Angel Ackerman's Blog, page 5

Road Trip Leg One: Lehigh Valley to Washington DC

Today marked the first day of my week-plus trip to present an erotic writing workshop at SexDownSouth: Atlanta, promoting Parisian Phoenix’s Juicy Bits. I left home at about 7:50 a.m. and headed to the bank to deposit some checks at the a.t.m. Then, after much thought, I headed to Panera and picked up an iced tea and already had to pee.

At 8:15 a.m., I left Panera with a toasted asiago bagel and my tea. (They offered me a bagel for $1 today.) Sixty-five miles later I had to pee again! So I stopped in Grimes, Pa., Exit 13, at our “favorite Sheetz.” This Sheetz has an entire row of smoothie machines and frozen icee flavors.

I made it to Route 83 and Harrisburg by 9:50, despite all my stops. By 10:30 a.m., I had eaten my gummy worms and needed to pee yet again. So I stopped in Shrewsbury, Pa., near the border of Maryland, in an area where they had massive shopping plazas with every eatery known to man. Even a Panera. I used the restroom and grabbed a coffee, even though I hadn’t finished my tea.

I left Shrewsbury at 10:45 and arrived in DC at M’s house at 12:07 p.m.

M, my traveling companion through all my crazy adventures on several continents, and I hung around the house and chit-chatted for hours and spent some time watching the black squirrel that hangs around their house, Climber Meta.

We went to Siam House DC for a lovely thai dinner, where I had mango curry with tofu. So delicious!

My hosts are currently having a great day exploring all my maps from AAA.

A pre-road trip stop at The Dollar Tree

Today, Eva and I stopped at The Dollar Tree because I wanted to start stocking up on survival snacks for my Atlanta road trip.

I will have a small food budget, but I have several days driving to do and several nights in Atlanta to consider. I’m getting nervous because it looks like the hotel charges $35/night parking, $12 a day for internet, and has no free breakfast. I have to remind myself to breath and trust it will all work out.

But since Eva lost her job yesterday, it’s hard not to stress.

So I spent $16.25 at the Dollar Tree:

I bought two small cans of generic Spam and this small bag of coconut flour for the pantry.

Eva loves Spam, so I thought these cans would be useful for when she’s cooking for herself when I’m gone.

And the flour– I have trouble passing up good deals on specialty floor.

The Road Trip Snacks:

Four bags of snak club tajin gummies. Sweet and spicy to help keep me awake if I get tired driving.Two bags of Harvest Snaps, the protein from the snap peas will help hold off hunger.Two bags of peanut butter filled pretzels, same logic as the snap peas.And the two boxes of fiber bars? That’s 6 little birthday cake bars that really do taste like dessert.

Super blue moon mercury retrograde car repairs

I bought my 2015 VW Jetta turbo in November of 2019. She had about 25,000 miles on her and I bought her for about $15,000 from my local Kia dealership.

She has been good to me– and even with my occasional road trips I only drive about 8,000 miles a year. And then my daughter’s car died, so for the last year she’s been more or less using my car full-time.

She’s put almost 20,000 miles on it. I used to take her in for service, an oil change and inspection every August and not think about her again until the next year. Not so now. Two oil changes this year. The kid blew one of my new tires hitting a curb.

Yesterday, I arrived at the garage at 8:15 a.m. for my 8:30 appointment. I had a large Panera iced coffee and a clif bar (brownie flavored) and brought one poetry book and my laptop intending to pound out a rough draft of my profiles of Milou Mackenzie and Miriam Sabih.

Which I did.

At 10:30 a.m., I received the video regarding the results from my inspection (all good) and the service coordinator came over to discuss which preventative maintenance would be best before Atlanta.

I knew going in my car needed a daytime running lamp and two new tires. We also opted for the complete tune-up since according to all my service records it had never had one and we now have more than 75,000 miles and I’m heading to Atlanta in two weeks.

When we get our next oil change, we’ll do the coolant and transmission fluid flushes.

At noon, the guy who supervises the actual technicians stopped by. They had replaced three of my four spark plugs. The last one was stuck. He said I could take the car home and return after my trip to finish the job. Great, I thought, I’m getting really hungry and would like to go home and have a real meal.

