Saturday, October 8, 2011

The Moral Fiber of a Man

I date frequently and I usually only date from those I find online. I have an unheralded success rate for dating ONLY from meeting guys on line. Talk to them long enough, you can really get a feel for someone. I was also trained, by working for a high profile dating site, how to spot scammers, which has served me well in detecting the language and verbiage of ppl I'm in contact with.

Something else that is a HUGE 'tell' of a person is how they treat people.

Ghandi was quoted as saying, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

*I* say, "The greatness of the person you're dining with and their moral progress can be judged by the way they treat the servers."

Case in point: I had lunch one afternoon with someone at the Olive Garden. Our server was at our elbows, keeping us up on the progress of the lunch we ordered, keeping our bread sticks, salad and drinks CONSTANTLY refilled and anything we needed at all, at our fingertips. Totally anticipating our every request or whim.

The man I was with had been married for 48 years. His wife had just passed a couple of months previously from alzheimers. The man bad-mouthed this blessed wife (who *I* guessed had gone away from her mind so she wouldn't have to put up with this idiot, as she probably didn't recognize divorce or hitting him in the back of the head with a shovel as options.

The man ate hunched over, jamming huge quantities of food in his mouth and then talking around that same food so I was privvy to his consumption and progress of his mastication of same food.

At the end of the meal, when the check came, I quietly cast my eyes as best as I could on how much of a tip this jerk left for an over $30 set of meals. He left $2.

When he was finished, and darted off to the 'little boys room to take a dump.' (Oh, you sweet talker, you!), I got into my purse and I very rarely EVER carry cash, but for some reason that day, I had a $5 bill with me. And I laid it on the table.

When he came back and I guess had success on his mission, we were ready to leave. And I added the cash into the folding bill-thing and he asked me why. And I told him.

I'm not a cheap person. I have been part of the 'wait staff brigade' and know how much a server is paid, which isn't much. It's all tip-dependent and in cash, it can be slipped by as undeclared income (and with the political jerking about, I'm all for slip-sliding past bureaucracy and the laws of the money-changers (from my hand to theirs).

But I will NOT date a cheap and oblivious butthead.

And once I worked for a bunch of radiologists in a huge metropolitan hospital. We went to the big sit-down banquet and each person that served me, I got their name and looked them in the eye.

When I needed ANYTHING, all I had to do is look up, see the person and quietly say their name. I was served as if I were a Queen. (Ok, I've always been a princess ruling with kindness and respect of whoever served me.. LOL) But the Rads (radiologists) couldn't get service as fast and as well as I did. They quizzed me about it and I said, "how many names of the people serving us tonight do you know?" The answer was "None." as they were invisible entities who quietly handled everything the doctor's hearts desired. Yet no respect was exchanged. That's so darn sad, to me.

Anyway, enough of that rant..
have a fabulous rest of the week, weekend and beyond..

Bekki

Friday, April 1, 2011

Staying up all night in case I passed on..

You know how at sleepovers someone gets out that heinous oijah board? Well, get a bunch of older geezer girls together and someone has to break out the glucosometer.. yeah the thing that sticks fingers and shows you how much blood sugar you’re harboring..

Ok I started this day that would end up with my possibly looking the holy trinity in the eyeballs and having to explain my ‘little south of plumb’ life to ‘the great ones on most everyone’s lips’.. not mine, but that would be another part of the explanation. Something like, “DUDES!! I heard about ya, didn’t ring my chimes, but .. well, you know.. So, how’s it hangin?”

But I digress..

Ok, my friend’s husband, Jim, whipped out the ‘stabby finger’ thing.. and said, “who’s first?” well, since I’ve not been stabbed (by a little blood letting machine, anyway) in a couple of years, I heaved a deep sigh and held out my hand.. he held my ‘flip off’ finger, squeezed it and STAB!!!! Crap!!! OW!!! Then he squeezed more and let the blood slide into this machine.. we waited til the numbers came up like a one armed bandit.. 353..

“HOLY SHIT! Said both Jim and Sally. “HOLY CRAP!!!” said Lois, because she hardly ever says ‘shit’.. and I said, ‘Why, what’s up?”

“You’re near death, girl!! It shouldn’t be over 100 !!!”

“YIKES!” I thought.. and my heart started racing and I felt faint.. then on the inside I’m yelling to myself, “Don’t give IN to it, Girl.. Don’t give in!”

So, I regaled what I’d eaten the days before.. Barbeque with SWEET sauce, SWEET potato, SWEET Slaw and SWEET tea..’ and I said, “YA THINK?? “ CRAP!

