Dinner out

My dad, in his late 70's, who often bikes the 10 miles downtown to meet me for lunch at this little Asian Cafe, took us out for my birthday dinner last night. We went, as always, to our kind of dumpy, very healthy Asian Cafe. It's called Pacific Rim. It is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. We sat outside. My son was there (showing signs of teenage boredom and lecturing us about the truth of all things and how everything should be done).

The food is simple, 75% vegetables, a touch of rice and the waitress filled our waterglasses every 3 minutes (she wanted to get out of the hot restaurant as much as possible, she would come out, sweating, pour water and stand there for a while looking miserable). My dad and I have gone to this restaurant a couple times a month for 3 years and I don't think we've ever seen the same waitress. They don't last long.

Sometimes the restaurant simply closes because no one is there. If you show up at 2:30 it might have a closed sign. Why? Eh...it just isn' t worth it. No body here.

But we like it.

I had chicken sate - grilled chicken with this great peanut dipping sauce and a huge pile of veggies - yellow squash, broccoli, onions, red pepper, zucchini, mushrooms and so on. There was a hot red chili dipping sauce also. I ate about half of it - now that my appetite is adjusted to smaller portions - and brought the rest home.

My dad brought cupcakes and I looked at them and thought "yuck". So I lit my candle, blew it out and gave it to my son. My son's friends at work are PCP alumni and I heard about it through them. My son, Moses, has become a vegetarian this past year and is considering PCP but he says he's not quite ready. He's very strict with me, however. He watches what I am doing and the other day we were at a restaurant and I really really wanted a glass of wine and he gave me this big look and said "Mom! You're on PCP. You can't." So I didn't.

I put a picture on Flickr with my dad. He's really healthy. Very busy, lots of friends, biking, he eats tons of veggies. He told me to remind you all about the book "The Blue Zones" about the parts of the world where there are high concentrations of centenarians. (Okinawa Japan is one of the zones, by the way.) He plans to be one, I think. He has high levels of meaning, community and commitment in his life (all important). Also, he eats lots of veggies. Important. Also he eats fairly small portions.

There was a long term study on centenarians (those 100+) to see if there was a common element. The researchers studied many cultures and found one common theme. The centenarians all wanted to get up in the morning. They were early risers.

If one wants to get up in the morning, if one rises early, that means one wants to live - has things to live for. People to live for. Things to look forward to. Also it means that they are fairly healthy. They feel well enough to wake up and get up!

I see that in my dad. He has things to live for. A reason to be here. Last night he prepared this whole thing - took yellow roses to the restaurant and had them put in the cooler, had a present all wrapped up, brought a tape recorder on which he had put a bunch of versions of happy birthday (most of them classical - beautiful!), had cupcakes, a lighter to light them, a box for the trash, and so on. He had such fun preparing everything!

Good food allows us to make good choices. Exercising gets us in touch with this complex body. Connection with others, even through a medium such as this blogging thing, gives us the community and the accountability for making good choices.

It's good.