Comfort Foods and Bitchy Wives

I hate to admit this but the more I purge stuff in the garage, the more I eat. Comfort foods have been my down fall since---well, it’s all my mother’s fault and don’t we all know it---which means its back to diet rehab I go. For me, that means tracking every single thing that goes in my mouth. I do my tracking at Everyday Health but there are other websites that care about your calorie intake and will “yell” at you when you go over that they say you need. When my eating gets out of control, it’s the only thing that is successful in pulling me back. I track for a few days without making any changes just to prove what I already know---that I truly am out of control---before I start cutting back to the 1,000 calories they say I need. Breakfast: Protein shake 230 calories, ½ cup of blueberries 43, cream in my coffee 35. Yup, it’s not even noon and already I’m 35 calories into Bad Girl Land.

Purging stress aside, sorting Don’s stuff in the garage can be entertaining at times. He was Mr. Disorganized and he loved tiny items (think things under the size of a pack of cigarettes) and when he’d come home from a flea market or antique mall, he’d throw his little treasures in plastic shoe boxes with no rhyme or reason for what he threw in together. When a box was full, he’d get another one started. Last night in front of the TV I sorted a box and I found a rolled-up bumper sticker that read: “Honk if You Slept With Clinton.” That made me laugh right out loud. But the most fascinating thing I found was a gold, telescoping mechanical pencil the size of a sewing thimble when it was closed and six inches long when it was open. I spent some time speculating it was designed for a spy to use to write down the launch codes to a missile in France that was aimed at Russia. I tested a few other scenarios because every object in Don’s ‘treasure boxes’ has a story to tell but this one is being very closed-lipped about its past adventures. I tried to research telescoping pencils but all I got was jealous because I found one with a built-in ruler on the side. Still, mine should go for between $45 and $110 on e-Bay, if past sales are any indication. 

I got a much needed haircut on Monday. I can’t believe that since last winter I went from worrying I’d be bald in a year to having too much hair by the end of July---thank you thyroid meds for putting an end to my nasty hair loss trend. My hairdresser actually did some thinning of my hair and that hasn’t happened in a long time. If I had jet black hair, the asymmetrical pixie cut she gave me would look totally Gothic, bangs cut short on one side and going long by the time they get to the opposite side ear. Some ironing required. I love to iron my hair; it’s a newly acquired skill. I’ve got naturally curly hair so I’m fascinated that with a little “spray starch” and heat I can be Gothic straight and spiky. At least in the front where I can reach.

Tuesday the senior hall had its annual ice cream social compliments of a local dairy that donates their products. I don’t even want to talk about what Everyday Health thought about that indiscretion in Bad Girl Land. Ice cream is a big-time comfort food in my Book of Sins and it’s one of the reasons I’m at Everyday Health again. Yes, I confess I recently discovered Breyers Tiramisu Gelato. Good-bye, Gelato! We had a lovely love affair while it lasted. That will be ten Hail Mary’s and a salad.  

Anyway, at the ice cream social the same three piece band played as last year. Think Grizzly Adams on the keyboard, Don Knotts on the drums and an emaciated Bob Hope on the guitar. The lead singer told that same old people jokes as last year and I’m pretty sure they played all the same songs as well. It didn’t matter. Their Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble`, Elvis, and Johnny Cash were well done and the southern gospel they mixed in were all well-received sing-alongs.

At one point, though, before the band started I accidentally earned the scorn of a bitch-wife. These events seat 110 people at tables of twenty-four and near-by me was a couple. When a server came around to offer a second scoop of ice cream the man in the couple wanted one. One problem. He and his wife had already stacked their dishes and spoons in with a pile of others on the table. So, he had the server put the ice cream in a water glass. That left him without a spoon until his wife grabbed one from the pile of dirty spoons and she said, “Here, use this one.” “Who’s was it?” he asked. “I don’t know,” she answered, “Just use it!” The look on his face made me speak up, “Do you want a clean spoon? I’ll get one out of the kitchen for you.” (I was sitting at the end of the table, easier for me to get out than either one of them so it seemed logical for me to ask. What did I know?) His wife gave me the dirtiest look as if I was making a hussy’s play for her man. But he really did want a clean one, so off I went. After that, she gave me the coldest shoulder and I checked her off my list of potential friends. With my luck, I fear she’ll be my seatmate on the bus trip coming later this week and that will make me order all comfort foods at lunch. ©