The Day I Touched Nature

 

These are pumpkins in their natural habitat. Who knew it wasn't cardboard boxes, right? For my mother-in-law's b-day, we ventured back in time in more ways than one. Not only did we visit a farm that still uses an early 19th century cash register and scale, we visited the pumpkin farm that my husband's family has been visiting since they were kids. 

Do you know how much pumpkins cost when you don't have to have them shipped all over the country? We bought 6 pumpkins, all of varying sizes from large to small, for $22. You go out into the patch and pick your own. Tons of people were there with their kids. It was very cute. 

At the front of the patch there was a box of picked small and mini pumpkins.

And since it was real actual nature there were bugs there:

There were fun pumpkin anomalies

I was doing good, trying to be all "nature is awesome" as you can see by this photo:

 

And then I realized there were bees everywhere. Bees! I hate bees. I had never been stung by a bee my whole life until I was 30, when a baby bee (or a really small bee) stung me in the neck! I went to the Long Beach farmer's market and as I got into the car to go home I felt something prickly on my necklace. I pulled off a bee from my neck and the stinger was still in there. I had always had a healthy fear of them, since I wasn't too sure whether or not I would have an allergic reaction. Given how every single insect bite has given me hives or welts, I should probably have figured it wouldn't go well. 

Most people get a red sore spot for a few days. I had a red neck (har har) for about 3 days, then it calmed down. Apparently, teaching got it angry, because in my Wednesday afternoon class, I started to feel hot and itchy and noticed that my students eyes were getting wide and they weren't looking at my face so much as my neck. Just before I let them go, I asked "Is there something going on in this area here?" and pointed to my neck. A lot of nodding heads and scared looks. Crap. I revealed my bee sting tragedy to them and asked if it was normal or if I was going to die. These kids have Google, they know shit I don't know. One gal has the kind of bee sting allergy where your throat closes up and you can actually die, and she told me that what I had was very very bad, but not a true allergic reaction, which would have happened days before. 

So I went to my lovely HMO pharmacy, hoping to get some kind of relief. The pharmacist told me that the next time I get stung, it might be worse, and that probably after that I'd always have to carry an epi-pen that I could use to stop the reaction at the moment I realize I've been stung. Fun! 

This long winded story should give you the context for why, at the beautiful pumpkin patch, while we were supposed to be basking in the glow of nostalgia, sun, and autumnal splendor, I was freaking the eff OUT.  Partly because of the pain and fear of the unknown allergic reaction, but also because I have no health insurance. Bees were my mortal enemy and I needed to be free of them. As we were about to weigh our pumpkins, I noticed they were crowding around the people in line and the tons of pumpkins clustered together. I quickly made my escape. I was trying hard to be nice and not ruin it, but damn, I needed to get into the car fast.

These were our final selections:

Did you know that prior to sending pumpkins to market, they have to clean off the prickly barbs that are on the stems? That means that when you go to pick up a pumpkin in a patch, you should go for the base not the prickly stem. I did not know this! I have picked up every pumpkin in my whole life (whether from a box at the supermarket or a hay bale in a faux patch) by the stem. That's a freebie kids. You don't need to thank me. 

So me and nature tried to make a go of it. I put my best foot forward, I enjoyed parts of it and even swooned over the pastoral landscape of North Hampton a bit. But in the end, I think we're just too different. I'm a city mouse, I guess. There's a silver lining in all this, though. At least I've found a great partner who feels the exact same way. As evidenced by the photo below, M could really just not do this nature crap.

 

Chubuary

My family has a history of heart disease, diabetes, and pancreatic cancer. These are the first things I say to a new doctor. Remember in the olden days, when people had the same doctor forever, and he or she was the family doctor, so not only did they know you, but your whole entire family? Was that ever real? Because I’ve had a thousand doctors.

Probably it has to do with the fact that medical insurance hasn’t been a constant, and when it has been available, I have chosen an HMO. Kaiser, specifically. I haven’t been mistreated at a Kaiser facility, but I definitely have had some WTF moments. What was cool about it was that you got access to your records and prescription refills online, and that doctors had a record of everyone you’ve seen because Kaisers are all connected. When my family was on welfare after my parents divorced, I remember just not going to the doctor. The welfare approved facilities were not pretty, nor was the wait to get an appointment. But I eventually got jobs with benefits, and even though I had fairly cheap copays for visits, I still felt like, “Do I really need to see a doctor? Can’t I just wait it out and see?”

I’ve had some pretty bizarre experiences with doctors, who are like a different branch of over-educated people, so I kind of understand their language. They spent a lot of time reading, studying, and perfecting their knowledge of body parts, so they haven’t put a premium on interpersonal skills. Some try, some are just naturally good at it, and some, well, they need some serious help. I try to be understanding of their limitations.

I once went to a gynecologist that I selected specifically because she was Latina. I had never had a hispanic doctor ever, much less a woman, so I though it would be awesome. She was super cool and interesting and she chatted with me rather than just being a robot about the examination procedure. And of course she asked the delicate question “what are you?” (she didn’t ask it that way, but that’s the jist of it) and I told her my family is Cuban. Well, hold on to those stirrups, because the conversation got rolling. I was treated to a lovely discussion of why Fidel Castro “isn’t really that bad.” Which, being a liberal, I understood her point politically. However, is now really the time, lady? How are my ovaries? Do they feel ok? She continued gabbing about Fidel and at the end told me “everything seems fine,” which was not reassuring.

