To Eat or Not to Eat

I just got word about the dozens of pesticides that are found on our fresh fruits and veggies.  Funny thing is, I’ve heard this stuff before.  I guess the news of pesticides on our food is making a comeback. Just like bell bottoms and tie dyed shirts, it all comes back around.  I don’t pay much attention to the news so maybe the overuse of pesticides has been on the streets for awhile.  My friend Maggie is my personal update and keeps me in the loop of everything I need to know and then some.

This is the very thing that gets my wheels turning.  What should I eat for lunch now?  Shall I pack celery sticks bathed in pesticide, rinsed off with my city water full of chlorine and a little dollop of ranch dip or a thick greasy slice of pepperoni and cheese pizza?   Is a fat juicy hamburger better or chemically dipped strawberries with a side of yogurt?  I know, I will have a nice big salad with leaf lettuce, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers; this way I am getting a huge variety of pesticides in one fell swoop.

Man cannot live on bread alone…….but wait, is all the wheat that is grown in fields across our beautiful land given a good dose of pesticide before it hits the mills for processing?  I think it is.  And, I just read the wrapper on my healthy 0 trans fat, high fiber, whole wheat tortilla and it lists Guar Gum as an ingredient.  What the heck is Guar Gum?  Sounds fishy to me. 

Speaking of fish, I heard them say that fish is supposed to be very healthy for us.  You can even take fish oil vitamins if you don’t eat enough fish.  Salmon is the best available fish for the omega-3 fish oils but don’t eat it too often, something about the mercury levels, especially for young children. 

How about smokers?  They are supposedly getting 400 chemicals and pesticides with each cigarette.  If my math is right, the smokers are getting a lot more pesticides than anyone else.  Oh yeah, don’t forget the second hand smokers, they are a little short changed but still getting a fair share for not paying the price of the habit.

I’ve heard over the years people are living longer due to the chemicals in processed foods.  The chemicals act as a preservative of some sort.  Could this be true?  It used to be that coffee and eggs were bad for you, now they are saying that coffee and eggs are good for you.  It can get very confusing if you are a health-nut. 

This is hilarious stuff.  Doesn’t it make perfect sense to eat the best food available that you enjoy in fair sized portions and call it good.  People get so wrapped up in research and proving things right or wrong – don’t they have something else better to do?  By the way, who are “THEY” anyhow.  I wonder if THEY are related to “I DON’T KNOW”.

Nit Picking Ankle Biters

Have you ever had one of them days?  How about weeks.  It’s been one of those days all year, right.  Let’s face it; we are not going to get through our life without a crisis or three.  The bigger your family or social circle, the more crisis you will come in contact with. The law of physics.  

I pretty much feel ok in a crisis.  Not that it sets right with me, or that I don’t place any relevance on it, I just realize one must stay calm in situations like ‘a crisis’ and manage to succeed at doing so. Well, for the most.

Let’s take a look at the daily grind. Now that’s a different tune.  Your day begins as you’re reaching to turn off the blaring alarm clock. You knock over the glass of water you brought to the bedroom during the night when you couldn’t sleep.  Ok, no biggie………..turn on the light, get some dirty laundry nearby and sop of the spill. On the way to work you get a flat tire.  You try to call a wrecker for help but you realize you left your cell phone at home.  You proceed walking down the road, praying that a freak doesn’t stop and abduct you, and thanking God for the nice summer morning. You manage to get a run in your pantyhose from who knows what.  A co-worker spots you walking down the road and stops to pick you up – YEAH!  How perfect, there is hope for a better day.  After much whoop-de-do, you get your car back. Once home from your work day, you decide to go for a run as a way to work off some of your stress.  You bend over to tie your shoe and the lace breaks.  As you grab for the new laces in the junk drawer, you cut your finger on some mysterious thing ma-bob that you can’t find.  Oh well, get a band-aid and be on your way.  Barely missing the pile of doggie-do in your front yard, a gift from the neighbors’ lab, you hit the street running with your favorite song playing on the ipod.

You now arrive home from your hour of bliss in the neighborhood, realizing, in the hustle bustle of trying to get out the house, forgot to put the key in your tennis shoe.

