BFF!

Today I had my first lunch of the new year with my girlfriend, Winnie. She came to Queens from Chinatown to meet me for our “walk” that has now become our routine. Taking the subway to Forest Hills, I picked her up by car and drove over to the running track. We do the 5 mile walk, mixing it up between walking the path into the park and back (2 miles that are marked) and then 4 laps around the track for 1 mile and then back into the park. It makes it less boring and gives us more “hills and valleys” to rev up our hearts. The time flies by since we are chatting the whole time. Before you know it (and it is usually an hour and a half that has passed) - it is time for our reward…lunch!!


Ready for our 10,000 steps!(In front of the track)

Winnie treated me in celebration of my good doctor’s report. Our Bento Boxes were delicious as always and feels like a real decadent treat for the both of us. We get salad, a combination of sushi, dumplings and chicken and then a small bowl of ice cream. It has never failed to hit the spot. I wished I took a photo of it but unlike Nikki, I never think of it and then it's all in my tummy.

A funny thing happened when we stopped in Trader Joe’s before heading to the restaurant. Since we were in there, Winnie decided to picked up milk and other goodies and seeing this, I told her I would drive her home so she should pick up more stuff that she might want. Immediately and typically, she started to beg off. “No…you are not driving me!” “Yes, I am!” and so on. Some guy walked by us and Winnie whispered “Oh no, this guy thinks we’re fighting…like a couple”….to which I walked a bit away from her and then turned to her and said “I am leaving you!” to which the guy raises his eyebrows and Winnie and I just laughed out loud!

After lunch, we did what I call “local shopping”. The restaurant is located within a good shopping area. I needed to pick up hair color that was on sale at Rite Aid but it is a shade that is usually out of stock quickly. We made a bee line for that aisle and I found only one box…needed to buy 2 for the sale. Groan. But I have a reputation of not giving up. For some reason, I feel if I search long and hard enough, the item I want will appear. Of course, many people scoffed but it has worked for me many times. Well, I am happy to say I had a witness this time. While holding that treasured one box, I was not quite ready to give up when suddenly, miraculously, another box of the same shade appeared right before our eyes! It was truly incredible! And I was so happy that Winnie was right there to see it happened!

We went on to Lots Less and picked up a couple of things. Then I drove her to Chinatown which took 20 minutes and I was back home in another 30. An absolutely fun day …productive, successful and there is just something very special about a lunch date with a girlfriend. Good for the soul!


Lifetime Friends!

A New Year!

Happy New Year!! 2009...as far as numerology goes…in the Chinese culture, 9 is a very good number denoting longevity. With that in mind, in 1999, I purchased a brand new car, a summer house and had Lasik done on my eyes. I drive the same car, love the summer house and still don’t need reading glasses! So maybe there was something to it all.


My summer house and 1999 Eclipse

I had a very good year. Was able to spend much quality time at the summer house. Really got to know the area and was even starting to feel like a “local”…getting a library card, driving roads unknown to me the last 10 years and did a weekly shopping with Kathy on Wednesdays like clock-work. And gasp…did what I would call “gardening” but everyone would call “watering the plants“.

The summer also bought a new sense of freedom. I felt unencumbered but then I didn’t know what September was going to bring in terms of the economy. For the main part of the summer, I was blissfully unawares. I started a new diet regiment in dealing with carbs and although it may have been bad for me, got myself a nice deep tan.

Of course, September did come and along with the sad economic times, my health issues reared its ugly head. But maybe it was a good thing because in hindsight, I feel and look better than I have in years. I took control of my own life, my own body and it feels good.

The one thing I haven’t been able to do and kept saying I would, is get a job. It’s still there in the back of my mind moving forward every day. As much as I think a job would interfere with my social life…what did I do all the other 40 odd years I was working? I guess I will have to work the socializing around the job! I know it can be done! Ha!

So with that, I see a very good year coming up. I am hoping by this time next year, I will have reached a spectacular goal of being normal in weight and BMI. My blood pressure and cholesterol will be a non-issue. I will have a perfect part time job. Part time so I still have a flexible schedule to make lunch and dinner dates. And everyone I love stays healthy and happy. And last, everything good that can happen all happens to Nikki. That would make for one excellent year! Happy 2009!

