PB&J

Comfort foods

Yes, you read that correctly. This is what I just ate for a snack. I could not even remember the last time I had eaten a PB&J and yet in the last week I chowed down on this child friendly meal twice. Why? Simply put, I am tired of deli chicken with sauerkraut, and mayo based tuna/salmon/sardine salad (Yes I used organic no additives peanut butter and Bonne Maman preserves).

You do have to know that I was never given PB&J as a child. My mother, the child of immigrants, told me that Jews don’t eat PB&J. I love(d) my mother z”l, dearly, but I have no idea where she got that from. Probably something my grandparents once said to her. After all, I was from a family of kosher butchers and there was no such thing as peanut butter in that house or in my house growing up. Meat. It was all meat, all the time when she was growing up. Happily, there was the added vegetables that were not part of peasant fare for us 2nd and 3rd generation Americans. Jelly was for toast and tea when you were sick. That was it. (And yes, my boys got PB&J. My mother also made sure to have it in the house when we came for a visit. Whatever the grandchildren wanted they got…)

I am also sort of annoyed about my cholesterol and needed some comfort food. You see it was a little high when I had my annual last October, and so to bring it down I gave up cheese of all kinds, and shrimp, in which I admit I had been indulging myself after my surgery because I read it was high in protein and did not add to blood cholesterol like they once thought and it was low in calories (and yes I know, shrimp is treif- I have always said I am a very bad Jew….well as far as the observant part is concerned). So over the last 6 months I made a concerted effort to reduce these items (except once in awhile a little cottage cheese, I read that it was good for gut bacteria). So what happened? My cholesterol went up 1 point. Now my good cholesterol went up as well, and my bad cholesterol came down a few points, but I really thought I would have seen a much steeper drop overall. (235 went up to 236)

Hubby said for me to wait until I speak to the doctor about my tests before I do anything drastic, like cut out real eggs for breakfast. I had read that eating an egg a day is good for you, so I started doing that years ago. I have to tell you, my hair does look better (and yes it could also be the biotin, which I just read could also mess with your thyroid results- you would get a false lower score-- who knew you were supposed to stop it a few days before. I didn’t, and no one told me. So that is another issue.)

Meanwhile, I also indulge in real Irish butter (yes they are a nation of virulent antisemites, but the butter is out of this world- not Artemis 2 out of this world, but it is so different than American butter that it seriously changes how the food you eat tastes.) So I am thinking that since it is saturated fat, maybe I need to cut that out next and see if it lowers my cholesterol. Starting that today, not waiting to talk to the doctor about that one. See I read (ok the internet is a dangerous thing) that there is an enzyme in butter that people need to be healthy. So I was working on being really healthy. Maybe just too healthy….

And of course, I still exercise most days (cross trainer, peloton [HIIT and Tabata], free weights, kettlebells-I gave up the pilates class because I was just not feeling good after the radiation and I never went back), so that is probably why my triglycerides went down as well. That was a nice drop, by the way. Everything else that was bad for me also went down by a few points at least. So I am doing something right. Even though not everything is perfect.

But then again I am 65.

I guess you are supposed to have a few hiccups now and again.

(Ok I did have that recurrence of breast cancer thing last year, so that was sort of a big hiccup, but its gone now, and all the monitoring shows me as being in good shape. So…)

Meanwhile, I still am not sleeping well, waking in the middle of the night and not always getting back to sleep. I have stopped taking melatonin though. The hubby read that you could get a melatonin hangover and I think I was very prone to those. I would be really sick the next day and barely functional. I would feel totally miserable.

What I found was this homeopathic anti-anxiety sucking candies that I keep by my bedside and take them at 2 in the morning to help me get back to sleep if I need them And no hangover the next day. But I am still tired alot. (all my iron is fine and so is my B12). So not quite sure what the story is there.

(My younger son is not a fan of anything homeopathic. I told him its just some flower essence put together to help you sleep. Like Sleepy Time Tea. But put the label homeopathic on it and he just adamantly refuses to examine the possibility that the item might actually work. Now I am not a fan of homeopathic medicine. Give me modern western medicine any day of the week. It did after all save my life several times over. But these candies have been helping me lately so I will use them as long as they continue to work and I have minimal to no side effects.)