I am sure you get the picture here. Some of this may sound a bit farfetched but I am here to tell you, I’ve had days like this, some even crazier.  It can wear us down.  We try to find humor in the madness, chuck it off as ‘no big deal’.  And really, none of the small irritating mishaps are a big deal.  However, the daily nitpicking stuff can add up and chip away at our good nature. Seriously people, how many snags can one take on in a 24 hour period or week?  It’s just flat out exhausting.

 At what point is it ok to scream and have a fit in order to relieve the pressure of keeping up with a good outlook?

And to think you know someone............

Do you have one of those friends that make you laugh so hard that the coffee you are drinking shoots out through your nostrils and sometimes make you lose your breath or pee your pants?  I have a friend like that.  Maggie is a trip to say the least.  She is a natural. She is well into her senior years, struggles with hearing and vision, but young at heart and has more piss and vinegar than anyone I know. I met her early one morning as she knocked on my apartment door, asking if I had a phone she could use.  Turns out she needed to call a friend to pick her up for work because her car was being towed away as we stood there in the kitchen.  It was a dumb car anyways.

That was 27 years ago and let me tell you, it’s been a fun ride.  We have seen each other through thick and thin in more ways than one.  We always made ends meet and managed to live high on the hog, if only in our hearts and mind.  We would scrape our change and bottles together, coming up with enough moola to have a prime rib dinner at the VFW Hall on Saturday night.  Maggie introduced me to Sally’s Boutique, AKA: Salvation Army.  We were the best dressed chicks in town – on a dime.  To this very day we are loyal Sally’s shoppers, forever on the lookout for a steal, the perfect outfit or accessory.

Well today took the cake and will be laughed about for decades to come.  Maggie and I planned a girl day for garage sale-ing. Being the domestic goddesses that we are, can't resist a bargain, especially if it enhances our living space.  Nesting comes natural for us so when the perfect piece of furniture, picture, vase, coverlet, trinket or whatnot crosses our path, we are finding a way to get it. Period.

Being the eager beavers that we are, decided to get an early start.  The agenda was full. We had visiting to do, dozens of garage sales to scour and then we had to eat.  The plan was for me to arrive at her house at 7:30 am.  Maggie was so excited she got up at 3:15 am to make sure she was showered, dolled up and ready to go.  And, she had to make sure to get her fill of television Texas Hold ‘Em in before I showed up. 

With breakfast and visiting under our belts, we were on our way.  We are just like little kids getting the deals and finding the perfect thing to enhance our life.  It was the absolute best time ever, and then, 'the incident'.  We stop at the church sale and there lay a beautiful pile of rugs outside the church door.  I am in the market for some rugs and Maggie asked the lady how much they were.  She said it was a free-will donation.  Fair enough.  I unrolled the largest rug to take a closer look.  It was a gorgeous rug along with all the coordinates of various sizes.  A perfect find if those rugs would work, but they wouldn’t, so I told Maggie that I wasn’t going to get them.  Maggie said it was a steal of a deal and she was going to take them.  And that is exactly what she did. Together, we loaded up her little car – rugs hanging out the back.  We then go into the church to look around.  I made a purchase and we left.  We get back to her place, discussing and showing off all of our treasures from the day, I ask her how much she gave for the rugs.

She looked at me totally confused and said “what do you mean, they were a free, goodwill donation”.  She thought they were free.  Yep, you got it.  She ripped off the church.  Two woman driving down the road – in broad daylight, with stolen goods hanging out of the trunk.  We were like Bonnie and Clyde making our getaway.  I mean if you are going to steal at a garage sale, a church would be the best bet.  They probably just figured we were poor hopeless women that needed those rugs.

It doesn’t end there.  I left to go home .  Maggie, the woman of integrity that she is, hi-tailed it back to the church to tell of her side of the story.  Well those church ladies laughed themselves silly, accepted Maggie’s donation and that’s that.

Faux Dating

There’s a lot to be said about dating.  Let me start by talking about non-dating.  AKA: Faux Dating.  Faux by definition means artificial, imitation or fake.  Date means an appointment for a particular time, a social engagement or occasion arranged beforehand.  So faux dating can be interpreted as not going anywhere, doing or planning anything with someone. 

