The crafty will always find a way to support their habit...

Hence my one fat cat at the automatic cat feeder -- IN BETWEEN feedings!

BOO Bad Bacteria, YAY Good Bacteria!

Apparently my healthy diet has saved me from a day that can only be described as a potential 'spontaneous colon blow day'. This is a very good thing.

Let me explain.

A friend of mine took me out to a new East Indian restaurant the other night (friend and restaurant names withheld, although perhaps I should warn others about the seemingly inocuous eating joint). Anyways, I always call East Indian buffets "the thousand calorie download" because I'm pretty sure you'd be hard-pressed to find a place where you could wolf down more calories in less time, barring some fast food joints of course.

Oh and we ATE till we hurt.

And we hurt the next day too.

I have to wonder how many of those calories were actually absorbed since my whole meal plus half my intestines and maybe even my appendix escaped out the back of me by noon the next day. I was literally in awe. Hey, if you want to do one of those 'colon cleanses' then perhaps this restaurant is for you. There was seriously about an hour there where my butt was married to the toilet bowl, indefinitely. It was rude. Which is why I had to bring it up on this blog of course, haha.

Yeah whatever.

Here's where my healthy, good bacteria colonized gut saved me. My friend called a couple of days later and said, "uh, how were you feeling yesterday?" I knew exactly what he was referring to so I gave an appropriate description to the world-of-turmoil my intestinal tract had experienced the morning before. He proceeded to tell me that my hour of excrutiation constituted his WHOLE DAY. He couldn't keep anything down. He had cramps. He was at the mercy of the latrine, a jester at the porcelain throne, a hooker to the john... THE WHOLE DAY. And the worst part -- he had a date that night!!!! The poor guy. The details of this he mostly left out, except to say that the call of nature occured on his way to pick her up. He couldn't exactly open the chutes at her house, so he stopped at Walmart and the washroom there had no toilet paper! At this point he had to leave his stall, buy some toilet paper and return to finish his business! I had a pretty good chuckle at his expense, I must say.

The only thing I can figure is that all the healthy bacteria in my gut prevented the bad ones from doing much damage. They ameliorated my diarrhea by "stimulation of the immune system, competition for binding sites on intestinal epithelial cells and elaboration of bacteriocins." (Source: Probiotics in the Treatment of Infectious Diarrhea). Booyah to the little buggers! Now excuse me while I chow down on some yogourt, bananas and barley.

Hmm... I get a feeling that if I ever wrote a column about nutrition, it would be a little less than conventional. But it would get the point across.

Il Carpaccio di Gamba

There has been a lot of hoopla over whether adding a 4th blade to razors was really necessary. This cartoon at http://www.offthemark.com/ makes the point well.

To me, triple blades already shave close. I mean, how much closer than close can you really get before you're removing skin?

I went through this recently when I bought a new set of razors... Holy SHARP! I felt like an Italian Chef carving meat with that thing! Unlike Kramer, I've never thought of preparing dinner in the shower! So instead of making Carpaccio di Manzo all’Olio di Tartufo Estivo Carpaccio (thinly sliced raw beef tenderloin with capers, shaved Parmesan and black truffle oil), I could make Carpaccio di Gamba all’Olio di Tartufo Estivo Carpaccio (thinly sliced raw LEG). Apparently, the most difficult part of preparing carpaccio is the slicing of the meat. I dunno but with these razors, the slices are coming off pretty damn easy!

According to this recipe: Carpaccio Capers, lean meat, especially the rump, is best for carpaccio as it has more flavour. Hmm, I never thought of shaving my rump, but that would be really handy. And there's a seemingly endless supply of beef there...

Raw Beef Carpaccio

Hibernation via Haagen Dazs

There's a reason why I usually have a giant-sized coffee after lunch rather than half a pint of Vanilla Caramel Latte ice cream.

Coffee: 150 calories with 250 mg caffeine.
Ice cream: 600 calories (and not enough caffeine to wake a sleeping fly).

The question I must ask myself today: Why would I want to maximize both caloric intake and lethargy at the same time?

I don't know. I really don't. The coffee is usually just as good. Luckily Nate took home the Triple Chocolate, or I'd be in triple fat storage mode! Eeek!

I think my body wants to hibernate. Damn you impending winter, damn you!

ps. This is further proof that education doesn't necesarily lead to better choices.

