Susan's Scribblings the Blog

For those of us on the weight loss bandwagon, it’s hard to select food that is healthy and which doesn’t trigger the gag reflex between the fork and the digestive tract.  I remember an old episode of “Garfield and Friends” in which the titular cat suggested a diet that includes any food you can comfortably sit upon:  lettuce made the cut.

What can one eat for breakfast?  I’ve gone over some possibilities, and none of them seem right.  First, eggs are not on the list:  they are high in cholesterol whole, and I don’t want to waste either the white or the yolk just for the sake of having the half of the egg I spent good money for.

Bread is not good for you, either.   Anything made with refined flour is bad, but the purer stuff is high in calories.

Cereal is out as well because it contains refined sugars or the above refined grains.  Hot cereal isn’t good, particularly oatmeal unless it is steel cut.  What’s with that, anyway?  Do they put individual oats on a chopping block, absolve them of their sins and then decapitate them?  And that brings up the subject of how they “cut” the other oatmeals out there.  Maybe it’s a kosher thing and the oats were killed humanely under the watchful eye of tradition adherent rabbis.

Have you ever stood in the oatmeal section of the market?  It’s a confusing array of flavors, textures and boxes in sizes that don’t fit in your cupboard.

Those of us who take medication can’t even settle for grapefruit for breakfast, because the juices in those little yellow globes contain ingredients that affect the absorption of many medicines.  I’m also told that the standard daily glass of orange juice is not good for dieters because the juice is mixed with high fructose corn syrup.

I won’t even go into the issues associated with sausage, bacon or other so-called breakfast meats.  Cheese is out because it’s high in fat.  Coffee is bad for you, and in terms of milk I’ve already downsized from whole to 2%, which fortunately looks better in a glass than skim milk, which resembles chalky water in a carton.

So I’m back to square one:  what can a dieter have for breakfast that doesn’t guarantee a trip to the poorhouse, doesn’t affect the heart or liver, and won’t add high fructose corn syrup to the gut?

No wonder most people skip breakfast altogether.

This year was a record for me:  I’ve been to four holiday luncheons and will soon attend a fifth.  I know, some people have many more than that, but for me more than one party is enough to give my vital signs a jump start.  Usually I go to just one office party held by our department at a local restaurant.  This year I changed offices (because they moved me from one state to another to help out at a different location), so I received two invitations, one boss took me and my peers out for a more private lunch, and three friends and I got together for one last munchdown before the new year dieting:  another boss will also hold a lunch next week.

Sometimes an office party is the only time you see some of the people in your office, especially when it’s a 24-hour operation.  The same shift personnel often sit together, which is a shame because it deprives people of the chance to meet somebody new.  I feel this disconnection keenly because I’m responsible for the paychecks for a multitude of people I have never met because they work after I have already gone home.

Of course offices can’t hold Christmas parties per se (those folks with non-Christmas holidays on their calendars need recognition too), so they’re called “Winter Celebrations” instead.  Excuse my bluntness, but I welcome the skiers and ice fishermen to celebrate winter:  I’d rather be a snowbird and winter up in Florida or the Caribbean, so I don’t really feel celebratory once the solstice comes.  I go to the parties to share human contact and discover what’s new in the world in terms of news, food and frolic.  I’ll worry about the weight after New Year’s.

I shop with a friend once a week, and with six malls to choose from we get to see everything there is in retail.  For a Thursday in December at the mall on our most recent visit, the experience was surreal to say the least.

None of the children were happy; in fact I saw lots of teary faces on bodies being dragged about by disagreeable parents.  Stores were empty, and aisles were wide and unpopulated enough to do cartwheels in.  Even Santa packed it in early considering the mall was staying open until 11:00.  I didn’t buy a thing, but my friend found a coat at 40% off.

People seem to be disheartened by the commercialism associated with Christmas, and the world outlook has tarnished the religious aspect over the years.  The result is a date on the calendar that has reached the apex of frivolity and is now on the roller coaster ride down into the ground level track of indifference.  Kids get gifts year round, and then we tack on another date at the end of the year in which we somehow feel obligated to pack a year’s worth of gift buying into one, and we attribute it to somebody who was in reality a sainted humanitarian given a red suit persona by Coca Cola.

Besides the ho-ho-hooey, on the shelves at the cubbyholes we call stores in our malls, nativity sets vie for our attention.  The hilarious greeting cards that sing inane carols share space with pious solemnity featuring an umpteenth rendition of holy events from long ago that may or may not have actually happened in December, depending on whom you ask.

Maybe that’s the problem with the holiday season:  we’ve lost track of the truth, so we are shopping in a foggy lie.

So last night I went to the opening night for the movie version of Twilight and took my mother along.  We went to our favorite theatre which recently changed ownership and now allows more mainstream films and the admission of young people (only older children were allowed under the old regime and no G movies were on the roster).

