Devil's Food

Last week I embarked on a “clean eating” plan. Eat no processed food. Eat from the earth. If man created it, do not eat it. In theory, it was a good idea, and great for my health. And I was able to do it for three days, until someone at work shoved a chocolate covered donut down my throat.

Okay, so she didn’t shove it down my throat. But she did pick up the Entenmanns’s box from the food table I had managed to avoid all day, carry it to my desk during the three o’clock danger hour, and hold the box of glossy-chocolate sugary-smelling orbs in front of my face. That’s equivalent to holding a gun to my head and making me eat it. That’s even worse than the devilish serpent offering me fruit from the forbidden tree - because at least eating from the tree of forbidden fruit would have been “eating clean”.

There’s food everywhere. How do you escape it? I just now found out Entenmann’s is even in my spellchecker. I had it spelled wrong. How do brand names of processed food products end up in Microsoft’s spellchecker? Food is everywhere. You cannot escape it.

So I have decided to still eat clean - at least 75% of the time. That is practical. That is doable. At least I think it is.

High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Supersquash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us? ~Annita Manning

So Long

Goodbye Michael. Goodbye Walter. Goodbye Farah.

Goodbye Jon. Goodbye Kate. Goodbye plus-eight.

Goodbye Guiding Light. Goodbye Dirty Sexy Money. Goodbye Lipstick Jungle.

Goodbye Circuit City. Goodbye Pontiac. Goodbye Starbucks on every corner.

Goodbye two-salary households. Goodbye savings account. Goodbye George Bush.

Goodbye property tax rebates. Goodbye Homestead rebates. Goodbye Jon Corzine.

Goodbye 2009.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland

The Cat Ate My Homework

Recently our cat Susie has been crazy hungry. She has a thyroid issue and extreme thirst and hunger are part of the symptoms, and she has been on medication for it quite a few years. But lately something has really gotten into her. She is cat, dog, and mouse all at the same time.

She begs for food while my husband and I are eating dinner. I thought it was fun at first, letting her sample from my plate after I was done, to see what she would eat - onions, broccoli, tomato vodka sauce. She ate it all. But now I push her away from my plate, regretting having started that bad habit.

There was a loaf of cranberry bread on our table, still in the pan and covered with aluminum foil. I had to chase her off the table after I caught her trying to scratch away the foil to see what was underneath. A few hours later I heard a crash and a tinny-sounding muffle. I came downstairs and there it was, loaf pan knocked to the floor, crumbs and nuts and cranberries skewed all over, Susie the cat munching away.

That next day I was taking a pumpkin pie out of the oven, and was just about to set it on the table to cool, but then there she was, hopping right up on the chair, her nose sniffing the cinnamon air, and I knew what was bound to happen were I to leave the pie there to cool. So, I lifted it high on the top of the refrigerator, almost spilling the hot mushy goodness in the process.

While food shopping Sunday morning I had picked up a loaf of “yoga bread” for a friend to try, and had it sitting on the landing by our front door so my husband would remember to drop it off to her. The next morning I awoke early and went downstairs to feed that hungry begging bugger of a cat, and what did I see? The plastic bread bag gnawed open, crusty crumbs all over the place.

Let me tell you, she’s damn lucky she’s cute.

Over the weekend my dashboard light for “check tire pressure” came on. Finally on Tuesday morning on my way to work I stopped at my trusted, tried, and true gas station to put air in my tires. I parked, grabbed a couple quarters from my console, got out into the brisk morning air and took the cap off the tire valve, grabbed and untangled the always-tangled dirty tubing and turned to put my money in the air machine and then I saw it. A tiny note taped to the machine – “out of order”.

Later that same day on my lunch hour I went to the ATM to deposit a check. I pulled up and the screen was black and guess what? Out of order. The whole bank was out of order, actually. They had a power failure for no apparent reason.

It reminded me of a show I used to watch – I think it was on ShowTime. The main character was played by Eric Stoltz and on each and every episode there was a point where he was trying to accomplish some task or errand and inevitably when he went to do it, there it was, a sign that read “out of order”. The show was actually called Out of Order. I thought it was a great show, but it only ran for one season.

Recently my life has been out of order, as much as everyone’s has been this past year or so to some extent or another. I am glad the year is coming to a close. Winter is the perfect excuse to hibernate from the world, curl up with a big book and mug of peppermint tea and dream of spring, and sun, and newness. Rebirth.

Rebirth. Like my irises. They are blooming in December. Even Mother Nature is out of order.


“The elevator to success is out of order. You'll have to use the stairs... one step at a time.” ~Joe Girard

Hi Honey, I'm Home!

What’s wrong in the world when the wife gets up in the morning and goes to work, while the husband and his friends go hang out at Starbucks?

This recession has really flip-flopped things. Women have become the breadwinners. Statistics show it, and I have seen it my own world.

Is it wrong of me to want to go back to the 1950s? Wearing a cotton dress each day with a cute frilly apron. Luncheons with the ladies. Game of pinochle anyone? Bridge, perhaps? Keeping house. Starching a shirt collar or two.  Bonbons at 3, only for me....

...Sweetly idling the day away until it came time to have the husband's cocktail ready in hand and kiss ass the minute he walks through the door after a hard day’s work?

“I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.”
~Marilyn Monroe

Missing in Action

I have been amiss. Absolutely awry. Absent without leave. I have been utterly uninspired, desperately devoid of the wizardry of the written word. And I missed alliterating. I missed the clever coaptation, the busy bungled banter, the echo of the erstwhile esoteric etchings of pen on paper….

But I am back. Expect great things.

At least until the next case of writer’s block.

Ah, but I must confess. It hasn’t been so much writer’s block as it is just that I’ve been busy.

My brother recently bought a house, and a friend and I have been helping him decorate. Well, so far all we’ve actually done is bought and hung curtains in every room of his house, while waiting for him to paint all the rooms so we can begin the actual “decorating”. It has been well over a month. I would have had the whole house painted by now. He has only painted the dining room.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a beautiful dining room - three coats of garnet on the walls, and two coats of deliciously creamy color on the trim and crown molding. But come on already! We want to design on a dime, shop for accessories, and hang wall art, and we can’t do that until the colors are in place and the mood is set.

Paint party, anyone?

"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.” ~Neil Gaiman

Help! I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up

My husband was just approved by our insurance company to get a CPAP machine. Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. It’s for his sleep apnea, which causes a horrible snoring problem. Not so much a problem for him, but a problem for me. He sleeps right through it while I sneak off to the guest room in search of peace in the deep dark deluge of the night.

But soon I will be sleeping with a masked man. That could be exciting…? Or is it just the sign of the times - the beginning of the end. Doomsday is upon us. And it all starts with durable medical equipment in my bedroom.

Middle age.

But don’t worry; it will happen to you too - if it hasn’t already. The men in our lives will soon be buying thick gold chains and wearing their shirts half unbuttoned, with gabardine pants and orthopedic shoes. I am already praying for no comb-overs. (Please, God?) Before we know it, it will be time to put a down payment on a single level condo unit in a retirement community. Prunes will become a dietary staple. My friends and I will buy each other Life Alerts for birthday presents.

So, yes, I will be sleeping with a masked man, and although it is not the masked man of comic books and super hero marvels, at least it’s just in time for Halloween.

“The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it.”
~Doris Day