Mark's Notebook

Old Guys Rule

Today is my birthday ... the big uh-oh. No, not that one, or that one. Yep, that one. Na na na na na na na na. They say it's your birthday. Na na na na na na na na. It's my birthday too yeah. (Beatles music playing in the background ...)

When it was Mary's birthday, I took her to Disneyland for the day. She promised she would take me to Disneyland for mine. We even bought a season pass when we were there earlier this year. But Mary is taking a class on resumés and job interviews this week (yeah, it's time for us to start looking for jobs again). So we took our Disneyland road trip last week.

Road Trip

On late Tuesday night and Wednesday, we drove from San Jose to San Diego. At 80 mph, and catching the LA traffic just right, it was a much shorter trip than I'd imagined. We left San Jose around 9:30 pm and arrived in the San Fernando Valley around 2:30 am, just five hours later. Next morning, one more hour to Anaheim, and two more hours to San Diego. Of course, after being up late the night before, we did have to take a nap. But a quick and enjoyable trip all around.

Quick summary: on Thursday, we went to the San Diego Zoo. On Friday, we hopped back on the freeway, and 90 minutes later we were checking into a hotel in Anaheim, ready to spend the rest of the day in Disneyland. On Saturday, Mary let me have my birthday wish and I spent much of the day at the Buena Park Coin Show while she took a tour of OC rubber stamp stores. On Sunday morning, we went to the Vatican Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and heard the Pope pastor Chuck Smith in person. Then we stopped at a few more rubber stamp stores, getting on the freeway around 3:30 pm and arriving back home around 9:30.

In the San Diego Zoo, we found a reptile building we don't remember having seen before, and a monitor lizard that is so huge he has his own building. The polar bears were not out, boo hoo! Their exhibit was being cleaned last week. We did see the pandas ... there are getting to be so many of them, only half are on exhibit at any one time. (This is partly because they are solitary animals and they don't get along when you put them all together.)

At Disneyland, we went on all our favorite rides in both parks, and a few new ones I don't remember going on before: Pinnochio and Snow White. I tried a new strategy on the Astro Blasters ride and I came within 100 points of Mary's score, but she always beats me. This is the first time I even came close, though. Space Mountain was very fast this time! On the Tower of Terror, people on both sides of me were screaming and grabbing the handles. leaving me nothing to hang on to. I still had lots of fun! The line for Haunted Mansion was very long, because they had just changed the theme to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and this was the first day open with the new theme. It was funny instead of scary. We liked it. They also changed the Pirate of the Caribbean to match the movie more. Mary liked it, but I'm not sure if I did. It seemed to have a few stretches with nothing going on, and the music doesn't play all the way through the ride.

At the coin show, I bought two Indian Head Cents, two Peace Dollars, one Walking Liberty Half Dollars, one coin from the Netherlands, a Dansco album, some Christmas presents, and about 50 inexpensive Buffalo Nickels, enough to jump-start a new set.

Before going to the coin show, I scouted out some local rubber stamp and scrapbooking stores and put up some Google maps on the laptop. Mary went to two of them while I was at the coin show. The next day, Sunday, we went to the rest of them, but several were closed on Sundays. I remarked to Mary that Orange County is reputed to have more Christians (and more Republicans, eh) than LA county or the San Francisco Bay Area. Anyway, one of the stores had just opened in its new location that very day, which lent extra excitement to the scene. It was a scrapbooking store but Mary found a mother lode of ribbon there.

Eating

We had really good success with eating on this trip, despite the fact that we have two strikes against us: in addition to avoiding gluten, we are both now on Weight Watchers (more about that later). We found that Denny's has a "Fit Fare" meal that is a tasty omelette made with Egg Beaters. I think we ate one every day while we were gone. It does come with toast, which we asked them to replace with sliced tomatoes. It does not come with hash browns, the Denny's dish that makes me gag because of the putrid oil they use. The eggs themselves don't seem to be done in any oil or butter, because they are not greasy at all.

In San Diego, we ate both nights at Anthony's Fish Grotto in La Mesa. They have a wonderful rare tuna served with pineapple salsa (which doesn't contain any vinegar). We counted up the Weight Watchers points and discovered we still had enough remaining to split a glass of wine, which they graciously split into two glasses for us both times. Both waiters knew just enough about gluten allergies to ask the right questions of us and the cooks, and thankfully both times they steered us away from choices unsuitable for us. (They also have a special "healthy dining" menu specifically useful for those people counting calories, but most of those menu items contain gluten.)

Eating gluten-free in Disneyland is very possible but always a chore. This time, we obtained the special gluten-free menu from City Hall on Main Street. It turns out that eating gluten-free in California Adventure really means manually eliminating the gluten yourself: that is, eating the hamburger without the bun, etc. We'd rather find a hamburger served on a gluten-free bun. To find that, you have to go into Disneyland park or to one of the outside restaurants. Here are the choices that particularly appealed to us inside the park:

• Club Buzz will serve a hamburger on a gluten-free Kinnikinnick bun. We eat these every time now.
• The Plaza Inn will serve gluten-free pancakes during breakfast hours. (We were never in the park during breakfast hours.)
• Coke Corner will serve hot dogs on a gluten-free tapioca bun; but they were out of buns at the time we dropped by.
• Pizza Port has two gluten-free selections: gluten-free pasta with your choice of sauces, and pizza served on a gluten-free crust (probably Kinnikinnick brand). At the time we dropped by, the line was so long we were unwilling to wait.

