Fooooooooood!!

I actually went out in the middle of the night, since Lee was around and since there is nobody at our Wal-mart at 4 in the morning but minimal staff.

I wished I had taken my digicam as there turned out to be all sorts of things I wanted to photograph.

Spring is officially coming, as Wally World had a whole aisle of beautiful colorful seeds on offer. Little strings across the displays holding the seed packets in.

Of course, stores push holidays and seasons while they are still distant rumors. Lee swears he saw swimming trunks at Wal-Mart last night. I didn't see them but I don't think he was joking. They probably were there. I suppose some people swim year round indoors (at home, if they are so lucky) or at the Y, etc.

We took our blood pressure at the machine. I always stare at the tampons which are right in front of me there (the machine where you sit is sandwiched between the tampon racks and the one outer wall of the pharmacy) because they calm me down. I imagine their softness and white fluffy clouds to bring my blood pressure down. Mine was 75 over 115 but my pulse was up. Probably because I haven't been riding my exercise bike for a long time. And then I had just raced into the store. Lee was borderline on his, but low borderline. He wouldn't need medicine or anything. His pulse was much better than mine. I think mine came down so much because of the hypothryoidism. My mom's is very low. This is good since the men in my family tend to die of vascular disease and start on strokes about my present age. But the other males are not hypothyroid, so as the Cocteau Twins sing, "Half-Gifts."

I went to the 20 cents per pack section and picked out a bunch. Two different types of tomatoes, spinach, salad mixes (some other vegetables, I forget already--oh yeah, Limas) and in the flowers pansy, poppies, columbine, Canterbury bells, marigolds and sunflowers.

I bought this nifty mini-"greenhouse" for 6 bucks even that you can start them in. I guess about two months from now? And grow them inside until I can transplant. Who transplants flowers right? Well, I figure if I do that for the vegetables, I should do it for the flowers. I wouldn't want to be accused of preferential treatment and start a sibling rivalry that might end in chlorophyll-shed.

These Christmas cookies keep showing up. It scares me because they weren't there last time and now here's this huge plastic domed platter of Xmas cookies in February. Oh well, I couldn't resist. It had those waffle type ones, some in regular choco, others in white. And the little cookies that look like tampons: white with the cherry in them. And these little log type cookies that have rich truffle type choco in them. And so on. And so on. And it was 50% off. I think it should have been 90% off if we figure Christmas was technically two months back. But there was only one, and it was clearly meant for us, since Lee was forcing me to watch Four Christmases even though I took a pass on it the first time around when he and Chas watched it. I was writing or staring at water dripping off the eaves or something. He tried to return it and the Red Box machine was malfunctioning so he insisted I watch it to get some value out of the extra dollar it would now cost him.

So I did. And it was pretty damn funny. There were some great moments in it. Reese Witherspoon often picks these charming movies that she surely knows won't get her any more Oscar nominations, but are still very watchable. She's an extremely beautiful woman. Ryan Philippe was an idiot. Kristin Chenoweth is in everything lately, in case you haven't noticed, and she has a smallish part in here. The funniest person in this movie for me was Jon Favreau (who jump-started Vince Vaughn's career with the movie he wrote--and directed, I believe--the rather funny Swingers.

Favreau plays Vaughn's overmuscled UFC-obsessed brother in Four Christmases and the other lunkhead brother is played by Tim McGraw. Favreau isn't really that much different from Vince Vaughn in the way he's almost always playing himself, although here he departs from his glib, somewhat lizardy persona to play a buff bohunk with a mental age of about thirteen. Funny that I recognized Mcgraw before Lee, but I guess without a cowboy hat he sort of becomes invisible. He's Joe average. Strange. His part was rather tiny in this.

It's a cute movie. Nothing to write home about, but if you're looking for fun fluff, this might work. It's predictable and condescending, and the warm holiday message about the importance of family and societal bonds is inevitable, but it's still good. It cost a dollar to rent, so....well two dollars...by accident...

I liked Reese a lot in Sweet Home Alabama. I'll still watch that when it's (inevitably) on...which is about every tenth Saturday morning or afternoon. It's a bit of a Harlequin romance, but I like it. The guy who played her ex was super hot in that. I can never remember his name. And of course, the Legally Blonde movies are on even more than that, so I don't see the point of stopping in on those inevitable reruns, since I'm sure I know those damn movies by heart by now. Sad, I know.

Vince Vaughn has carved out a niche for himself in fluffy romantic comedies (and goofier comedies like Dodge Ball). I once Googled to see if critics used the phrase "Vince Vaughn plays Vince Vaughn" and wasn't surprised to see many critics had used that same text. It's so funnily true. And yet I suppose the same was true of comedic actors two and three and four generations before Vaughn.

I remember liking him early in his career playing a scary psychotic guy in Clay Pigeons, but that was half a lifetime since I've seen that. I wonder if I would like it now? I suppose his career low point (apart from just crappy comedies, which at least make tons of money) was in the reprise of Psycho. True, he got to work with a great director in Gus Van Sant, but despite some visually inspired scenes, the movie was generally (rightfully) panned by critics who asked why anyone would try to correct the hand of the master? How Van Sant thought he saw a plausible Norman Bates in Vaughn's brand of giddiness is anybody's guess. I just liked the birds in the interior room flying about in the bright light. I liked that scene and a few others.

I had mole which I wanted to put on ice cream for some insane reason but I put it back. I had such insane food cravings. I must be pregnant. I wanted churros, for Pete's sake. There are no churros at Wal-Mart.

Never go shopping hungry. I know this and I still did it. Fatal.

At last I resisted the croissants. Absolutely horrible when you flip them over and read the nutritional truth.