At 12:30, the service coordinator returned. He gave me a bottle of cold water. Which was great because all I had to drink so far was coffee. He wanted to get the car fixed before Atlanta, and preferably he didn’t want me driving it. So, after some looking at scheduling, they opted to keep the car with the promise to get it to me today or get me a loaner for Wednesday.

And they said they could have the shuttle take me home. The shuttle returned at 1 p.m. and disappeared before offering me a ride. Eva got down with her lunch clients and offered to come get me a little after 1:30 p.m. She arrives– and I kid you not– an old man with a walker lumbers up the ramp and takes up the door. After almost six hours in the room, I could not get out the door.

When we got home, the frazzled energies continued: my eggs were frozen, I burnt my toast, and the cat we are fostering tried to steal the bacon out of my sandwich (he did, but I wrestled it away from him) and then I sat down to watch TV and my Netflix account wouldn’t load, but Eva’s did. I watched hers.

And everyone kept talking about a blue supermoon and I was so confused because a blue moon is the second full moon in the month and it’s the middle of the month. Then Eva explained, “no, Mom, it’s literally blue.”

“Then they should say the blue-COLORED moon,” the editor in me replied.

The dealership called a little after three. There were two Ackermans in service that day. The person who handed me my paperwork gave me the wrong set. I almost signed for the wrong car!

I got my car back. Adjusted the seat because I have little legs and cringed at the fact that somebody put the country station on in my car. I drove over to Wawa for happy hour to treat myself to a cafe con leche because it’s been a long day. (Though I did do a draft of my Sex Down South slide show!) The young man doing the barista work burned my milk. Bought Eva some Mountain Dew because CVS has no Adderall.

And came home.

All that and a 50-cent head of lettuce

Today I had some adventures to attend to: I promised Nan I’d use my CVS coupon magic to buy her some Excedrin, I had lunch with some of my Stitch Fix colleagues planned (and it’s Southern Candy’s birthday tomorrow) and if I felt really flush with money and ambitious I wanted to stop at Grocery Outlet while I had my car.

CVS deals

CVS did not meet my usual expectations but I found a CVS Health Brand Migraine Relief, which is exactly the same thing as CVS Extra Strength Headache Relief. 200 pills for 16.99 and a use-by date of February 2026. I had a coupon for 40% off a full price item, another for $5 off a $30 purchase, $1 off CVS pain relief and $1 off two bottles of sparkling water.

And my favorite KIND breakfast bars were on sale for $5.99. I bought a pack of those, the waters, the pills, and a 30 pack variety pack of Starburst flavor mixes that retails for $5.79. That brought my total to about $32.

After coupons, it was less than $21.

Mission accomplished.

Friends and angels

Next, I headed to my lunch date where I had a lot of laughs, learned about rattlesnakes, and had a yummy dish of chocolate chip pancakes. And one friend gave us green beans from her garden.

Now earlier this week, a friend had shared some of his recent profits with me from a project I encouraged him to do. He did this with the express desire that I buy Eva some meat. I agreed, but did so with the stipulation that I added $10-$20 worth of meat to my next few shopping trips and not splurge on some fancy meats all at once.

I refuse to give up my frugality.

So I headed to Grocery Outlet to fulfill my promise and grab what odds and ends I could.

I managed to get 3 pounds of organic chicken breast, a pack of turkey bacon and a frozen bag of cheeseburger-seasoned meatballs for less than $15.

I spent more than I intended to. I had mentally prepared to spend $30, but due to the nature of some of the things we needed and the deals we found I allowed myself some splurges.

I ended up spending $63.85.

Meal planning

I hear a lot of people complaining about the price of food– and it sucks that food is expensive. But one of my tricks is to refuse to buy expensive things. Eva would have preferred “real” bacon, but the turkey bacon was $1.50 cheaper. I wanted ground beef, but the prices didn’t suit my budget so I skipped it in favor of packaged meatballs.

I bought a cute head of iceberg lettuce. All the iceberg lettuce was on sale for $1 a head. There was a smaller head starting to brown on the outside that was reduced to 50 cents. I peeled off the brown layers and about four or five leaves deep it was crispy and fine. Then I chopped it and I plan to make a salad tomorrow of iceberg lettuce, cucumber ranch dressing I have in the fridge, slices of turkey bacon and some of the local cheese. And if anyone has any garden fresh tomatoes I will add some diced tomato. Simple and delicious.

