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Colonoscopy

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Yesterday I had a colonoscopy, which means that I went 36 hours without food and experienced my first bowel prep. As with many things, I approached it with the same curiosity I would other aspects of life. Like how long does it really take to clean one’s colon? How does it feel to fast for an extended period of time? Can I find a broth or a gelatin dessert I like?

I’m not a big meat eater, and was vegetarian for eight years before my daughter’s birth. So the clear liquids diet seemed abhorrent to me, and the fact that they asked you to avoid nuts, seeds, whole grains and vegetables and fruits with skin for five days also troubled me.

The directions for the prep said I needed a 64-ounce bottle of Gatorade, but not in red, orange or purple as those colors could look like blood in the colon. I didn’t know if blue were okay. I looked at all the flavors in ever store and it looked like yellow was the only color that was safe. Except Gatorade is gross. And it’s hard to find a 64-ounce bottle of Gatorade, so I had to hit the grocery stores. That’s a LOT of Gatorade.

I told myself– find a small bottle of a flavor that might work and taste test the Gatorade. But even then I could not do it.

I looked at this logically. The whole point of the Gatorade is to suspend the Miralax powder into a liquid and to offer the body electrolytes so you don’t end up horribly dehydrated. Gatorade is not the only electrolyte drink out there. There’s also Propel, G2 (okay so that’s just diet Gatorade), and high-end products like Liquid IV. I’ve been down this rabbit hole before with research when my primary care provider suggested I drink more electrolytes to treat my orthostatic hypotension. I already had a favorite.

(Here’s an old blog entry about the cardiologist I now refuse to see who thought he knew better than my primary care provider. Smug little doctor man. And here’s another that mentions electrolytes.)

I ordered myself some of my favorite electrolyte powder (Powder Vitamin Plus), in lemonade, unflavored and ginseng green tea. No colors.

As for clear liquid diet… I made chicken stock and froze it. But, I don’t like chicken broth and I could not convince myself to thaw it out and drink it. I found some gelatin that expired in 2022 from when I promised I would make Eva finger JellO, but I couldn’t find the JellO. Eva also brought home a bottle of Sprite.

I used the Sprite and a random can of Beetlejuice spiced apple soda from Fanta to make one batch of finger JellO but the color of the soda was bright green and I expected it to be golden. I also made a batch with white grape-strawberry juice (and that was diet).

Saturday morning I had a big salad, removing all the items from the “avoid list.” Then I had a decent dinner, and a few homemade Christmas cookies. Lately, if I have more than three Christmas cookies, the sugar makes my belly feel wonky and this night was no exception. I stopped eating at 6:30 Saturday night (and didn’t eat solid food again until 10 a.m. Monday).

On Sunday morning, I made some electrolyte water and a hot ginger drink. Midmorning I made black coffee and laced it with a little chocolate chip cookie dough Torani syrup. For lunch, I had a heap of finger JellO and a small cup of vegan soy ramen broth. In early afternoon, I drank a cherry Coke zero.

I took my first set of laxative pills at 2 p.m. and an hour later, well you can imagine the results. I already had no stool left in my colon, but as most of my intake had been brown liquid…

At that point, I filled a glass jug with 64 ounces water, and a scoop of lemonade electrolyte powder and a half scoop of the ginseng powder. I shook and started to add the miralax powder. Except it didn’t fit. Even with me stirring with a long spoon as I added it slowly.

I poured it all into the blender, which resulted in about 72 ounces of final mixture.

I put it into the fridge, with the overflow in a mason jar so that I could track how much I was drinking.

At 6 p.m., I started drinking. At first, it tasted good. The directions said to drink half. Now, at this point, it already looked like my colon was clean. And I was supposed to drink it in about an hour. A glass every ten to fifteen minutes. I managed the amount suggested in an hour and twenty minutes. By the end, I never wanted to see the mixture again.

The final set of laxatives were at 8 p.m. I went to bed about 8:45 p.m., but my lingering cough kept me up, and every time I coughed I had to use the bathroom. I finally dozed off at midnight, only to be scared awake by my alarm at 3:45 a.m.

