Artificial Sweeteners, and their role (roll) in fat deposition.
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Posted:Oct 12, 2008 6:52 pm
Last Updated:Oct 21, 2010 8:36 pm
12489 Views
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I, my blog, have been silent too long. But this is something we all need to know.
You are encouraged to link, reprint on your blog, in short, spread this word as widely as you can. It concerns us all.
There have been two studies, one of which I will print below, the other I have been unable to find again.
http://Local Adult Companion.com
American Psychological Association (2008, February 11). Artificial Sweeteners Linked To Weight Gain. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 12, 2008, from http://Local Adult Companion.com /releases/2008/02/080210183902.htm
But the core of it is that rats, fed either a yogurt sweetened with sugars, or fed a yogurt sweetened with artificial sweeteners, had a surprising result. The rats that consumed the low cal artificially sweetened yogurt gained more weight than those that ate the sugared yogurt. 9 calories gained weight. 15 calories did not.
Why?
Metabolisms were recorded and tested for and here is where it gets interesting.
The rats eating the high cal sugar,,, their metabolism 'revved up'. The low cal rats did not.
The reasons.
We, and the rats, have programing to aid our digestion. When sweet is recognized by the tongue, a chain of hormones and enzymes, a cascade of processes begins.
Saliva and the enzymes that begin digestion immediately.
Metabolism revs anticipating sugar in the blood stream.
Stomach acids and intestinal enzymes, fats from the liver, insulin from the pancreas,,, all ,, ALL step in to handle the new energy, food, coming on board.
BUT, if no sugar, no energy, consistently accompanies the sweet taste, the brain and the body adapt. Sweet no longer means sugar, sweet shall be ignored. So apparently two things result
TWO THINGS. A. The body ignores sweet, and hence sugar, when it is tasted in the mouth. The body does not increase metabolism, or begin the full chain of digestion processes. So when it is sugar, it is not burned or handled as MILLIONS of years of evolution has taught the organism to respond. Too high blood sugar and stored as fat.
AND B. The body does not count those calories as sufficient, you are still hungry.
My conclusions are,,, and I emphasize MY CONCLUSIONS, and my hypothesis that someone needs to test. I have not the facilities to pursue this.
But of statistics I know a bit.
The ever increasing use of all artificial sweeteners is an accelerating upward curve beginning in the 1950's.
The upward curve of adult onset diabetes, absolutely unexplained to date, nearly exactly matches this curve.
The ever increasing average body weight of Americans as recorded by the FAA (for plane loading), by the US Coast Guard (the certification of vessel capacities), and by all of our anecdotal experience, (check with Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig)
also EXACTLY MATCHES this upward curve.
As little as one diet soda per week is enough to retrain your brain. Diet soda may be the worst of the bunch, lots of sweet and zero calories.
STOP USING. Heavy and want to lose weight? Eat less, move more, and UTTERLY stop using artificially sweetened anything.
By my own experience, it will take 6 months of ZERO consumption of artificial sweeteners for the body to shift back. I am beginning to lose weight, stubborn weight, and doing nothing other than what I have ever done. Just no artificial sweeteners.
For decades the debate has raged over the safety of the various chemicals. Some truly are quite safe, all have passed rigid scrutiny and approvals. But what none of us looked for, or suspected, was the reprogramming of our own bodies, by our own internal processes. We missed the simple, because we looked for the complex.
Here on this site, look at European men and women, look at American men and women. I will bet you the European and Asians use proportionally less artificial sweeteners and weight proportionally less. And a few years after they match our consumption they will look like us. Or better yet, lets look like them as they are now.
Time will tell about the suppositions of adult onset diabetes the rest is fact.
Dean
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Now for the canoe trip.
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Posted:Jul 21, 2008 11:58 pm
Last Updated:Jan 2, 2009 9:28 am
10296 Views
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I returned just a few days ago and am off once again for a scout trip, a 150 mile canoe trip, hiking, wilderness, no phones, rattlesnakes, mosquitoes, heaven. I promise to set aside time to tell you all about it when I return. The Missouri river, western Montana, Lewis and Clark route.
Well the van is to pick me up in three hours and I still have 5 hours of work ahead of me.
Be well, all of you.
Dean
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Camping
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Posted:Jun 27, 2008 7:27 am
Last Updated:Aug 2, 2008 10:44 pm
10114 Views
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Off to the wilderness (not really) of scout camp for a week or so. Mostly to build and repair what is needed, what is broken at the camp. Mosquitoes, bad food, noisy boys, rain on the tent, and a loon or an owl calling in the night.
