Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Java Jive

Good health requires hydration. The recommended daily water intake is 80 oz or eight 10 oz glasses. Seems a lot. But ... it turns out cups of coffee count toward that target. And the diuretic effect of coffee only minimally increases that target. Given that, it seems not so much. I do love a good coffee.

However, the world’s most popular beverage is tea which has about 1/3 the caffeine of Folgers, but for me, the only reason to drink tea is a concoction infused with lemon, licorice or peppermint to fight off a head cold. The British are of the opinion that any problem is solvable over a cuppa tea. Maybe they have something.

Not too long ago, coffee was high on the list of things to avoid. But recent research shows that coffee "can improve cognitive performance, speed up reaction time, and boost logical reasoning, and it may even reduce the risk of Parkinson’s, diabetes, liver disease, and cancer. But for a substance so ubiquitous that it’s called the most widely used drug in the world, our grasp of how to maximize its benefits is feeble at best."

Remember, too much of a good thing is never a good thing. Caffeine is a drug after all. And there's a point when guzzling caffeine tips over into questionable, unhealthy territory.

There are FDA guidelines on caffeine intake, a caffeine limit of 400 milligrams, the equivalent of about four or five cups of coffee. But we are clearly in an era of extreme "Red Bull caffeinating" with new products delivering high doses of caffeine popping up all the time. There are no product labeling or age warnings requirements on caffeine content. There are drinks on the market that contain 200 mg in a 12 oz can, 6x that of a Coke or 3x a cup of coffee. A 12-ounce Americano from McDonald’s contains 71 milligrams of caffeine, but the same drink at Starbucks contains 150 milligrams. And that 10 Hour Energy little 2 oz bottle has 422 mg of caffeine, exceeding that daily limit in one swallow.

So exercise some common sense. There have been several wrongful death lawsuits against extreme caffeine drink companies. Everyone reacts differently. I know someone where even a nibble of chocolate incites heart palpitations. If you've had 2 cups of coffee in the morning for 50 years it's probably not an issue, whereas if you're a novice, you might want to take it slow. Listen to your body.

Dehydration is dangerous. The USTA had a "pill" developed that players could swallow and have their internal body temperature measured during match breaks, using a red/yellow/green indication. Red meaning stop the match. However, players objected to swallowing a big horse-pill so the safety measure went by the boards - or rather the court. And the "pill" was cost effective as it was reusable.

In any case, keep in mind that cold water absorbs into your system fastest, so if you're playing tennis (or pickleball) when it's 100°, you should hydrate with cold water not coffee.

Be careful out there.

"The Java Jive" (Ink Spots, 1940)

Monday, March 11, 2024

Deep Thoughts Vol. 3

Once again, with apologies to Jack Handy, I give you Volume 3.

A trip to Costco is an existential experience. You have to decide if you are going to live long enough to use all that TP.

Most bikers tend to be a callused lot.

Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never get. [Borrowed from an otherwise unremembered sermon]

Never trust someone who is rude to wait staff.

Do you really want to own a vehicle named “Ram”?

The leather cover I use on my truck tailgate to carry my bike and protect against scratches is marketed as a “Crash Pad”. Disconcerting.

Who is Helmut Kohl? Me neither. Some German guy probably.

Wet feet and cotton underwear are not a match made in heaven, unless you can hop on one foot much better than I.

Guess this location. "The ambience may be bad but the company might actually be pretty good."

Try to stay astonished - in a positive sense. It will keep you young.

Compression socks, known to me as depression socks. I have several broken fingernails from trying to get them on.

Mental acuity test. Count backwards from 100 by 7's.

How did you do?

Budgets are moral documents.

If 7 is a lucky number, why are there 7 deadly sins?

Why in the world do "awfully" and "nice" get paired?

The internet is an unreliable narrator.

Try spending a day or two bound to a wheelchair. It will make you humble and curse stairways.

Believe it or not. I live in Minnesota and have a February tan. Pretty sure the earth is screwed. We need an exit strategy.

Bowling and tennis seem to have succumbed to pickleball.

Does anyone whistle (or hum) any more? I miss those distant echos of cheerfulness.

The James Webb Telescope is searching for life in outer space. I think ET might be purposely hiding from us.

Bad things can happen fast, but most good things happen slowly. (borrowed from somewhere)

I inherited any number of traits from my father, but arthritic hands is not one I'm thankful for.

Bashing things you hate will give you ulcers. Focus on the good stuff.

The Great Salt Lake is expected to be dry within 5 years. But, it's salty. It's not as if Lake Mead is drying up. Oh, wait.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Compassion Awakened

In my little home town, there dwelled a renowned storyteller. He would weave fantastic tales that always ended with ... "never would have believed it if it hadn't happened to me". Like .. "one day down by the lake, I was swarmed with monster mosquitos so I took cover under my overturned rowboat. The attackers' stingers came right through the boat bottom so I took out my hammer and bent them over. Suddenly, the boat was off flying and I was crouched under blue sky. Never would have believed it if it hadn't happened to me."

Such is life. We have a vague appreciation of things that affect others, but we go along our way without true awareness. It hasn't happened to me so .. I can ignore it. I'm sure you can make a list of any number of things like this.

About a month ago my wife fell while out walking. She was on a paved trail but at the bottom of a hill there was a mud hole (this in February in Minnesota, no less). She skirted off the trail to avoid the mud and caught her foot on a tree root and went down hard on her knee causing a compression fracture of her tibia. Hard to treat. She was placed in a lock-in-place knee brace and told she could not put any weight on that leg for 8 weeks. Uffda. Hard to get around with a walker hopping on one leg. So, pretty much homebound, confined to a wheel-chair + walker. Luckily she's a tough farm girl, determined to get through this.

Through this, we have come to really appreciate the difficulties facing the disabled. Of course we had some understanding of the trials of getting around while disabled: the lack of handicapped access to buildings; getting through doors - and their irritating narrowness; negotiating curbs; absence of handrails and the struggle to do just the basic things of life - you know what I mean.

We have a 2-story home with bedrooms upstairs so we moved a bed downstairs as climbing stairs was out of the question. The cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, pet care duties have fallen on the barely competent spouse. Stairs are daunting. To transfer up/down 2 steps from the house to our vehicle was nigh unto impossible until we purchased a short ramp. Now it is just difficult. We recently had a medical appointment at a hospital that will remain unnamed. The hospital presents a challenge. Its main entrance is below street-level with a long stairs from the street downward. There is a short drive-by patient drop-off accommodating only a half dozen cars so there's always a backup into the street. Just another example of a building not designed for the able challenged.

The thing is, for us, this will soon be over and we will be back to living (hopefully) our normal life. But for millions, disability is a permanent day-after-day struggle. I will never take mobility for granted again and I urge one and all to advocate for these folks.

“Compassion is the basis of morality” Scopenhauer