My procedure was scheduled for 9 a.m. and the directions said to finish the prep mixture four hours before the procedure. I went downstairs and poured a glass, drinking while I watched the Apple TV program Trying. I made it through almost two glasses. Then the drink started to gag me. And I used the bathroom and saw that my waste was still as clear as my urine so I returned to bed.

Around 6:30 a.m. I woke again and took a shower. Checked my blood pressure and my weight. Blood pressure up, weight down by 3 pounds.

Eva took me to the hospital at 8. They had asked me to arrive by 8:15 a.m. Now, I schedule a lot of these procedures at St. Luke’s Easton Campus as it is about 600 steps from my house. It’s usually empty, and the doctors and medical professionals there always seem to take good care of me. I used the self-check-in kiosk and went up to the Lotus waiting room.

That waiting room is full of the chairs that I love. We had a teal chair that we called “the throne” that I bought myself when I found it on clearance. I loved that chair, but in its first few months of owning that chair, we got a puppy who ate the chair. We tried several times to fix it, but she repeatedly ate the chair until there was nothing left. For a while, we took the legs off and set it on the floor with a slipcover over it and just gave it to the dog, but eventually, we gave up and threw it away. Which broke my heart. Because she also ate holes in my couch.

When I ended up in the ER for stitches in March 2023, after the fall that left the scar under my lip, I noticed the Lotus waiting room was FULL of my chair. Half of them in the color I had purchased, half in St. Luke’s blue. I had been admitted to an upper floor, perhaps the third. I looked down upon the chairs as I headed for the door.

It’s an ugly waiting room with a collection of my chairs.

They took me back to the unit at 8:40. Eva had to leave to feed some clients breakfast and the nurse told her to come back to this waiting room. The unit looked the emergency room from every television medical drama made in the last thirty years. There was another person there getting prepped for something. And maintenance men changing the lights which technically put them at an angle where they could see through all the privacy curtains from above. Not that I care.

Two nurses started prepping me and the doctor and the anesthesiologist lined up for my consent and the consent of the person next to me. The whole process was a very efficient assembly line. I mentioned that during my prep all I could think about was saltines. And the staff laughed and said they could handle that. The nurses took one look at my tiny veins and I think they panicked. They got a third nurse specifically to start my IV.

That IV was beautiful.

She was like an IV angel.

Normally IVs are a tumultuous experience for me. When I had my tilt table test, the man who administered that IV dug around under my flesh for what felt like an eternity and left bruises all over my hand and arm from his failed attempts.

I have never had blood draws as smooth as what this nurse did yesterday. I included a picture: If you see the three dots on the top side of the frame in the middle of the edge of my hand and think of them as Orion’s belt (they are from an old cat scratch) and travel to the middle of my hand slightly to the left, you will see a tiny pin prick– and not the one between the two lines on my wrist– that’s where my IV was. There is no bruising. At all. I had an IV in this hand and there isn’t a single piece of evidence that it was there!

As the placed an oxygen mask over my face and told me to turn to my side, someone else gave me an extra pillow concerned for my comfort. My last thought as I watched the nurse or whomever finish pushing the plunger on my medicine was “Why do I need to be comfortable? I’ll be unconscious.”

It was 9:20 when I woke to a small bottle of water and a pile of saltines. I texted Eva and she was almost to the hospital. The doctor told me he did find and remove a polyp. And I was home by 10 a.m. And the saltines were delicious.

Gunk and other updates

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

It is Saturday, December 28, around 8:30 a.m. when I start this. Do not expect much eloquence from me, as the gunk Eva passed on to me from her recent illness is still interfering with my ability to think and sleep. It has instead given me a lovely cough, which now after more than a week is getting “wet” and “productive.”

I FINALLY finished my medical intake at the St. Luke’s Medical Fitness program. Because of my paused membership, I’m not sure when my end date in the Thrive program is but let’s assume mid-February for now. This whole journey started in early November when I visited my neurologist-physiatrist to talk to her about my recent mobility issues and any concerns she had about me returning to an exercise program.