Ramblings from a messy desk... and even messier head

Optimism.
The other day I told someone that my brain was half empty. But I'm an optimist, so I like to think of of my brain as half full...

Dating.
I always forget the meaning of 'later' as in when a guys says, "call you later". In girlspeak, it means "later TODAY"... in boyspeak it could mean 'later today' (not likely), 'later this week' or even 'later, in our next life'.

Pedestrians.
Why are they so stunned? Could they walk any slower across the street while everyone WAITS? Some of them even run to get to the crosswalk and then revert to slow-mo as they cross. The music playing in my car even slows down as I wait. Sometimes I clean my car, make a few phone calls and paint my nails while they cross. People, snap out of it!

Cars.
Well, I totalled my car for the umpteenth time. Yeah, that's right: umpteenth. My little Honda gave in like it was made of tin foil. Oh yeah, I think it might be. The guy who hit it was Asian, 82 years old and didn't speak English. His car (the torpedo/tank) was unharmed during the incident. Freakin indestructible. Methinks my next car should be a 1995 Volvo.

Vitamin C.
I love vitamin C pills. Chalk full of fake orange goodness. Yum. Hmm, maybe that's why my dentist asked why there was no more enamel on my molars...

Nectarines.
Why do I always get suckered into buying them at the grocery store? Every effen year. Somehow they go straight from rock hard to rotten. Every effen time. Slow learner.

Ice Cream.
I figured out why my Dad has ice cream left in the freezer from when I visited two weeks ago. This had me puzzled. The trick? Keep the freezer so cold that it's literally impossible to scoop more than half a centimetre of ice cream out at a time. Pretty soon you give up. And then try to straighten out the spoon handle.

Quote of the Day.
"I'm trying to turn down the suck in my life, and turn up the awesome." - Jensies

Optimism, again, sorta.
And if at first you don't succeed, keep tryin' (to turn down the suck). Someone please tell me, where's the freakin' knob already???

Coffee Abstainer? What the?

Why are coffee drinkers so incredibly shocked when people tell them they don't drink it?

The jaw drops to the floor and the question inevitably follows- "You WHAT? You don't... Y-Y-Y-YOU DON'T DRINK COFFEE????" It's almost like they were just told that someone doesn't brush their teeth... or even breathe. Of course this groundbreaking discovery usually comes in the middle of a coffeeshop where you uh, invited the person to for a, ahem, coffee...

Then follows a barrage of questions.

You don't drink ANY coffee, like ever?
Not even iced coffee?
WHY NOT?
What do you do? Like, in the morning... Uh, how do you... ?

Mass confusion ensues. It blows their mind. (It's almost but not quite as profound as when someone says they don't drink.) Why? Well, because coffee is a double whammy of goodness. It's a yummy and effective drug delivery system. Pretty damn ideal folks. Mmmmm cooffeeeee. I'm slurpin' one down at this very moment.

I'll have to reread this and make corrections after the caffeine hits.

My feet are tired... But my mouth isn't!

About diet and exercise, my Dad often says: "You'll wear out your feet long before you'll wear your mouth out."

Lately I've been running to try to undo the damage done by hanging at my folks' house. A friend of mine asked how I could gain weight eating all those veggies from the garden. Well, there's LOTS of veggies, smothered in butter and salt. Plus there's fruit and I've been making syrup for ice cream and pies and crisps out of it! Yes, my feet are tired but my mouth is showing no signs of slowing down!!!

I often wonder about people who run. They say they love it. However, every time I go out running, I pay attention to the other runners as they pass me. They look anything but happy. In fact, most look like they're in grave pain. That doesn't look fun!!!!

Anyways, here are a few pix of where I've been running the last few days. It's a nice outting. Not too painful at all.

Nutritionism?

A lot of media-written articles about nutrition are booooring. A lot of people don't give a shit anyways. They'd rather NOT know what they're putting in their bodies. I even have friends who are graduate students of nutrition and they will go get a slurpee or diet coke, sometimes regularly! Sorry folks, that stuff is what I call ANTI-nutrition. I've always said that it almost cannot even be considered food! It's not just non-food, it's negative food. Food should always be beneficial to the body, if not then I'm not sure it's "food". Blah blah blah.

I don't eat perfect, haha, but here is an article that sums up much of my personal theory about nutrition.

