Tonight's blog only includes one movie, because for the last two days I underwent the excruciating experience of food poisoning. Mine was different than a most cases, because from what I've read, food poisoning comes on within hours of eating the poisonous food. Mine took a couple weeks, and may have been started by coffee. I do stupid things, like drinking it in the morning without breakfast, then having another cup in the evening around 7pm, again on an empty stomach. I've been doing it for years, it started when I was with Pearl and on the go-go all day (wake me up before you go-go because I'm not planning on goin' solo), and it never bothered me. Anyhow, after Pearl passed away and I was at home, I started buying a cheaper brand of coffee to save money. At Pearl's, Starbucks was always provided. Well, in December, after I'd been drinking this new brand for three months (Barrisimo, from Aldi, the "Breakfast Blend"), I started getting mild to medium cramps after my evening cup. Keep in mind that I always use milk, never drink it black, but my evening cup is what's leftover in the pot from morning. I drink it cold, and by that time, it's been sitting around for several hours.
I keep a journal (been doing so since 1999), and in it, by late December, I wrote "stomach hurts" at least three times in various entries. As noted, most times it was mild cramping, but enough so I felt it when I stood up. It would linger as I went for my walk, then dissipate as the evening came to a close, but these cramping sessions had the cumulative effect of causing my abdomen to feel tight after a couple weeks. By now, we're talking around January 1st. I thought, "drink more water. Water solves all problems" I did that, and my abdomen seemed to loosen up, but not all the way. It still felt like something was going on down there. I kept on with my evening cup of cold, been-sittin'-around-all-day coffee at 7pm, and I found if I drank it slowly, just sipped it, I could avoid the cramping after-effects. I was drinking lots of water by then (and I'm normally big water person anyhow (less so in the winter), but even though the cramps lessened, I still had that residual tightness in my lower abdomen.
Now, fast forward to Thursday night. This is two nights ago, the night of my last blog. It was 7pm. I drank my evening cup, faster this time because I wanted to do my walk, then come back and finish my blog. I also drank it on an empty stomach. The night before, I had a dinner of packaged chicken, with black beans and a salad loaded with veggies (I eat salad every day). The plastic pouch holding the chicken had a small hole in it, just enough for some of the sauce to leak out, but I said "what the heck". It was only the size of a pencil poke. I didn't wanna throw the chicken out over that. And, it may have had nothing to do with what happened, but I mention it just in case. Also on the night before, I pigged out late night on salsa, chips and cheese. I mean, way too much. You know how it is with chips and salsa........and cheese. So, my stomach had already been stuffed with too much food about twenty four hours before the decisive cup of coffee on Thursday evening.
On that night, during my walk, I began to feel my abdomen tightening up, and that by-now familiar sensation of mild cramping. Only this time, it didn't stay mild. By the time I got home, it was fair-to-middling, but I sat down to finish the blog anyway. It was the one where I signed off with David Lynch's birthday. By that time, it was hurting enough that I figured I'd try lying down. That always works when your stomach hurts, doesn't it? Oh boy, not only did it not work, it just made the pain worse. 10pm is normally my movie time, but I knew that wasn't gonna happen this night. Instead, I got up off the bed, put on my p.js and turned the lights out, then I went right back to lie down again, hoping the cramp would go away.
It didn't, and by 11pm, it was really hurting. By midnight, it was excruciating. No matter which way I turned, seeking relief, it just made the pain shift and get worse. To make a long story short, I was in bed for the next 36 hours, until this morning, with only very brief trips to go pee or to sit up and sip water. The water gave short, barely perceptible relief, but would then backfire into worse pain than before. I was praying, "please God, make it go away." Somewhere in the middle of the night on Thursday, I got up and vomited. Sorry for the graphic detail. This actually did provide some relief, not entirely but enough so that I thought I was on the road to recovery. I was able to drift off and get an hour or two of half-sleep, but by morning on Friday, the pain was back and was doubling down on it's investment. Now, it hurt so bad that I thought I was gonna have to go to the emergency room. But then I thought, "I won't be able to drive there, and even if I could, I'll be in a room full of covid patients, waiting for hours to be seen." So, I toughed it out, on into Friday afternoon, when I experienced another need to vomit. This time, it provided no relief whatsoever. I squirmed around, trying to find the prone position that caused the least agony. Hours passed. Thank God for KUSC, playing softly in the background.
