Forks Over Knives

I got into a discussion about food recently and why it’s not good for you.  Hmmm.  I like food.  I think the basic food groups are chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and coffee.  Works for me.  Or rather, it did.  I had been lamenting the fact that I just didn’t feel good anymore.  My joints hurt, I had indigestion, food just didn’t taste like it should any more and don’t even get me started on how much it costs just for a simple burger meal at a fast food restaurant.  On top of that, I had gained a LOT of weight in the five years since I retired and I wasn’t liking it one bit.  I live at the beach and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a swimsuit right now.  Talk about the proverbial beached whale.

So, I’m talking with a friend and she tells me about a video she thinks I should watch –  “Forks Over Knives”.  She gave me  a few highlights from the video and so intrigued me that last week, I requested the DVD from my library.  I’m cautiously glad I did.  On Friday night, my husband and I sat through the video and then proceeded to have a huge discussion about food.  The definition as I see it for FOK is to eat only a whole-food, plant-based diet.  No meat.  Ever.  Further, the claim is made “that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.”  (Before we go any further, here’s the website: http://www.forksoverknives.com. There’s a link to the synopsis of the video that explains in detail the “personal journeys of a pair of pioneering yet under-appreciated researchers, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn”. The video was shot in the United States, Canada and China.)

It’s not that we don’t believe in the premise of FOK, but we do like meat.  So, we may be doing some tweaking to the meal plans.  I don’t mind giving up beef, but I do love poultry and some fish, occasionally.  Still, one of the best lines of the video was this (I have to paraphrase here:) If it walks, squawks, swims, has eyes and a mommy and daddy, don’t eat it.  Well, that takes care of beef, pork, poultry and fish.  Hmmm.  The filmmakers did on-the-street surveys, asking people questions such as why do people eat meat or drink milk.  Without exception (at least in the video), the answers were “protein” and “calcium”.  But the argument is that a whole-food, plant-based diet will give you everything your body needs to nourish and sustain it. 

According to the website, there is a book and a cookbook that go along with the video.  There’s also a book written by Dr. Campbell titled: The China study : the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted and the startling implications for diet, weight loss and long-term health.  Dr. Campbell worked at length with the Chinese to identify areas in China that had exploded with degenerative diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers never heard of before in that area and the implications based on the western-style diet the Chinese had adopted.  I’ve requested that book from my library as well.

My husband and I haven’t signed on to do anything, we’re not supporting anyone or anything, and we haven’t been compensated in any way for this little essay. But after watching the video and hearing some of the statements and statistics presented, we’re willing to venture forth into this diet, a little at a time. Our next step is to research the whole-food, plant-based diet in more detail for foods that we can fix and that are readily available for us in our area of the US. I like market research, especially if I get to eat the research. So, I’ll keep a short diary of what we’re eating and get back to you on that.  I should also mention that to go along with this new life-style eating change, my husband and I have joined the local YMCA so we can ramp up that exercising everyone says is so necessary – but that’s another topic for another day.

As an end note, I want to thank those who have emailed me and called me about my dad’s recent stroke.  Thank you.  He’s home now under good care and doing far better than any of us had thought he would.  He has no physical ailments other than tiredness but he has lost some of his short-term memory.  That can happen with a thalamic stroke.  He’s doing mental exercises, working and using cheat sheets.  When I spoke with him yesterday, he said he could be talking to someone and forget why they were talking.  I told him he was describing me.  I’m so very grateful he’s alive.

Grateful

Even though Thanksgiving Day is still a few weeks away, I am so very grateful right now.  My dad was hospitalized this weekend with a thalamic stroke that confuses me.  He had just celebrated a birthday on Wednesday when he started feeling poorly.  By Friday evening, my stepmother had grown increasingly concerned with his erratic behavior and distracted talking, so she called his doctor and got him admitted.    He’s still in hospital, and for now, I’ll rely on my sister who lives in his area to help me stay informed, rather than make the long trip.  If she asks, though, I’ll be in my car before my husband can shut the door.  I’m grateful, so very grateful he’s still alive. I’m even more grateful that my stepmother, who is going through her own special health scare with a three-weeks-removed mastectomy, was on the phone with the doctor and getting him admitted before anything else could happen.  Thank you, Connie.