Once I got home I IM'd my friend who’s a doctor.. and said, “Hey, what do you think?”

All of a sudden I got an IM back.. “GET YOURSELF TO THE HOSPITAL NOW!!!! You could go into a coma and never wake back up.”

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I live a life of comfort and joy. Like the Christmas Carol. And rousting myself out of the house to go and sit for a decade in the emergency room.. nah, thanks, I’ll pass.. but I WAS genuinely spooked. And the thought that I’ve probably lived like this for a couple of years didn’t do all that much to calm me down.

So, that night brought much awareness to me.. so much so, that I laid there thinking, “holy crap! If I croak in the night, and the parameds come in the morning when my ex-husband finds me (we do lunch and a movies most Saturdays.. yeah, interesting! Really nice guy and we see each other more now than when we were married when I worked days and he works nights, he still works nights), I needed to make sure my dishes are done.. so after thrashing about and imagining I was feeling the sugar course evilly through my veins, I got up at 2.30AM and did the dishes and futzed around the kitchen tidying up. Then went back to bed..

Then thought “holy crap! The tub needs scrubbed!” so I sprayed this lung-infecting stuff all over the tub and tile surround, waited til it got to working and scrubbed it at 4AM.

After that, I thought.. “what the hell.. what do *I* care about what they’ll say after I’m gone?”.. so then I was worried that I would be following everyone around as a spector and not have the energy that Patrick Swayze tried to achieve by flicking the bottle cap to MY not being able to smack people on the back of the head if a discouraging word was ever said about me and my housekeeping.. because, to know me is to love ME, not the way I keep my house. And as a ghost I was ready to enforce that anyway I could, even if it was by moaning and finding a chain to rattle or flick the lights on and off.. and on top of that, I had no subway to go to to find that odd looking guy to show me how. The only subways we have in florida are the footlong for $5 kind.

About 6 am, I was settling down a bit.. but when I threw off the covers I thought, “oh heck, the parameds will come in and see my naked butt.. and hopefully not walk into a mess where my bowels had released.. dang, do I have an enema bag around, just in case I need to Pre-cleanse?

I had NO idea the stress there was with knowing perhaps that death could be near.. sheesh! Remind me to remember all of this in case I NEED to start digging for the big dirt nap. This is a LOT of work!

So, my Saturday Date called me at 10a and I answered the phone.. there seemed to be a relieved sigh.. not sure if he was happy I answered and he didn’t have to come in and hope there was no decomp scent yet.. or he really wanted to see the movie and didn’t want to go alone.. toss up here.. LOL

I asked him to go ½ way down the driveway and I’d jog down to the car and get in and go from ther, then we ate Mediterranean food then and .. it was cool running again! I nearly forgot how! And when we came back, he let me out ½ way down on the way back and I jogged to where he parked.

After he left, my doc friend came over bringing his diagnostic gear.. took my blood, came back on Monday and took my fasting blood and it had dropped considerably to 298.. so, at that time he determined that I’m a Type 2 Diabetic, which means my crap can be controlled w diet and exercise..

At this point, my little hitler Athletic Trainer daughter decided I need to do 30 minutes of cardio every day.. well, that’s good if I were up to 20 minutes. That would be good if I were all the way up to 5 minutes at any given stretch. Right now I’m up to about 2 minutes many times a day, that maybe all adds up to the 30 minutes that she’s requesting of me.. but not able to accurately do math on this earth, maybe I’m rounding up.

I went and did a bunch of laps and burned my buns at the pool Tuesday, but every night (for a while now) I do 30 toe touches and then 30 squats right after that and my friend wants the health rider out of her little tiny apartment, so it’s coming to roost here at BekkiWorld, a tiny bit larger than HER tiny place.

I also feel amazing! And when I ran that day, my torso felt so sveldt and sleek! Just a start.. I’m not missing bread, fruit or sugar of any kind.. even tho Easter is coming and it’s row after row of peeps, carmel and chocolate eggs.. and as I go past the deli where I can smell the fresh bread baking.. past the chips and crackers.. landing in the veggie aisle where I can grab some avacados, lettuce (which worked well when I ate at my friend’s house and she’d made tuna/egg salad and I wrapped it in a lettuce leaf!), celery, cucumbers.. nice munchy stuff!

Anyway.. life is good and fun again! And this is totally beat-able and I’m gonna beat it!!!!

And P.S. did you know that if you go into a restaurant and order a burger, you can corder it without the bun? Yup, you can.. not sure if you can do that at drive through but I’ll get back to you on that!

I’ll keep anyone who wants to know, posted! Just E me! bekkihere@gmail.com