thankful

Before I go comatose from eating two turkey dinners, I thought I would share some of the things I'm thankful for this year. There two things at the top of the list year: my dad is still with us and I fell in love with the greatest girl ever. My dad is doing great - still not quite back to 100%, but he's getting there. He called the doctor who pulled him out of the car today. The doctor said my dad made his day today because he didn't think dad had made it. It turns out he knows one of the nurses in the ICU and called to see if she knew anything. She told him that they were asking about dad's organs that night, so he didn't think dad survived. And how could I not be thankful about finding Mandi. It's been almost 11 months since we met on New Years and I couldn't be happier. And now that she's in Lansing life is grand. Now it's time to pass out on the couch.

Comments

[schwegg]

Wow, man, totally awesome! God bless your dad and God bless you and Mandi! Life is good! Dare to believe!

Oh yeah, enjoy your tryptophan trip!

(Note: One widely-held belief is that heavy consumption of turkey meat (as for example in a Thanksgiving or Christmas feast) results in drowsiness, which has been attributed to high levels of tryptophan contained in turkey. While turkey does contain high levels of tryptophan, the amount is comparable to that contained in most other meats. Furthermore, postprandial Thanksgiving sedation may have more to do with what is consumed along with the turkey, in particular carbohydrates and alcohol, rather than the turkey itself.
It has been demonstrated in both animal models and in humans that ingestion of a meal rich in carbohydrates triggers release of insulin. Insulin in turn stimulates the uptake of large neutral branched-chain amino acids (LNAA) but not tryptophan (trp) into muscle, increasing the ratio of trp to LNAA in the blood stream. The resulting increased ratio of tryptophan to large neutral amino acids in the blood reduces competition at the large neutral amino acid transporter resulting in the uptake of tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier into the central nervous system(CNS) Once inside the CNS, tryptophan is converted into serotonin in the raphe nuclei by the normal enzymatic pathway. The resultant serotonin is further metabolized into melatonin by the pineal gland. Hence, these data suggest that "feast-induced drowsiness," and in particular, the common post-Christmas and American post-Thanksgiving dinner drowsiness, may be the result of a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.)
Remember: mystics consider the pineal gland the astral doorway!

With that, pleasant dreams! Happy trails!