Ideal

I had one of those really great days yesterday. All spent with Nikki. We had plans to meet up with her grandparents on her father’s side for dim sum. She doesn’t get to see them much and it was a chance to visit with the whole family. Nikki met me in Forest Hills and we went to a restaurant that is near where her grandparents live. They've changed ownerships so many times, I can't remember the name. Nikki's father, his wife, her Aunt Julia, Uncle Ray and cousin, Richie joined us. The food was good and plentiful.

The weather was extremely warm for this time of year and the predicted rain held off. I had asked Nikki if she would be interested in going to IKEA afterwards and she agreed. I only hoped it wouldn’t be a zoo but I figured since Nikki was already out in Queens, we could make this run without her having to come in again in the next few days.

The ride out there was a breeze and although the store was busy, it wasn’t horrible. We found many items to purchase - many on sale. I really wanted their canvas drawer organizers I had picked up the last time I was there and found them very useful.


My Ikea Goodies

I had seen in the Sunday news, Target’s circular and saw that they had a Sony Cyber Shot digital camera on sale. I have had my camera for the longest time…it is a 3.2 mega pixel…that’s how old it is! Target is in the mall right next door to IKEA so I asked Nic if we could just stop in to take a look. The camera looked beautiful and it didn’t show it as on sale but I asked if they had it in stock. They did and at the sale price of $99. I was very happy. We went on to look at clothes since Nikki said she wanted some new sweaters. Target had a large section of clothes at 30-50% off. She found a very flattering dress and dressy top within those racks. On to shoes where we both picked up the same pair of flat boots on sale for $21. I wore them today and found them to be a nice alternative to my ubiquitous Uggs.



After that very successful shopping spree, we headed back home and since it was 6pm, I thought sushi might hit the spot. It did.


YUMMY!!

On the way to the car, I wanted to stop in Duane Reade - I saw their circular offering a “buy one get one free” on hair color but it turned out to be only on certain colors and mine wasn’t part of the deal. Nikki was looking at facial cleansers and lotions and showed me an item that was priced unbelievably. In fact, many of the items in that aisle were priced so that we kept reading the signs to make sure we were seeing it correctly. For example, L’Oreal’s Genesis moisturizer retails at $10.49 but using your Duane Reade card, it would only cost $5.24. Or a St Ives Microderm abrasion wash was $1.99 from $3.99. Other facial scrubs and foot scrubs were $1. We didn’t know what not to buy! We left with bags of goodies.


All this came to $12!

Then Nikki mentioned she was running low on detergent…I happened to have detergent left over from sale days when I was upstate. She was smart to ask me before we left Queens so we stopped at my home first where I picked up Wisk for her and a Cover Girl lip color I was evaluating for Bzz but didn’t really like. Nikki tried it and liked it.

I got Nikki back to the city by 9pm. She gave me a bag of her home made chocolate chip cookies that I got to munch on all the way home. It was, to me…a most perfectly wonderful day.


Me & My Girl

Happy Holidays!!!

I'm too tired from all the festivities to write a long post so I will just post this photo of our beautiful kids on Christmas Day and call it a day!


Xavier Nikki Miranda Kris

And the Envelope, please....

I went for my 3 month follow up test results yesterday. I was anxious, nervous and tried not to feel too confident if in case, the results were not what I expected. When Dr. Tung waved a paper in his hand saying “Here’s your report card and you get an A+”, I felt like a school kid who passed a major exam. And in fact, I did.

I could feel my whole face beaming. And it also showed on the doctor’s face. We were just all smiles in the office. Dr. Tung sat down and started to go over the numbers. Right off the bat, he said "I no longer consider you diabetic and if I just met you at this moment and based on these numbers, Diabetes is not an issue." I sat grinning and shaking my head. WOW!

Then he checked off the other stats which he said were all normal…liver and kidney function, blood count etc. He came to the number I was most concerned with. The last three months I have been able to personally monitor my blood pressure and glucose levels. I had no idea how my cholesterol was doing although that was the only issue I was taking medication for. The doctor wrote down “225” saying that was my LDL from 3 months ago. I think I blanked that out. Because whenever I spoke about my cholesterol with anyone, invariably the person would ask “what was the number?” and I would say…oh…it was high! But I never could remember exactly what it was. Just passing it off as higher than 200. Which if course, could mean anything! But there it was…225. Sigh. But then his pen moved to a number on the page which meant nothing to me since it didn’t look like there was any correlation. The number was 66.2 and the doctor happily said “this is now your number.” OMG! I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to shout “Hallelujah!” But I just sat still…heart beating fast with excitement.

