So, let’s get on with it, shall we?
Speaking of sweet, my visit with Dr. Jo revealed that according to my blood and piss, I’m a hell of a sweet man. If my glucose levels are to be believed anyway. More cholesterol than I need as well. As I understood Dr. Jo to say, “Urine trouble.” My kidneys are doing the heavy lifting, as indicated by the glucose discharge found in my piss. This will eventually damage my kidneys, and I’ll suffer a potential fate of the dialysis nightmare. That’s plenty enough to motivate me to implement some much-needed dietary changes. Goodbye sweets and carbs!
In the good news category, my liver function is normal. Hell, it ought to be. I give it a workout every night. Whatever the cause of my itchy morning rash (which has lessened in intensity lately), it does not appear to be due to my liver failing to fulfill its role in removing toxins.
So, I left with a prescription to eat smarter and continue my exercise regimen. This time I need to follow those orders.
After finishing with Dr. Jo, we hit the beach.
There was a two-week millionaire on board buying drinks for a goodly portion of the working girls. That’s something I enjoy watching more than doing. Hike buddy Steven came out and had a swim, then joined us for a beer. I had a nice chat with an expat I’d never met before who lives in Baloy. Then someone pulled the rope to release the balls (a 1500 peso expense), and the gals all scrambled to grab them (they get 10 pesos per ball). A few balls rolled overboard, and one of the girls jumped in the bay to recover them.
The thought occurred to me to throw a bucket of balls directly into the bay. I rejected the idea as cruel and unusual. One of my fellow floating bar mates didn’t see it that way and tossed the balls overboard.
It turned out to be one of the more enjoyable afternoons I’ve spent on the floating bar. Word on the street is that the Arizona floater will be opening soon. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
We did our usual after-floater dinner at Treasure Island and had a pleasant visit with owner Bert. Things seem to be picking up tourist-wise in Barretto, and that’s good news for the business owners. After our meal, we hailed a trike and made our way back home. It was a good day and a nice reminder that I’m living in the right place at the right time for me.
From the March 2016 LTG archives is this trip report from a visit I paid to Cebu’s Mactan Island. It was good to check out a new place, and although I didn’t mention it in the post, I was visiting a Filipina I’d met online. It should come as no surprise that that one didn’t work out for me.
Facebook memories reminds me of something else from this day in 2016:
Today’s YouTube video discusses seven signs that indicate how long you might live after 70. Hmm, for the most part, I seem to be doing okay. I’ll guess we’ll find out.
My sense of humor never gets old:
I think that makes me lame. Oh, well. No apologies.
My dream cabin in the woods.
Wouldn’t you want a cabin with more features? It doesn’t look as though it has anything in it. It’s got no pipes/chimneys coming out of the roof, so no fireplace and no kitchen for heating things. It doesn’t look as though it has any kind of bathroom, so it’s just you and Mother Nature (hey, if you’re okay with that…). No plumbing, either, so no running water. Enjoy showering, washing your hands, and gathering more water.
But I’m sure you’d enjoy your dream cabin more if you had Amazon drones dropping off supplies every day.
Speaking of sweet, my visit with Dr. Jo revealed that according to my blood and piss, I’m a hell of a sweet man. If my glucose levels are to be believed anyway. More cholesterol than I need as well. As I understood Dr. Jo to say, “Urine trouble.” My kidneys are doing the heavy lifting, as indicated by the glucose discharge found in my piss. This will eventually damage my kidneys, and I’ll suffer a potential fate of the dialysis nightmare. That’s plenty enough to motivate me to implement some much-needed dietary changes. Goodbye sweets and carbs!
Very vague. So I’m guessing—with no numbers to go on—high fasting glucose (blood), high A1c (also blood), and high cholesterol (the only result you were even semi-specific about). That would all tie in with high urine glucose.
In the good news category, my liver function is normal.
Spot the error.
As for your normal liver function… That is astounding, what with all the drinking and the carb-ing. I’d have expected fatty liver and the beginnings of cirrhosis by now. But you’ve got those stubborn, Scottish genes protecting you like a guardian angel, I guess.
“Goodbye sweets and carbs” (spot the error in that phrase) means no more pies, no more ice cream, no breaded things like sandwiches or enchiladas, no pasta, etc. There are keto substitutes for these carbs, but they’re not nearly as enjoyable. Edamame pasta is a half-decent replacement for regular pasta, but it’s kind of boring. The same is true of most of the keto breads I’ve made, only one or two recipes of which are good. With keto bread these days, the problem is the texture. Originally, the problem was the egginess: first-generation keto bread went heavy on eggs to provide fluffiness and structure since these breads tended to lack gluten (which itself, being a protein, isn’t a problem on keto). Gradually, people started introducing vital wheat gluten into their breads (very low-carb), and with added artificial sweeteners, these breads now taste a lot better, and their texture has become more spongy and springy but still firm. There are keto-pasta recipes out there as well, but beware: if they’re made from almond flour, they’ll break apart too easily when cooked. Oat flour often tends to taste like something a horse would eat, and flaxseed meal is plain boring. But a mix of flours, plus vital wheat gluten, plus a sweetener like BochaSweet or erythritol or allulose or monk fruit, can produce something plausibly edible, be it bread or pasta. If you crave the real thing, have one cheat day a month. If you really want to bring your sugar levels down, do the obvious thing and stop drinking. Of course, I know you won’t.