I'll try to remember what should be remembered and tell you about it when I return. Just one of two scout camps this summer, the second one, three weeks from now is wilderness.
Dean
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Fishing
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Posted:Jun 23, 2008 7:53 pm
Last Updated:Jun 24, 2008 4:47 am
10746 Views
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Busy days. Remember those school shipped off for the summer? It would seem they are beginning to fill my time. Did I hear you say something about lunch? (Shameful and blatant bit of fishing.) Either on Friday or Saturday early, I'm off for the Scout camp up between Clare and Cadillac. I should go up on Friday to have a full work day on Saturday, but the week will dictate the when of it. I look forward and dread some of this time. Lost work and income, and what do I do up there?, work. I am the proud papa of the outdoor showers with their Rube Goldberg cobbled together hot water system. All donated parts,,,, and I cobbled together a 275 gallon propane hot water 'something'. Every time I see it I think of the pinball striking the bell, which pushes over the tin soldier, which lights the candle, which burns through the thread, which,,,,,, Showers for 150 and we have yet to run out of hot water. (SOME of that is due to scouts WANTING to go home in the same clothes they have played and slept in all week. Thursday we usually throw anyone whom is offensive to the upwind of us summarily into the stall. Amazingly one somehow came out dry 20 minutes later.... go figure.)
I built a 120 foot long bridge for them in April. Kitchen sink, water pressure tank and well pressure switch, two toilets, part of a 2500 foot water system buried 4 feet down, and every once in a while I get to pull my chain saw out and dismantle a tree or two. I show a certain talent for a chainsaw. I eat more meat up there in a week than I usually eat in a month,, or longer. I snore, my tent mates snore, and not one of them is soft and cuddly. Hmmm maybe more women should be volunteers. Heck, it would never work. They'd never let me share a tent with someone who actually smells nice. Bugs. Rain. No alcohol. Some of the men smoke cigars after dinner. They all seem to play euchre. My cot is barely survivable and the twenty year old sleeping bag reminds me of those unwashed boys, or I lay on top under a prickly, stickly, wool army blanket. BUT last summer they MADE me go teach fishing to an eleven year old. ME,,, who can't catch a fish! I can catch a train, a plane, I can catch cold, I can catch heck(REALLY good at that) , but I cain't catcher no damn fishes. I try, I just cain't. They gave me the who wanted to quit the troop. No bait, almost no fishing gear, but at least a canoe. (I am a whiz with a canoe. I'll take you for a moon light canoe ride sometime.)
My solution to the dilemma was to find bait. Turned over rocks, nothing, logs, nothing, searched through the grass, nothing, but I did notice small frogs in the puddles of the trail. So I caught frogs, put them in my pocket, (Ever had a half dozen little live frogs in your pocket?) The only hooks I had were little no. 6 hooks. Found a bobber with attached large hook stuck to lily pad. Tied it all together.
FIRST CAST! Cast the rod, 'kerplop', hand the rod to the ,,,,, and as I had it to him I feel a strike! fights and wahoos and reels in about a two pound bass. Even got the frog back still kicking!
Cast it again. still can't cast so I do it for him and hand over the rod and reel and nearly as fast, another one! Smaller so we release.
Paddle the canoe, paddle the canoe,,,,, and once again, bait the hook (the little darlings were escaping my pocket and in the bottom of the canoe) he still can't cast soooo I do it for him again and don't even get to hand it to him before something big is on the line! I handed it to him and he got towed all over the place. Finally got the fish close enough to net and HOLY WAH! When the lifted the fish's head, and I was trying to net him, the fish got one look at my face, let the frog go, and LEFT. Must have been a 4 or 5 pound bass.
My scout went home with two good fish, released a couple, lost the big one, (Aren't we supposed to? The basis of every good, "The one that got away story".)
And me, who can't catch a fish on his best day, who owns hundreds of dollars of gear, buys licenses, and never brings anything home,, Good Ol' cain't catcher no fishes , Dean. Is in demand to teach fishing again this year. The test will be if the same boy returns to scout summer camp. In the meanwhile,,, I understand I have two more toilets to install, bathrooms to paint, commercial kitchen sink to install, holes to dig and holes to fill, burgers and dogs to eat till I stroke,,,,but one day, and maybe two, to canoe for an hour, fish for an hour, and the faint hope is to have a boy have some summer fun. Its good, its all good.
Dean
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A small thing.