On that note, the “sleep experts” keep talking about sleep hygiene. I have very bad sleep hygiene. Yes, I do keep my phone by my bed, and when the hubby comes to bed, he watches his iPad to help him fall asleep and it does light up the room, which may be what wakes me up at night. I will invariably walk over to his side of the bed and try to put the tech away and take the earphone out of his ear, which then wakes him back up and he starts to watch his show again. He will tell me he wasn’t asleep even though his eyes were closed and he was snoring. Maybe its time for me to get one of those sleep masks. But the idea of putting that on at night and having the band around my head doesn’t sound comfortable at all.

(We have had this on going feud for almost 44 years now. Back in the day, we had a tv in our room that he would watch to fall asleep and you need to understand he would work until 1-2 am-Well 44 years married, 46 years together. Funny when I say 46 years together everyone knows we basically lived together even though we had separate apartments. Life was different back then. Though couples lived together it wasn’t readily acceptable. Today its sort of expected if you are engaged, never mind just serious about each other, you live together. Except my friend’s son who is a devout christian, him and his now wife did not live together and were more modest in their approach to each other before they were married. Funniest part was when he asked for book recommendations for his honeymoon. He said they were going to have alot of time to spend on the beach…me and her simply laughed our heads off with that one. And no we didn’t ask him if he had time to finish the book he brought with him on his honeymoon while on his honeymoon.)

Additionally, my 75 pound greyhound also sleeps on our bed. We started when she was a puppy, when she was all of 10 pounds and the hubby, who has spoiled her rotten, would not indulge the idea of a dog bed (she cried in her crate). Well, we did buy her several over the years, but with the whining, the crying and the kvetching (and that was just from the hubby never mind the dog) about not being able to sleep in our bed, we (well I) just relented. So invariably, I have a senior dog, who while being ensconced in between us decides to have a running dream and starts kicking me in the middle of the night, or she wants pets, or she needs to go potty, or she simply wants attention, or she decides its time to use me as a pillow.

But I think my sleep issues are more due to anxiety than anything else. I suspect it could be, oh I don’t know, October 7, the Gaza War, virulent rise in antisemitism worldwide, the now Iran war, the disenfranchisement of Jews everywhere, the election of that antisemitic antiAmerican imbecile who is now running NYC, that the boys do not have launch-able jobs despite their education and the thousands of resumes they have sent out, and probably the simple uncertainty of how we protect them when we are both dead and buried (well in our case we wrote to cremate us since it is cheaper and it would leave the boys with more life insurance [not very Jewish, I know]. And yes we have wills, trusts, life insurance (never enough) and have spoken to family, but still life is very uncertain and nothing is promised. And yes, I want to control everything once I am dead. It’s the only way to make certain they are cared for properly. So I will have to find a way to be a ghost, a dybbuk, or a poltergeist of some kind. I also figure I can ask Hashem to make me a seraphim. [considering the boys issues I am assuming he will forgive my transgressions and indulge me since he is a beneveloent and loving Adonai] I’m thinking I would like to be an archangel, maybe on the level of Michael, (we are talking more than momma bear territory here) but my understanding is that you have to be born one of those, you don’t become an angel [that is how the Jews view it anyway] )

And interestingly, I am not kept up at night about anything Trump does. See, I have full faith that our democratic systems will hold, and as far as I can tell, so far they have. The judiciary is applying the constitution and the law. (Oh and for those who are worried about NATO- that is a treaty, Trump cannot unilaterally decide to leave NATO or withhold any monies the Congress allocates.) Midterms might see the House return to the democrats, which is a different issue since I think their leadership is just a bunch of spineless cunty Jew-hating enablers, but the people will have their say. Because we do have free and fair elections in this country, no matter what some lunatics (republican and democrat) might want to tell you otherwise. Congress hasn’t been doing anything of any worth for years now (under Obama, Biden and Trump) so I suspect it will stay that way- in other words, maybe they will just leave us all alone. So no, I am not really concerned about beltway politics.

So who knows.

I am not sure I will continue to eat PB&Js. (Peanuts are good for you, they do lower cholesterol, but they pack the pounds on your tuchas). I will need to find a better comfort food. One that lowers cholesterol, keeps my weight in check, and maybe helps me sleep at night…..well a woman can wish can’t she?

Cover photo from the article How Peanut Butter Became America’s Favorite Sandwich

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May Hashem keep all those brave civilians fighting to Free Iran from the grip of evil safe.

May God Bless the US Armed Forces and the IDF.

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