Eat! Eat!

Have you noticed that some time over the past few years, it’s become fashionable to tell people what you DON’T eat?  I’m guessing that the national obesity crisis is responsible for this, but no longer is there any talk around the dinner table about the enjoyment of food, let alone the consumption of it.  We speak only of what we have purged from our diets.  Personally, I think it’s a little sick…all this denial.
So, I’ll be brave and go first and proudly tell you what I enjoy eating, in the hope that we can get back on track, make like the French, and actually enjoy our food once more. We live in one of the most food rich societies in the world.  For God’s sake, let’s eat! And let’s stop feeling virtuous in denying ourselves the foods that we love.  It’s the last taboo…admitting what we eat, even if those choices are less than stellar.  So here’s my not so secret list.

Chips with dip:
Happily, this potent and decadent combination is only enjoyed at holiday time in my house, but this weekend I consumed rippled potato chips with DIP.  Yes, that’s right…full fat, creamy delicious French onion chip dip; a staple in the happy homemaker’s kitchen in the 60’s.  Actually, I’m pretty sure that in the 60’s, serving chips with dip was considered high class entertaining!  Good enough for company!

In my childhood, chips and dip were a somewhat sacred treat, but they did make an appearance more than once a year.  Nowadays, this high fat, but super delicious snack is a sign that Christmas is indeed coming.  Please spare me the low fat dip….go all the way or no way at all.

Bugles:
Whatever nicotine-like substance lies within them, they are highly addictive, which is great cause for concern.  Because once that bag is opened, you really can’t stop. Unlike cigarettes, which can and must be stopped after one.

Meat:
As my Mother used to say, “it takes all kinds” and that’s what I eat and I make no apologies for it. Grilled, BBQ’d, roasted…you name it, I eat it and love every protein filled moment. This year, I’ve marinated meat, skewered it and slow cooked it, all in the name of tremendous satisfaction.  No vegetable and the word “satisfaction” have ever gotten together in a convincing sentence.

Dessert:
Yes, we have childhood bribery to thank for this (no dessert until you eat a vegetable), but Ken and I enjoy dessert daily.  I’m trying not to enjoy dessert with every single meal (breakfast dessert?  Ca’mon!) and I’m also trying to redefine what dessert consists of.  My middle aged mind has convinced me that yogurt with fruit qualifies as dessert.  You wouldn’t have been able to fob that off on me as a child, but let’s just say I’ve matured.

Foods you couldn’t get me to eat as a child but must have now….

Mushrooms:
Can’t be without them or I start to break out in a nervous tick.  Happily, a good cancer protection program, especially when combined with greens (as in Caesar salad with mushrooms…YUM).
I don’t go in for the exotic stuff (let’s just say that they don’t call it shitake for no reason). No, the common button mushroom serves my Vitamin B needs nicely, but I am partial to the giant Portobello.  Although, for those of you who think that the Portobello mushroom makes a good substitute for beef, I have news for you.  Not really.  But hey, tell yourself whatever you need to in order to get in 10 servings of vegetables daily.

Brussels Sprouts:
A very recent addition to my diet, as in last month!  I was watching a PBS cooking show on the Seattle station when it was revealed that 98% of the population doesn’t like Brussels Sprouts. I was in good company.  But that’s because you never had them like THIS.  His very outstanding recipe (and trust me your Mother never got the memo on this one) involved cutting up the sprouts and sautéing them with the delicious goodness of onions, garlic, apples and bacon and then dousing the whole business with maple syrup.  Yep, that’s a marked improvement over the usual Brussels Sprout crap…er…. recipe (doesn’t everything taste better with bacon and maple syrup?) Here’s the recipe and slap me silly if you’re not a convert.  It’s the dessert of vegetables now. Sauteed brussels sprouts with apples and bacon.

Asparagus:
Not sure what the problem was here in childhood…lack of a good source?  Looked too much like a tree?  Love it now…with lemon, with just about any kind of sauce, cut up in a stir-fry.  Oh and it’s actually good for me.  Who knew?

