Thursday, April 23, 2015

Spring is Here; That Means One Thing

It is spring and that means facing one stark reality; I have put on weight over the winter. Actually, I have put on weight over the past 20 winters. Well, to be totally honest, I have put on weight over the past 20 winters, springs, summers, and falls.

Over those years, I have lost hundreds of pounds as well; unfortunately, it was the same 5 pounds, over and over again.

This spring, I have determined to lose weight. I am going to do this by eating healthy and getting more exercise.  From what my Facebook time-line tells me, this is the wisest way to lose weight, and I figure if it is on Facebook, it has to be true.

So, this afternoon, at lunch time, I started on my journey of healthy eating. I cast about the kitchen, considering all my options for a healthy diet. My gaze fell upon a box of raisins. Eureka! I shouted. I felt comfortable shouting that, because I was home alone.

Eureka! A raisin is a healthy food and one that should help me lose weight. After all, a raisin is simply a grape that has lost a lot of weight. I opened the container of raisins, took one out, and put it in a bowl. I walked to the dining room with my healthy lunch and sat down.

I stared at the lonely raisin in the large empty bowl and thought. I thought, “This is not a well-balanced diet. It is simply a lonely raisin in a rather large bowl. I must eat a balanced diet, for that is what it says to do on Facebook.”

I walked back to the kitchen and searched for something healthy to keep my lonely raisin company. I found a wonderful dairy product to add – vanilla ice cream. One large, well-rounded scoop was added to the bowl and the raisin placed on top. I took my healthy lunch back to the dining room and sat down to congratulate myself on my journey to health.

As I gazed upon my raisin in its bed of frozen dairy product I thought to myself, “this isn't a balanced meal at all. It's not healthy. I must have protein.” I picked up my bowl, with the raisin in its bed of ice cream and meandered into the kitchen. I looked about for an appropriate source of protein. I spied a jar of peanuts on the counter. Peanuts would be perfect, except for one thing, I am allergic to peanuts.

Instead of the peanuts, I opted for a spoonful of soy butter. It looks and tastes similar to peanut butter, but it doesn’t try to kill me.

I carried my bowl back to the dining room and sat down. I gazed at it, deep in thought. Something was gnawing at me. Something was wrong. I considered all the possibilities and quickly realized I had neglected carbohydrates.

I quickly grabbed the bowl and bolted for the kitchen. Pretzels! I crumbled a handful of pretzels on my lunch.

By now, I was becoming quite hungry and rushed back to the dining room to finally eat my mid-day meal.

Before I could dig in, I looked one last time at the bowl. It was well-balanced: fruit, dairy, protein, carbohydrates, but I needed something to tie it all together, to turn it into a meal worthy of not only my weight loss goal, but to please my highly-refined palate.

And so, yet again, I walked into the kitchen. This time I knew exactly what I needed and didn’t hesitate. I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the chocolate syrup. I applied just enough syrup to tie the entire dish together, creating a culinary masterpiece, from just the humble beginnings of one raisin.

I inspected my lunch carefully before I left the kitchen and realized I now had, basically, a brown blob. I needed color! What better way to add color, but sprinkles, and lots of them.

Finally, I was satisfied with my creation. I sat down at the dining room table, and grabbed my spoon to eat, when it hit me. It occurred to me that I had to be more cautious around silverware.

It also occurred to me that this lunch, this afternoon meal, was too much. There was simply too much in that bowl.


Therefore, I picked out the raisin, threw it away, and ate only what remained. 

Friday, April 3, 2015

Is It Time Yet?



It is the first week of April and that means two things: yard clean up and prom shopping. The first, yard clean up, is a necessary chore.  It has been a long, cold and windy winter. Since my house is on a corner lot, and only a block from a multitude of stores and gas stations, there seems to be a lot to clean up. 

I didn’t keep an accurate tally, but I picked up a multitude of old soda pop bottles, a few beer cans, a host of cigarette packs and an assortment of lottery tickets.  Needless to say, the bottles and cans were empty, as were the cigarette packs. And if there was a doubt, every single one of the lottery tickets was a loser. Every. Single. One.

I found this to be rude. If you are going to deposit your personal property on my personal property at least make it personally profitable for me to put your stuff where it belongs.

This complete disregard for my labor in keeping my yard clean left me in a funk. To alleviate that funk, I decided to do some therapeutic shoe shopping. Note, the shopping wasn’t for shoes that are therapeutic, it was the shopping that was meant to be therapeutic.

For my long time friends and readers, you know that I find nothing therapeutic about shopping. I do, however, find spending time with my family therapeutic. Beloved, Middlest, Littlest, and I went to the mall. The young ladies went shopping for shoes for their respective proms.
While they were looking for new soles, I took my watch to a jeweler for a quick fix. After I handed my timepiece to the kind gentleman behind the counter, he said the repair would be done in about 15 minutes. I, out of the force of habit, looked at my wrist to see what time it was, so I would know when to pick the watch up. Then I looked at the kind gentleman behind the counter, and we both laughed at my epic fail.

While I waited for the womenfolk to pick out the right shoes and my watch to be repaired, I sat out on a bench in the mall. I was facing one of the kiosks that sells mediocre jewelry at bargain basement prices. There was a young couple shopping for some bling. The male part of the couple sat on a bench near me, while the female looked over all the shiny stuff.

After a few moments, the female came around from the far side of the kiosk and yelled in the most romantic way possible while shopping at a mall and looking at mediocre jewelry, “Hey, what you last name be again?”

Upon hearing that crime committed against grammar and the English language, I looked at my wrist to see if it was time to pick up my watch yet. The watch was still at the jewelers and had not magically reappeared on my wrist.

My family, however, did magically reappear and declared that despite the enormous square footage of the shoe store, there were simply no prom shoes to be had and so, we continued to shop. And shop. While I repeatedly checked my wrist to see if it was time to leave yet.