped save a Great Pyrenees recently who was very close to death. He was in a shelter in a nearby town and when I found him, he should have weighed about 100 pounds and was actually about 40 pounds underweight. His owner had let him wander the streets and never fed him, so he was nearly starved to death when they picked him up. They definitely saved his life, and I was able to help get him into the rescue group I am a part of here. He had a terrible case of mange, was underweight, and was almost hairless (they are very full furred when healthy). Yet, he still wanted to lay his head against my leg as I examined him, wishing only for someone to care about him. Great Pyrs are like that. Very, very special dogs. He has now gained weight where he is fostered, the mange is gone, he has been neutered, and he’ll come to live with us temporarily while he undergoes highly the dangerous heartworm treatment he needs to live. It will be a tough couple of weeks and the treatment will make him very sick and there is no way to tell how he will react. Hopefully he will just be lethargic and sleep a lot. I might have to sleep by him if he is under too much stress. However, this is the last part of the treatments he needs, and once through it he will just continue to gain weight and be healthy once again. Looking forward to that. I have original pictures of the day before he was licked up and it is enough to make anyone who cares at all for animals very, very angry. The last I heard, his “owner” will be prosecuted for animal cruelty – not a bad thing at all, and it caries not only a fine but possible jail time. Fair enough for someone who deliberately mistreated an animal who only wanted to be loved.

The news is on as I write, and it looks like we are really in for it with the rain. Welcome to our state – our unofficial motto is “If you don’t like the weather, wait an hour. It will change.” Less than a week ago, we had 14-degree temperatures. Now it is in the 50’s and raining. Luckily, they didn’t happen at the same time, as we live on the side of a hill and access if icy would be difficult.

Not much else going on. Just two of us here most of the time, which is not at all a bad thing. I raised kids, my wife and I raised hers, and now it’s just us. A different time and place in our lives, and with the newly built house, the business growing, our relationship in a great place, and knowing that the kids are all doing quite well, it’s a nice time in our lives.

And that is part of the journey. An important part, and much of why I want and need to be thinner and as healthy as I can be. Like has turned out pretty darn good, and I want to see as much of what is to come as I can. Heck, I’ve even reached the place now where drinking V-8 juice is relatively okay. Alright, not good, but tolerable. Well, not really, sucks, but I have discovered it’s better at room temperature than when cold. Come on, that has to count for something, right?

Need to walk the dog (the little one we have right now) so I can go to bed. See you (is there a you out there?) tomorrow.

-Average Joe
Somewhere, USA