Instead of waiting in the long lines, we decided to wait while sitting on our bums in our favorite resort restaurant: Storyteller Cafe in the Grand Californian hotel. We've always had wonderful luck here finding gluten-free alternatives, and this time was no exception. The chef actually came out to chat with us several times. One of the waiters later told us that this particular chef had been with the restaurant since the hotel had opened, and that he had been the one to push for gluten-free alternatives on the menu. Anyway, he helped us eliminate questionable items from the grilled salmon meal, and he also made us gluten-free macaroni and cheese (Mary loves this), and, ta-dah, two different pizzas made on gluten-free Kinnikinnick crust. This is the first time we'd had gluten-free pizza since we found that restaurant in Sedona last April, and it was a real treat. We got one with ham and pineapple, and the other with sausage and pepperoni. The chef even discussed with us how he gets the Kinnikinnick crust to be tasty: defrost only part way in the microwave, but make the pizza with the crust still slightly frozen. Don't put any oil on the crust. Bake the pizza in a hot convection oven. We don't have a convection oven at home, so he suggested trying an oven hotter than usual, 375 or even 400 degrees. He also suggested putting the crust directly on the oven grates instead of on a stone.

Counting the Points

OK, so on September 1 we both signed up at the local chapter of Weight Watchers. Mary has been on it before and she found it effective. I had developed a "Buddha Belly" and we decided to bite the bullet at the same time. We're our own 24/7 support group! And it has worked well. After one month, we have each lost about 15 pounds. Our grand goal is about 40 pounds each, though, and we hope to get there by around Christmas.

We were both surprised that we lost a couple pounds even while we were away at Disneyland and San Diego. But there was a heck of a lot of walking in there ... too much maybe. We both came back sore.

One item that really bites me is Coke. Three points per can. I can't drink Diet Coke because the Aspartame messes up my kidneys. I discovered this when I went to the chiropractor complaining of back pain. No, not the back, but the kidneys. In the store, I found Pepsi One, which contains Sucralose but no Aspartame. There is a similar Coke product but it has smaller amounts of Aspartame and other sweeteners. I do have a case of regular Coke in the garage and I grab one every once in a while when I want "the real thing" and I have a few points to spare. In our local Nob Hill store, I also found a special line of Diet Rite Zero products that use Sucralose. One is a cola but it has no caffeine. The others are Raspberry and Peach. The Raspberry is good; I haven't tried the others yet.

Whither September?

Well, I didn't post to the blog much last month. I've been busy with lots of other things. There also hasn't been much news of interest to me. Being on Weight Watchers has left me with a little less energy than usual, but it will be worth it in the long run. Also, Mary and I were taking long walks of several miles early in the month.

On September 13, we drove to Yosemite for the day. We took Mary's mom and my Aunt Roe. We ate lunch at the Ahwahnee Hotel, then we took the tram around the valley. Mary's mom and my aunt had not been to Yosemite for many years (decades). They appeared to have a great time. My aunt won the chatting contest hands down. (Mary's mom usually puts up a better fight.) In the evening, we drove down to Bass Lake where we met Paul Boston, Mary's nephew. We took him down to Oakhurst where we ate Mexican food. He had a great time with his grandmother and the rest of us. Our waitress was overly helpful and we think she was smitten with Paul, but he was oblivious. She was really jazzed to find out we are all Christians. We'll see if Paul goes back there again or if they should meet again ...

I spent much of September trying to complete a set of Indian Head Cents I started a few years ago. It was really a complete set minus only two coins, but when I started putting the set into a Capital holder, I found that many of the coins were pretty crummy and should be replaced. A few dates right around 1870 are difficult to find in nice condition. I visited five local coin dealers and one coin show in Fairfield, and I nervously placed a few bets bids on Ebay. At this point, I still have two coins I definitely want to replace, and four others I'm still not sure about. But the rest of the set is looking pretty nice.

Birthday Plans

Mary's son Aaron had a birthday one week ago, and his wife Sherrellee had a birthday recently, and their first anniversary was also a couple of weeks ago. So they are coming over tonight so we can celebrate their birthdays. Eh? Something's wrong with this picture. We're going to barbeque some hamburgers if we can get the gas grill started up. Mary's making me a flourless chocolate roll cake, and we bought some extrememly lo-cal Breyers ice cream that looks promising.

We've been barbecuing our own hamburgers lately, using some recipes and advice we found in a recent Sunset magazine. We did make one important discovery, though: don't lace your meat with pineapple! We did this once, and the meat wouldn't hold together afterward. It all feel through the grates on the grill! Oh, well, it was way overdue that I clean that thing anyway. Mary put the remainders in a skillet, but it still fell apart and served more like sloppy joes than like hamburgers.

It's noon now, and we still haven't left for my birthday lunch yet. I think we'll go to Casa Azteca because we can have a great lunch and still count the calories.

Uh oh ... Mary's brand new Black and Decker mixer just broke! Now we need to go out and buy another one so she can finish the birthday cake. But that also means it's lunch time!

When we get back, I have to clean the bathrooms and the kitchen floor for our guests. What's up with that? It's my birthday!

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Last updated Tuesday 13 May 2008