Foods I eat but used to be forbidden...  

Ice Cream/Gelato:
This blessing I owe to my highly disciplined ingestion of probiotics over the past two years.  My theory is that I’m now ingesting the required enzyme to digest milk products, so ice cream is back!  Mostly consumed over the warm summer months, this year I sucked back some kind of Hagen Daz on a stick, smothered with chocolate and nuts.  Ummmm.
 
Over the past two summers, Ken and I have been running an informal competition for best gelato in the Lower Mainland.  Sampling required.  Top 2 winners:  the place on the beach in White Rock directly across from the pier and in Vancouver, the place at the bottom of the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel.  I’m pleased to report that testing continues.

Cappuccino:
Thinking that despite my joy in being able to mostly ingest dairy products without difficulty, I pushed the envelope a little further still and tried some kind of cappuccino in my Tassimo coffee maker.  Still not sure what the milk product was…powdered milk?  But it was tasty delicious, nonetheless.  Mind you, I’m still cappucinoing in moderation, as should we all.

Foods that I still dream about...

Cottage Cheese
In the 70’s, cottage cheese was considered a diet food and no one wanted to eat it.  Except me.  I missed this one even more than ice cream and really want to get it back on the list.  Best done in limited quantities, but fingers crossed.

Name a food that you actually eat AND enjoy.  I promise not to tell anyone, especially your doctor.  Be loud and proud and tell us, once and for all, what’s really going on in your dining room.

Time on my Hands

With my recent job change came perhaps the most important reason for the change —  quality of life. 

Because of my new drastically shortened commute, I’ve been given the gift of time.  Not only do I get to sleep longer each and every night, but I now have two extra hours a day to frolic. 120 beautiful daily moments…10 hours a week.  An extra 40 hours a month….adding up to a grand total of almost 8 extra days a year to do with what I please.  It’s like I’ve entered some kind of black hole where time has expanded.  I never believed them in physics class, but here it is.

So what have I been doing with my newfound time?  Well, my house has never been tidier.  My bed gets made every morning (for the first time in my life!  Hear that?  That’s my Mother cheering from beyond the grave.)  My blog has been reactivated.  Frankly, I’ve been so giddy about it all; I haven’t really begun to explore the vast possibilities.  I’m hoping yoga will become a regular feature of my life, or perhaps even a few more trips to the gym.  Perhaps there will be more home cooked meals in my future. Hell, I may even take up arts and crafts, yodeling or finally learn to juggle.  My skill set should expand exponentially. Or I may just take a nap.

Whatever I choose to do with this gift of time I know this:  time is precious and we should value every minute of it.  This gift may not last as long as I’d like, so I intend to value every second of my almost 8 extra days that have been added to my wonderful life.

What would YOU do if you only had more time??

Another year ... another erection

It’s that time of year.  Ken and I have been thinking about it for weeks and now the weekend is finally upon us.  A romantic weekend away, you wonder?  Nope.  Time for us to celebrate the season by seeing if we can come to blows once more over the annual erection of our Christmas tree.

Having just put the house back together after the latest renovation…it’s time for us to make our biggest mess of the year.  Boxes upon boxes will be dragged up from the garage (cue the whining to start HERE.)  Our evil cat will likely use this opportunity to escape through the open front door to wander the neighbourhood freely, while giving us the paw and muttering “suckers” under his tuna breath.  He will be recaptured (more whining while one of us searches for him in the cold).  His punishment will be to watch us erect the tree for the next eight hours!

Never before in my life has it ever taken so long to put up a tree.  Even when I was five and was underfoot constantly.  Even when I carefully hand-crafted each link of my construction paper chain and relished in the throwing of plastic tinsel EVERYWHERE!

Nope, it’s only since being with Mr. Interior Decorator that such magnitude of time has been spent. Last year, and hopefully this year, we’ll spread this effort out over several days.  Yes, that’s right….several days for one tree!