It really works! Diet, exercise, will power…aggressive life-style changes. I knew the medication was going to work wonders on me with my low tolerance of any medication and alcohol. But I don’t think even I thought it would be this huge. I know the doctor was very surprised saying it surpassed all his expectations.
He even said I could possibly get off any medication if I was able to keep this up. Another WOW!

I floated out of the office. The doctor said to hang my report on the fridge with an A+ on it. I said I was going to email everyone which I did. I just had to share my news. Elation was not anything close to what I was feeling.

But I know I am not cured. I know it’s a daily conscious effort to maintain my health and keep everything under control. I am so grateful for the people in my life that has supported me during this transitional period with discreet advice, gentle prodding and enthusiastic encouragement to get me to where I am today. Without Winnie, Kathy, Daniel & Nikki to name a few, this experience wouldn’t have been as manageable or as satisfying. I am so looking forward to an absolutely fantastic New Year! Now back to the treadmill!

No Good Deed Goes....

I have been busy and then sick so haven’t had the strength or time to do a new posting but finally I am back on my feet and have things flitting through my mind. Unfortunately they just keep flitting by so I can’t remember what I should write about.



I was watching The View the other day where Whoopi Goldberg was searching for a particular Gingerbread cookie. The one she has loved for years was baked by a woman who passed away. Because she has a TV show, she had access to bakers around the states to send her samples to try. She wanted it chewy, not crisp…not too tart, not too sweet and with raisins. She found the one she was looking for. It made me want some gingerbread even though I know one bite would be enough for me.

This led me to remember the year I was in 9th grade. My girlfriend, Andra and I decided it would be a fine idea to bake gingerbread men for the class. Never mind that we never attempted to bake much less bake gingerbread cookies! Listen, how hard could it be? Ha!

We should have known as soon as we set out to buy the ingredients. Honestly I don’t remember where we even got a recipe. There was no internet in those days. But of course, there must have been cookbooks and libraries. In any case, one of the ingredients that totally stumped us was molasses. Molasses? What the heck was that and better still…where would we get it in Chinatown? Plenty of anise star, five spice powder and ginger root. But molasses? No can find. Not important! We’ll just substitute honey. Close enough.

Saturday came and Andra came to my house and we rolled up our sleeves and figured this would be a Norman Rockwell moment. Two chicks laughing and baking some pretty mean cookies. I was able to get the cutest gingerbread man cookie cutter. Where? I couldn’t tell you but I have it to this day.

It was messy. As I have said, I am not a baker and hate working with flour. Forget about adding other things like eggs and god knows what else. It was the blind leading the blind but I have to admit, the end product looked pretty good. The aroma was enticing. The Men looked so cute and uniformed. We were pretty happy with ourselves and couldn’t wait to present our thoughtful gift to the class and bask in their appreciation.

Somehow by Monday, probably on Sunday, the Men became hard as rock! (That dreaded honey!) When I brought them into class and passed them out to the other kids, no teeth could penetrate the “tough cookie”. Instead the boys, considerate and sympathetic as always, played hockey with them. Suffice it to say, that was the first and last time I saw Andra cry as our gingerbread men went flying across the floor.

I personally thought it was kind of funny and despite the outcome, it did bond Andra and I and we still speak of it till this day. But I haven’t ever had the desire to bake gingerbread again or even buy it. But if you gave me one, I would happily take a bite.

Publishing Nikki

When Nikki was very young - (pre-kindergarten) - she loved to make her own books. Little scraps of paper stapled or taped together and then written and drawn in. I was smart enough to save them. When I look through them, I think how clever and creative she is...then and now.


Nikki - the almost Poet

(from The Little Book of Nursury Rhymes and more by Nicole Woo)

Old Mother Huburd
went to the cuburd
to get her poor dog a bone
When she got to the cuburd
The cuburd was bare
So the poor dog had nothing



But this is my all time favorite book of hers:


I love my mom..................I like to go on vacshins with my mom

We like to go shooping. I love going shooping

We love E chada!

She made many of these "Mommy" books including packets of coupons for hugs, massages and "anything you want"! I am planning to redeem them soon! They don't have any expiration dates! YAY! Best coupons ever!