Windows and Books

When I was a child, we used to do this thing called “taking a Sunday drive”.  I remember riding in the back seat, looking out the car windows and into the windows of houses we’d pass by.  I would wonder about the people in the houses – who were they, what kind of lives did they lead, where did they go when they weren’t home.  And if I saw the people through the windows, I’d wonder if they saw us.  Driving was kind of invisible – like the lives inside the windows of the houses.  Now, I’m all grown up and guess what – I still wonder about those houses and the people in them.  We don’t do the “Sunday drive” any more – it’s more the “get there and back as quick as you can” thing.  Unless we’re going to the beach.  Then I enjoy the drive.

But here’s the analogy between books and windows.  Windows keep me guessing.  Books give me knowledge.  I actually get to know the people in the “book windows” – their names, their families, their lives.  Sometimes with serials, I’m permitted a longer perusal – I get a little more involved, like hearing their thoughts and seeing the consequences of their actions and their reactions to the same.  It happens whether the characters want it or not.  Books are my windows into the lives of strangers – safer and much more informative. 

Happy Monday!

Actors, Movies and Books

I don’t know anything about his personal life nor do I know, without Internet searching, what movies he’s made throughout his life, but when I saw Liam Neeson for the first time in Schindler’s List, I told myself he would be someone to watch over the years.  Yesterday, my DH took me to see Taken 2, and I knew I had been right.  The guy’s a great actor.  I don’t care that it’s a sequel – because I hadn’t seen the first, I enjoyed the sequel all by itself.  I didn’t recognize Neeson’s role, Bryan Mills, from any books I had read, even though the storyline seems to be culled from a myriad of other “clandestine-spy-operative-covert-war-mercenary” stories out there in novel-land.  After all, that’s how James Bond got started 50 years ago in the movies.  (Sean Connery – be still my heart – he still has the moves even now.)  So, if anyone out there in bloggerland knows the books this movie was “taken” from, please let me know.  I’m not gonna search for Bryan Mills through the bazillion novels with the title of Taken.  I’ll just say I enjoyed the movie.

So.  While we’re waiting for the feature to start, we get a glimpse of new movies rapidly approaching.  My husband and I rate the trailers ourselves – “must-miss”, “must-watch”, “maybe”.  Most of what we saw in the trailers were “must-miss”.  Ouch.  I know the trailers are usually themed along with the feature and in this case, most of them were of the “spy-vs-spy” category.  I didn’t see anything that I wanted to put on my “looking-forward-to” list.  At least not right now.  But that doesn’t mean there’s not a good movie to watch.  After dinner last night, we watched Brigadoon.  That’s a wonderful musical love story with Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly and Van Johnson.  And yes, my husband watched it with me.  Payback.  I pick the Netflix movies, he picks the theatre runs.

Finally, one last actor – Tom Cruise.  I have absolutely enjoyed Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels.  In my mind, Reacher is a rugged 6-5, 250 pounds, so it’s a stretch for me to see Cruise as Reacher, no matter how pretty he is.  However, One Shot is one of Child’s best Reacher stories IMHO, so I’ll reserve judgment until I see the film.  Trailers just don’t do enough except tease the imagination.  And I do like Cruise as an actor.  Enjoy the movies!

