Wednesday afternoon, I started having some discomfort in the right side of my abdomen. I didn’t think much of it at first – perhaps I’d pulled a muscle somehow – because, well… aches and pains happen, right?

But I woke up yesterday morning, and the pain was still there. Just not in exactly the same place where it was: yesterday morning, it was a more generalized pain throughout the right side of my abdomen, with an occasional stabby pain in the spot where it had all started the night before.

By lunch time yesterday, it wasn’t discomfort any more: it was pain. With some vague nausea thrown in for good measure. And given that the last time I was wrong (I thought it wasn’t a big thing but it was), I ended up in the ICU overnight, in the hospital for five days, and out of work for a month (pneumonia kicked my ass in ’07), I figured it was better to err on the side of caution than on the side of dead.

This presented another challenge in this modern era of managed care: Other than my gynecologist, I don’t have a primary care physician. I don’t get sick often enough to merit that (she said, knocking on wood). And I was reasonably sure that this was not a girly problem. So I found a local doctor, who actually was able to see me yesterday, and had a 2:00 PM appointment, where I had the joy of peeing in a cup, the additional joy of having my belly pressed and poked and prodded, and the even greater joy of being bled having blood drawn.

Evidently, my urine had a high white cell count and a trace of blood (and it must’ve been just a trace, because it certainly wasn’t visible to the naked eye), so it appears I have a UTI. However, the UTI doesn’t explain the sharp, stabby pain in my abdomen. Which is how I ended up at the hospital for a CT scan.

After the Scan Which Showed Nothing, I spoke to the doctor, who suggested I fill my antibiotic prescription, and stay on nothing but clear fluids for two days, to give my gut a chance to “rest” in case something I’ve eaten is somehow pissing off my intestines. And exercise is out of the question for now, because I can’t move without wincing.

So I stopped at the grocery store on my way home, and picked up a variety of soups (chicken broth, tomato basil, and butternut squash). Yes, I’m aware they aren’t clear, but fuck it, Hot Mother can’t live on chicken broth alone. I also picked up a case of regular 7-Up, because if I can’t eat solid food, I’m at least going to have beverages that don’t have an aftertaste. Of course, I may regret this decision later, but for now, I don’t care.

And that’s the full scoop. I’m still alive, and apparently have nothing of interest going on in my belly. Except for pain, of course.

And for the record: this morning, I weighed in at 218.6. I know the official weigh-in is tomorrow, but I wanted credit for where I’ve gotten before this enforced fast starts.

Have a Fabulous Friday!

Am at pharmacy picking up antibiotics for the apparent UTI. Am supposed to be on clear fluids only for two days.

Yecch.

I’ll take the good news wherever I can.

And yes, that means what you know damn well it means: I haven’t been eating well, and I haven’t been exercising regularly, and yes – I gained a pound. Of course, I still haven’t gotten my period (damn hormones!), so who knows if it’s actually fat or water. No matter, I haven’t done a great job taking care of myself.

But that’s not why I’m here. I had to wade into the waters of the Kevin Smith vs. Southwest debate.

I’ve flown Southwest almost exclusively for years now, and I’ve never had a problem. No, I’ve never had to purchase a second seat, so that’s a humiliation I haven’t experienced. And I’ve never had strangers make comments about the mass of my ass to my face, or within earshot. My weight has never gotten in the way of my love life, or my career. It hasn’t stopped me from doing anything I want to do, save being more active.  So I’ve been pretty lucky.

And in theory, I have no problem with Southwest’s policy: if you can’t fit into a single seat, you have to buy two. And I’m fine with Southwest using the armrest as the definitive measure: if you can put the armrests down, you’re cool.

So it seems to me that pulling someone off a plane, after he’d already been seated (with the armrests down and the seatbelt buckled) is just… random. Odd. And to say that it’s a safety issue? I call bullshit. Any person who can’t move quickly in the event of an emergency is just as much a safety consideration as a fat person who can’t move quickly. Are we going to start preventing the elderly from flying? How about people with broken legs? People in wheelchairs? Unaccompanied minors? Who gets to decide which passengers pose a possible safety issue?