The leftover bacon can be used for sandwiches, eggs, or even a by itself snack as leftovers. So we’re looking at 2-3 meals for the two of us for $4 plus staples and ingredients already in the house.

What I bought at Grocery Outlet

(Most items on this list are around $2)

12 Clif bars chocolate brownie flavor, for Eva, $6.99 (I was going to buy her the 15 count for $9.99 but she doesn’t like the one flavor. Then I did the math. In the 15 count pack each bar is $0.67 each. In the smaller box, each bar is $0.58 each.)Generic tuna in water, small cans, 2, at $0.69 cents each. (I hate the thought of how finding out how sustainably or ethically these were caught)Parmesan cheese, grated, $2.49Glen Muir organic tomato sauce no salt added, probably 12ish ounce cans, 3 of them, $0.99 eachA box of instant mashed potatoes, $0.99 (an easy way to make a cheap meal more filling)Small bags of pasta, each bag will be one meal for Eva and I, one bag mini-shells and one bag tiny elbows, $0.50 eachone bag Goldfish crackers, $1.492 quarts of vanilla cinnamon chickpea milk, 10 grams of protein per serving, $0.99 per quartA big old bottle of cheap laundry detergent, $6.99one small head iceberg lettuce, $0.49One pretty big bag frozen avocado chunks, $5.99Cheeseburger-seasoned meatballs, $3.99meatless chickn fries, $3.99Cabot cottage cheese (I love this stuff so much), 2 containers, $2.49 eacha quart of half and half, $2.49a half gallon of milk, $2.22turkey bacon, $3.49Tillamook unsalted butter, $3.272 packs organic chicken breast, each almost 1.5 pounds, $3.11 & $3.13 after markdown.

Poetic solo adventures

Today, I donned my publisher hat and I drove to Bernards Township Public Library in Basking Ridge to support poet and filmmaker McKenna Graf. McKenna publisher her second volume of poetry with Parisian Phoenix Publishing after self-publishing her poetry debut. Her next event is in Manhattan on August 22, 6 p.m., at the Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side.

I started my day with a squawking cockatoo, and then proceeded to come downstairs with the intent to write a draft of my upcoming political profiles for Armchair Lehigh Valley and I did an hour of work on it. But for some reason sifting through Milou Mackenzie’s different Pennsylvania house bills spiked my anxiety and allowed that little voice to take hold. You know– the negative thoughts voice that says, “You can’t do this.” And/or “all your effort is meaningless.”

But, I know I have a road trip today so I eat a hearty breakfast, deliver Eva to her father’s car, and order my Panera iced tea. In the adventurous spirit of a road trip, I go to a different Panera and I love that there drive-through is a straight lane. But what I do not realize as I drive up is that they finally tore down the Phillipsburg Mall.

They have been saying that they were going to demolish the Phillipsburg Mall probably for a decade– and all the reports stating that the anchor store Kohls would be the only part of the mall left standing. This Panera was on one of the pad sites at the mall. (A quick Google search tells me that Crown American opened the mall in 1985, a key time period for malls, and that the stores vacated in 2019-2020. Supposedly a warehouse will be erected on the site. Because every warehouse needs a department store next door.)

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, especially when I worked in the area as a journalist, the Phillipsburg Mall was probably my favorite in the region.

The Author Talk

The drive to the library was uneventful. The Bernards Township Public Library appears a fairly modern vibes with the architectural feel of a small elementary school. McKenna did a wonderful job reading her poems and answered questions with ease during the chat portion of the program.

These are the moments when I very much love what I do, and these are also the moments when I get to contemplate how much the community built by a publisher influences everyone involved with it.

McKenna said several astute, thought-provoking items:

Self-publishing her first book put her in control of her own destiny instead of waiting for someone to deem her worthy. I would describe this a little differently: that self-publishing gave her a hands-on understanding of the industry which allows her to navigate and negotiate her future with less naivete.

Each book/work/poem represents a moment in time, and as such, they will never be perfect. And despite their imperfections, poems will always convey the feeling they need to share.