Because I wanted to add my husband on to my insurance, I had to switch to a PPO rather than stick with Kaiser. He likes his doctor and I felt no real connection to my stable of 5,000 doctors, so I thought, I should probably find a good doctor and stick with her/him. There is so much more information on doctors now online! I found someone I thought would be great. She’s got great degrees, did much of her internship in low-income communities in SoCal. She’s African American, works in Long Beach and Compton, and she loves hanging out with her son and reading science fiction. Sounds like someone who would understand me a little better than Joe Doctor at Kaiser.

She was really, very nice. She chatted with me for over an hour about my life and plans one day to maybe have a kid, I told her about how I’m moving, what I do for a living. She gave me good tips about getting around copays by just calling and leaving her messages instead of coming in for referrals.

She saw my family history and immediately gave me some sobering advice. I need to lose weight. I need to eat better. I need to exercise more. The statistics she rattled off about my likelihood of having diabetes and heart problems really hit me hard. I know I’ve been slacking, and that I don’t lead as healthy a lifestyle as I would like. I’m not 20 anymore. It was good to have someone give me the info I needed to hear, not a cursory glance at my file and “have a nice day.” I felt like she actually cared, but...well she has a strange bedside manner.

She said a few things that bummed me out. First of all, I would need to lose at least 25 lbs before even thinking of having a kid or I’d risk diabetes, heart problems, and a deformed baby! The baby guilt train was just leaving the station too, because I am also a bad potential mom because I have tattoos. Apparently, you can’t give blood if you have tattoos (Red Cross says you have to wait a year, but she says there are ‘new rules’). So her advice to me was, “tell your husband not to get any tattoos so if the baby needs blood he can donate.” Like I'm basically a lost cause for ever helping my kid with a blood transfusion. Dude, wasn’t this hypothetical future baby like, living amongst my bloodstream for 9 months? WTF? That just cannot be right.

Her advice on losing weight was pretty good, stuff about buying frozen rather than canned vegetables. How I should try to avoid processed foods and go for the organic stuff if I can. Until she got to the practical kinds of advice you’d give to someone fucking obese. She literally told me that instead of getting a cake, consider getting a cupcake. Like I eat whole cakes! She remarked that some people just can’t help themselves and eat the whole cake. She squeezed my ankle as part of the exam and showed me how the squeezed part remained white. She said that it was indicative of too much salt in my system. But she didn’t say it that way, the way that would be NORMAL. She said, “You see that?” To which I said, “Is it because I’m retaining water on account of my monthly “situation?” She said, “that’s bacon, ham, chips.” Oh. My. Gaaah.

She then told me that my ideal weight for my height should be 120 lbs. I, being a woman, have already looked up the ideal weight/height calculations and have known them since I was 17. For someone my height, I should be between 120-145 lbs. Why, when encountering someone overweight, would you give them the lowest possible weight as the goal! That’s nuts! I haven’t been 120 lbs. Since I was vegetarian and in high school. If she had said 140, I would have been like "that's doable, I can see myself at that weight."

I know, I need to be healthier (btw, she did corroborate my theory that nutrisystem food is full of preservatives that aren’t good for you), I need to exercise and eat better. I need to get out of this rut that has kept me from moving forward, but I really did not need to hear that I need to be 120 lbs. I walked out of the office in a daze.

Part of me wants to think that I’m just mad/depressed because she called me on my laziness. That it’s about time someone said it to me straight. I can tell you I didn’t want to eat at all yesterday, and that I went out and bought all kinds of healthy stuff and didn’t drink soda or coffee at all. I took my dog on a super long walk. I made salmon and asparagus for dinner. Those are good things. Scared straight type of things.

Part of me thinks she means well, but is used to being in a “lecturing” kind of conversation with people who maybe don’t know much about nutrition or who just want the lap band surgery or whatever. And my family history does warrant a serious look at my habits. But the weird advice about tattoos, mom guilt, and the cupcake thing are red flags, no?

I haven’t cried about it, because I haven’t thought it through long enough and I'm trying to be positive. But I had to write this post in small increments over the past 28 hours. I wasn’t even going to post it, but I feel like this isn’t supposed to be a vanity project, it’s supposed to be about my successes and failures. I’ve worked really hard in the past year to overcome some obstacles, including getting healthy. And I did lose about 15 pounds at the beginning of the year, but I went right back to my old habits once school rolled around again.

Sigh...just when you need a cocktail most, you can’t have it because it’s full of calories and will render you infertile.

Have you ever gotten crazy advice or weird guilt trips from your doctor? How did you deal?

Winter Reconnaisance Mission

Philadelphia in the winter.

As I enjoy my so-Cal winter (it is a chilly 65 degrees as I type this), I am feeling kind of nervous about my ability to endure in Philadelphia next year. I am utterly unprepared for real winter. I have cute coats and jackets, and lovely leather and suede boots. These, I am told, I can wear during fall. Winter, well, they don't even sell real winter things here, unless you go to a ski shop. I haven't been to Big Bear in many years, but that was probably the last time I had to worry about footwear that is water proof or the painful kind of cold that happens to your ears when you walk around in the snowy cold.

So I need help from all of you that are in cold places. Mainly, my goal is not just to know what I definitely need to survive, but also to survive in the cutest way possible. I fear becoming Philly's new stay-puft marshmallow girl in ugly boots. Is it possible? Can you be cute and survive an East Coast Winter? I know other people will be wearing hideous things in the effort to keep warm, but I'd like to know if you have any secrets, trust any designers or stores to provide you with the least ugly things during this time.

Tell me people. Give me your advice. Visually embrace these fears:

The puffy coat.


The sensible all-weather shoe

I refuse to be turned into a Hobbit by these boots!
Teach me how to layer. Do people still wear long johns? Do they make jeans lined in them? Are galoshes something I should be looking into? How many layers are we talking??