Overheard

In the locker room at the gym a couple days ago I overheard two women talking about Halloween. One of the women said she was a retired librarian and she passes out books to trick-or-treaters--and this year she had 345 visitors to her door! She used to offer kids a choice between candy or a book, but so many chose the book she did away with the candy altogether. The other woman apparently has small children and commented that she wished her kids would choose books over candy. The librarian said many of her trick-or-treaters have never owned a book.

She orders all the books each year through a book store in her neighborhood (North Portland) where I hope she gets a great discount, photocopies the covers, and tapes them to her door so the kids can scan them and select a book. She gets books suitable for a wide range of ages so there is something for every child.

Cool, huh?

Today I was at physical therapy and couldn't help but hear a conversation between another patient and her therapist (we were sitting at the same table). The patient is 60 and a year ago she weighed 350 pounds. She had an enlarged heart and congestive heart failure among other health issues and had gastric bypass surgery. There was no discussion of her history, as in had she tried to lose the weight without surgery, but I can only assume a long-term struggle with weight.

She went from an extremely large size that I can't even remember to a size 4. She also got divorced and remarried (after she lost all the weight, her ex-husband wanted to get back together; the new guy knew her all through her heavy days and has always been supportive) and is a foster mom to a 5-month-old.

Wow! Inspirational.