Thinking Outside the Box at Weight Watchers

I recently discovered an old email that I'd sent to my sister years ago when we were both going to Weight Watchers and counting "points" were the big thing.  I don't know if they still count points at Weight Watchers any longer since I am a Weight Watcher reprobate.  I've backslid more times than I care to count and I am just not dependable when it comes to counting anything.  But I must admit, even if I did write the email below myself it still makes me laugh all over again.

"Do you think there are any points in a leather purse?  I'm eyeing it right now and I was sort of thinking that if I cut it up and put it in the crockpot with some salt and pepper and onions and then throw in a few other zero point vegetables that I might have me something tasty.  You know a crockpot can just do wonders with tough meat (of course I'm not sure about the zipper, it might be a little hard to chew) that I figure if I put enough "other stuff" in there with it I might get filled up this weekend.  I'm also looking in to that Chipper Jones autographed bat that Dan has and pondering if there would be any points in it if I cut it up in hunks and put it through the food processor and then combined it with 3oz of hamburger and some onion.  That way I could make myself about a 32oz meatloaf with only the points for the 3oz of meat; you know that people always put crackers or oatmeal in their meatloaf to make it stretch further so I figured this would be close to the same if I just pureed ole Chipper's Louisville slugger into sawdust and threw in a little bit of ketchup.  Then maybe I would be so full that I wouldn't be tempted to start on the hardrock maple chair legs in the dining room, them being so expensive and all.  Hmmmm...maybe I could parboil one and then put it in the blender with some fat free milk and some sweet and low and make me a big fat maple shake.  Well, I gotta go.  That microwave stand looks awfully good but I keep forgetting that it's not real wood.  It's too full of "fillers" for me to really enjoy and even I have my limits."

Going on a diet can make you come up with some real creative ways to beat the system.  Confound those points!

I don't understand skinny people

My dear mother, Carolyn, ("Nana" to her grandchildren) is a skinny person with a skinny person's mentality.  Of course she's going to have a quick come back to this...something like that she's bigger than she's ever been before or maybe that she can't even fit in to her clothes, blah blah blah, I've heard it all.  Carolyn, you are a skinny person with a skinny person's mentality, end of story, period, infinity squared, and I just can't understand it.  I did not inherit this gene.  I inherited plus-sized jeans instead.  Food and I have been friends for so long that it knows me better than most people do.

I don't understand how a skinny person's mind operates. It is as far from my reasoning as the East is from the West, as far as Chalkville Mountain is from Rodeo Drive, as far as Ben and Jerry's is from Great Value Vanilla, you get the idea.  My mother can turn her back on food quicker than Charlie Sheen changes girlfriends and never give it a second thought.  If she's not hungry she's not going to eat it no matter how good it looks. I've known her to make a bag of Oreo's last for several weeks.  How does anyone do this?  It's that skinny person's mindset, I'm telling you, and I just don't understand it.  How can anyone pass an opened bag of Oreo's and not get one?  How can anyone pass a bag of Oreo's that's NOT opened and not get one?  Food is seductive and I'm a sucker who falls for it the same way my friend June Matthews falls for the names on Clairol bottles (of course "Pretty Surfer, Adorable Sun Kissed Blonde" or "Cute as Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle, Blonde" makes you want to pick it up and pour it all over your head, I understand girlfriend, just like that pizza on TV that's dripping with gooey cheese makes me want to call up Papa John's and get a delivery, quick) so whenever I hear a skinny person talk about what they eat I just want to call the doctor and make an appointment...for them.

I will talk more about this later...but for now my fridge is calling my name and I certainly don't want to disappoint  a friend.

