Eat This, Not That

Byrd is overweight and trying to shed pounds. I'm underweight and trying to gain.

I don't have high blood pressure or high cholesterol (yet), so I really don't watch what I eat. But Byrd does have high everything, and Byrd does have to watch his intake.

We're always having these major food issues as a result. Byrd designated me his "food police" to help him eat healthier. But he doesn't appreciate watching me practice the opposite of what I'm preaching. I stuff my face with whatever I feel like (even at my worst, I usually don't eat more than 1000 calories a day), while telling Byrd he can't have any.

Yet even after guiding Byrd toward healthier foods, packing his lunches, and cooking dinner five or six nights a week, neither one of us was having any success reaching our weight goals. I was burning all my calories preparing his meals (ha ha), and he was sneaking fast food during work because he was still hungry even after eating the lunches I made him (as I discovered when he got food poisoning last week, vomiting pickle slices, which raised my eyebrows since we do not have pickles in our house).

So I bought the book Eat This, Not That. And by reading it, I realized where I was going wrong. I recommend the book if you are a frustrated grocery shopper like me.

For instance, I keep buying the wrong wheat bread. I didn't realize that mistake until I read what the book described as a proper nutritious bread: high fiber, no sugar, serious grains. I buy a wheat bread that has barely any fiber in it and a lot of sugar. Mistake!

Similarly, in purchasing what I thought were healthy snack foods--granola bars, puffed rice cakes, Ritz crackers, and even yogurt--I was really buying foods with lots of sugar, trans fat, and/or saturated fat. I didn't bother to read the ingredients list or compare nutrition labels (I don't want to spend hours in the store, I want to grab and go). Dummy.

The nice thing about the book is that it has lots and lots of pictures. Pictures of things I should be buying, and pictures of things I shouldn't be buying. It makes for a quick and easy reference.

Byrd, who is close to illiterate and rarely touches books, really enjoyed looking at the pictures. This was great for me because I thought, hey, he will learn something from a neutral source rather than from his nagging know-it-all wife.

Well, okay, it was great... until he started recognizing things that I often buy. "Oh, look, that's our margarine spread under 'Eat This'," he commented, "but that spreadable butter you bought that one time is a 'Not That.' It is banished from this house!" (Insert dramatic arm wave here.)

I had to yank the book away from him before he saw which column my beloved Oreos fell into. He'll be banishing those delicious cookies over my dead body.

Peanut butter

This is how we tell the difference between the "dog peanut butter" and the "human peanut butter" in our house.


God forbid the lids get swapped somehow.

I don't get politicians

So Hawaii Senator Colleen Hanabusa, who wrote SB 79, which would ban "pit bulls" from Hawaii if it passes, is now quoted in EVERY recent news article saying she doesn't actually agree with the legislation she wrote. No, she wrote up this legislation "at the request of a consistuent."

Which basically leaves me thinking: wtf??

Seriously, if one of her constituents walked into her office and asked her to write up legislation banning Labrador Retrievers... would she do it? (Hey District 21 residents, I dare ya to try it and see what she says.)

I'm calling shenanigans on Senator Hanabusa. You better believe she thought it was a good idea, or she wouldn't have introduced it. But methinks the outcry has her wondering whether she'll survive re-election, so she's publicly backing off.

The Unicorn Story

Ever since I told my mom I was dabbling in fiction writing, she keeps saying "Oh, good! I always wanted you to finish that unicorn story!"

Huh wha?

Until I was maybe twelve, I was pretty sure I had an invisible pet unicorn hanging out with me. I was also the proud owner of the largest collection of unicorn figurines ever to grace the planet. I lived, ate, breathed, dreamed unicorns. My Christmas presents were all unicorn-themed. I had unicorn stationary, unicorn sheets, unicorn light switches, unicorn posters, unicorn books... I was so into unicorns that my poor sister, who preferred cats, nevertheless received various unicorn-related gifts from relatives who were blinded by my obsession.

But back to the unicorn story. I wasn't a big writer when I was a kid because I considered writing to be something you had to do as homework, not something you did for fun. Almost everything I wrote was for school, and was therefore technically accurate but not emotionally engaging.

So hearing Mom talk about this unicorn story was a big surprise. I don't remember writing it, I don't know what it was about, and I'm sure I must have been, like, six years old when I wrote it. I don't think there are any surviving copies.

I guess Mom still thinks of me as a little kid. :) I thought she was going to faint when I told her I'm going to be 30 this year.