How to Eat in Seven Words

If you give a shit. Perhaps you'd have a easier time giving a shit if you ate more fibre, oops, I mean whole plant foods ;)

Blueberry Pancakes

I will never again make pancakes when I don't have the exact ingredients I need.

Pancakes are a big commitment. Once the first couple don't work out, you still have to fry up the rest of the batch... And then freeze the extras so you can have mushy pancakes available for whenever you get a craving... or eternity, whichever happens first.

Working at home

Yesterday I was working at home. This may seem like an ideal situation, but it's wrought with challenges for my weakling little self. Some of these are as follows:

- Sedentation. Lack of movement causes stiffness and soreness and I didn't even DO anything! What the? This one isn't so good for an expanding butt either.

- Boredom. Usually when I'm bored of working on spreadsheets at home, there's the fridge. But I'm trying real hard not to snack lately. At one point the banana on the counter by my desk and I had a pretty good stare-down. It's amazing how good that banana looks when you can't have it.

- Random thoughts. Working at home makes you vulnerable to a wandering mind. Thinking about how badly I wanted that banana made me ponder the phenomenon I call unrequited proximity infatuation. That is... Someone is around a lot. You can't have them. Suddenly they become the most delectable thing on the planet. Ugh. Damn you banana! Tease.

- Spontaneous ADD. Anything, and I mean anything can be distracting when trying to work at home. I mentioned the fridge. Phone calls to catch up on. There's laundry to do. (Especially washing things that haven't been washed in 15 years. Hey, Garfield had fun!) ... I finally cut my toenails (I'm sure you really wanted to know that). Emailed some people several times. I read blogs and commented on blogs (and proceeded to make typos which made the comment mean the opposite of what I'd meant to write!!! Sheesh!) Incidentally, this blog post --Spotting Trends-- totally cracked me up... Then there was my cat giving me her irresistable you know you wanna come over here and give me hugs and kisses look. Oh, and I took photos of snowflakes. What??? C'mon, they were HUGE!



Now before you call me a total slacker, you should know that I did get some work done! Ah whatever, you're going to call me names anyways. Sticks and stones... You're rubber I'm glue... No, YOU'RE weak!

Lunch break is officially OVER. Bye.

Custard Whitehead

As I got into my car after lunch, I spotted something on my face in the rearview mirror.

Why didn't anyone tell me there was a big clump of custard on my forehead? There were 10 people at lunch, someone must have noticed!

Hmm. It kind of looked a bit like a zit. Maybe they thought it was a zit. If so, they must have thought it had to be the biggest whitehead in human recorded history.

My God, doesn't the word "whitehead" just make you wanna go and ralph? Ugh. Better change the subject, I want to keep my lunch down.

What the hell am I eating?

It has always amazed me how people are so willing to eat something when they have no idea what the heck is in it. Truly puzzling. But maybe not knowing is better sometimes. At a restaurant, for instance. We usually DON'T want to know what non-food ingredients might have found their way into our meal, either by accident... err, especially on purpose.

Eww.

The other day as I was eating the sticky rice I'd bought at the grocery store and realized that most of it wasn't readily identifiable.



The mushrooms were obvious but I still have no idea what the other things were. That round one was kind of nuttyish. I'd like to say it was a filbert, but since I have no idea what a filbert is, I can't conclude that very confidently. I figure the flat thing was some kind of Chinese shoot. My biggest concern, however, was that freaky brown thing on the fork. My God, I really really DON'T wanna know!!!

Since 1982...

Click to enlarge

This picture (artist unknown) is on the wall of the High Level Diner. In case it's not clear, it reads:

1982. These are two people are at the high level diner when they are 12 and 13.
2006. Now they are elderly and they still eat at the high level diner.

Haha, that's pretty darn funny!

What the? Wait a minute... I was around 12 years old in 1982!!! Gee, thanks kid!

Dang it, now where'd I put my darn cane?

Step away from the container

I just ate over half a tub of Häagen-Dazs® Dulce de Leche ice cream. Damn that's some good stuff! I should know better than to eat straight from the container. Duh. At 2.4 calories per ml, that's a whopping

840 calories!

WAIT. No WAY. That's almost half a day's worth of calories in a few heavenly mouthfuls! That seems so unfair.