During her recent intensive geology class that toured National Parks in Utah and Arizona, poetry allowed her to grapple with something difficult. As she struggled to learn the complex scientific knowledge of the course, she used poetry to translate it. And she then made herself a photo book of the unedited work to capture the moment in time.

McKenna sold some books. I made some social media posts. I wove around the streets of Basking Ridge to entertain myself and I headed home.

Road Trips Snacks

On the way home, if I wanted to be a nice person, I needed to stop and put gas in the car. I noticed a sign for QuickCheck and that’s one of Eva’s favorites so I figured I would stop there. I discovered it was on Perryville Road, which is pretty darn close to her surname. I figured I’d run in the convenience store and get a snack (but hopefully nothing too crazy as I have lost four pounds) and then get gas.

I decided on a cup of their Kris Kringle iced coffee with light cream, apple slices and Lenny & Larry’s complete creme bricks… I mean cookies. The package said they had 15 grams of protein and 130 calories. So why not?

Gas was fifty cents a gallon cheaper than in Pennsylvania and it’s always a nice treat to have someone else pump it. The coffee had coconut and vanilla notes, which made me regret getting a small as I could have easily finished a large. I ate the apple slices (probably my first serving of fresh fruit this week) while waiting for the car to fill.

And wouldn’t you know as soon as I ended up on the road again the damn oil light came on. And the car is scheduled for an oil change in eight days.

The drive home was also lovely, and I enjoyed singing along to my music.

But if you’re curious about the cookies–

They tasted like hard discs of sprinkles. The vanilla flavor was that candy-ish flavor one gets from sprinkles, but the texture was hard, and I don’t mean hard like a cookie wafer but hard like an almond. When I got home to examine them closer I saw each serving had 130 calories, but each package of six cookies was three servings. So I had wasted almost 300 calories on some awful cookies. In addition to protein, they had some potassium and iron. The ingredient list looks like the whole cookie is wheat, pea protein and oil.

Tying for gold at Lucky Strokes Mini Golf

Earlier this week, I got a text message from Mr. Accordion.

Mr. Accordion and I were roommates during my tenure at a certain nonprofit that suffered from toxic management. It’s funny though how life leads a person on a meandering path, and we end up gaining things from experiences that hurt us at the time. I have current clients who connected with me because of that job. I ended up at Stitch Fix because of that job. And I published my novel as a distraction when I lost that job. So many of the circumstances that led to the success of Parisian Phoenix Publishing launched from a very stressful and agonizing work environment, where I shared an office with Mr. Accordion.

Mr. Accordion retired, and he has spent the last four years at various part-time jobs and spending time with his family. I have only known him about five years, but in that time he has always had a joke to share, leads on good food, and a genuine care for other people.

And the other day he invited Eva-the-no-longer-a-teenager and I for pizza and mini-golf. And who am I to say no to pizza and mini-golf? The venue in question was Lucky Strokes mini golf and driving range and Isabella’s Pizza.

They had a strange, vintage upholstered chair in the parking lot with a “free” sign and a school bus with a giant target painted on it in the back of the driving range, if I saw correctly at 175 yards.

The no-longer-a-teenager and I arrived and ordered a medium pizza with capicola and artichokes.

And after some conversation with Mr. Accordion, Eva and I hit the golf range. Now, I did set my Apple Watch to “golf” (and Omada gave me credit for “sports”). It took us 37 minutes to play all 18 holes. (In part because the people ahead of us where having some intense discussion about his marriage and how his wife wasn’t taking the couples counseling seriously. At least, that’s what Eva heard. How she heard that without her hearing aids, I don’t know.

It looked to me like the worst first date ever. She looked disinterested with her back turned, sipping her soda. He would not shut up about himself or his wife. And every time you looked at them, he was standing over to the side with his putter over his shoulder and his ball on the other side of the green.

Immediately, Eva noticed two things:

I don’t even remotely line up the putter correctly.I was swarmed by small harmless bee creatures.

And then while following my little pink ball around I fell up an incline and ended up crawling around the artificial turf on my hands and knees. Speaking of my knees, my knees and legs refused enough to let me get the ball out of the hole at each green.