An Unexpected Snowfall

Sometimes a computer crash can actually come with a benefit.  For almost an entire day our server at work was down and people had to resort to doing things manually like calling their counterparts on the telephone and actually having a real live conversation rather than through an instant message or email.  And even stranger still, some of them even made personal visits to confer.  I haven't seen any livelier discussions in the aisles or heard more laughter than I saw today, in years.  It was almost as if we'd all been caught up in some great big giant snowstorm on the interstate and everybody had pulled off at the nearest Waffle House to wait for the snowplows.  Normally this same group does their due diligence at a computer churning out miles of data and beau coup productivity but not today...it was "snowing" and there wasn't a thing that we could do about it except to watch it fall.  To bring even more deliciousness to the situation one of our vendors had scheduled today of all days to come by and have lunch.  Usually the crowd is 5 or 6 tops (some people just won't tear away from their work, even for lunch.)  Today it was 17.  Everyone had the time today.  The restaurant we piled into couldn't seat us all together so all of "the girls" sat at one table and the guys split up.  I haven't had that much fun with work friends in years, most of us hadn't eaten together in more years than we cared to count and it was fun just catching up with what has been going on in everyone's lives at a leisurely lunch.  The moment was savored.

Computer "snow" days don't come around very often fortunately, after all, what kind of business could operate if "snowstorms" were regular? I can't even remember a day like today happening in the past 5 years as a matter of fact.  But on that rare rare occasion, when the timing is just right (or wrong, however you choose to observe it) and a computer-crashing comet streaks across the horizon taking down all the bits and bytes it can devour then we will find time to actually talk to each other about something other than business here at work.  For those few moments of precious time we can be "friends" and not just colleagues working on a project together.  Work will be here tomorrow with a vengeance  and spreadsheets will exact their toll.  Instant messages will fly faster than you can say "beam me up Scotty" and schedules will be met and in some cases, midnight oil may even be burned.  But just for today we had ourselves an unexpected snowfall and was it ever fun!

Think About Who You're Talking To

I've always enjoyed hearing someone pray who had "the gift" of prayer (I call it a gift, "talent" is just the wrong word.)  I can think of several people that I've known in the past, men who were my father's age, that I always loved for the preacher to call on to pray, especially at the closing prayer just before the choir sang "God be with you 'til we meet again" and we trooped home for pot roast and mashed potatoes (the real kind, not the ones out of a box!)   It just seemed that their prayers were so, well for lack of a better word, soothing.  Their words flowed without effort, each syllable like a healing coat of Carmex to be painted on the dry, parched lips of the backsliders and backbiters at the Baptist church.  I loved how their voices rose and fell with passion and how their familiar tone and command of the language with which they were so steeped, soothed my Junior Department heart and made things right between me and God.

I find myself in my own prayers saying the stupidest things (thankfully He doesn't think they're stupid however) when I start clarifying about who I'm praying about as if He didn't already know.  "God, please watch over (any name will do here), You know, they're the one that (fill in your own description of what might have happened to cause the reason for my prayer in the first place) as if He didn't already know these very people intimately without my promptings.  I catch myself doing this all the time. I guess I think that I've got to introduce Him to them or their circumstances just so He'll know exactly who it is that I'm talking about or why I'm praying for them.  And it's only when He gently chides me with His unseen finger digging in to my temple that I realize (again) that He is so sovereign. That He already knows my heart and what I am asking for.  That all He wants is for me to just talk to Him like a best friend Who needs no explanation for anything or about anyone.  I may not have that "gift" of uttering beautiful, Carmex-like prayers but He listens all the same.  You, me or Billy Graham, we all reach that same Holy ear....that's nothing less than awesome.

An Ad Man's Sucker

Like I said before, blogging gives you a sense of self-realization like nothing else can.

I'll admit it, I am any ad man's sucker when it comes to good verbiage on the label.  If it appeals to my sense of imagination I'll buy it or at least give it a good, long, second glance.  Take my air freshener for example.  I bought something called "Brazilian Carnival" because the name just oozed with excitement and mystery; imagine my home in the suburbs turned in to a veritable street festival!  I could almost hear the Samba dancers in their little feathery costumes (and I do mean little) and those mile-high stilettos tapping down my hallway with that tall, tanned girl from Ipanema (if you're younger than 50 that probably went right over your head--ask your mother who I'm talking about)  as I stood there in the grocery aisle and imagined myself joining them on top of one of those glittery floats wearing a headdress that would give a Las Vegas showgirl goosebumps,  throwing out baubles and gewgaws to scores of admirers clamoring in the streets below.  Say "Corinthian leather" Ricardo Montalban, I feel a dance number coming on (never mind that he wasn't from Brazil but man could he roll those "rrrr's".)

Back to reality.