NASCAR, Books and Everything Else

It’s Monday already.  What happened to the weekend???  Gorgeous weather here on the Gulf.  Husband out for daily walk in a sweatshirt of all things, and I’m doing the laundry.  So.  What happened this weekend?  A huge crash at NASCAR, here at Talladega, several books read, fun with cards and kids at the library, and church.  My glasses came in so I picked them up.  They feel odd.  It’s been 2 years since my eye surgery, so wearing them’s gonna take some getting used to on my part.  Still, those fuzzy objects in the background are a little sharper.  Going to the movies will be fun again – I was seeing movies in 3D without the 3D.  Painful.  I can still read my beloved books without the glasses so that’s a plus from the surgery.  YAY!   

Books.  I read several – did I mention that already?  Karen Kingsbury’s prequel to The Bridge (already preordered) was offered on Amazon so I snapped that and read it; Davis Bunn’s All Through the Night (awesome read!); Randy Wayne White’s Dead of Night and Dark Light; started Anna Quindlen’s Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, and White’s Hunter’s Moon.  I’ve requested the last four Doc Ford novels from my local library and then I’m done with that series.  I enjoyed those books, even with the ecology and environment preaching by White.  Since I’m not a scientist, some of the facts went over my head, but they were good conversation starters with a friend at the local library who’s a great advocate for the same causes.  There are so many good books out there that I sometimes wish I could just read by osmosis.  Then I could do several at the same time.  But what fun would that be?

I have to admit that I didn’t watch the NASCAR race, but my husband did.  When I mentioned that I knew Talladega is here in Alabama, he just looked at me and smiled.  I asked if he wanted to go to a race there, he said sure, someday.  Hmmm.  Christmas present to him – tix?  That got me thinking – Christmas is coming and I haven’t done a lick of shopping for anyone yet.  I’m confident we’ll get the job done, probably in one day.  Books for everyone!!  Wait – if you’re family, and you’re reading this – forget that!

My husband helped me put bookcase number six together for our bedroom and wonder of wonders, he agreed with me that we need a seventh.  HA!  We have a wonderful master bedroom with a huge window that would be perfectly framed by two bookcases.  Can’t wait.  Well, I can, but I don’t want to.  I’m not a patient person, which is surprising.  I always thought once I retired, I’d learn to sit back, relax and let life happen.  Nope.  But I’m learning.  If I can sit still long enough to read a book in one sitting, then something must be happening, right?

Happy Monday, y’all!!

Full Disclosure

I pre-ordered Dee Henderson’s latest novel, “Full Disclosure” from Amazon several weeks ago for my Kindle and promptly forgot about it.  So I was pleasantly surprised to see it on my Kindle yesterday, the day it was released.  Of course, I started it while eating breakfast.  Dee Henderson is a prime example of why I’m a serial reader and why I re-read her novels, not once but several times.  I now have 12 of her novels – all of the O’Malleys and the Uncommon Heroes series and this one.  So it was a delight to see how she tied all of these novels together.  I LOVED it.  A fictional novel of fictional characters who have fictional novels written about their lives!  I liked reading about previous characters and the fringes of their lives, and how they continue to interact with each other.  Six degrees of separation!  It’s a hard thing to finish any book and  realize I’m not privy to how their lives will continue.  I KNOW it’s fiction, but for a short while, they are my neighbors, friends and co-workers, allowing me a brief window into their lives.  It’s a joy to see they live on, somewhere.

Paul Falcon, an FBI agent, and Ann Silver, a cop, who just also happens to be a Midwest Homicide Investigator (and doesn’t THAT just ring my bells!), who get involved professionally and personally over a series of homicides.  Both, it turns out, are believers in Christ, both have very personal relationships with God, and both use that relationship with God to guide them in their lives.

This is a good read, either as part of the two previous series or as a stand-alone novel.  It’s wonderfully told with the message of a personal relationship with God woven throughout.  I’m surprised to find out it’s been several (5?) years since Ms. Henderson’s last piece of work, but I sincerely hope she continues this story with more of the O’Malley and Falcon families.  Now, I find I’ve got to go back and re-read all 12 of them again, in order and soon!

What’s a good reader to do?