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Posted:Jun 13, 2008 8:59 pm
Last Updated:Jun 22, 2008 7:21 am
10917 Views
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There I was, truck loaded ugly and tall, junk for the recycling place.
The first duty upon arrival is the weigh in. Park and turn off the truck, exit the vehicle, stand along side and visible, while the old guy in the window weighs the loaded truck. Seemed to take forever, he musta been talkin' to someone in there.
And while waiting, I looked and admired an old wooden ironing board. Label faded and half gone on the top, "Maid of Honor" "Lifetime" "Ironing platform". Most of it was quite clear, some portions of the colourful label gone, words extrapolated.
The wood was flat still, but heavily checked on the old glue seams The angle iron and round rods that made up the folding legs, bright frog green and missing paint black iron for colours. The metal works were askew. I thought of repair and then just as quickly put it out of my mind. I don't need to accumulate any more stuff. The wood was a glue joined, five or six pieces of vertical grained spruce, better, straighter, prettier, than anything I am likely to find today. Nice wood, lots of old woods are. Wood is cut younger, greener, wider grains today. Little or less thought to selection of quality pieces.
But all this headed for the dump with the old mulch, the old hose, the old cabinet, the old ping pong table, the old, the old,,,,,,,,,
And I came back to that board. Pretty. Something of the late thirties. Checked wood, chipped paint, metal work unfunctional, unstraight, brightly printed partial label declaring "Lifetime" "Ironing platform"
And it was all that. A product that had fulfilled its full measure, lived up to its promise.
It was a wedding gift to the newly wedded woman who's estate house I was assisting to empty. She was newly wedded in about 1938, died last year.
It did last a lifetime, near seventy years with a professional dressmaker. Tonight, likely a few layers down in a modern landfill. And still admired by me.
Dean
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You never learn a subject so well, until you try to teach another.
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Posted:Jun 10, 2008 9:50 pm
Last Updated:Aug 27, 2013 7:55 pm
10886 Views
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No shit! There I was at 22,000 feet, camera duct taped to my hand. No shit, I thought I was gonna die! (And well I would have had I lost or damaged the SLR Nikon I had borrowed.)
OOPS! Wrong story again. Good intro though I've used it before. Someday I'll tell you about that sky dive from a C-130.
The real story follows, to wit:
"Dave, this is not a good idea. In fact, except for the experience of canoing in dangerous conditions, I am against this. The only thing that I am in favour of is the experience for the others. They will not want to do it again."
Dave said nothing as we began our trip across the lake. I believe he thought I was exaggerating the danger and the difficulty. I was not. I'd been here before, responsible for young lives in a canoe and on a lake in high winds.
The one that I had not considered was me. Yes, I, we, Dave and I, had to stay not only behind the slowest canoe, but we also had to stay to windward of the canoe the farthest to the wind. For once downwind, beating back upwind with paddles would prove difficult and dangerous. And even more immediate than that, these were not large canoes and my 20 stone was in the front seat, I was the motor of the boat and weighing it deeply down at a time when high and dry was the need.
Dave steered to keep us in rescue position should any of the canoes of the young men require it. I kept a steady stroke to the windward side to keep us moving and maneuverable. I also of necessity, kept a steady watch and balance of the canoe to rock away from the highest waves, rock the windward side high enough to keep the blue water from shipping over the side and onto my feet. I also kept my thigh to that side pressed against the gunwale, acting as a dam to the wave tops trying to best the side. Slow and slowly we moved into the wind, against current and wave trying to stay in control, a single broach to the side would sink us, and station keeping to observe and be ready to run down to any if they got in trouble.
Twice I called to Dave to single hand it for a minute while I bailed out the most recent additions to our weight. Something as little as two or three gallons of water would hold us that much lower,,, and lower was not good with both wind and waves getting slowly taller.
We progressed steadily across to the opposite lake shore, ducklings about. One canoe, holding the youngest and most novice paddlers we told to just beach it there, we could come to get them with the truck. They steered for shore and then not. They had made a very adult decision to tough it out and continue. I have to laugh, yes, I am glad they did, it showed toughness and resolve in the face of difficulty. But no, I personally, would have liked them to beach, wet and safe, so I could pay attention to one fewer boat. They and we dogged on, water still sloshing into my canoe from time to time, still rocking the canoe away from each larger wave to show a taller face to the sea, the gunwhale (gunnel) usually only an inch above each succeeding wave.