The older I get, the more I worry that my cerebral palsy will cause me to hurt myself because I tend not to notice when my body is doing the wrong things.

Eva has worked really hard on remodeling the garage and including a space for a home gym, so I need to pay some attention to myself in that regard. But I’m out of shape, and falling more than usual, so I’m scared.

My neurologist referred me to the medical fitness program, and I had my first medical intake appointment on November 11. My blood pressure spiked during that appointment, so they sent me home without doing the baseline exercise portion of the intake. I returned two days later, and they almost sent me to the ER because my blood pressure was still bad.

Here are the previous entries recalling all of that, when it was happening.

Two trips to the primary care doctor, two trips to the cardiologist, and two or three falls (depending how you count, one was a trip, but I still believe it happened because of balance issues which makes it a fall) later, my blood pressure seems under control again.

And of course, yesterday, when I turned up at the gym in the basement of the hospital, it was 130/90.

Since I’ve been fighting the gunk, I almost canceled the appointment, but I filled a water bottle with my electrolyte flavor, grabbed a scarf, forgot a mask, and hopped in the car. My fear was that if I canceled the appointment, the intake would have to wait until after my colonoscopy and I was worried that one thing would lead to another and I’d never get this done.

When I arrived, I forgot my water bottle in the car, still couldn’t find a mask, and realized I had no idea where my membership/gym tag was. In the back of my mind, I knew I had packed a gym bag at my last attempt and that the tag was in the gym bag. But where was the gym bag? And what bag did I use?

Lots of hand sanitizer and frequent hand washing and I refused to shake the young man’s hand. I also told him if I continued to cough and he had to send me home, I understood. But I reiterated that I had had many trials to get to this point and I would rather be sent home than continue the cycle of not trying.

Onto the fancy scale I went (168) and I know that body fat percentage was in the forties, wish I could remember what it was when I was super lean a decade ago. Turns out that information may only exist in paper journals in my attic.

39-year-old Angel … with something to prove before hitting 40

The Angel in the pictures is 45 pounds lighter than me, and I think those 45 pounds, age and stress have had a ridiculous impact on my blood pressure and my mobility. (And for the record– the sweatpants worn by Angel in the pictures were my favorite sweatpants ever.)

I have learned that my body reacts strongly to salt and sugar, and that I “do better” when I cook, and that I have no self-control with processed snack foods like potato chips and doritos.

The trainer I met with yesterday talked about maximum heart rate and how hearts slow down as we age. The highest my heart rate reached in 2024, according to my AppleWatch, was 186. 207 was the highest since I got the watch. The online calculators I have seen suggest that my maximum heart rate for my age is between 170 and 179.

The trainer, and maybe his name was Ryan but maybe I invented that, would like to see me four times a week. I still have the mental mindset to make this work, but my physical stamina and fortitude have worn me out to the point where I can talk myself out of my own efforts.

I found this post from when I started my journey with Apex Training in 2021.

Maybe, someday, I will get my discipline under control and be one of those old ladies who powerlift. Screw the whole red hat/purple dress thing.

Meanwhile, Monday is my first colonoscopy. It was supposed to be the Monday after Thanksgiving but the doctor had a death in the family. Tomorrow I start my official bowel prep, and it scares me, because I get shaky without food, and low blood pressure without salt, and I already have a mobility disability. Then they will knock me out on Monday, and I tend to have a heavy reaction to medications and anesthesia. So none of this makes me comfortable. The actual colonoscopy, that doesn’t scare me. But everything else does.

So tomorrow, unless I experience miraculous healing today, I will be expelling mucus from my lungs and all the poop from my bum.

Did I just flunk out of fitness?

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I started my new fitness journal Monday and have been making good choices, tracking my activity and walking the dog everyday.

Each day my number of steps increases by about 500 and today I made it up an extra bend of stairs before I was out of breath– Nan lives on the third floor and I always take the stairs instead of the elevator.

I’ve reduced my caffeine intake, resumed taking my beta blocker and have taken my baclofen regularly. Today was my second try to finish my intake for the Thrive Medical Fitness Program at St. Luke’s Hospital. I even arrived 15 minutes early, used the restroom and sat in the waiting room imagining petting my cat, Fog, and listening to his purr.

