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August 23, 2006
Don't Leave Home Without It
Is there a word for that feeling that what you're about to do is a bad idea, just a twinge of intution that it will turn out to be a mistake? Not a feeling that what you're about do to is morally wrong, just a feeling that something that usually wouldn't matter will turn out to be a major fiasco? If there's not, there should be.
Yesterday at 6:30 am when I was leaving my hotel to drive up to my first nurse meeting of the day, I had a feeling that I should bring my megamuffin with me. My plan was to return to the hotel after the 7 am - 8:30 am session, get a quick workout in the hotel fitness room, grab my megamuffin from my room fridge, and then return for the 11 am to 8:30 pm series of meetings. So technically, I didn't need my muffin, as I was planning to eat it for lunch. But I had this feeling that I should go ahead and put it in my purse, just in case.
Well, I turned out to be right. I was leaving the first meeting to head back to the hotel when my brake light flipped on. Yup, the one that tells you your brakes are in bad shape. No wonder, as I've been driving in the Poconos every day for three weeks, and before that I was doing a ton of city driving in Philly for work. Of course, this can't happen when I'm at the office just a few blocks from my favorite mechanic. No, it happens when I'm all alone in a strange city. Great.
I asked for advice at the meeting hotel on a repair shop and got none. I finally just stopped at a gas station where a guy told me the name and location of a mechanic, so I started driving in that direction. Before I got there, I came across a car parts supplier. Hmmm, I thought. They'd know the location of a decent repair shop. So I asked, and they told me the location of a good place... about a block away! So I went there, they showed me that my front brakes were seriously worn down, and they fixed them for me... for a lot less than the price I'd pay in Philly. It turned out well in the end. I'm taking the car by today to have them take a quick look at the rear brakes, even though I just got them replaced in the winter. My car gets a lot of exercise.
The brake crisis killed my plans to go back to my hotel and work out, and it also prevented me from gathering my megamuffin and salad. Grrrr! I ended up having to go straight to my 11 - 1 session, which took place in a city park, with no lunch. As my lunch time came and went, I was getting very, very hungry. I had eaten a great breakfast: I took my very own, very best 1 cup measuring cup down to the free hot breakfast in the hotel and asked Mike, the omlette maker, to measure me a cup of eggwhites. He was very helpful and measured my eggwhites, removed the butter from the pan, and used non-stick spray instead. I added my own brewers yeast on top and even had my flax oil, measured out in my cute little pink teaspoon (that MR hates because it's the wrong shape, so he didn't mind if I took it to Scranton.) My breakfast was almost exactly what I would have at home, so it was delicious and filling, but I had eaten at 6 am so as to hit the road by 6:30, and by a little after 12 I was starving!
Luckily, I had thrown an Atkins protein bar into my purse for emergencies. I don't advocate making these a part of your quotidian diet: the protein is soy protein, which is problematic (search the CRS archives for "soy and dementia" to find out how excessive soy consumption may well make you act like my 18 year old cat.) The nutrients are basically supplements stirred into low carb fake food, but the point is, when you're very hungry, it's a safe, low-calorie way to get some protein and avoid a carb-induced blood sugar spike that will give me an anxiety attack and will make most anyone hungry about ten minutes later. Finding low carb packaged food for emergencies is much easier these days, thanks to the Atkins folks. The actual Atkins products tend to be very low calorie (this bar was 150) compared to a lot of "nutrition" bars that weigh in at between 200 and 260.
So I ate my emergency Atkins bar, drank a bottle of water, and eventually left that session at 1 with a short break before the next session. There's a Subway right next to the meeting hotel, so I stopped there for a Subway Club salad. Again, not perfectly optimal: the Subway Club has turkey meat, and while it's lean meat, I'd still rather avoid the saturated fat and cholesterol when possible. The whey and eggwhite protein of the megamuffin would have been preferable, but the Subway Club is quite respectable, very satisfying, and a mere 150 calories.
All in all, my lunch turned out to be 300 calories -- just about the same as it would have been had I eaten my planned megamuffin. Not bad, for a day when what could go wrong went wrong.
I had a short dinner break between evening meetings, so I went to the Ruby Tuesday's at the next exit and had a lovely salad of romaine, tomatoes, green and red bell peppers, lowfat cottage cheese, red onions, raw broccoli, green olives, chickpeas (just a few -- the calories on those add up fast!) and hot peppers, topped with Heinz salad vinegar.
I finished up my meetings at 8:30, drove back to the hotel (sitting in traffic for an extra fifteen minutes due to construction) and proceeded to discover a most interesting new food: the tomatosicle. Apparently, my fridge was set very cold, so the grape tomatoes that I had purchased the day before at the Allentown Farmers' Market had partially frozen. I will eat tomatoes in almost any form, and I didn't really mind the tomatosicle. The extra cold fridge did wonders for my Concord grapes, which were unbelievably sweet and tasty. I had a pleasant bedtime snack of a handfull of tomatoes, a few grapes, the piece of nonfat cheddar I had forgotten to put on my breakfast omlette, and a six ounce glass of Meridian cabernet, measured in baby travelling measuring cup. Then I took my melatonin and hopped in the shower to try to unwind before bed... I still have time unwinding after late night meetings and driving. When I got out of the shower, I was all melatonin-sleepy and ready to crash, but unfortunately, the person in the room next door was blasting his television.
Now, I really don't like TV. I find the noise almost unbearably annoying. In general, I don't like background noise, unless it is the calming waterfall of my little tablefountain. I am either listening to something (radio, a CD, whatever) or I am not. If I'm not, I don't want the noise. And I especially hate TV noise if I need to sleep.
I only stewed for a few minutes before picking up the phone and calling the room next door. In my sweetest southern voice, I asked the gentleman if he could possibly turn down his TV just a touch. He graciously complied, and I thanked him profusely, also in my sweetest southern voice. I had to be up again at 5 this morning, so I didn't have time to mess around with my sleep.
This morning I was up again at 5, did my meditation out on my little hotel balcony facing the rising sun (the ducks in the stream outside seem to think I'm going to feed them when I come out early in the morning. Must be something about my arm motions, cause they all come quacking. Some might find this distracting, but I think it's rather cute. Reminds me of how my mother used to adopt geese when she lived on a lake. She'd feed them cat food, and they clearly thought she was their mommy. I pointed out that this makes her a Mother Goose.)
Then off to the free breakfast and my 1 cup eggwhite omlette, measured in my trusty measuring cup, this time with the full complement of non-fat cheddar slice, teaspoon flax oil, tablespoon brewers yeast. And off to work...
I'm at the meetings now but it's the part between shifts so no one is here yet. I'm hoping to catch a workout between sessions today... the workout room is so nice that it's a shame not to take advantage of it, and I think that working out will help prevent the joint pain and muscle stiffness that doing so much driving seems to cause. I also find exercise such a good stress reduction method that in these times of repetitive stress, both mental and physical, I really must incorporate it into my daily routine, even when on the road.
And yes, this time, I put my megamuffin in my purse before leaving the hotel at 6:30. Don't leave home without it.
Posted by april at August 23, 2006 7:29 AM