Another mile and the landing. We made certain each beached before us. We, at my insistence, even brought ours in backwards to keep the water in the bow with me. I did not relish the thought of wet camping gear and sleeping bags for tonight. If I had the bow settled a little extra, (and I did) the water would stay forward and not try to climb under the packs.
Good dinners, campfire, people tired and satisfied, tents set and bedtime with the setting of the sun. But the real gain, the real victory of safety over varlour or over confidence was the lesson brought home to the four leaders. This was just the practice run for the big trip next month on the Missouri River in Montana. And on that river all sources of information, guide books, personal stories related to me, even the actual Lewis and Clark Expedition notes of two hundred years ago, all told the same tale. Travel the river in the morning. It will likely be at peace then, neither wind or wave. But as the day warms and the heating of ground and air begins to move the air, the wind can fall off of the heights and scour the surface of the river, thunderstorms can bloom and blossom in the heat and humidity of the afternoon, Westerlies can be overcome by Easterlies forced into the canyons against the current and our route. Leave early, arrive early, and the day is easy.
The lesson was not lost on any of us.
We ALL arose the next morning, after our experiences on the lake, at 5:30am. Camp was packed and loaded in 20 plus minutes, breakfast eaten, site policed and cleaned. Dads and teenagers, so difficult to rouse early, roused easily and quickly. Paddle early, arrive early, the rest of the day is easy. We all learned accuracy and turning techniques that second day, logs and snags blocked the river ever few hundred feet for the next dozen miles
My take on the weekend is that the adults who were teaching the boys how to load and paddle a canoe, learned more and more valuable lessons than did their charges.
But isn't that the way of all teaching. You never learn a subject so well, until you try to teach another.
Dean
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Posted:Jun 7, 2008 5:23 pm
Last Updated:Oct 21, 2010 8:40 pm
10346 Views
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My friend, covetthedragon, told me to, "Bring on more fodder." That was in reference to a couple of 'very bad, horrible, awful, no good days'.
I just had a very good day, Hmmm, maybe more to the point, momentous, memorable.
The synopsis probably carries the weight of the day as well or better than a long explanation.
Up at 3:40 am after maybe sleeping an hour. The first thing I did was to put on my wedding ring, I've not worn it in years. I couldn't sleep, I'd wager you'd do no better.
Off to the airport with my wife, very soon to be ex, but still in all, my friend. Arrive with minutes to spare, a coffee to carry on board.
Depart on time at 6am.
Arrive New York City just before 8am, bus, subway, Grand Central Station for a very brief breakfast.
And somewhere along the way, on the bus, the time expired on the required waiting period, I became a divorced man at 8:30 am
City Hall at 9:30 and married at 10:30am.
Lots of pictures. Lots of pictures. A walk in the park. Lots more pictures. And off to lunch.
Good lunch and long. Happy group of just less than ten. The check, startling to a Midwesterner.
Back on the subway by myself, my wife to spend the night there in New York, and back to La Guardia to catch the 3: something flight home.
Detroit by 6pm, home by 6:40, out to dinner and a movie with my high school , the reason for the quick turn around.
Delightful evening, sterling company, of course, running just on fumes.
Home, some reading, a beautiful rain and thunderstorm, abed before 11pm
Took off the ring for the last time.
All in one day, my Mother's birthday (now gone), a beginning, an ending.
Dean
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For how faithful could ever be the wind?
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Posted:May 19, 2008 8:34 pm
Last Updated:Jun 22, 2008 7:24 am
11494 Views
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It is an odd dichotomy, but I understand why I like to sail. So much of common day to day is far beyond my control, bankers who have studied banking ad nauseum, are better bankers than I, Lawyers are better lawyers than I, computer techs are better computer techs than I. Each has their specialty, each that I have to be able enough to function with at some level of competence.
When I sail I am ostensibly at the whim of water and wind. The dichotomy is that there I feel some small level of control. Where there is truly no control, is one of the rare places left to me that I do sometimes feel that the fate is mine.
And each time I have the good fortune to look and admire my surrounds, like slides, transparencies of past photography, all neatly arranged in their trays, little slices of time captures for later and remembered, the days spent sailing....... each moment different, the sails always needing a tweak, (For how faithful could ever be the wind?), no wave quite like the one before or after, the clouds have never been just that way, or will ever be again, the snowflakes of life, each different, no two ever just alike.
I have found this in golf, skiing, some other pursuits, certainly in the people I know, and will know. Sorry, kind of preachy.
Summer is here, the boat, afloat and repaired from the most recent hiccup, the long weekend to sail. Hey, Covet, what cha doin'?
Dean
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A letter of introduction.