But by the time we’re done, it will be somewhat spectacular and we’ll invite guest after guest over to bask in its magnificence (hence needing to start early).  Our BC Hydro Smart Meter will hum like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  The clean up will probably last for days as I find odd bits of Christmas decorations littered endlessly around the house, if the cat hasn’t found them first and choked to death.

But at the end of it all will be peace and beauty, which to me is the joy of Christmas and the only reason that we do it at all.

Take your best stab at it

Having successfully reached the ripe old age of 50, the time has come for another exciting test.  As if smashing my boobs wasn’t enough fun, now I get to participate in the next right of passage, the Fecal Occult Blood test.

A precursor to the dreaded colonoscopy, the FOB test checks for blood in feces unseen by the naked eye.  Having now had two neighbors diagnosed with colon cancer, I thought it best to have a lookie at my poop to see what lurks within.

I thought I was a reasonably intelligent woman who was thankful that English was my first language, until the nurse practioner started explaining how to collect “the samples” as polite people often refer to this. Place the paper in the toilet bowl. Check. Go poo poos onto the paper. Check. Take the little stick out of the very small test tube thingy and stab the poo.  Put it back in the teeny tiny test tube thing.  You lost me. 

I don’t want to brag or anything, but the average size of my feces greatly exceeds the size of the test tube thingy. Any decent Sesame Street math whiz could clearly see that one of these things is bigger and NOT like the other.

The look of confusion on my face was apparent.  She explained again, this time more s-l-o-w-l-y.  I could only conclude that the stick thing was going to take more of a “core” sample, otherwise this was going to get ugly!

I decided it best to give the printed instructions a thorough going over.  The instructions come with cute, IKEA style diagrams.  For some reason the diagram next to the instruction “deposit stool sample on top of collection paper” shows a relaxed naked person on the toilet wearing nothing but red (I’m assuming fuzzy) slippers.  Hmm.  Note to self.  Clothing optional.  Maybe this IS going to get ugly after all.

It appears from the instructions that I am to pull the probe across the sample until there is a goodly amount on the grooved portion of the probe.  I’m thinking that this is going to be an interesting game of bobbing for apples and wonder if when collecting my sample, it might be best to take paper out of the toilet and onto a more solid surface.  Starting to have performance anxiety, I consult the internet for further details.

The internet seems to confirm that the paper is best left in the toilet. We’ll see.  The last thing I want to do is fail this test and have to get back into that lengthy line-up at the lab. Not to mention face the nurse practioner yet again and have her think I was a complete moron.

What they didn’t tell me at either the doctor’s office or at the lab is this: FOB tests are prone to false positives.  Eating certain fruits and vegetables prior to your test or taking things like aspirin and ibuprofen can skew the results, meaning that a further colonoscopy will be performed in order to double check.  The only reason I’ve agreed to do this test is to avoid the colonoscopy (although I hear the drugs are great!).

Having been taking vast amounts of ibuprofen lately for a recent back problem, I decide to wait for a few days.  I’m hoping that by then, I’ll be ready to don fuzzy slippers and take a stab at it. Literally.

The summer of my discontent

Remember when I said back in February, that we were in the home stretch of winter?  I think I may have misspoken.  Apparently, we’re in the summer of my discontent, or as I like to call it, Global Cooling.

The entire planet is experiencing Global Warming.  We’re in the deep freeze.  Vancouver should start a new marketing campaign, “tired of feeling like an egg frying on the sidewalk? Come to Vancouver where you’re guaranteed to grow moldy in 2 short days!”

The SUMMER temperatures here have yet to venture above 20 degrees.  Polar fleece is always at the ready.  If rain is not actually falling from the sky, it threatens to at every moment.

I know many who are spending the Canada Day long-weekend in Las Vegas trying to warm up.  To hell with patriotism, people need heat!  40 degrees Celsius should take care of that nicely.  Why I’m not there is anyone’s guess.  I’m quite sure I will be before this summer is done.

