Saturday, June 22, 2013

Diet, Schmiet

I am often overwhelmed by the perfect knowledge of the exact wrong-est thing to do in everyday situations. I'm not sure what this says about me, precisely, but I will take this confession as an opening to apologize in advance to my children for when I develop dementia and my civilized veneer is removed from me, thus opening the Pandora's box of a lifetime of barely-suppressed perverse humour. (Yes, I'm suppressing it dammit.) (Most of it, anyway.)

I say overwhelmed because the scenarios spring to mind with such force at times that I have to physically pause and reconsider my knee-jerk course of action. The extremely effeminate clerk at the Body Shop who instructed me to "just slip it in the bottom" upon payment likely believed I was mildly handicapped when I froze in place rather than insert my chip card into the reader. He reiterated his instructions, louder and more slowly the second time, as I choked down the politically incorrect quip that had nearly forced its way out of my mouth.

Whew, I thought. Dodged that bullet.

But how long can I maintain the lucky streak when the bullets are coming, fast and furious, from my own mind? Maybe I should avoid caffeine, that'd surely slow me down. But I'm not sure my reflexes could keep up then either. It's an arms race in there.

Following some sage dieting wisdom, which suggests that no foods should be considered entirely off-limits lest one begin feeling deprived and commence binging on the forbidden items, I allow myself to express a modicum of insanity in hopes of warding off the worst of it. So blogging is like having a small slice of chocolate cake after eating all the fruits and vegetables of propriety for the day. Placing holds on two dozen romance novels with DH's library card is like a middling scoop of ice cream to accompany my cake. Making oatmeal in the hotel room coffee pot is like a humorous little cherry on top to reward myself for not skinny dipping in the hotel hot tub, which is what I really thought would be hilarious.

Unfortunately, if you know me you'll appreciate that I'm obviously a terribly unsuccessful dieter, and it is treats that are my downfall. Treats beget more treats, beget entitlement to treats, beget my going entirely, inexorably off the deep end of Treatsville. So I could strive for complete abolishment of my little appeasements, but who's to say whether that would work over the long term either? One well-placed amyloid plaque bomb or neurofibrillary trip wire - heck, even a momentarily undercaffeinated defense system! - and I could go down in a blaze of inappropriateness. 'Sides, if I held it all back all the time the people around me would be completely unprepared come the inevitable; they wouldn't know what hit them.

Again: sorry, kids. I can only hope that a childhood filled with my antics has inoculated you sufficiently against this dire future.

Monday, June 17, 2013

PPMP

No time to write these days, busy busy! But I thought I'd take a minute and show y'all a snippet of what I've been up to lately while I've been too busy to nurture my blog. I'm calling it the Prairie Poop Mushroom Project. (Entirely in my own head since I've been working alone a ton and I'm the only person around to discuss the idea with.)





 
 

So many cow pies growing so many kinds of mushrooms! Simply fascinating. It leads one to wonder what might happen in time to one's own deposits left in the Bank of Nature on certain occasions...