This really isn't going to help with my butt complex.

Ok so now I'm eating a bowl of bran cereal to try to undo the damage. Hopefully this doesn't have any untoward side effects... What, exactly, am I attempting to acheive with the bran? Steatorrhea? Oh God, I hope not.

Either way, at this point my options aren't sounding too good. Oh, and according to an article Jen just sent me, I could get pregnant more easily: Ice Cream May Boost Fertility.

Things could get interesting around here. Who knew that a tub of ice cream could bring on such turmoil?

TicTac in the Laundry Room

I wonder if it went through the wash. No it couldn't have. Otherwise it would be partially dissolved. It doesn't look dissolved. And it wouldn't get through a load of laundry without dissolving, even in a pocket.

Ah, I don't think I wanna eat it anyways.

Short-term gain for long-term pain

It's becoming more and more evident that my strategy for losing the Christmas poundage is to get rid of all the treats in my house. And by "get rid of" I mean, "eat as much of it as possible."

Now, the only way this plan can possibly work would be to get the stuff out of my face as soon as possible so that I'm not tempted by it later. It's all about instant gratification for the purposes of long-term gain. Wait a second... what type of gain are we speaking of here? Err, maybe it's actually short-term gain in exchange for long-term... PAIN.

Sheeeite. This is gonna hurt.

Abort plan! Put DOWN the cookies! Get AWAY from the chocolate! Don't touch that cake!!!

Awwww geez. There were some perks on that plan.

mmm choc-lit

I knew I shouldn't have bought people chocolate for Christmas. Now I have to go BACK to the store...

East Indian buffet = A world of pain

As soon as we entered the restaurant, we knew we were in trouble. We asked the young waiter how late they were open and he said for another hour and a half... "Why, are you planning to eat for an hour and a half?" Jen said no because she didn't wear loose pants. He replied that she could simply use his.

That should have been our cue to leave. But no, we can't turn down a perfectly scrumptious Indian buffet, even if we'd have to endure another hour of the waiter's best lines.

We both walked up to buffet and said, "This is gonna hurt." In hindsight, that was foreshadowing. Jen piled up her plate like a pro... I didn't realize saucy food could STACK like that! We didn't even get to sit down yet when he started in on us. Here's a VERY abbreviated version of some of the conversations...

Are you two sisters? No.

So you aren't sisters? You look alike. Uh, no we don't... so at this point I'm wondering if he thinks all white people look the same.

You have the same colour eyes. Actually, Jen's eyes are about twice the size of mine. He agreed and said that hers were very nice because you can see the colour better. Her eyes are very large, very pretty. That left me feeling real good.

What do you girls do? Both students. Which is why we have to eat out at cheap East Indian buffets and chow down like we haven't eaten in days and don't know where our next meal is coming from.

You work together and eat together? Do you do everything together? Um, not EVERYTHING.

How old are you? Why do you want to know that?

No no, you don't have to tell me your age. Just think of a number... how many times you go out to drink wine in a week. Are you thinking of a number? Now double it, add 5, multiply that by 50, add 1735 and then subtract your year of birth. What is the number? Was this some sort of skill testing question and the one who gets it right wins a prize? Since we both did the math wrong, he had to get out the calculator.

Ok what is the number? Hmm. Maybe he was looking for a particular number.

Later, when he was out of the room, I made a break for the food. As I was dishing out, there he appeared. Why did you take the small plate? Because this is round two and I'm already starting to feel the pain. Pain? What pain? You look like you can eat whatever you want and stay slim. Riiiight. That was laid on thicker than the butter chicken sauce there...

Later... Do you like Indian men? No? We paused on that one. Uh... Actually, we don't know. Never tried.

At this point I was wondering what the restaurant policy was on customer harrassment. We were just trying to have a nice dinner and enjoy our food, and this guy was unrelenting! He seemed nice so we didn't want to tell him off, but still!

I was just wondering because you said you cook East Indian food. Most white girls cook Indian food for their East Indian boyfriends. There are a lot of East Indians around here... So where do you girls like to go out and party? What are you doing after this? Not going out?

Yikes. He finally left us alone to wallow in pain for a bit while he talked on the telephone. But all good things must come to an end.

