Monthly Archives: October 2014

Day four of anti-fat-butt morning walking:

I didn’t really feel like moving this morning, as reports, which have not been confirmed nor denied, state that I may, or may not, have eaten way too much Beef and Broccoli last night in a fit of loneliness.  How much Beef and Broccoli is too much Beef and Broccoli?  Well, that’s the funny thing about Beef and Broccoli overload…it’s personal.  One person’s adequate intake of Beef and Broccoli is another’s gaseously bloated, hellish indigestion, or GBHI.

I had GBHI last night, and into this morning.  In laymen’s terms, my tummy hurt.

In other news, saying ‘Beef and Broccoli’ several times over and over again is way more amusing than you might think.

In more other news, you just tried saying it.  I know you did.

My Captain came home this morning, pushed me into voting early (they only let me go through the line once, dammit.) and then wanted to walk my new morning exercise route with me.

I had no way to get out of it without disappointing him, so I pushed my GBHI into the background, and out my Beloved and I went.

I wasn’t sorry.  Today’s view was better than any other I’d ever had.

I found new interest in the idea of walking.

I didn’t feel my normal fatigue even when I passed the mile mark.

I found a reason to put pep in my step.

It was as if I was seeing the whole process of exercise in a whole new light. I can’t really put my finger on what it was, though.  Just something in the view made me glad to be there.

Oftentimes, the farm dogs will join me, but today they were nowhere to be found.  Though I did come upon these two dogs I’d never seen before, and remarked to my Captain that I hadn’t.

He paused, looked at me intently, then finally took a sip of his coffee, and chuckled in his deep, wonderfully sexy way, “They’re not dogs.  They’re goats.”

Oh.

My eyes ain’t what they used to be.

Unless, of course, I’m looking at my Beloved.

I could never mistake him for a dog!

Brace yourselves for campy inanity.

‘Course, if you have come to this blog on purpose, you were not expecting anything else.  Good for you!

Last night we as a family decided to carve our Jack O’ Lanterns. And by ‘we as a family’ I mean that I barked and bellowed and gnashed my teeth until they all came out onto the deck to shut me up.

I’ll tell you straight out that I am no novice at this.  Years of trial and failure have brought me a squash wisdom….call me the Gourd Whisperer.

And don’t mock my gloves.

I don’t ‘do’ cold and squishy if I can help it.

Oh, they laughed at me, of course, as they always do.  But I held fast as I pulled the nasty guts out of my flat little reddish gourd, with nary a dry heave.   And I had the last laugh when I saw Varmint sport this face:

And this face:

She could hardly get past the innards, my little Rosebud.  But Critter, total boy that he is, didn’t let anything bother him as he plotted and crafted and designed this year’s masterpieces.

He didn’t let Varmint’s squeals of disgust shake him as he worked. He had the concentration of Dr. Frankenstein!!!

With deft surety, he grabbed my best apple paring knife and proceeded to Edward Scissorhands the heck out of a pumpkin that weighs more than he does.

That’s right, I just turned Edward Scissorhands into a verb.  Let’s move on.

Sure, you’d think that My Captain would admonish him to be careful, but he was too busy carving his pumpkin IN HIS LAP.

That’s right, right on top of the ‘ol family jewels.

Even Varmint was concerned about that particular choice.  She envisioned sliced femoral arties mixed with pumpkin guts.

I reminded him that ‘safety never takes a holiday’, and would a Montgomery County Safety Officer approve?

He largely ignored me.

I begged Grandma Jane to step in.   But she was busy participating in her own way….  I hoped she was knitting a tourniquet as we would surely need it.

I kid you not.  The entire time she was just sitting there knitting and snickering.  What the heck, Grandma!

And me?  What did I get to spend the rest of the evening doing?   See this pile ‘o seeds?

I had to sift through them to get the gold out.

Gold that I then cleaned and dressed in a mixture of soy sauce, Worcestershire, garlic salt, sesame oil, sugar, and vinegar, and then baked slowly for this:

Oh YEAH, baby!

Like I said, I’m no novice.  I know EXACTLY what I’m doing here.

No Tourniquets required.

I walked again today.  That’s two whole days in a row.  Count ’em.  TWO.  Two days of invigorating fresh air.  Two days with a bounce in my semi-bionic step.  Two days of semi-occluded, sludge-filled arteried, aerobic activity.

You could say that I’m ‘on a roll,’ but whenever someone says that about me, it usually has something to do with lunch, and it’s probably whole grain.