Instead of keeping traditional score, we kept score of who landed each hole first, and who won each hole. We ended up trying, 8 holes each with two ties. None of which would have been possible without Eva’s golfing lessons. And her tendency to sometimes hit the ball so hard I feared she might have landed it on the next green.

And I think I had a hole in one, but now I don’t remember.

On the way home we stopped at The Spot for ice cream. I haven’t been to The Spot since my Stitch Fix days.

I had a dusty road sundae.

Day 5 of Omada: Wondering if it’s a scam

I feel like I have said a lot of this a lot of times so bear with me as I say it again.

The background

About 10 years ago, I decided to try to lose five-to-ten pounds. Approaching my 40th birthday, I needed to shed some weight before my annual physical. I worked at Target at the time where I walked 14,000 to 17,000 steps a day. I started weight training again, primarily because I had broken my right hand at work and could not untwist the soda fountain nozzles at night. No hand strength left. I worked primarily closing shift and I would get up, do my weights and walk 2-4 miles around my neighborhood. Every day. I counted calories and perfected my macronutrients and I felt invincible.

I lost 30 pounds in less than six weeks– while weight training. I dropped too much too fast and I had to buy a fitbit to make sure I was eating enough.

I worked really hard to regain weight and muscle.

But now, I’m approaching fifty. I have reached an all-time high with my weight– weighing the same thing I did on the day my daughter was induced 20 years ago. I have gained a little more than 30 pounds in the four years since the pandemic and a lot of other personal events.

And as someone with a mobility disability, that weight impacts everything even more than it does for the average person. I went to the gym religiously for three years, but I didn’t have the willpower or the finances to stick with good habits. Because it’s cheaper to eat the $1 McChicken and $1 diet Coke than it is to make your own chicken sandwiches.

The present decision: Omada

I know what to do. I understand nutrition and everything I do wrong. But I need someone to hold me accountable because my personal discipline is gone. Today is my sixth day participating in Omada– a free-to-me program through my medical insurance company– and I went on a small binge last night.

Perhaps my opinions will change, but I think Omada is a scam. And I think the bulk of the program is driven by AI.

But let me summarize the philosophy of the program.

There is no calorie counting. No exercise tracking but steps. So if you want your weight-training to count you have to convert it to steps, which makes no sense. I understand the idea behind tracking meal choices and not calories or macros. The program wants you to study your choices and habits to make meaningful change.

I’m using the Omada app AND MyFitnessPal and I’m still not making good choices or creating positive change. I’ve participated in my group’s discussions. And I’ve sent a long introductory message to my coach. And I reported a tech issue regarding my scale the day I received it.

I remedied the problem with the scale, so I thought they saw that I was using it and that’s why they didn’t get in touch. Turns out, it just took a week.

So I told my coach my history, and after the first day of tracking she mentioned she saw evidence of stress eating in my day’s choices. I thought to myself, “Really?”

Now to me, stress eating is eating a family size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. I reviewed my first day’s food. For lunch I had one leftover slice of pizza because I came home from a meeting extremely hungry, and in the evening I had a small individual bag of vegan gummy bears. My calorie count for the day ended around 1400.

Did she think I ate a whole pizza?

I replied, “It was just a busy day. I had a lot of meetings, but I think I made good choices.”

She asked, “Would you like some strategies for eating on the go?”

And I responded, “I have my strategies, but many of them include food I can’t afford right now like my KIND oatmeal breakfast bars that have 8 grams of protein perfect to tide me, and I don’t eat out because my grocery budget is around $100/month.”

Which if you ever read my posts on grocery shopping, you’ll know that’s true.

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She responded with tips like eating slower and putting my utensils down (which my message to her pointed out that I did not eat before the meeting, came home very hungry and then took the easy way out, which has nothing to do with eating too much at meals) and how to be smarter about eating out (when I said I don’t have the money to eat out). I believe this list of suggestions came from a chat bot who recognized the phrase “meetings” “busy” and “on the go.”)

No mention of the fact that my grocery budget is below poverty level. A person might want to address that first.

The research

My reporter’s instincts kicked in at this point.

I was already perturbed that it gave me a step goal of 7500 a day without any consideration of my health, my current activity level or my goals.