If you go and read the comments on the Southwest blog, you’ll see a mixture of three sentiments:

• I’m fat, and Southwest sucks, and I’ll never fly Southwest again. (And there were a lot of people expressing this sentiment.)
• I’m not fat, but Southwest sucks and I’ll never fly Southwest again. (Quite a few more people saying this than I would’ve expected.)
• I’m not fat, and I appreciate the policy, because flying next to a really large person? Uncomfortable. (This? perfectly reasonable. Although to be fair, it’s uncomfortable to fly for nearly everyone. Even though I’m only 5’1″, there’s not enough leg room.)
• Fatties are gross/lazy/smelly, so thanks for not letting them fly next to me. (Far too many of these for my comfort.)

The vitriol that some of these folks direct toward fat people is nothing short of appalling. But here’s the thing that really gets me: many of these losers end their little “I’m normal sized and I think fat people are gross” diatribes with something like, “Go to the gym and lose some weight, fattie. It’s about your health.”  (And yes, if you insult me merely on the basis of how I look – if you assume that I smell because I’m fat, or you assume that I’m lazy because I’m fat, or you assume that I’m unintelligent because I’m fat, then you are in fact a loser.)

Really? It’s about my health, is it, douchebag? So, when I see you talking on the cell phone, or brushing your hair, or putting on mascara while you’re driving, you won’t mind if I call the cops and report you, right? Because that’s about your health. And if I see you smoking, I can loudly mock you about how it’s your choice to smoke, and that you smell, and how you clearly have no self-control, right? Because that’s about your health. And when I see you feeding your kid junk food, I can call Child Protective Services – because it’s about your kid’s health. Right?

It saddens me that Southwest did a stupid thing, and then compounded it with an “apology” that’s nothing more than a backhanded insult. It saddens me that they have a policy to deal with folks who truly can’t fit into a single seat, but don’t follow it consistently. It saddens me on behalf of any non-celebrity who might experience this incredible humiliation and not be able to fight back with the full weight (pun intended) of thousands of internet followers to back them up.

But mostly, it saddens me that there are so many people who take pleasure in mocking others; that there are so many people who think they are better than we are, just because they’re thin; that there are so many people whose mothers would be ashamed of them for how they regard other human beings.

Thanks, Southwest, for the reminder that so many of us are nothing more than overgrown bullies, mocking the nerdy kids. And thanks for encouraging them.

Once we were finally back up and running (five hours later), I had much work to catch up on for my paying gig. So, in honor of yet another snow day (because we got another dusting last night), I leave you with this haiku:

Work, interrupted
Why must Sonny talk so much?
Please, God – no more snow.

Well, we got another 2″ or so last night. And so of course school is closed. Again. Can I tell you how much joy it is that Sonny can stay home with me whilst I attempt to work? Fabulous. Really.

Moving on…

The ever-so-cool Cammy from The Tippy Toe Diet asked if I would post my Turkey Chili Recipe, and I’m happy to oblige. Keep in mind, I didn’t think much about this, so I’m quite sure I could’ve made it healthier. But hey – omitting beef in favor of turkey is a big enough step, if you ask me! Also, keep in mind I don’t measure anything when I cook (I do when I bake, but that’s a completely different thing), so measurements are iffy at best.

Hot Mother’s Hot Turkey Chili

Ingredients

• 1.25 lbs Ground Turkey Breast (this is important – the turkey breast is a lot less fatty than regular old ground turkey; it’s also more expensive, but you can’t put a price on good health)
• 2 or 3 cans of Chili Beans (this is a cheat: I don’t have to season as much if I use beans that are already spiced)
• Garlic (chopped however you like – I like big chunks of garlic, but ymmv)
• Onion (chopped howeve you like – I omit the onions, because they don’t like me any more)
• Reduced fat cheddar cheese
• Cooking spray of your choice
• 1 can stewed tomatoes
• 1 square German’s unsweetened chocolate

Directions

1. Spray a large pot or dutch oven with cooking spray.
2. On Medium-High heat, brown the turkey, garlic, and onions
3. Dump in the chili beans (for the love of God, DON’T drain the beans. All the flavor is in the sauce!)
4. Dump in the stewed tomatoes (if they’re sliced, just leave ‘em that way; they’ll break up as they cook).
5. Toss in whatever spices you like (coriander is popular, but I don’t care for it; I just use a lot of basil; and chili powder!)
6. Put a lid on it, lower the heat until it’s barely simmering, and cook it for as many hours as you can stand.
7. About 30 minutes before you want to eat, remove the lid and let the chili continue to simmer (this will thicken it nicely).
8. Just before serving, take that 1 oz square of unsweetened chocolate, and stir it in until it’s completely melted and mixed throughout.
9. Top each serving with a small sprinkling of reduced-fat cheddar.