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Posted:May 10, 2008 9:09 am
Last Updated:Jul 19, 2008 9:34 am
11251 Views
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Friend of a friend? A good friend says, "You must meet her." The recommendation comes from someone I really like, trust. Okay, but where to begin? What common ground to open with? I just started writing. The results were interesting. It came out well and was fun.
It follow:
I barely know where to start. In truth, I don't. A single seed in a farmer's bag may be worthless because what will it become? Seeds often look the same. Ah! An apple seed!
I'll bet you didn't know,,,,,,,,,,Apple trees cannot be bred true. ALL apple seeds are hybrids. Apples of a name, Delicious, Gala, Braeburn, Macintosh,,,,,, each has it's origins in a single tree, a single seed. All Red Delicious apples are offspring of a single tree of more than one hundred years ago. A single tree. All Red Delicious apple trees are grafts from that one original happy accident. One tree. The seeds within a Red Delicious, there are five seed chambers, will produce five entirely different and original apple trees. Every apple on a single tree has five new species, a hundred apples on a tree, five hundred brand new never seen before varieties. Most of them are worthless. Small hard cherry sized red fruit, green fruit, yellow fruit, big and sour, medium sized and as hard as a piece of wood,,, and just about as tasty as that piece of wood. Of the five hundred new varieties there will be several that are edible,,, because seeds and new trees are spread far and wide by dung. Pretty sneaky. If not dung, then the thrown away apple core will seed the new tree. Our every road side has apple trees growing within a thrown distance. Once again, most, or nearly all, produce apples that are rubbish, hard, soft, sour, small, only good for cider, if that.
So when a single seed is placed in your hand, no one can know what it will become. No one. It is a practice of faith to plant many seeds, tend, prune, water, fertilize,,, grow to maturity before you can know if any, if any at all of the thousands you've planted, tended, loved, will produce a fruit that is sweet, that stores well, hard but not too hard, attractive so that it is desired, eaten,,,, and seeds transported in fist or gut to begin the next and always experiments.
And new friends are the same. All different, even if from the same tree, you can never know the where, or the when, or the whether, they may be important. I do suspect you are the tree and I have been told the fruit is sweet (awesome), and I am maybe the fertilizer (bullshit as is proved by this intro lol ).
But in honesty, one can never know. It is an act of faith to say, "Hello *****, my name is Dean."
Dean
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A CONGRESS OF MEN.
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Posted:Apr 28, 2008 11:45 am
Last Updated:Nov 2, 2008 8:00 pm
11040 Views
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You had to be there, I was lucky, I was.
I worked today long and longer with men and young men constructing a bridge over a wetlands for the scouts. Arise early and barely a breakfast and off the miles through the woods to the bog to be bridged. I began alone and the boys, the men, filtered in after their breakfast in small car sized groups. We worked like dogs, ankle or knee deep surveying and then digging the post holes to four feet deep, standing and packing in the pier timbers, cross bracing,, onto lunch. But the afternoon, after the all too brief meal, was with a new crew, they from the morning's scouting activities, the morning work group onto their afternoon sports. And on to dinner, a brief meal again, and back to work with a few hardy souls to complete. And we did, a few minutes after sunset.
The day's perspective is important. The hard work, the many fine men and young men, contributing their all, the extremes of tiredness, and satisfaction, and pride at the job accomplished, and the true depths of respect and comradeship for those I was privileged to work with. I should clearly add here, there was a woman who worked as long or longer than any of us as well.
For there they all were. The camp propane lamps lighting the cook and dining shelter. A shelter of no sides, just metal tube frame supporting strong plastic tarps. The sibilant lamps hung from the ridge pole and I sitting, in pleasant converse with another adult, too tired to stand, coffee and the evening charcoal baked tort, delicious far beyond what taste buds alone could sense. For standing about me were the mixed men, young and old, of the day. Brilliant clear star lit dark of night beyond, faces warmed and bright in the cool air, in the soft glow of the gas lights, each talking and sharing with one another.
And I, privileged beyond all expectation, left quiet and eating, with time to see, really see and absorb the scene surrounding me. To hear snatches of converse, animated faces and gestures, laughter at what struck as funny, a congress of men.
I wished I could take a photo, but even then, I knew the essence could not be captured with a lens. No lens is wide enough, clear enough, no photographer so subtle to be able to catch them all unawares. But more, so much more, that is just not the simplicity of photons. The hiss of the lamps, the drift of campfire smoke blown the wrong way, the crystalline clarity of sky, the ancient camp wooden name carved picnic tables, moist earth, good food, coffee cup to warm both hands and self, and surrounded by a tableau of friends, faces, men, just talking. Oh, I am lucky, so lucky to be numbered among them.