They wouldn’t let me finish the intake on Monday because of high blood pressure and heart rate and I was determined to do everything I could to come in on target.

Well.

My heart rate passed.

My blood pressure, despite several attempts by more than one person over a course of 20 minutes, did not. They asked several times if I had any symptoms– and I said no because I didn’t. They asked several times. And the last time my trainer emphasized if you have any symptoms at all I will accompany you to the E.R. right now. They let me go home with a promise that I would call my primary care physician and go talk to them tomorrow. And they instructed me to take my blood pressure as soon as I got home.

My numbers there were: 180/120, 180/117 and 160/110.

I came home and the numbers had fallen: 123/91, then 116/82, and finally 115/71.

I went to the bench outside the hospital and called my primary care physician from there. The office is on the way home from the hospital and it was only 4:30 p.m. so if they had concerns they could have me come immediately to the office or stay at the hospital.

I have an appointment for 8:45 a.m. tomorrow.

And the staff at the fitness center thanked me for being so flexible and understanding, acknowledging that the whole situation must be frustrating, but getting angry about it won’t help me– or my blood pressure.

Honestly, I think my body is just anxious about being in/near the hospital.

So we’ll see what my primary care physician’s office says tomorrow.

Obesity

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Last week, I went to the doctor for my annual physical. The following day I went to the gynecologist for the same.

Between the two appointments, one of the medical professionals listed me as two inches shorter than my average. That led to my status as overweight being upgraded to class one obesity.

I have been struggling for months to resume exercise and return to healthy eating. I go back and forth with losing the same five pounds, based on what I choose to eat.

A lot of my issues with mobility and my heart stem from my extra weight. No doctor has said that to me, but I know based on how I feel and how my body reacts. I need to lose thirty or forty pounds.

About the same time my primary care physician quietly labeled me as obese, murmurings happened on the internet that suggested that the BMI was an imprecise and outdated model of determining health. The suggested replacement is a roundness index, which looks at how much weight people carry around their middles.

If I felt good, I wouldn’t care what they labeled me. But I don’t have the stamina I once did. And that has an impact on my activity which causes more issues.

I think as a society we should promote different body types and multiple standards of beauty, but if I know my weight causes a decrease in my quality of life, it is nothing more than denial to say that weight doesn’t matter.

The final leg of bookstores and driving

Angel Ackerman 6 Comments

If you’ve been following my journey, you know that yesterday morning I left Greenville, SC, for Atlanta. It was about a three hour drive, technically less, but I stopped at bookstores and other places to entertain myself along the way.

As a small business owner, I am doing everything I can to make this trip inexpensive and fun.

I have a massive crate of snacks (which M said was very me) that are my emergency food rations and I’ve been gathering more items along the way– the “breakfast” at my previous hotel was grab-and-go so I now have two muffins. I stopped at a rest stop in Anderson County, South Carolina (my mother’s maiden name, plus near Clemson where my stepmom attended school) and saw that vending machine benefited the South Carolina some-organization-for-the-blind. I bought two snacks, because I saw something one doesn’t normally see in vending machine: snacks with protein! Individual packs of tuna salad and chicken salad. My collection now has one of each. And at the conference, I snagged a bag of raisinets. Fruit, right?

Of my snacks, I have eaten two KIND breakfast bars and a bag of harvest cheddar snap peas. I had forgotten how delicious those are.

My breakfast stop yesterday was Panera. They offered me a $1 bagel again. I considered Waffle House for my “main meal” stop of the day, but the timing didn’t work out because I stopped at a TA “travel center” to pee and grabbed a banana while selecting a magnet for Eva.

I have been buying Eva magnets from different places because they are usually cheap, easy to transport and they are easy to store at home. Magnets don’t take up space. They sit on the fridge or on a filing cabinet. I texted her from the truck stop to ask, “Are you to old for a magnet?” and I got the response, “never.”