As a person who works at home at my desk for nine to twelve hours a day I get about 4000 steps on an average day. If I walk to do my errands or take a leisurely stroll around the mall, I get 6500 steps. The last time I hit 10,000 steps I spent the next day in painful muscle spasms. My point is– you need to gradually increase your activity level, especially if you have preexisting conditions.

To qualify for Omada, you need to have a weight problem, a heart condition or diabetes (or prediabetes). I am overweight, ended up in the hospital with Afib last year and had gestational diabetes which puts me at risk for prediabetes. AND I have cerebral palsy.

For people with heart conditions or obesity, is it safe to suddenly walk 7500 steps a day?

I looked online. How does Omada get paid?

Insurance companies pay Omada based on how much patients interact with their devices.

So, Omada gets paid every time I step on the scale.

This is bullshit.

And last night, after a day of decent eating, I added on an extra 500 calories of a peanut chew-style candy, gin and juice and freeze-dried fruit that I didn’t put on the app.

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The most I ever spent at Dollar Tree

I spent $88.30 at Dollar Tree today.

I ran through the store in about ten minutes and restocked my pantry and got some tide-us-over grocery items. I have never spent more than $35 in a Dollar Tree.

But here’s the deal– for some items, like snacks especially, I prefer having the smaller bags because then I can’t eat 800 calories in one sitting. And for other items, like condiments, it’s just the two of us and we don’t always agree so I don’t need a big bottle.

Shopping at Dollar Tree is low stress. I know the price and I weigh the size of the product with what I normally spend. For instance, I know I can probably get a larger loaf of cheap white bread for a similar price, but only my daughter eats the white bread so half of it will end up in the trash if I buy the “better value.”

I typically go to Dollar Tree when I have a tight budget for groceries. I had $120 in my grocery/discretionary money account and at least $60 cash, so I figured I’d let myself go wild.

Which I could not do in Wegmans.

I don’t eat much meat. I prefer to eat vegetarian, but my daughter could live on fruit and meat. I don’t like much fruit. Eva, the former The Teenager of this blog, works as an in-home pet caregiver, dog walker and animal trainer so she spends a lot of time away from home and on the go. I recently started the Omada program and am trying, once again, to shed oooooh 10 pounds as soon as freaking possible to 35 pounds longterm. These factors influence my choices.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Flights

When I got home, I planned to cook but Eva wanted to take the various ingredients from Dollar Tree and make “Peanut Butter Sandwich Flights” with apple crisps. She used her white bread, mine were on the cheap wheat.

We each had one half peanut butter and fluff, one half sandwich of peanut butter and hazelnut creme/cookie butter spread and one half peanut butter and honey.

A tasty evening meal on a hot summer day as she had been applying new contact paper on the kitchen counters.

Meats/Proteins

Hot smoked sausageBasic Bologna (They had a thin sliced and this one might have been regular, but I swear it said basic.)Chicken hot dogsTyson Honey Chicken Tenders ($5)Small jar creamy peanut butter, ten ouncessmall jar honey peanut butter, ten ouncesSpecial K Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bar(two cans) Planters Salt and Vinegar peanuts, six ounceshoney roasted peanuts, 7.5 ouncesthree bags of nut blends (energy, protein and ‘yogurt’)Skippy salted nut roll barrefried beans, 20.5 ounces

Fruits and Veggies

Frozen California BlendFrozen straight cut french friesFrozen pepper/onion stir fry mixFrozen mango, strawberry, blueberry mix ($3)tropical trail mix (5 ounces)freeze-dried fruit, three bags (two mixed fruit and one apple)apple cinnamon crispslightly salted harvest snapssnack boxes of raisinstwo cans of Del Monte creamed corn, 14.75 ouncestwo cans of Del Monte no salt added corn kernels, 15.25 ouncescan of petite diced tomatoes with green chiles, 14.5 ounces

Condiments/spreads

Marshmallow fluffhazlenut/cookie butter spreadMiracle Whip, eight ouncesgarlic aioli mayo, nine ouncesbutter flavored cooking spray

Drinks

Dr. PepperDiet Strawberry Watermelon Juice (two quarts-ish)Mango-flavored coconut water (one quart)Strawberry banana nectar (one quart)