And later, much later with all but a few already in tents and snoring, some not so softly, I stood before my tent before going in. Just stood, and listened, frogs singing the night air, the few snores, the dark of night with stars spangling through the Spring's leafless trees, cold and clear, and lovely. And I, about to add my sonorous song to the night. I was assured, I did.
Dean
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The first of the year.
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Posted:Apr 20, 2008 6:04 pm
Last Updated:Nov 2, 2008 8:02 pm
10977 Views
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Bend on the sail. Slip the slug and bolt rope in the slot of the boom. Open the track gate and feed the slides into the mast. Un-pin the shackle and capture the tack, outhaul to the clew, halyard to the headboard. Free the topping lift, open the shackle at the boom end. Untie and layout the mainsheets. Hank on the fore sail and bowline the jib sheets. Cast off the dock lines and away we go.
I cannot believe it possible, but there was no one else out there Sunday morning. A few small power boats ventured a short way out, fishermen , I think.
Two vessels motored out strongly after mid day and paused together for several hours. On the way in in the evening the two vessels were found to be one US Coast Guard boat and one Canadian Coast Guard boat. I hope they were having a pre-season beer and chat about what is to come.
But you know,,,, there were no other sailboats. just me. I can't imagine that I was the first of the season, but it is nice to think that maybe , yes, I was.
Pleasant thought. Probably not true, but someone has to be first. And the lake was lovely.
Dean
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Spring and the growth of masts
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Posted:Apr 18, 2008 7:56 pm
Last Updated:Apr 21, 2008 9:15 pm
11000 Views
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Splashed the boat today! Launched, had it put in the water, the crane dropped it in for me,,,, she floats!
Spent the afternoon stepping the mast, setting up standing and running rigging, adjusting bend in the mast (A good thing. Masts are not supposed to be straight.), engine, last year's pop cans (Ice exploded them over the winter, Hey, I forgot.), painted the bottom with anti-foul in the AM, sunburned,,, and content.
Bend on the mainsail in the morning and go beat a few small waves into submission.
The last of the ice only came down the river on Monday. Water temp is 39F,,, don't fall in. But the air temp today was 72 with a summer sun.
I should be abed now, 5am comes early. Winds to be from the SSE tomorrow about 10 knots, waves less than 2 feet. Sedate. Rain in the afternoon. It will be wonderful.
There are just a small number of boats in the water, but in the basin where mine spends it's summers, she was the only boat. There will be few on the lake tomorrow, but there will be at least one.
Dean
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I am fortunate to live in interesting times.
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Posted:Apr 9, 2008 8:29 pm
Last Updated:Apr 21, 2008 9:10 pm
10955 Views
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I spent yesterday morning in court.
I drove there and sat with my wife, we were friends first, still are, although separate bedrooms for nearly a decade. But with the responsibility of to raise, I did what I needed to do.
I never hired a lawyer, didn't want to.
She hired one and she, the lawyer, was late arriving. And from second hand telling of a phone conversation, I had a suspicion. It proved to be valid when the woman attorney arrived sans briefcase, sans agreement, and late enough that the judge had already called a first recess.
On the night before, on a single page, I wrote an agreement. So simple, so complimentary of my wife, gentle of tone, and so like our conversations of what each wanted. I added nothing. "Just the facts, Ma'am!".
While we were awaiting the lawyers arrival, we watched a labyrinthine of questions, papers, attorneys, a cavalcade of distraught people, men and women, each with their minutes or half hours with the judge and all.
Horrifying.
One particularly ,,, there is not a word that I can think of that can bring you the sense of horror, revulsion, amaze, a rabbit frozen in the gun sights moments from his demise,,,,.
Their 'agreement' stood two reams tall. A thousand pages! State, county, juvenile, friend of the court, probation department,,,, in one divorce decree.
I had typed one page.
I cried when I typed it, I am not insensible. She cried when she read it, she is not either.
My one page was entered, with legal add-ons and things I had not thought of handwritten in a wide margin I had left when I printed it out.
One page. Twenty five years. Accepted. Granted.
We will share the house until sold. Practicalities and the housing market being what it is today. And the final gavel strikes on a morning in June when the required time has elapsed.
Today felt different, I am not insensible, don't want to be.
Dean
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|
28
|
29
|
30
|
31
|
|
|