With all the reading I do, my husband wants to know if I have a book “inside of me”.  Heck, no!  I’m a reader, not a writer and I don’t aspire to be one.  Bloggging is hard enough.  So what’s a good reader to do when asked to review a book and comment on it?  Hmmm.  I need a good thesaurus, dictionary and synonym list.  After all, how many ways can a gal say “I liked the book”??  I’ve been accused of giving away part of the plot without warning with a *spoiler alert* and that caused me untold grief.  I hate to spoil anything for anyone.  But, it’s a “catch 22” – darned if you do and darned if you don’t.

So what can I do?   Well, I tried to read other reviews on the books I had read to see if there was a commonality amongst the reviewers.   I love to read their reviews – but I run into the same problem – verbalizing the likes or dislikes of a particular book, and making it interesting enough to catch a potential reader/buyer’s attention.  I didn’t like doing book reports or oral reviews in high school or college and it’s no different here.  I could quote the flyleaf or publisher’s review, but those aren’t my words and paraphrasing is hard work for me.  Why can’t I just say I like the style of writing, I like the characters, I like the storyline.  Or, I didn’t like the style, characters or storyline.  I’d rather say I liked or didn’t like the book, recommend it or not, and move on.  Why is that not enough?

Golf vs. Shopping

Well, that’s a no-brainer.  I love to shop.  So, when my husband is playing golf with his buddies I go shopping.  And LET me tell you we have a shopping mecca down here – there’s Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Family Dollar…..

Seriously, I leave those stores to when my husband is available to shop with me since they are HIS favorite stores.  Mine are those yummy book stores right down the street.  Wooo, I’m in hog-heaven.  So, in honor of Banned Books Week, I’m heading to BAM and B&N, to see what I can see.  I have a shopping list (always), and I know I want hard-backs as opposed to the more affordable and less-durable paperbacks.  That’s not to say I don’t buy paperbacks, because I do and I’ve bought my very fair share of e-books.  But there’s just something about holding that beautiful hardback in my hand – it’s substantial and significant.  I never thought I’d say this, but I want to collect those gorgeous Harry Potter books and since I haven’t read any of them, I think that’s where I’ll start.

Then, if there’s time, I’ll stop by my fav craft store to drool over the beautiful scrapbook papers.  I used to be a scrapper and card-maker, but when we moved, I threw away a LOT of paper scraps.  Now, I’ve started slowly getting back into the paper crafting I used to enjoy.  No wonder I like books – what with all the paper they are made from!

Gotta run.  I hear a book calling me…..

Signs of a Well-Ordered Life

My husband took me to a yard sale today.  It was held in one of those places that rent large storage bins by the month for folks to hold all the flotsam and jetsam of their well-ordered lives.  Boy was I surprised.  These aren’t the typical yard sales I remember growing up or going to estate sales on weekends looking for that rocker I couldn’t live without.  These are full-blown retail outlets working out of these storage bins.  They even had those cutesy signs hanging outside with huge industrial fans blowing so you couldn’t hear yourself think or hold a conversation with the owner.  They were needed – those tin cans got hot inside.   It was fun seeing some very old things like the old Coca-Cola cold soda machine from the 50s, so very similar to the one my grandparents had in their little mom-and-pop store in Chattanooga.  It was heartbreaking to see the tiny bits and pieces of glassware and jewelry they were trying to sell, because my life is cluttered just like theirs, and I wonder what I would do with all my treasures.

I should have taken pictures, but I somehow don’t think the store owners would have appreciated it.  It’s hard to put into words what seeing all this stuff did to me.  I don’t need any more dishes or crockery or knickknacks or furniture or clothes.  Now, books.  Whole nother story.   When my husband pointed out a slew of books on the back table in one of the booths, of course I checked it out.  In fact the sales lady and I got so involved in our conversation that my husband interrupted, saying call me when you’re free, I’ll be in the next aisle.  I bought 3 books.