By now, it was dark. Evening went into night. The pain caused me to Zen out, to try to overcome it. That didn't work, but it gave my mind a chance to think about Zen philosophy, which made more time pass, if slowly. Midnight........1:40.......2:27.......3:16. More prayer. "Please God, make the pain stop." Then, around 4am, I felt the rhythmic muscle movements in the stomach that tell you're gonna throw up. This was my third time, and it was a whopper. It must have cleared my stomach of the remainder of the acidic coffee, because finally, an hour after that session was over, the pain began to recede. I fell asleep and awoke this morning at 10am , totally dehydrated and wrung out like a wet dishrag, having sweated through my pajamas. The pain was almost gone. I only felt a small twinge upon standing up straight. After drinking water all day, my stomach is almost back to normal. Even the low-level tightness I'd been feeling since December has abated, hopefully for good.
I think the coffee was the culprit, and the effect cumulative. I did some Googling and found out that cheaper brands are more acidic, as are lighter roasts. The chicken dinner with the hole in it may have played a part, but it was no doubt the coffee that had been causing the mild cramping weeks earlier. Needless to say, I'll be switching brands and going back to dark roast. My sister also told me what a Starbucks barista told her, that when coffee sits for more than half an hour it becomes highly acidic because it's been exposed to oxygen. Also, no more coffee on an empty stomach.
I guess at almost 62, I've gotta be more careful what I eat and drink, so I'm gonna try to cut back on the chips and salsa, too. And, if I buy a dinner with a hole in it, I'll just toss it out. I never, ever wanna go through an experience like that again. It was worse than toothache pain, to give you a comparison.
So that's my story. Sorry to gross you out, but writing about it helps. ////
Now for the movie: "The Big Tip Off"(1955) stars our old pal Richard Conte as "Johnny Denton", a newspaper columnist who wants to increase his readership. He's been banging away on his typrewriter for a long time with not much to show for it, except a reputation as a decent guy who's helped raise money for charity through his columns. One day, a childhood friend comes to visit him. "Bob Gilmore" is the head of some unspecified business foundation, and has done very well for himself. He wines and dines Johnny and offers him a job, at much higher pay than he's getting at the paper. But Johnny doesn't want a handout. What he wants is to become a big name columnist.
Right around this time, he gets a phone call. It's from a mob informer, offering him a tip. "Hey Denton, if you're looking for a scoop, be at 43rd and Main tonight at 9." "Why, what's there?" "Don't ask questions, just be there. And don't tell anybody about this call." Johnny shows up at the appointed time and place, and witnesses a gangland killing go down. As the first man on the scene, and the only witness, he has a scintillating story for his column. That issue of the paper sells like hotcakes. His publisher is pleased, but the cops are not. "You obviously got tipped off to that mob hit, Johnny. Who told you?" His answer: "as a reporter, you guys know I don't have to reveal my sources." When he gets a second tip from the same anonymous caller, and sells even more papers as a result, it causes a sensation. The cops threaten to put him in jail. Johnny says, "Go ahead." And they do. But his friend Bob Gilmore springs him out. Remember that Gilmore is loaded with dough. Now, Gilmore is really advising Johnny to take his job offer. "C'mon, Johnny, you're flirting with a prison sentence. It's time you got out of this racket."
But Johnny has used his new success to sponsor a charity for a local Catholic grade school, where he's befriended one of the nuns (Cathy Downs). "I can't back out now", he tells Bob, and even induces Bob to help the cause. Bob agrees to donate a huge sum to what will be a telethon, with Johnny hosting. Bob makes Johnny promise to quit the column after the telethon is over. "Then you can come work for me and relax."
But something has happened in all this time. Bob's girlfriend "Penny" (Constance Smith), who he's not real serious about, has fallen in love with Johnny. This doesn't cause a problem until she goes missing. Bob says she took a vacation, so Johnny waits for her to come back. During this time, the nun becomes suspicious of Bob Gilmore's foundation. "At this school, we've worked with a lot of charities. I've never seen his on any of the lists."
That's all I'm gonna say about the plot, but it's a good one, in what I would characterize as a crime film within a moral context. The charity plays a big part, and is very important to Johnny. Richard Conte is one of our go-to guys, you can't go wrong with anything he's in. "The Big Tip Off" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, and a very high recommendation, the picture was good but not razor sharp. ////
So there you have it. With the next blog, we'll get back exclusively to movies. Go Rams tomorrow. I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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