Luckily it was Jen who had to pay the bill. He asked why we were leaving because he was really enjoying watching us pretty girls. That wasn't creepy at all. Then he asked if we liked dirty jokes and proceeded to tell one. That was really effective in reducing the creepy factor. Then he struck up another convo about when we were going out next and could he come along... No response. Jen and I were on what I call Operation Dodge-the-Question. (Boys- if a girl is on Operation DTQ, this is a huge hint that she's not so into you and you should stop asking her personal questions.) Of course, dude didn't clue in to Operation DTQ because by the end of the conversation he asked for Jen's email address. She had the moment that all us girls have trouble with at times- saying no in a way that absolutely won't hurt his feelings. And since there is no possible way to do that, she gave it up. We edged towards the door as he yelled to Jen, "You'll have an email from me by the end of tonight!"

With that, we finally made our escape. Jen's email address for our freedom? It was a good trade. She took one for the team that night.

Excerpt from the email:
i really enjoyed talking to u girls but just could not compliment u enough as u were with ur friend , but just to let u know u look really very pretty and the way u r ,sooooooooooo sweet ,r u always like this

Poor guy. I must give him kudos for trying! However, when a guy comes on that strong it leaves a girl inevitably wondering if she's just the obsession of the moment, and tomorrow night it will be someone else, etc.

Several of us girls had a discussion about it the next day. There was a lot of giggling and comments such as:

I can't believe that. Does the guy have no sense of reality? It is like some lines from a really really sad Bollywood movie.

OMG that is hil.. do guys actually write things like that these days?

Apparently! The more important question is – are there girls that actually respond to this? Yiiii.

Comments from Jen:

No I don't think I'm going to go on a date – this may be extremely uptight and anal retentive, but I have it when people use "u" instead of "you" – just seems kinda lazy. I mean, if you're text messaging fine but if it's an email, write it out dammit! And he used "u" like 80 times, haha. I don't know why that annoys me but it does. And I choose to make a sweeping judgment of his character based on that haha!

And yes I DO need to learn how to say “no thank you” … preferably while running fast and far!

Maybe I can just get a wig and wear it next time. I do like wigs. As for the email – Some gems:

“u look really very pretty” – lie! I was in scrubby comfortable clothes, my stomach was about 4 times its normal size after buffeting for 2 hours, and the previous 2 nights I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep each night. I was like one of the extras from Night of the Living Dead.

“u r ,sooooooooooo sweet” – wouldn’t be saying that if he could’ve heard the commentary running through my head, which was laced with a variety of profanities and unseemly comments
“r u always like this” – nope, and you’re gonna find that out REAL quick … has my foot been acquainted with your crotch yet? No? Well then! *WHAM*


Jen, let's practice a script for next time we run into this scenario. How about: "That's very flattering and you seem really nice, but I'm not interested. Thanks though."

Yeah, could happen.

Perhaps that's better than my response the other night, "Why do you want my number? You don't want my number!" Good one. The crazy part is that was my response to a guy who I thought was REALLY cute. Ah, how can I possibly pick on Jen about this when I'm just as bad at it? And I have a few years on her too!

Looks like we'll both have to practice our "yes, please call me" and "no, please don't call me" responses before we go out next time, particularly before we go to that East Indian buffet place again...

Homogenized Sphincter

One thing I like to ask people when they're eating a hot dog is, "So how's the homogenized sphincter?" They pause for a moment to compute that, and then keep right on horking it down. Especially when they're drunk. Or a kid who doesn't know what sphincter means.

Nowadays, when apple juice and spinach can be infected with E. coli, a type of bacteria that originates in the gut, it adds new meaning to the phrase, "Eat shit and die."

Eating can be pretty risky. And I tell ya, I'm willing to take that risk every day, day in day out, as often as possible!

"Eating is risky, but not eating is even more hazardous to your health." That’s what my old food microbiology prof used to say. True dat.

If you want to choke down some interesting info about the fast food industry, check out the new movie Fast Food Nation. If you eat fast food, you should see it. Afterwards, you'll WISH it was only sphincter in those burgers!!! Ah, just kidding! Or not... Guess you'll have to see it to find out.

Polly wants WHAT?

Sometimes I feel like Polly in this cartoon. If I only knew HOW to ask for what I want...

Alright... Back to crackerville.

I'm tired of crackers.

Boy are they ever dry... Wahhh teeerrrrr, I needdd waaahhh ttteerrrr...