Remind me to never ever ever (and I do mean ever) do anything that
stupid again.
This is the second time in my life that I've skipped going to Yom
Kippur services.
Last year it was because I didn't know about the relatively nearby
(ninety minutes by air) Guangzhou Chabad House.
This year it was specifically because I did know about the relatively
nearby Guangzhou Chabad House and was amazingly unimpressed.
Last year I ended up breaking the fast two hours early with a
chocolate bar from my refrigerator. It was the first time since I
started the yearly fast that I didn't make it.
This year I mostly kept the fast. There were certain things that I
absolutely just had to have. Like the antibiotics for my ear
infection. And I think I can be forgiven the menthol cough drops.
While I am a freak who regularly enough has ear nose and throat
infections such that I like menthol cough drops as a candy I think, in
this case, they really counted as medicine. Besides which, it isn't
as if seven cough drops over the course of 24 hours really counts as
food.
The bottle of water I was sipping on could be construed by the most
observant of formal Orthodoxy as breaking the fast. I prefer to think
of it as being a necessity for health reasons related to living in the
tropics.
The can of Red Bull Energy Drink was definitely a bending of the
rules, a loss of will as it were. But I was about to take my place at
the start line of the 2007 Hainan Province "Shimano Cup" Mountain Bike
Race and there was an iced Red Bull available for every competitor. I
chugged it.
'Fast' and 'race' go together.
'Fasting' and 'racing' do not.
Funny language English.
All in all I'm pretty impressed with my seventh place. There were
more than twenty women. I was already back behind people who, under
normal circumstances, I can quite easily beat. But, even if they
shouldn't have been able to beat me, I shouldn't have been able to
beat as many of the people I did beat.
Not that long ago, when I was in Qinghai, I described oxygen
deprivation and elevation sickness as "feeling sort of like really low
blood sugar" with the exception that I'd never actually let my blood
sugar get quite so low as to feel quite so lethargically unable to
move through air suddenly thicker than water while I struggled in vain
to open my eyes.
And while I was a different sort of bad off than I was at Qinghai I
can now say for certain that extremely low blood sugar really isn't
all that different from oxygen deprivation and elevation sickness.
I don't especially recommend either.
I'd probably have done better with the racing if I hadn't done the
additional loop to check out the course beforehand. I was on a
borrowed mountain bike with a pair of borrowed sneakers and it seemed
like a good idea at the time to do an extra loop ahead of time just to
make sure everything fit alright.
(As part of the lead up to the 2007 Tour of Hainan I am spending up to
six days a week neglecting my real job in Sanya to be a translator and
general English speaker for the Organizing Committee. I only brought
the road bike, the road shoes, civilian clothes, and a pair of girly
sandals with me to Haikou.)
It was on the third and final loop of the race itself as the black
spots danced in front of my vision and I really wasn't quite sure
which one of them was the black clad girl I was trying to catch up
with that I came to the conclusion that I really really shouldn't have
done that. In retrospect I couldn't really decide if the 'that' in
question was the first loop or if it was the 15km ride to the race and
the race itself.
Just past the finish line I stumbled off the bike, slumping low over
the handlebars, wished my stomach had something in it for me to vomit
out, and lied profusely to my friends as I said I was perfectly fine
and there was nothing to worry about.
Well there was nothing to worry about. I wasn't fine but my lack of
fineness was my own damn fault and as long as I didn't faint which I
probably wasn't going to do if I could just make the world stand still
there wasn't going to be anything to worry about.
Besides which, if I did faint that was what the nice ambulance men
were there for.
If it had come to that, would an IV glucose drip count as breaking the
fast?
Lift leg over top of bicycle.
Succeed at not falling down.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Sit.
Stay.
For a span of time that even with things to watch and people to talk
to couldn't have really been well over three hours. The black spots
went away but I was getting kind of loopy near the end. Lots of
people offered me bananas - the Cyclists' Snack Food of Choice - and I
always had to refuse and the explaining why I was looking pale and wan
and listless and didn't want bananas seemed very confusing even when I
was the one doing all the talking.
Watching clouds with low blood sugar is really lots more interesting
than listening to Kol Nidre. Not sure how religious an interesting
experience it is but it was definitely interesting. If indeed there
is a God then it is most certainly God who put into motion the forces
that created the pretty clouds as well as the forces that led to the
existence of the person watching the pretty clouds so it stands to
reason that the experience must, on some level, have been religious
but ... don't mind me, some of my best friends are missionaries and
I've recently gotten into the bad habit of philosophical discussions
on the nature of religion.
At the very moment the sky was sufficiently dark, I broke my fast on a
package of instant noodles grabbed at a stoplight from a friend of
mine who had won a case of them in the beginners' relay. I didn't
merely eat them or consume them so much as inhale them.
Even the ice cream sundaes at Vacarro's Bakery in Baltimore's Little
Italy that have been my family's Break Fast tradition for years now
don't taste nearly as good as that package of instant noodles did.
And despite what I've been told by my diabetic dad about recovery time
from low blood sugar it was almost as near instant a reaction as the
supplemental oxygen in Menyuan. And while the change wasn't quite as
extreme of a feeling much better it suddenly became much easier to not
merely focus my eyes but keep them focussed.
I then had a kilo of oranges.
I then had a large dinner.
I then had dessert.
And a late night snack.
Remind me to never (ever) do anything that stupid again.
-M