Acid Reflux

[poliphilo]

I woke up choking. I don't think I was close to dying but for a moment it felt like I was. Acid reflux. And the moral of the story is don't eat curry.

Ailz and I had lunch yesterday at the Cafe Lahore, which is probably the best curry house this side of Manchester. Very nice. But the lesson needs to be learned- curries do me harm and if I want to live to be 80 I must LEAVE THEM ALONE.

I'm not going to pretend this is any great hardship. Curry is possibly my favourite food, but the truth of the matter is I don't like any food all that much. In spite of tuition by experts I find the whole business of eating a bore- and the restaurant experience is particularly boring because it takes a huge chunk out of the day which could be spent doing- oh, almost anything else. Restaurants make me edgy and anxious. I hate the waiting, I hate the fact that someone is suffering the indignity of serving me. I want to read a newspaper, I want to listen to the radio, I want to watch TV, I want to shovel the stuff in as quickly as possible and get on with my life.

Comments

are you better?

[mtl.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better, but I sorry that the experience of dining is not pleasant for you. I feel it should be a pleasure, not a fuel.

Ah well . . .

Re: are you better?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks, yes- I do feel better- just tired because I lost so much sleep.

I agree, it would be better if I could take more pleasure in food, but, well, I'm just telling it like it is...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Restaurants make me edgy and anxious. I hate the waiting, I hate the fact that someone is suffering the indignity of serving me.

Yes! I know!

I want to read a newspaper, I want to listen to the radio, I want to watch TV....

When we were children, we weren't allowed to read at the table. I actually managed (occasionally, and until caught) to set my book on the floor and turn the pages with my feet!

When I became a parent, I taught my children all the table manners they needed, then set them loose with books. We always read--all three of us--during every meal. I still associate a particularly exciting passage in The Gardens of Rama with baked potato and shredded cheese.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I had the same schooling- 1950s table manners- everyone seated at the kitchen table- children should be seen and not heard.

My parents gradually slackened off. By the time I was in my teens some meals (Sunday dinner for instance) were taken in front of the TV.

I like to watch the news while I'm eating- and maybe have a magazine on the go at the same time. I tend not to read books because they demand too much concentration- and the last time I tried it I managed to smother The Color Purple in sauce.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Yeah my parents did that too, now all I do at meals is read if I don't have anyone to take a meal with anyway. It's also why waitstaff gets on my nerves: I hate to be asked questions in the middle of an important passage.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's called "getting one's priorities straight"

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

My mum has often expressed the wish that she could take a pill at mealtimes and be provided with all the nourishment she needed without having to cook, or wash up, or chew. For me, OTOH, eating is one of the greatest pleasures in life and is to be savoured. But I'd like the pill once in a while, when I'm busy...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I like that idea.

I don't think I'd want to do away with meal times, though. The ideal would be to swallow the pill, wash it down with a glass of wine and then sit quietly for a hour or so to let it digest.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

I'm not terribly fond of waitstaff at restaurants either, I prefer to go to places that are smaller affairs where it is mostly self-service and waitstaff exists for their own convenience, to get you out of line so someone else can be processed.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, self-service for me too!

[archyena.livejournal.com]

You probably recall the article on tipping and democracy, I think the main thrust really is that it is not tipping, but the idea of serving someone like a butler (as opposed to service like a plumber) that is antithetical to egalitarian ideas.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly. Anything that smacks of the master-servant relationship makes me very uneasy.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

The worst is when people call me "sir," I hate that title. Once at a restaurant in San Diego (I was having a bad day, to be fair) I snapped at an overdressed waiter "do I look like royalty to you?" He just sort of stammered trying to find a way to say nicely that I didn't, obviously afraid that any answer would be bad. So he, in a bout of bravery he asked what I would prefer to be called. I scrambled for an answer and came up with "dude." My bouts of radical republicanism are best kept to myself and the internet, I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No-one should have to call someone else "sir". Nor should they have to call them by a title. I was listening to an interview with the film and stage director Richard Eyre and the interviewer was saying "Sir Richard, this" and Sir Richard, that". It makes me cross. If plain Mr was enough for Orson Welles it ought to be good enough for bloody Eyre.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

The only titles I don't have a problem with are ones that are earned, Professor, Doctor, Counselor, etc. Anything that shows a hint of heredity, the idea that the title is not truly conferred but rather is just an affirmation of what was present in the person's blood, as though they had been recently beatified, makes me cringe. It smacks of kings and crowns and other trappings of the glorified warlords who have held the West in their grip since the fall of the Roman Republic and the sweeping away of the incremental reforms that had been occuring. It's to the point that I actively mock all Commonwealth nations for their deference to the crown, any country that cannot muster it's own head(s) of state is sickly thing. The beheading of Charles should have been the final word on the entire matter.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I entirely agree. I'm fiercely Republican (in a British not American sense) and think it's time we grew up and got rid of the culture of deference.

[beentothemoon.livejournal.com]

You reminded me of the White Knight in the Alice books with your moral. I'm glad you're well. Is it just curry that you can't have? Can you meet them half way with Chicken Tiki Marsala or something inauthentic and anglo?


In an unrelated subject, do you have any books published? If so, I would like to read them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

To be compared to the White Knight is one of the greatest compliments I can imagine.

I think it's probably any spicy food. I suppose I could experiment, but I'm a little afraid to after last night's experience.

The only book I have had published (I just don't try hard enough) is a thing called The Illustrated Guide to Wicca by Tony and Aileen Grist. It does what it says on the cover but it's not really literature.

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're alright...I agree with you, I feel kind of uncomfortable about the whole serving system. Even though it's a job, I feel that it's sort of condescending, asking a fellow human being to bring you some dinner rolls and condiments. Are you on any medicine for the acid reflux? I know they advertise a lot of medications for it on TV here in the States...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I'm on various things. I take pills fot lactose intolerance and there are other things I can take for indigestion. But the main thing, I think, is to avoid spicy foods. So long as I eat sensibly the problem shouldn't arise.