Yesterday I stepped on a scale at Bed Bath & Beyond. I weighed 156 pounds. This weight includes my sandals and a few things in my pockets. In any case, this reading doesn’t suggest that I’ve lost any weight yet, so I’m on track to succeed in my challenge. I’m not going to hang a “Mission Accomplished” banner just yet, but it’s a good start.
In a possibly related development, the 28 ounce jar of peanut butter that I opened on Monday is now empty.
In the nearly three weeks since my injury, the one thing that I’ve been completely unsuccessful at getting into my diet has been whole grains. The day after my surgery, I had my failed attempt at oatmeal. A little less than a week later, I dropped some fine cracker crumbs into soup, only to have them expand after absorbing moisture. For dinner today, I made an attempt at something that I really thought would work, but I was disappointed.
I made some whole wheat couscous and added a few spoonfuls to some vegetable broth, hoping to just drink it like a soup. The couscous seemed to get through the straw without any trouble, but most of it didn’t get past my teeth. I made a brief attempt at trying to blend the stuff before giving up and pouring it down the drain. I still have quite a bit of couscous left, but it’ll have to wait in the refrigerator until I can open my mouth again.
I now have five different kinds of dairy-free milk in my refrigerator: soy, rice, almond, hazelnut, and oat. I’ve used soy and rice for a long time, and have tried almond a few times, but hazelnut and oat are new to me. I actually don’t think I’ll buy either again because they’re more expensive and don’t seem any better. Almond milk has really grown on me over the last few days.
Incidentally, I refer to these milks as “dairy-free” rather than the more common “non-dairy” because the latter term has been corrupted by the milk lobby. Unfortunately, “dairy-free” isn’t perfect either, but it hasn’t been explicitly corrupted.
I went to a panel discussion earlier on food sustainability as part of Earth Week. Of course, food is the last things somebody who can’t eat for another eight days needs to hear about. Actually, the discussion itself wasn’t too bad in that respect because much of the discussion focused on some of the less appetizing aspects of food, but it didn’t help that they served vegan food there. I’m fairly used to going to events with (non-vegan) food and not eating, so going to an event with vegan food when I couldn’t eat was perhaps a little bit masochistic.
For dinner today, I had a smoothie which I might actually want to make again after I’m able to open my mouth again. Then it won’t be a meal, of course, but it was really quite good. I didn’t write down exact amounts of ingredients, but I’ll call it a Peanut Butter Apple Cinnamon Smoothie. I made it by blending a So Delicious Cinnamon Bun soy yogurt with a few tablespoons of peanut butter and maybe 1/3 cup of applesauce, a little bit of soymilk, and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. After that was all blended, I added more soymilk until the volume was about three cups, and blended some more.
The smoothie felt as though it was just thin enough that it could pass through the straw, and the flavor was really very good. Something about the flavored soy yogurt made it particularly so. The peanut butter has plenty of fat and protein, so it was nice and filling, too.
It’s been a couple of days since my supply of Vega arrived, but it’s already changed my life for the better. I already mentioned that it allowed me to go a few hours without eating while I taught back-to-back sections yesterday. A Vega meal replaces at least a couple of smoothies, and it offers more nutritional balance. It’s also a major convenience in the mornings because it’s one meal for the day that I don’t need to prepare before leaving for the office. The taste isn’t great, but it’s at least tolerable. My container of soy protein powder has gone back into the cabinet, so I don’t feel like I’m living off of a monoculture anymore. When I was deciding whether to try this stuff, I had a little bit of trouble coming to terms with the price tag, but so far, it’s definitely worth it.
At the math department tea today, I drank lemonade from a cup without a straw. This was the first time I drank from a cup since the accident. I might have been able to do as early as Friday, when I had the two stitches removed from my lip, but this was the first time I had any reason to try.
There were white corn chips at the tea, and I found myself craving these. I had no interest in yellow corn chips; I specifically wanted the white ones. Of course, the matter is of no practical importance given that I can’t open my mouth anytime soon.
Today, my brother and I went to see Muir Woods, but we encountered a couple of injury-related problems early on.
First, shortly after we left, I found that the flexible foam bandage on my elbow had come off. I don’t know if I’ve ever been satisfied with the way one of those bandages stuck. It seems like they always come off. Fortunately, we passed a pharmacy shortly after passing through San Rafael, and so I was able to purchase a box of better bandages.
When we got to Muir Woods, I was hungry enough that I wanted some of the smoothie I had made before leaving. Unfortunately, I discovered that I had left it at home. Luckily, the concession tent at the edge of the parking lot sold little boxes of chocolate (and only chocolate) soy milk. The price, naturally, was excessive, but it held me off until we got home, if only barely.
My brother has come to visit and drive me around in a rental car for a few days. Our first trip was to Whole Foods, where I bought some canned soups, soy yogurts, rice milk, and chocolate soy milk. The chocolate soy milk is just to make things a little bit more interesting, and the rice milk is so that I won’t be drinking several smoothies a day with soy milk, soy protein powder, and soy yogurt.
Thereafter, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond, where I purchased a strainer, which I plan to use to remove particles that are too big to blend from my soups. In buying the strainer, I also hoped to be able to remove the oatmeal from the smoothie I made the other day. Also in Bed Bath and Beyond, I found that there were towels on sale, so I purchased a couple. For reasons I don’t understand, I intended to buy two towels in different colors, but somehow I managed to inadvertently choose two of the same color without noticing that they were the same color until after I had checked out.
Upon my return home, the strainer did prove successful in removing the oatmeal from the smoothie.
I tried making oatmeal. I ground the oats in the blender before preparing the oatmeal, but when I put them in hot water the oat fragments expanded enough so that most couldn’t pass through a straw. Even many of those that couldn’t pass through a straw ended up getting stuck in the wires. In a last ditch effort to use the oatmeal, I tried taking just a little bit and adding it to a smoothie, but this made it impossible for me to drink the smoothie. I left the smoothie in the refrigerator until I can acquire a strainer with which to remove the oatmeal.
Shock and Jaw 