Let’s not mistake this for hanging out.  Hanging out is a blast and it is meant for friends, families, couples and groups.  But not dates.  Dates are for people getting to know each other to determine whether they could potentially become a couple. Then they could hang out.  Right? Well, on second thought, I see the best couple relationships still going on dates along with hanging out.  The dating ritual is nothing new; I have just been in the dark on the subject. And, yes, I really do like to swirl these ideas around in my head.

So, who then, is in charge of making the date?  I think it is safe to say that the man or the woman could make the plan and call, requesting the pleasure of the others’ company.  But, being the traditionalist that I (mostly) am, I think the man should do the asking.  I think a date could be anything from a walk to a picnic, movies, concerts, museums, latte’s, the beach, festivals, carnivals, Sunday drives in the country, bungee jumping (NOT), antique and garage sale shopping, star gazing --- the list is endless.  It could be budget wise or all out crazy extravagant.  That is part of the adventure.  How fun! 

This dating stuff hasn’t changed really.  It doesn’t matter if you are 15 or 68.  You meet someone, maybe you get a twinkle in your eye, and maybe you don’t. Someone calls and asks the other to do something and you go or you don’t.  You have fun or you don’t.  You go out again or you don’t.  Pretty simple stuff. Why do people complicate it?  It is definitely worth further exploration.

I bet that faux dating leads to faux marriage. 

Displaced Hormones

So what's up with chin hairs?  Seriously, if it's not one thing it's another.  We go through menopause which rids us ladies one pain in the butt only to take on our future nemesis.  I have what appears to be a large zit on my chin.  It's been growing almost four years now.  I am here to say, it is not a zit.  It is this squirrely agitated spot that I can't seem to leave alone because little whiskers keep creeping out. 

What started out as one random little surprise soon turned into a harvest of about 8. Give or take.  The secret is out of the bag here gals.  We just have to deal with it.  It's not pretty.  Just add it to the list of giving birth, bad haircuts, cellulite, sagging belly skin accompanied by stretch marks, eyebrows that won't curve right and the oh-so-famous triceps wave.  Yep.  If you don't have chin hairs yet, just brace yourself, they are on their way.

So what you need to do right away is make up your Chin Hair Survival Kit.  Get a pair of reallly good, pointy tweezers.  That's it.  That is the kit. To do it right, you will need several kits.  Keep a kit in the car. Naturally you will want a kit in the bathroom -- that's a given.  It helps to tuck one in a kitchen junk drawer, your purse and if you work outside of the home, keep a kit at work.  In the beginning you will need a mirror. The small magnifier type work best. 

I found the very best place to attack these unsightly rascals is in your car.  You have the best light, a mirror readily available and you have a kit in your car.  You just need to keep watch because you will have some on-lookers.  This requires a sense of humor ok.  So toughen up, this is no time for thin-skinned crybabies.

Do you ever think about the costs of our beauty and hygiene regimen?  Make-up, shampoos, conditioners, leave-in treatments, facials, nail polish and removers, perfume, kotex, tampons, medications, noxema, scrubs, rubs, clippers, cutters and waxers.  How about just hair stuff?  Rollers, blowers, ties, bands, clips, cuts, perms, straighteners, moisturiziers.  This doesn't even include any type of Salon excursion. And now Chin Hair Survival Kits.  Be prepared to shell out about 30 bucks for all your tweezers.  Don't scrimp and buy the cheapos or you may as well throw your cash out the window as you drive down the road.

Your goal here, once you obtain a chin hair, is to be able to drive down the road, or talk on the phone and pluck them out at the same time; without even looking.  It really helps to get to this level.  You learn the geography of your face this way.  You know the spot and you take care of business.  And by the way, do not discuss this with men, it makes their stomachs turn flip-flops.  The idea that their wife or girlfriend has a chin hair doesn't set well with them.  Just deal with it and not say a word.  It is like our 'skeleton in the closet'.  Don't ask, don't tell.

So with that said, have a nice day.