All this made me think what the purpose of these storage areas has accomplished.  There must be thousands of them strung across America, helping us organize and re-organize our lives.  I know when my grandmother passed away, my youngest sister stored some of Granny’s furniture in a storage bin, until she could either sell it or assimilate the pieces into her home.  When we moved south from West Virginia, we used one for a short time until my husband could build another shed on our lot to hold the things we thought we needed to make our house a home.  Now his shed is built and we’ve emptied our storage bin.  But all the stuff that was in the storage bin is now in smaller totes, and still in a storage bin (his shed).  We walk out there occasionally, stare at them and wonder what’s in them, saying one of these days, we’ve got to clean them out.  There’s just something wrong with this picture.  I know I’ve got too much stuff, but I’m just not gonna rent one of those storage bins and sit there and try to sell my stuff.  No, I’ll just leave it all for my grandchildren to sort through.

The Written Word vs Celluloid

In my opinion, what’s wrong with either?  I enjoy both.  But I wonder sometimes about the difference between a book and the film version.  Is it better to read the book first and then see the film version or vice versa?  This past weekend, my husband and I watched the sweet family film, “We Bought A Zoo“.  A good story based on the Mee family’s real-life adventure with a zoo in Europe, the movie changes nearly everything about the original story, moving the locale from France and England to California and the characters from the Mee’s extended family involving grandparents and siblings to one man and his two children.  Should I personally care about the differences?  After all, I enjoyed the movie.  Mr. Mee and his family went through a terrible family tragedy and they turned their lives and the lives of 200 animals around.  That’s the story.  And the story is what sells to the public.  So, no, I probably won’t read the autobiography any time soon.

Whether true story or fictional novel, a film version just can’t be a visual mirror image.  Interpretation as well as adaptation is open with characterization, wording, action and location as well as the intended audience.  Of course, it always helps if the screenwriters work with the original author to ensure cohesion with the storyline.  But that can’t always happen – look at all the interpretations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew.

Then you have the Young Adult blockbuster series like Twilight and the Harry Potter books – all written ahead of the film versions (sometimes barely I think, and by the way, I was always Team Edward).  Watching the media frenzy as each of those books came out, I wondered if the film versions would do as well and by all accounts they have.  Are the film adaptations mirror images of the stories?  I don’t think so, but that doesn’t take away the charm of either the novel or the movie.

There are millions of books that will never be translated into a screenplay or television series.  I don’t think the authors wrote them with the idea in their heads that a film version or a television show would be made down the road.  If that were the case, I think the blood, sweat and tears that the author spilled out into creating their work would have gone into a screenplay first.   Now wait.  Before you go off on a tangent thinking I’m dissing screenwriters, you couldn’t be more wrong.  They are a genre onto themselves and in many cases deserve all the accolades they receive for their work.  Even playwriters write their stories with the intent that an audience would “see” the story rather than read it.  They also deserve their own accolades.

Books and cinema appeal to us visually and I appreciate the efforts that go into developing them.  But, as I’ve been very nearly deaf since early childhood and worn hearing aids to help with daily life, my bent is towards the written word.  Even so, over the years, my husband has bought me increasingly sophisticated and expensive ear phones to help me enjoy the television at our home so I could sit and watch with him.  And I thank heaven for the folks who created closed captioning.  I enjoy going to the movies and have gone on my own to see chick flicks that my husband (God bless him) wouldn’t be caught dead watching, even for his love for me.  Recently, I saw Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help”.  Both the novel and the film version broke out in 2011.  I related strongly with the story as a Girl Raised In The South in the 50’s and 60’s.  However, I have yet to read the novel and I don’t really plan to.  I lived it.

My point, and I do have one, is this. To me, the value of both the written word and the film version of a book can be the same regardless of the poetic license taken with either.  The reader can enjoy the book and the cinema-goer can enjoy the film.  If you happen to enjoy both, you are twicefold enriched.