An Unexpectedly Delicious Omelette

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It was in the mid-nineties with high humidity yesterday afternoon, and this afternoon is prophesied to be more of the same. That is not as threatening as it could be because I accidentally found out my air-conditioner DOES work. I just have to be selective about when and how long I use it in order to keep the electric bill down to something reasonable.

I went downstairs to the nice soft adjustable chair I got as my part of my mother's estate. As usual, when it comes to dealing with my siblings, money-wise, I was left sucking hind tit, but I got some practical stuff I needed like a fairly modern refrigerator, a better clothes washing machine, and this chair. The nicest feature of this chair, to me, is that the adjustments are done with an electric motor system. It moves from where it tilts forward to help old people stand up to being almost as flat as a bed.

That's what happened to me yesterday afternoon. I like to use this chair to practice meditating because I can adjust the tilting mechanism to any height that feels comfortable on any certain day. That's why rheumatoid arthritis is called that. It moves. Somedays it kills me here, and other days it'll kill me there, and so-me sad day it kills me everywhere all at once. Whatta drag, man.

When I write about meditating I try to remember to write about practicing meditation. It's not any different than practicing any skill. LIke playing a musical instrument. What I mean to say is that I don't actually meditate when I'm practicing. Any more than I would go to Carnegie Hall to practice playing the piano for a church choir.

I don't know about you, but I can't stand for other people to see me practicing anything. If the other becomes aware I'm displaying some skill I've been working on for a while, I don't want anybody to hear a damn musical thing I play in public that ain't at least practiced, and perfected would be even mo' bettah!

Even as modest as I try to be sometime, I'd be bragging if I claimed that I had reached some perfected state of being while practicing meditation, but the times I may have come close happened when I was all alone because I don't want nobody to watch me do anything I haven't perfected to the best of my talent. If I'm cutting the fool in public it's because I've practiced endlessly at deliberately appearing to be a fool in public. But, obviously, I would say that, won't I?

I had taken a pain-killer about an hour before I went downstairs to get into the chair I use for practicing. I'm persnickety about how often I use these pills. My prescription allows for three a day, but I like playing the edges even with stuff that won't designed in the first place to cure what ails me. Pain ain't what ails me. It's what causes the pain to work it's way into my conscious awareness thats wot ails me.

The pain-killers are just not that strong. I have to take two of them at the same time to get a buzz, but just one of them usually does the trick for me if I need some relief just long enough to get over the hump meditating and getting my breath right.

Getting my breath right is everything to how I practice meditating. I breathe much differently since I stopped smoking cigarettes, but I may have gotten better results with my breathing when I smoked. Keeping my stopping still with my ancient tobacco habit is edgy in a way I hope to get used to, but it really has messed with my breath in regard to practicing meditation.

Yesterday afternoon, after I'd wiggled around and got myself seated solidly, I went into my counting routine and watched my breath while I accommodated the noises from my ambient surroundings. I've done this most days for nearly fifty years. It's not like I don't notice even the most minute changes.

I must have sit there and counted my breaths and inhaled the world around me for nearly a half hour, and I knew I wasn't getting anywhere I was preying for. So, I grabbed the control box for tilting the chair, and it electrically moved my feet higher and my back lower until I was laid out about flat, in a crumbly sort of way.

It was around sunset when I sat to practice meditation, and it was three o'clock in the morning when I realized I had not only napped, but went into deep sleeping patterns for about 6-8 hours. It was a good sleep. It didn't hurt as much when I stood up. I'll take small blessing wherever I can.

Since it's Saturday morning I took my daily medicines, and my weekly dose of methotrexate. Candidly, between you and I, it's not exactly an gaily anticipated event. The side-affect of nausea hardly ever makes anybody happy. This is an oral form of chemotherapy any way you go about describing it. Some people lose their hair.

I'm already bald and snaggled-toothed, so I guess I'll lose some other attribute of sexual attractiveness, as if it could get worse. Being feeble is bad enough when you're the only one who knows, but having one's feebleness displayed as if a call for help, can be embarrassing beyond description.

This restaurant chain called Shoney's has a all-you-can-eat breakfast bar that I habitually stop for if I'm around one of their franchises. Several of these restaurants have disappeared. There is one over at Fayetteville at the junction of Hwy 87 and I-95 I have gone to over the years when it's convenient. I used Google Maps and found they have another Shoney's further north on I-95 where it crosses U.S. 70.

I went there where it was as described above, but I never went in the doors of the place. I had already eaten. I ate very well, thank you very much. As it turned out, right here in river city.

Most of the medicines, and even the supplements I gobble by the handful, says on the labels that they should be taken with meals in order to spread the strong effect all over the stomach. I know what happens if I don't. It burns like I'm getting an ulcer.

I took my morning medicine just before I drove toward that Shoney's I'd discovered with Google Maps about forty miles away. I soon realized that if I waited until I got there to eat something my stomach would be on fire. There was only one restaurant I knew of in the area I thought about all this. Sometimes somebody ran it. Sometimes not. I went there.

To my surprise there was barely a parking spot left open. The restaurant build ain't that big. I didn't think I'd get a seat. Fortunately, they had tables with umbrellas outside in front, and they served me there. I decided to try an omelette. Omelettes tell me everything there is to know about a breakfast cook. Like club sandwiches tell me all I need to know about a short order cook.

The omelette was absolutely delicious. Better than any omelette I'd eaten in this town, and maybe the whole state. I spewed compliments to the waitress, and asked her who the cook was. She just beamed, and proudly told me the cook was her grand-mother. I never saw what the woman looks like, but I think I'm in love.
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