Crackers/snacks

Chicken-flavored crackersVegetable-flavored wheat thin crackerslemon creme sandwich cookiesmini nutter butter cookiespeanut butter breakfast biscuitsbirthday cake fiber cookiesspicy ranch pretzel crispsVeggie crisps chipsLance cream cheese and chive sandwich crackerstortilla chips, six ounceschili lime gummy bears

Pantry items

20-ounce box of rotiniGluten-free spaghettibox of baking soda, Arm & Hammersalmon-flavored lickables for the cats (we’re teaching them to use a cat wheel)potato gnocchitwo ultra thin pizza crusts (which I could make cheaper and better but these are for a quick easy throw together meal)100% whole wheat bread, sixteen ounceswhite bread, sixteen ounceseverything bagels (4)cinnamon raisin bagels (4)corn tortillasimitation bacon bitsspaghettios with meatballsdiced oliveskosher dill pickles

Initial reactions to Omada (and Papa Johns almost made my heart explode)

I am not a patient person. As I type this, I am listening to an Omada lesson– because of my weight and my health issues, my insurance company has enrolled me in Omada’s weight management system. At least, I think that’s what it is. I’m already annoyed by the ASMR style voice of the narrator for the lesson. And the lesson is audio-based, which is not the best way to get my attention.

Papa Johns Cheeseburger Pizza

They sent me a scale, and the scale automatically sends my weight to my account (including to my coach). Last night, I ordered Papa John’s pizza, and ate more than a should have even past when I was not only full but comfortable. This unnecessary gluttony reinforced what I already know; salt has a huge effect on my health and my heart.

Ten minutes after eating the pizza (that summer special cheeseburger pizza is covered with pickled and tastes like a Big Mac), my heartrate soared to 120 beats per minute resting, for about 20 minutes, until I finally went into the house and took my regularly scheduled beta blocker.

If I don’t eat enough salt, I get orthostatic hypotension, which means I get dizzy and become more at risk to fall when I stand. Which is great as someone who already has a mobility disability.

Omada has set my step goal for 7,500 a day. A good day for me is 6K. An average day is 4K. I know this is part of the problem. My overall goal for this week– according to the app– is to meal track to build awareness. As if I don’t know what I put in my mouth… Their app does not include calories on their meal tracking system, instead it makes you click little stars to rate if it was healthy, or home prepared, and rate how full you feel.

They want you to create habits (and habits are exactly what I need) and awareness. (I am aware I either eat like a vegan health nut or a fast food addict.)

So we’ll see how it goes.

The After Party…

If you read the Parisian Phoenix blog, visit the publishing company’s substack or troll me on social media, you may know that on Saturday we hosted a Book Lovers’ Celebration at the Barnes and Noble in the Southmont Shopping Center (Bethlehem Township, Pa.).

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The Book Lovers’ Celebration at Barnes

Read more details and see the pictures here.

After the event, I offered our intern Allison and my daughter Eva dinner as payment for their assistance during the day. We decided to pop by Williams Restaurant as it was the sister restaurant of the diner where Eva waitressed in high school. We had already taken Allison to Tic Toc.

We chatted about the event and Allison’s and Eva’s impressions and the fact that the store manager wanted to offer Allison a job. As we got up to leave, Barbara Sceurman (wife of Parisian Phoenix author Larry Sceurman and patron saint of Paulie, the cat temporarily in our care) called out to us. Apparently, they had stopped for dinner after the event, too!

As we were talking to them, our waitress passed by us all giddy and enthusiastic.

“Did you mean to leave this for me?” she said.

Now, Eva had left a generous tip, but it turns out that she also took off her Parisian Phoenix pin and left that on the table and this waitress was thrilled to have it. So we told her to keep it and she put it on and started showing everyone.

It might be great publicity.

Who knows?

And then I took Allison to Aldi for snacks (and she loved the concept of fancy German grocery knock-offs). A plan emerged that we were all going to watch 27 Dresses. Which, gave me a chance to vegetate on the floor while enjoying Katherine Heigl (and if you followed my recent Grey’s Anatomy journey you can understand how much I enjoyed the main character of 27 Dresses who happens to be Dr. Izzy pining over George).