Three Bookstores of the Day

  • Walls Of Books: A chain of used bookstores, I visited the one in Commerce, Ga. Bought three old paperbacks. Really wanted a book on found on Hebrew and English and the Old Testament but it was almost $20 and I can’t read Hebrew.
  • The Book Nook: A strange used everything store in Lilburn, Ga. This was the only place I didn’t talk to anyone because the people and the customers were all really old. And it was the only place I walked into where nobody talked to me. They had everything from records to comics to books and DVDs. And a cat-themed ladies room.
  • Phoenix & Dragon: A spiritual bookstore on the outskirts of Atlanta. I had to go and find a witchy present for Eva. And the name! They had three cats who live in the store. Best collection of tarot cards I gave ever seen in one place.

Road Trip Leg One: Lehigh Valley to Washington DC

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Today marked the first day of my week-plus trip to present an erotic writing workshop at SexDownSouth: Atlanta, promoting Parisian Phoenix’s Juicy Bits. I left home at about 7:50 a.m. and headed to the bank to deposit some checks at the a.t.m. Then, after much thought, I headed to Panera and picked up an iced tea and already had to pee.

At 8:15 a.m., I left Panera with a toasted asiago bagel and my tea. (They offered me a bagel for $1 today.) Sixty-five miles later I had to pee again! So I stopped in Grimes, Pa., Exit 13, at our “favorite Sheetz.” This Sheetz has an entire row of smoothie machines and frozen icee flavors.

I made it to Route 83 and Harrisburg by 9:50, despite all my stops. By 10:30 a.m., I had eaten my gummy worms and needed to pee yet again. So I stopped in Shrewsbury, Pa., near the border of Maryland, in an area where they had massive shopping plazas with every eatery known to man. Even a Panera. I used the restroom and grabbed a coffee, even though I hadn’t finished my tea.

I left Shrewsbury at 10:45 and arrived in DC at M’s house at 12:07 p.m.

M, my traveling companion through all my crazy adventures on several continents, and I hung around the house and chit-chatted for hours and spent some time watching the black squirrel that hangs around their house, Climber Meta.

We went to Siam House DC for a lovely thai dinner, where I had mango curry with tofu. So delicious!

My hosts are currently having a great day exploring all my maps from AAA.

A pre-road trip stop at The Dollar Tree

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Today, Eva and I stopped at The Dollar Tree because I wanted to start stocking up on survival snacks for my Atlanta road trip.

I will have a small food budget, but I have several days driving to do and several nights in Atlanta to consider. I’m getting nervous because it looks like the hotel charges $35/night parking, $12 a day for internet, and has no free breakfast. I have to remind myself to breath and trust it will all work out.

But since Eva lost her job yesterday, it’s hard not to stress.

So I spent $16.25 at the Dollar Tree:

I bought two small cans of generic Spam and this small bag of coconut flour for the pantry.

Eva loves Spam, so I thought these cans would be useful for when she’s cooking for herself when I’m gone.

And the flour– I have trouble passing up good deals on specialty floor.

The Road Trip Snacks:

  • Four bags of snak club tajin gummies. Sweet and spicy to help keep me awake if I get tired driving.
  • Two bags of Harvest Snaps, the protein from the snap peas will help hold off hunger.
  • Two bags of peanut butter filled pretzels, same logic as the snap peas.
  • And the two boxes of fiber bars? That’s 6 little birthday cake bars that really do taste like dessert.

All that and a 50-cent head of lettuce

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Today I had some adventures to attend to: I promised Nan I’d use my CVS coupon magic to buy her some Excedrin, I had lunch with some of my Stitch Fix colleagues planned (and it’s Southern Candy’s birthday tomorrow) and if I felt really flush with money and ambitious I wanted to stop at Grocery Outlet while I had my car.

CVS deals

CVS did not meet my usual expectations but I found a CVS Health Brand Migraine Relief, which is exactly the same thing as CVS Extra Strength Headache Relief. 200 pills for 16.99 and a use-by date of February 2026. I had a coupon for 40% off a full price item, another for $5 off a $30 purchase, $1 off CVS pain relief and $1 off two bottles of sparkling water.