This is the second long-weekend blown out by the weather with only two more to go.  I’m not hopeful.  Meteorologists have blamed everything from El Nino to the Russians and frankly, they’re running out of excuses.  Last summer, weathermen were getting heckled in grocery stores. Personally, I believe they are compulsive liars, trying to pretend that sunshine is coming to keep people from jumping off bridges.

Coincidentally, the bad summers started here when I purchased expensive new patio furniture.  Maybe it’s cursed.  Maybe I should have bought the cheap stuff at Walmart. If I thought that burning it would end the problem, I’d ask for a match, except that I like the chairs so much!

We endure such crappy winters…is it too much to ask for a decent summer?  And by decent, I mean actual sunshine and warmth.  The kind of day where I don’t have to turn on the seat heaters in the car or wear polar fleece with my flip flops.

On one of my forays into the U.S., I purchased a summer dress.  What was I thinking?  What I was thinking was that I could wear it with a jacket over top.  No such luck.  I have no intention of becoming a human popsicle.

If while you’re reading this, your weather outside is blue sky with puffy white clouds and shirtsleeve temperatures….go to hell.  Or bring hell here…we could use it.

If you’re cranky and you know it, clap your hands!

I’m cranky and I know why.  The common cold.  Blah.  I have a zero tolerance policy on the common cold.  Can’t stand another day of another cold, I’ve had so many of them.

I really thought I had this thing beat, not having been sick for a record breaking 18 months or so.  All winter long, I was clean.  And then I went to the gym.

I haven’t been to the cesspool of germs…aka the gym, for over a year.   AND I haven’t been sick in over a year.  Coincidence?  I think not. As soon as I got my dreaded (newly upgraded and snazzy) membership card reenacted, boom.

That gym should come with a warning: germs inside this building may be hazardous to your health.  Come to think of it, hospitals should contain that same warning.  Maybe a skull and crossbones at the front door with a cheery “enter at your own risk” sign.

I’m not sure that people should have to wear HAZMAT suits at the gym to protect themselves.  I can assure you that immediate hand washing when I got home didn’t help.  So much for those ads.

It seems no amount of decongestant, blowing, fluid guzzling, good eating, bad eating, vitamins, probiotics, eucalyptus, steam or oranges will get this thing to stop.  And I’m losing patience.

I’m done with feeling like my head is underwater.  I’m done with sprouting water from every orifice. I’d like to resume my sleep patterns of 8 uninterrupted blissful hours and not know what’s on TV at 2:35 a.m.

The only good thing about being up at such ungodly times is that you get to see what early morning television in Toronto looks like, live.  Not much to report there either. Yikes Toronto, you need some better morning shows.

I’m giving this thing about 6 more hours for my head to clear.  Or else.

The death last weekend of Whitney Houston was indeed tragic.  Here was a woman who apparently had it all; looks, voice, wealth, fame.  What she didn’t have, it appears, are people around her who cared about her enough to break through the trappings of stardom in order to save her.  Because, like so many others before her, Whitney Houston was a drug addict. 

Her talents were happily acknowledged at the Grammy Awards the night following her untimely death. There were lots of tributes and “we love you” Whitney’s proclaimed that night.  I’m not even sure what they meant.  Did they mean, I love your music?  Or I love YOU?  Because if it was the latter, in a room full of people who claimed to love her, where were these people 5 years ago, 10 years ago, when her drug addiction problems began?

Where was the love from those closest to her…who likely helped facilitate her every desire, including her wish for more drugs? 

I always marvel at people who have everything, because somehow it’s not enough for them.  Why is it not enough?  Why are they unable to recognize how good they truly have it?  How do they end up surrounding themselves with people who are simply yes men, unable to tell them the truth and get them the help that they need?

Whitney Houston could certainly afford all the help in the world to overcome her addiction, and yet she was ultimately unable to beat it, either by rejecting it or thinking that she could do it on her own.  Ego, strengthened by addiction is a very dangerous force.

Dying alone in a hotel room stoned is no way to end what should have been a beautiful life, full of joy and passion. My only hope for Whitney is that she knew more of those good moments than bad.