There was a small setback, however, in my newest plan to control my burgeoning flabalanche.

You see, because my subconscious knew that I would be walking a mile or two today, my appetite decided to make up for it by forcing me to eat more breakfast than usual.

I KNOW it doesn’t work that way, that the law of thermodynamics still applies when trying to reduce one’s fat stores.  But the super-evil-villain-genius that is my appetite was one step ahead of me, the fiend.

I’m going to have to outthink him.  I WON’T go for a walk tomorrow.  That will teach him!

Ha!

You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to get one over on this ol’ bird!

A few salient facts:

1) I have a passionate love affair with food.  “Foodie” does not BEGIN to describe me.

2) I have the metabolism of an aging sea cucumber.

3) Every seam in every pair of pants I own is thoroughly punished whenever I close the zipper.

4) I’m not about to change the way I eat.  It would require an amount of effort equal to that required to reverse the direction of the earth’s rotation.

5) I don’t have the financial resources to enlarge my wardrobe at the same rate that my fat stores are increasing. And the only thing that would make my current fat stores of any use would be for this planet to undergo another ice age.

6) I don’t think an ice age is in our immediate future.

THEREFORE, I had to take action, so this morning, after consuming my daily McDonald’s Sausage Burrito, I went for a walk.

I know, I know, it’s not earth-shattering.  But when you consider my recent knee-replacement, as well as other sundry foot/ankle/Achilles heel issues, a walk is damned impressive.

In my head I can hear Orson B. Wells, in full theatrical regalia bellowing, “I WANT TO LIVE!  I WANT TO LIVE, I SAY!!!” only instead, it’s my own voice whining, “I WANT TO EAT!  I WANT TO EAT, I SAY!!!

So I have a feeling that this country lane and I are about to become intimately acquainted.  If you should pass by this way and see a large-bottomed woman in overstretched yoga pants sauntering down the lane while eating a McDonald’s Sausage Burrito, be sure to stop and say “Hi!”

And bring some chipotle barbeque sauce while you’re at it.

If ever there were a decent illustration of how fundamentally different My Captain and I are from each other, it would be the meal we shared the other night.  We tried a new restaurant opened by an acquaintance of ours, Julie, called Full On Craft Eats and Drinks.  Julie used to bartend at the Dogfish Head Alehouse, in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

It was her rendition of the White Chocolate Martini that made me fall in deep and abiding respect for her, for all eternity. And while you may think by saying that, I am a complete and total, intervention-needing lush, but if you had ever tried one of Julie’s Martinis, and could still wrap your tongue around your own name at the bottom of it, I’d be damn impressed.

What I’m saying is that this woman commands respect.

So off we went to give her new culinary venture a try!  An unobtrusive hole-in-the-wall, in a strip mall on Norbeck Road in Rockville, Maryland, at first glance Full On seems like a beer-lover’s haunt only.  Sure, there are plenty of lovely traditional sandwiches, but nothing crazy unusual on the menu, except the beer selection….

Until you get toward the bottom of the sandwich menu.

My Captain picked his specialty beer, and ordered a tried-and-true Meatloaf Sandwich to go with it.   That’s My Captain all over.  Tried and true.  Beefy.  Solid.  Filling.  Traditional.  Popular.  Savory.  It’s the perfect sandwich to define him.  I know few people who do not LOVE a well-made meatloaf sandwich.

But I….I had read to the bottom of the sandwich menu…and found the Roasted Cauliflower Grilled Cheese Barbeque Ranch, Pepper and Hummus on crunchy Oh Dear God Sourdough sandwich.  I had found the jackpot baby!  THIS was a sandwich I had never conceived of, doubted many others had, either, and sure as hell was not about to miss the experience.  Even if it might be a bad one!

Which defines me perfectly.  Chancy. Impetuous.  Impulsive.  Slightly charred, but deeper for it.  Tangy. Sweet. Spicy.  Crunchy.  Creamy.  Cheesy. A freaking flavor explosion.  It was everything I hope to be.  There are few people who would care for this particular mixture, but the ones who do, are courageous as hell.  And often have weird smelling farts.  Philosophically speaking, of course.

If you take nothing away from this inane post, I hope it is that 1) you need to try Full On Craft Eats and Drinks on Norbeck Road, and 2) What you eat speaks volumes about you.

(Like never, please God, never date a person who eats liverwurst.)

And Roasted Cauliflower Grilled Cheese Dates, quite simply Rock.

Trust me.

Go to Full On, today!  And tell Julie that I sent ya!