And my favorite KIND breakfast bars were on sale for $5.99. I bought a pack of those, the waters, the pills, and a 30 pack variety pack of Starburst flavor mixes that retails for $5.79. That brought my total to about $32.

After coupons, it was less than $21.

Mission accomplished.

Friends and angels

Next, I headed to my lunch date where I had a lot of laughs, learned about rattlesnakes, and had a yummy dish of chocolate chip pancakes. And one friend gave us green beans from her garden.

Now earlier this week, a friend had shared some of his recent profits with me from a project I encouraged him to do. He did this with the express desire that I buy Eva some meat. I agreed, but did so with the stipulation that I added $10-$20 worth of meat to my next few shopping trips and not splurge on some fancy meats all at once.

I refuse to give up my frugality.

So I headed to Grocery Outlet to fulfill my promise and grab what odds and ends I could.

I managed to get 3 pounds of organic chicken breast, a pack of turkey bacon and a frozen bag of cheeseburger-seasoned meatballs for less than $15.

I spent more than I intended to. I had mentally prepared to spend $30, but due to the nature of some of the things we needed and the deals we found I allowed myself some splurges.

I ended up spending $63.85.

Meal planning

I hear a lot of people complaining about the price of food– and it sucks that food is expensive. But one of my tricks is to refuse to buy expensive things. Eva would have preferred “real” bacon, but the turkey bacon was $1.50 cheaper. I wanted ground beef, but the prices didn’t suit my budget so I skipped it in favor of packaged meatballs.

I bought a cute head of iceberg lettuce. All the iceberg lettuce was on sale for $1 a head. There was a smaller head starting to brown on the outside that was reduced to 50 cents. I peeled off the brown layers and about four or five leaves deep it was crispy and fine. Then I chopped it and I plan to make a salad tomorrow of iceberg lettuce, cucumber ranch dressing I have in the fridge, slices of turkey bacon and some of the local cheese. And if anyone has any garden fresh tomatoes I will add some diced tomato. Simple and delicious.

The leftover bacon can be used for sandwiches, eggs, or even a by itself snack as leftovers. So we’re looking at 2-3 meals for the two of us for $4 plus staples and ingredients already in the house.

What I bought at Grocery Outlet

(Most items on this list are around $2)

  • 12 Clif bars chocolate brownie flavor, for Eva, $6.99 (I was going to buy her the 15 count for $9.99 but she doesn’t like the one flavor. Then I did the math. In the 15 count pack each bar is $0.67 each. In the smaller box, each bar is $0.58 each.)
  • Generic tuna in water, small cans, 2, at $0.69 cents each. (I hate the thought of how finding out how sustainably or ethically these were caught)
  • Parmesan cheese, grated, $2.49
  • Glen Muir organic tomato sauce no salt added, probably 12ish ounce cans, 3 of them, $0.99 each
  • A box of instant mashed potatoes, $0.99 (an easy way to make a cheap meal more filling)
  • Small bags of pasta, each bag will be one meal for Eva and I, one bag mini-shells and one bag tiny elbows, $0.50 each
  • one bag Goldfish crackers, $1.49
  • 2 quarts of vanilla cinnamon chickpea milk, 10 grams of protein per serving, $0.99 per quart
  • A big old bottle of cheap laundry detergent, $6.99
  • one small head iceberg lettuce, $0.49
  • One pretty big bag frozen avocado chunks, $5.99
  • Cheeseburger-seasoned meatballs, $3.99
  • meatless chickn fries, $3.99
  • Cabot cottage cheese (I love this stuff so much), 2 containers, $2.49 each
  • a quart of half and half, $2.49
  • a half gallon of milk, $2.22
  • turkey bacon, $3.49
  • Tillamook unsalted butter, $3.27
  • 2 packs organic chicken breast, each almost 1.5 pounds, $3.11 & $3.13 after markdown.

Poetic solo adventures

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Today, I donned my publisher hat and I drove to Bernards Township Public Library in Basking Ridge to support poet and filmmaker McKenna Graf. McKenna publisher her second volume of poetry with Parisian Phoenix Publishing after self-publishing her poetry debut. Her next event is in Manhattan on August 22, 6 p.m., at the Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side.