A recommendation (if you like clams)...Our Wal-Mart never gets clams (they closed the live seafood part of the store a few years ago) so we have to get them at the Weis or Giant store (and Giant won't always tend them well--you have to hassle the guys to go in the back and then cajole them to put them on ice). Anyway, GOOSE POINT's Steamers in 5 are unbelievably savory. Yes, that means five minutes. I mean, even without the spray butter. I tried them both ways to see if I was hallucinating and mentally adding the flavor. No, it's there! They are so tiny, smaller than any I've ever had in restaurants and amazingly more palatable! But this makes a great appetizer for two. If you're serving more than that, you'd want to pick up a few boxes. It was under five bucks. And you can make them in your microwave! I was sure clams made in the microwave would suck, but not by a longshot. They are an unusual looking species (have no idea where they harvested these..I should have read the package). You almost want to keep the shells (they hit the trash, don't worry) as they are so pretty. You will end up wanting one of those tiny little forks though, miniature ones with the dainty tines, to eat these. They're so minuscule! But it's not necessary.

I have a strange relationship to food lately. Before, I never imagined how someone could forget to eat. But I do. Then my appetite will come in healthily and I'll want to go nuts. But I still eat usually only one real meal a day. But I'm sure I'm not losing weight anymore, or if I am, I think it's a really slow loss.

I was so hungry today because I hadn't eaten anything since like eleven a.m. yesterday. And all I drink is water anymore. Maybe one glass of milk a day but I have to time it so it doesn't fuck with my synthroid uptake. Milk cancels out the benefits largely. I used to drink those sweet teas all day long. I shudder to think what that caloric intake was, let alone the sugar. When I worked at (hot) DHL, I used to buy SNAPPLE by the caseload. Being hypoglycemic (many hypothroid folks are) I get insane sugar cravings. When I used to test my blood sugar it would always plunge before I woke and be down in ridiculous numbers like 70. But as soon as you eat anything whatsoever it spikes right up to a healthy zone right above 100. I'd much rather be hypoglycemic than the opposite. I know all about diabetes through family and friends. Not something to fuck with, that's for sure.

Oh, those KASHI dinners look pretty good. I bought a couple for Lee to take to work. We bought one as an appetizer for tomorrow. The packaging was absolutely lovely. It has plantains and a whole bunch of exotic things in it. It's packaged as some sort of Mayan recipe (which I'm sure is pure fiction). But it looks lovely on the package and many things we love in it. It's a vegan meal, but don't worry. I promise to eat an animal right afterwards.

The only KASHI product I had before was their pizza, which was also similarly gourmet (I forget what the hell was on it now but stuff you don't usually encounter there). Don't they make cereal? Isn't that where they started? Any good? I love artichokes on pizza. I buy them separate since it's hard to get most places to add them. I mean when we do delivery here.

I would like to restrict the animals I eat to invertebrates which do not feel pain. But I'm not quite there yet.

Luckily all the steaks looked gross today.

Lee was ecstatic as the WEIS store where we stopped briefly afterwards had gotten Basa fish (from Vietnam) in. Giant had carried them last year and they were a great success, selling out constantly. But then they suddenly stopped. I agree with Lee's opinion that the basa is the best fish going. It has such a sweet tang to it. And melts in your mouth.

I was hungry for flounder, but since he found the basa we went with that.

There, that's enough bellygod ranting about food.

Next post will be about defecation, I suppose, if we're blogging bodily processes.

Or maybe bile? Chyme? Cerumen? Olestra leakage? Skatole is one of the nastiest substances in the human body. And yet I believe it has some usage in creating perfume or cologne. Science is weird. Well, so does ambergris, that strange waxy substance that comes out whales' intestines.

That stuff is worth more than its weight in gold. If you ever find a big hunk of this on the beach when you are just walking along, it would be like hitting the lottery. Look it up sometime if you don't already know about it.

It's still used today. I don't think they can synthesize it at all. The really odd thing is how anybody ever figured out that application for something like that?? I often wonder that about odd leaps in science. Scientists must simply be odd freaks. I mean, to be thinking of things like that. "What if we put this whale intestinal goo into perfume. It just might act as a fixative!!"

Okay, we better skip those topics.

Blame it all on the copy of Moby Dick I found at the bookstore the other night.

That's where we get the word flense--whaling. I overruse that word, because it's so disgusting. Even the sound of it. But the concept too.

And yet, oddly enough, I think ambergris is a pretty word in terms of sound and form.

But of course all that's subjective.

Oh, Lee showed me they had ground venison meat at Wal-Mart too now. Ewwwww! I bet that's just because we're Pennsylvania. I bet that's not in every state.

Nasty. But again a beautiful word.

To my mind, anyway.

Enough about food. Now I'm only interested in fake food again.

Is the Mcdonald's M supposed to be composed of two bent fries? Well, they are yellow and look fry-like. I saw it glowing on Wal-Mart's wall as we went in, and I asked Lee if he thought they were two French fries doing that gymnastic move where girls put their hands over their shoulders and form themselves into human arches. He wasn't sure.

Probably there is some cabalistic meaning that has something to do with Freemasonry or the Mona Lisa.

We could go ask Dan Brown, I suppose.

Okay, the blather is over.

I'm off to watch some gay comedy Lee also rented.

Oh, but I forgot to say have you seen the Moon lately?

Everytime I see it, I'm shocked with how huge it is, and how bright.

Lee finally explained this to me. We're supposedly the closest we've been to it since like 1997 or something?

This makes sense.

Yesterday the moon just hung above the horizon south of the city an impossibly long time into the morning and was just so out of scale!

It was quite beautiful and the sense that it was a child staying up late, past its bedtime, was actually quite charming.

If disconcerting.