The house was packed with tweens, teens and a stewpot of dark lurker types and a few vanilla moviegoers like us waiting for the seating to begin.  Believe it or not, they began admitting 45 minutes before showtime and the best seats already were marked with discarded coats while their owners mingled in the lobby.  We managed to get a second tier pair of seats together with no tall people sitting in front of us, so we sat and had popcorn for dinner while watching the free slide show on the movie screen for 40 minutes.

The school crowd created a high-pitched, somewhat nasal (I already wrote about this teen phenomenon, so I won’t complain again here) and constant din as familiar faces from their cliques appeared in the house and were hugged or fist-bumped to death or subjected to introductions around the room.  Somebody decided to serve as timekeeper and would announce the countdown enthusiastically until the start ran past its scheduled time:  at least nobody started impatient chanting.

Once the previews began the crowd settled down with resignation until the familiar “Feature Presentation” trailer appeared onscreen, and then somebody yelled “Take your pants off, Edward Cullen,” to a reply of screams as if we were seated at a Beatles reunion.

Even audience participation at Rocky Horror Picture Show was not crotch obsessed, and Stephenie Meyer certainly would not have expected that comment to stem from what she wrote in four bestselling novels.  My mother and I looked at each other and saw we were both worried about how our appreciation of the film would be helped or hampered by such a vocal crowd.

We really didn’t have to worry.  Sure there were lots of giggles, shrieks and a knowing “woooo” or two at choice moments,  but Twilight was easy and enjoyable to view and share with others.  We even had the oppportunity to talk to some total strangers (moms) who had brought their entourage along (since those folks were years from obtaining learning permits), and the camaraderie was relaxing.  For two hours and two minutes (plus the trailers and evacuation notice), Twilight was worth the anticipation and experience.

I hope that young lady was not disappointed that Robert Pattinson’s Edward did not doff his pants.

No wonder everybody gets so fat around the holidays.  It isn’t the dinners that cause the problem; it’s the food you send and get sent by mail.

Did anybody ever stop to consider who far in advance those catalogue people start baking, pouring, molding and packing those little pots of cheese, tins of popcorn and vacuum packed smoked meats to mail via the parcel system to wreath festooned doorways the world over?  Food by mail gives me the hinkeys anyway.  If the supermarket doesn’t carry it, or if I can’t find it within an hour’s drive of home, I don’t think it’s worth it.

It seems strange to me to have some poor Maine lobster thrown into a box with some survival munchies to keep it alive, sent tooling through some shipping facility, parked in cargo on a plane and flown to someplace that probably never sees an ocean, only to see it arrive at a family’s doorstep, have some happy cook throw open the lid and shout with glee, “Oh ducky, it’s the lobster we’re going to execute for dinner tonight.”  Mind you, I’m not a vegetarian, and I don’t have a problem with going out and buying meat that has been prepared in a package for me, and I go to Red Lobster regularly, but I will not be the executioner of some poor crustacean living out its last days in a fish tank, and I won’t let somebody ship one to me.

Those little containers of twenty different cheese spreads can look like a gourmet dream, but one time I had a shipment of those and only found one to be enjoyable let alone edible.

If I’m going to ship something to somebody as a holiday gift, I’ll make it something really useful like a potholder or a gift certificate, not a dried and processed overpriced thingajiggy from who knows where.

I’ve noticed something strange lately:  it seems some folks are toying around with their license plates.

Sure, people put funny frames around their plates, which itself is a problem.  Have you ever gotten too close to a vehicle ahead of you simply to get a clearer view of what is written on the license plate frame?  Some frames obliterate the information on the top and bottom of the plate, which is where the state name is normally located.  That I’ve always had an issue about.

What I’ve noticed is that a large number of plates seem to be missing paint around the numbers and letters.  If the folks making the plates found a defect in the painting process, I’m sure they would do something about it, but in this case the missing paint shows traces of scratches around the imprints.  This would lead me to believe that people are actually taking steel wool to their plate numbers.

This is most disturbing when one stops to wonder why anybody would want to disrupt the readability of their vehicle’s identification, and the obvious answer is to avoid such identification.  Are there that many people afraid of the law driving around our highways?  Would you want to share the road with them?  It’s bad enough to deal with the fact that our roadways are becoming anarchist Autobahns in which everybody feels compelled to disregard speed limits and common sense to get where they’re going, but when one has to resort to disguise to do so, that is sad indeed.  I’m just saying. . . .

It’s terrible to be an older adult with pepperoni size acne, but I had a major breakout this past week which, I was extremely self-conscious and vain, would have kept me indoors in a dark corner of the house until it cleared up.  As it turned out, I made do with the usual makeup efforts that were ineffective, and since my office cubicle is in a corner I didn’t have to gross out anybody.

Why can we decode the human genome but we can’t fix acne?

Well, the mind is on vacation, anyway.  That’s what happens when your whole life centers around work, school, eating, reading and sleeping and nothing else.  With a paper due it’s not easy to take one’s mind off the paper topic.  While eating dinner I’m mulling over what references I will use on page six.  I wake up remembering I forgot to add a footnote.  I’ve lapsed into that state of mind that is the human in autumn.  It may take a week or two to set things right.  Have patience:  I have no other choice.