Makes Six Servings

And that’s it. Easy, easy, easy.

No workout yesterday, because my knees (and oddly, my shins) were really sore; and I don’t want to screw myself up before my first session with the trainer tomorrow (yay!).

And… that’s about all I’ve got. Busy day working for The Man ahead, so I need to get my ass in gear and start earning my salary. Have a great day!

Ah, it was bliss. It was heaven. It was expensive. But then, you can’t really put a price on sanity, now can you?

I didn’t post yesterday because I just didn’t wanna.

The remainder of my weekend was uneventful and pretty darned good. Sadly, I never did get around to napping at all, but I got plenty of reading done, made a big dent in the eBook I’m working on, worked out, and hit the grocery store on my way home.

Reading

Scott McClellan’s book is a snooze fest, y’all. It’s all, “I’m not perfect, but I never would have done [insert horrible thing Dubya or Cheney did]. That was just so wrong.” So much for an honest appraisal of what the hell went on from 2000 – 2008. Methinks I’ll need to pick up Bob Woodward’s book for that.

Working Out

In my infinite wisdom, on Saturday I decided to skip the treadmill in favor of the Precor exercise bike at the hotel (fortunately, not a recumbent bike at the last hotel I visited). I managed 7.3 miles in my 30 minutes, which I’ll take seeing as how I’m never comfortable with new equipment (heads out of the gutter, people – I was referring to exercise equipment). Yesterday, I did 7.5 miles. That’s the good news. The bad news is that my ass has grown accustomed to the seat on our exercise bike, and OW! My ass? It is sore.

Super Bowl

Did that game rock, or what? I had to root for New Orleans, because I am anti-Peyton on principle alone. Oh, I know he’s reportedly a nice guy and all, but the obsessive love that Tennesseans have for him (because he went to UT, doncha know) just drives me bonkers. Besides, the Saints were the underdog, and I love me some underdog.

Traditionally, I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. It’s not that I don’t like football – because I love football – but my team is never in it, so I usually just don’t care. And let’s face it: Super Bowl games are typically boring as hell. But I can honestly say that last night, the game was far better than any of the commercials (I thought most of the commercials kinda sucked, actually). At about the 4:00 mark of the fourth quarter, I turned to Hubby and said, “This is bad. If the Colts score to tie it, there’s not enough time for the Saints to score again, and it’ll go to overtime – and the Colts will win. The only chance they have is to intercept and score; then it won’t matter if the Colts manage to score a touchdown.” And 20 seconds later, that’s exactly what happened! Ah, great game.

Dinner

Because it was Super Bowl Sunday, I couldn’t have us eating steamed fish. Hot, spicy food is the order of the day in Hot Mother’s house for the Super Bowl. Of course, hot wings were out; ribs were out. Sadly, beer was out. But I made a pot of turkey chili, and I’ll tell you what: if you didn’t know it was ground turkey breast instead of ground beef, you wouldn’t have known it. It was that good. Spicy, rich, filling… yum!

In Other News

My first session with my new trainer is Wednesday evening at 6:00 PM. I’m both looking forward to it and terrified, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who’s been where I am.

With that, I’m off to the races. How was your weekend, and what do you have going on this week?

So I walked around the room a bit, stretched a bit, and gently worked the stiffness out of it. By the time I went to bed, it was just a bit stiff. And I’m happy to report that this morning it feels fine.

In other news, I watched Food, Inc. last night. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you do so, and soon. It’s a real eye-opener, and it made me want to quit my job, plant a garden, and buy some livestock so I can know for sure where my food came from. Of course, I know nothing about farming, and our subdivision (rural though it may be) has covenants that prohibit livestock. Stupid covenants.