I started my day with a squawking cockatoo, and then proceeded to come downstairs with the intent to write a draft of my upcoming political profiles for Armchair Lehigh Valley and I did an hour of work on it. But for some reason sifting through Milou Mackenzie’s different Pennsylvania house bills spiked my anxiety and allowed that little voice to take hold. You know– the negative thoughts voice that says, “You can’t do this.” And/or “all your effort is meaningless.”

But, I know I have a road trip today so I eat a hearty breakfast, deliver Eva to her father’s car, and order my Panera iced tea. In the adventurous spirit of a road trip, I go to a different Panera and I love that there drive-through is a straight lane. But what I do not realize as I drive up is that they finally tore down the Phillipsburg Mall.

They have been saying that they were going to demolish the Phillipsburg Mall probably for a decade– and all the reports stating that the anchor store Kohls would be the only part of the mall left standing. This Panera was on one of the pad sites at the mall. (A quick Google search tells me that Crown American opened the mall in 1985, a key time period for malls, and that the stores vacated in 2019-2020. Supposedly a warehouse will be erected on the site. Because every warehouse needs a department store next door.)

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, especially when I worked in the area as a journalist, the Phillipsburg Mall was probably my favorite in the region.

The Author Talk

The drive to the library was uneventful. The Bernards Township Public Library appears a fairly modern vibes with the architectural feel of a small elementary school. McKenna did a wonderful job reading her poems and answered questions with ease during the chat portion of the program.

These are the moments when I very much love what I do, and these are also the moments when I get to contemplate how much the community built by a publisher influences everyone involved with it.

McKenna said several astute, thought-provoking items:

  • Self-publishing her first book put her in control of her own destiny instead of waiting for someone to deem her worthy. I would describe this a little differently: that self-publishing gave her a hands-on understanding of the industry which allows her to navigate and negotiate her future with less naivete.

  • Each book/work/poem represents a moment in time, and as such, they will never be perfect. And despite their imperfections, poems will always convey the feeling they need to share.

  • During her recent intensive geology class that toured National Parks in Utah and Arizona, poetry allowed her to grapple with something difficult. As she struggled to learn the complex scientific knowledge of the course, she used poetry to translate it. And she then made herself a photo book of the unedited work to capture the moment in time.

McKenna sold some books. I made some social media posts. I wove around the streets of Basking Ridge to entertain myself and I headed home.

Road Trips Snacks

On the way home, if I wanted to be a nice person, I needed to stop and put gas in the car. I noticed a sign for QuickCheck and that’s one of Eva’s favorites so I figured I would stop there. I discovered it was on Perryville Road, which is pretty darn close to her surname. I figured I’d run in the convenience store and get a snack (but hopefully nothing too crazy as I have lost four pounds) and then get gas.

I decided on a cup of their Kris Kringle iced coffee with light cream, apple slices and Lenny & Larry’s complete creme bricks… I mean cookies. The package said they had 15 grams of protein and 130 calories. So why not?

Gas was fifty cents a gallon cheaper than in Pennsylvania and it’s always a nice treat to have someone else pump it. The coffee had coconut and vanilla notes, which made me regret getting a small as I could have easily finished a large. I ate the apple slices (probably my first serving of fresh fruit this week) while waiting for the car to fill.

And wouldn’t you know as soon as I ended up on the road again the damn oil light came on. And the car is scheduled for an oil change in eight days.

The drive home was also lovely, and I enjoyed singing along to my music.

But if you’re curious about the cookies–

They tasted like hard discs of sprinkles. The vanilla flavor was that candy-ish flavor one gets from sprinkles, but the texture was hard, and I don’t mean hard like a cookie wafer but hard like an almond. When I got home to examine them closer I saw each serving had 130 calories, but each package of six cookies was three servings. So I had wasted almost 300 calories on some awful cookies. In addition to protein, they had some potassium and iron. The ingredient list looks like the whole cookie is wheat, pea protein and oil.