I must tell you that "Brazilian Carnival" smells ok, it actually has a nice pleasant aroma, but it did not produce a single Samba dancer in my living room.  And you know, when you get right down to it, I'm not even sure about the name any more.  After all, what does a carnival smell like in the first place?  I'm thinking old grease, motor oil and sweat.  This sounds more like what you'd find in a garage in Rio (or right here in Trussville for that matter)  and where does my personal float fit in with that?

My air freshener won't deter me however, I'm still a sucker for a good label. I've already got a date on the calendar for Calgon to come and take me away.

I Am Not a Sipper

Blogging will give you a lot of self-realization, I've learned that quickly.

I have a close friend who is a Mr. Shipshape/Black&White No Gray In-between/Precision Driven/Obsessive-Compulsive/High Performance individual.  He and I are about as much alike as Walmart and Tiffany's.  I am about as "gray" to his "black and white" as you can be.  We get along famously, however, because both of us recognize traits in each other that we'd like to possess (but know we'll never have.)

But for all of "Mr. Shipshape's" driven impulses and my keep-it-in-neutral-and-sit-in-the-driveway traits I've discovered that he is a sipper and I am not.  I don't have the patience to sip and he does and it makes no sense to me.  He drinks coffee luxuriously slow, enjoys the moment.  I can't enjoy the moment, I'm too busy slurping it down.  I don't drink coffee very often and I guess it's for that reason--I just can't sip it.  I've got to get to the bottom of the mug,  I'm not capable of letting it just sit there and blend with conversation and a piece of pie.  I can make the pie last for an hour but that coffee stares back at me like an impatient time bomb.  I can almost hear it asking me "how long do you think it's going to take before I'm cold and you know how yucky I'll be then".  Pie = slow, coffee = quick and so far the twain have not met.

I went by Panera Bread today and grabbed breakfast and a Chai tea latte; a small indulgence that I permit myself to enjoy every now and again.  Panera is literally across the street from where I work and by the time I got in the building to my desk and put my things down that latte was almost in the past tense.  It's almost pointless for them to put it in a "go" cup, I should have just gulped it down in the store.

Maybe some day I'll learn to sip and savor but for now I'm a gulp and grab girl; it ain't pretty but it's me.  Now about that pie though...

I'm Ready to Live in Ecuador

No, not really.  A friend sent me a link to a picture of her sister taken recently in Mississippi and published in the local newspaper.  Barbara (or as I like to call her "Baaa-bra" because even though she's lived in the South for a double month of Sundays she still sounds like she just strolled down Beacon Hill in Boston) was bundled up like Nanook of the North and in the caption she said that she was tired of the cold weather and was ready to move closer to the Equator.  When I first read the sentence I immediately thought she'd said that she wanted to live closer to "Ecuador" and thought she'd lost her mind.  I mean there's probably not anything wrong with living in Ecuador, especially if that's the only place you've ever lived and known about, but personally I'd pick Bermuda although I just don't know if my knees would be legal in Bermuda shorts.  There's nothing attractive about adult knees, they just don't age well.  Now baby knees are precious--you want to kiss 'em twice but let them get a little age on them and they'll turn on you quicker than you can say varicose veins!

I'm ready for this cold weather to push on off to the Arctic Tundra where it belongs and let me get back to complaining about the heat...in my pedal pushers (I think we're supposed to call them "crop" pants now though) and sensible sandals (albeit with manicured toes though---feet will turn on you too like a woman wearing chiffon to scrub the shower!)  Come Spring come before I get crazy and pack my bags for Ecuador!