I slept, blissfully, until 8:00 AM this morning. This does not happen often, as I’m a morning person. I got up and worked on my eBook some, had breakfast (poached eggs and breakfast potatoes), and drank a lot of coffee. And here I am.

My plan for the remainder of the day includes a workout, more working on the eBook, and maybe a nap. Solitude is a good thing.

Enjoy your Saturday!

Last week’s weight: 221.6

This week’s weight: 220.6

Current loss: 1 lbs

Cumulative loss: 17.8 lbs

Not quite the drop I was hoping for, but at least it’s headed in the right direction. So no complaints here.

Full post later.

For days, Hubby has been suggesting that I should get away for a couple of days to clear my head and recharge my batteries, because my temper? It is on a hair trigger. And today, I asked him how serious he was. And he said he was completely serious. So I got on the interwebs and found a room at the hotel where we got married (yes, the very same hotel we’re coming to for our anniversary), and booked it.

I arrived shortly after 4:00 PM, to find people guarding the entrance to the parking lot. They asked if I was here for “the bluegrass”. Puzzled, I answered that I was not; I was staying at the hotel for the weekend. At which point the nice men waved me on. I pulled into the loading/unloading area so I could check in and drop off my bags, and I was astonished at the sheer volume of people. And noise. All the noise. [Grinch] All the noise noise noise NOISE! [/Grinch]

Everywhere I looked, there were people. People with banjos and guitars and dobros and dulcimers. And those people? They were all playing and singing their little hearts out.

You see, in my quest for a weekend of solitude, peace, and quiet, I managed to stumble upon a Bluegrass convention. Want to guess when the convention ends? Sunday morning, which is, conveniently, when I’m leaving.

Now, I don’t dislike bluegrass. I like pretty much every form of music there is. But serenity, this isn’t. And oh, let me give you a word picture of the clientele I ran into at the elevator when I was headed downstairs to the (blissfully empty and therefore silent) fitness room:

• Plaid, flannel shirts: check
• Cowboy boots: check
• Too-tight jeans: check
• John Deere baseball cap: check

And the item which threw me (mentally) over the edge: Good Ol’ Boy #4 was carrying a bottle of Dr. Pepper. But oh, it wasn’t a bottle of Dr. Pepper. At least, not anymore. “But, Hot Mother,” you ask, “how can you possibly know that it wasn’t a bottle of Dr. Pepper?” Well, Grasshopper, I know it wasn’t Dr. Pepper because he wasn’t drinking from it. Quite the reverse – he was using it as a spittoon for his chew.

::sigh::

I went to the fitness center, and decided to hit the treadmill, which I did for an hour. I walked 2.85 miles, which isn’t much, but I made an important discovery: I should’ve brought my walking sneakers with me instead of the new regular gym shoes, because now my knees and feet are both quite uncomfortable. I expect (hope!) that’ll be better by the  morning.

Post-workout, I took a shower and went down for dinner. The restaurant here is fantastic, so I was really looking forward to it. But evidently I didn’t get the memo, because there was no dinner menu. There was a buffet. For the &%*$(! bluegrass festival. So I ate that, and was unimpressed. My choices were as follows:

• White yeast buns
• Salad with mostly iceberg lettuce (I’m a Romaine or Green Leaf girl)
• Green beans that looked as though they’d been cooking all day. Really, they were green beans in name only, seeing as how by the time I got to them, they were more a dingy greenish-brown.
• Mashed potatoes with cheese.
• Breaded chicken cutlets.

::sigh::

So I had a piece of chicken, and scraped off the breading. I had about a tablespoon of the potatoes, which were as yummy as I would’ve expected. I had a healthy dose of salad, and then I took a wee bit of tiramisu for dessert. Note to self: room service for the remainder of the weekend. I drank a lot of water.

And now, I’m back in my room. I plan to spend the weekend reading (brought Scott McClellan’s What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception), napping, exercising, and writing the eBook I want to have ready when I launch my business next month. It may not be quite the peace and quiet I wanted, but if I can manage to stay to myself most of the time, it’ll certainly do just as well.

Have a great evening, and I’ll catch you for weigh-in tomorrow (and yes, I even brought my scale with me so I wouldn’t miss the weigh-in).