One of my fellow floating bar mates didn’t see it that way and tossed the balls overboard.
Spot the error! (as before: it’s not a comma problem)
From the meme/joke:
They set-up their tent and fell asleep.
Spot the error. As for the joke… it only works if the tent has no bottom. Which makes it less of a tent and more of a tarp.
“Alcohol significantly affects glucose levels, which can show up in urine, primarily by inhibiting the liver’s glucose production, often causing low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), but sugary drinks can raise it; it also increases urine output, and in uncontrolled diabetes, fermentation can occur, leading to false glucose readings, so it complicates glucose monitoring.”
Enjoy your daily beers, John.
Thanks, Jerry. I will.
Kevin, thanks for turning my dream into a nightmare. Yeah, I’d need some upgrades before spending my “dream” weekends in that cabin. But lying in that hammock, looking at Easter Mountain, has some appeal. Not as much as electricity, water, and Wi-Fi, though.
My “high” categories were: Glucose/FBS 115.98 (max is 115). Cholesterol 235.36 (max is 220). LDL 147.02 (max is 130). So, with some dietary discipline, I should be able to bring those numbers back down into the “normal” range.
I’m glad my liver is fine (so far). Now, I need to help my poor kidneys out.
How about these fixes:
Goodbye, sweets and carbs!
In the good news category: my liver function is normal.
One of my fellow floating bar mates didn’t see it that way; he tossed the balls overboard.
Regarding your attempted corrections:
Goodbye, sweets and carbs!
Good. Success. Remember, that’s called a vocative comma. Use it when addressing things or people. From Latin vocare, to call.
In the good news category: my liver function is normal.
The original comma after an introductory phrase was just fine. No need for a colon. But “good news” functions as a phrasal adjective modifying “category,” so you need to hyphenate.
• good-news category
Just like:
tax-paying citizen, six-foot man, violent-weather seminar, well-thought-out plan
One of my fellow floating bar mates didn’t see it that way; he tossed the balls overboard.
Semicolon is grammatical, but the original compound predicate was fine. You’re still having trouble recognizing what counts as a compound predicate and what counts as two independent clauses. With your newfound superpower of being able to look stuff up on my Substack, you can now search for “compound predicate” and “independent clause.” Please use that superpower often. Actually study. I know you’re lazy and prefer to slouch back and suck down your beers, but if you do nothing to maintain your brain cells, the beer will ultimately win. You might reach 83, but you’ll be a drooling, senile, mouth-breathing moron with shrunken, watery eyes and zero awareness.
As with the previous sentence, the problem is that you didn’t hyphenate your phrasal adjective. What’s frustrating is that you’ve gotten the phrasal-adjective thing right in other parts of this post. For example, you correctly wrote:
two-week millionaire
after-floater dinner
The problem is that you obviously haven’t learned the rule but are still going by “what sounds right,” which is why you’re inconsistent with your hyphenation. “What sounds right” is not a rule. Grammar is rule-governed. This doesn’t mean there’s no room for creativity; on the contrary, people get more creative when there are constraints.
So if we follow the rule, we get:
• floating-bar mates
See how that works?
– tax-paying citizen
– large-breasted college girl
– big-ass ass cheeks
– floating-bar mates
– good-news category
– two-week millionaire
– after-floater dinner
Kevin, okay, I think I’ve got that phrasal-adjective requires hyphenation rule down now. Which is not to say I won’t fuck it up in the future, but it will be sloppiness rather than ignorance.
Above in your first sentence, you started off well but needed more hyphens.
WRONG: that phrasal-adjective requires hyphenation rule (not enough hyphens)
RIGHT: that phrasal-adjective-requires-hyphenation rule (more hyphens)
The rule: hyphenate a phrasal adjective when it PRECEDES the noun it modifies. There are three exceptions to that rule. Using your new superpower, please look up the exceptions in my Substack material. Not all of my posts mention all three exceptions. (Maybe do a search on “exceptions.”) Anyway…
• The essay was well written. (no hyphen)
• This was a well-written essay. (hyphen)
• He was six feet tall. (no hyphen)
• He was a six-foot-tall man. (hyphens)
• In that fight, no holds were barred. (no hyphen)
• It was a no-holds-barred fight. (hyphens)
Please also keep in mind that adjectives modify nouns.
Kevin, damn, I guess I’m not as good at the rule as I thought I was. I’ll keep working at it.