The Star Spangled Bungle

I just watched the opening of Super Bowl forty-leven or whatever number it is (actually I think it's 45) and heard pop star Christina Aguilera (definitely a misspell) totally botch The Star Spangled Banner right there in front of billions of people.  This next week she'll be fodder for the Jay Leno's and David Letterman's of the world and anyone else with a microphone wanting to discuss the Super Bowl.  Now in her defense, our National Anthem is not one of the easiest songs to sing in the world.  Supposedly the tune is to that of an old English drinking song (I can believe that, somebody had to be about half lit to have come up with it the way it goes from low to high and back again like a john boat in a typhoon) and the tune alone has stumped more than one aspiring singer.  But the words...there's just something about those few opening phrases that'll get you every time when you're singing in front of the entire English-speaking segment of the world and your palms are sweaty.  I think once you get to the "and the rocket's red glare" part you're pretty much home free but when you're dog paddling in the murky waters of the "who's broad stripes and bright stars...." part you are either going to sink or swim depending on whether you've written the words on the palm of your hand or not.  Ole Christina should have written them in glitter or something because she wrecked her big chance and will now just be known as another Robert Goulet, who, not only did Elvis shoot at with a big ole gun when he saw him singing on TV one time (apparently Mr. Goulet and Elvis were not the best of friends) he too forgot the words to our National Anthem when he was singing at a football game.  Oh, and don't forget Roseanne Barr's despicable rendition either.  It's a shame she didn't just forget the words, walk off the field and do us all a favor.

Robert, Roseanne and Christina...not a club I'd be wanting to join...

Toys Aren't Us

I love my computer...I love how I can google anything that happens to flit across the gray matter and then quicker than a Cam Newton touchdown I've got an answer.  I am simply mad about how it lets me keep up with the world through all its jillion websites at my fingertips (I must confess,  I no longer even know where my library card is.)  Up until now it has been a paragon of helpfulness and entertainment (except for the time that I clicked on an innocent -enough sounding site and went straight to the virtual bastions of Sodom and Gomorrah but that's another story for another day.) So how come it has managed to make me crazy all of a sudden with its refusal to upload pictures to Facebook any more?  I've tried over and over and get the same logon error when it worked fine before and all of a sudden my "paragon of helpfulness" has become a "plethora of horses behind".  I am so frustrated with it!  It's not that I even want to upload pictures that often but when I want to I want that Cam Newton effect, not a "Fig Newton" (goes slow and tough to swallow.) Some kind of evil little critter has laid its nasty little progeny inside my computer, I just know it.  It couldn't be something that I've done to it myself, surely not.

Since I'm about as technologically savvy as a piece of cheese toast I think it's time to take this toy to the doctor for a proper diagnosis.  And as for whatever is wrong with it (I know, it's probably something I messed up all by myself but it's just more palatable to blame it on a bug), hopefully the Tech Doctor will have a big ole can of Raid handy to get me back to normal.

Achoo!  Toys, when they work right, are fun but when they don't they make me sneeze.  I think I need some take-out Chinese to make me feel all better.

How about you?  Does your computer ever make you crazy?  Achoo!  I need a kleenex and a can of virtual bug-killer!

Do You Have a "Polite" Face?

My mother and I must have one of those faces that seemingly conveys  that "I know everything about this store; as a matter of fact I can answer all your questions and find anything you ever thought about buying in this store for you and will freely offer opinions as to what you are thinking of buying and on top of all that I am willing to share this knowledge with you if you will only stop me in the middle of the aisle and ask."  It happens all the time and I don't know why so it must be something about our face that says "questions answered and opinions offered here." We are ordinary people, no different than you.  I always try to be polite, so maybe it's a "polite" face that's the tip off that help is on the way. My mother and I have traded so many "you won't believe what someone asked me about the other day at ____ (fill in the store of your choice, it happens in all of them) that it long ago lost the surprise factor; now it's mere inevitability more than anything else.

I can go in Walmart and a drowning man-on-a-honey-do-mission who's practically walked the rubber off the wheels of the grocery cart looking for who-knows-what that the little woman had to have will spot me like a life jacket floating in a sea of mysterious merchandise.  There can be 10 other shoppers on an aisle with us but I know who he's coming to for help. Is it the way that my mother and I stare at what's on the shelf with self-assurance (or would that be "shelf-assurance"?) I'm not afraid to make eye-contact with people (everyone deserves a smile) so maybe that's it, who knows...sometimes I think people just like to be reassured about what they're putting in their buggy. I must confess, I'm a sucker for old people needing assistance because I know that Lord willing, I'll be in the same situation one day and looking for someone with a "polite" face to show me where the Fixodent is.

Do strangers talk to you?  Down here in the South we talk to people we don't know all the time, some just more than others.  I guess we don't really even think of them as strangers so much,  more like people to whom we haven't been properly introduced who just need to know which aisle the Mop & Glo is on.