The New Morality

I was BOWLED OVER by Kira's comment on the Crisco post. Here's an excerpt:

I think a majority of the reaction to it is because food is the new morality. Trans fats aren't just sort of unhealthy, they are BAD and WRONG. Sugar isn't just simple carbs, it's OMG SUGAR DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE EATING THINK OF TEH CHILDREN. Whatever. I'm a rebel. I think food is food and morals are something different altogether.

Me: *stunned by revelation* As soon as I read this, I could FEEL my brain recalibrating. Files were getting moved around, and some unfiled paperwork was finally getting into the right folders.

FOOD IS THE NEW MORALITY. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I think she should write a book. I would buy ten copies.

My mom and I were talking about it yesterday, and she mentioned denominations: Church of Atkins, Reformed Church of Atkins, Church of Raw Food, Our Holy Mother Jenny Craig, etc.

Because of the spiritual importance of food, people feel a DRIVE to save others via evangelism and condemnation. IT IS FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, is the feeling. SOULS MUST BE SAVED.

There are traveling preachers who come to us with messages of what foods are Good and what foods are Bad, recording their wisdom in books and expensive food systems. Salvation can be yours. Give all you have: your money, your time.

Thinness is the new righteousness. Exercise is the new church attendance. Recent converts test the love and patience of all around them.

Obesity is the new depravity. People must be saved from themselves. They wear their sins like a cloak, and their sins bring them terrible consequences: all bad things are linked to excessive/wrong foods.

REPENT! REPENT AND BE SAVED!

Cheered

I just placed a super-fun order. I'd written over at Milk and Cookies about two-piece swimming suits for little girls, and the heartache of that post was that I'd found the PERFECT suit (two-piece for easy peeing, but almost as much coverage as a one-piece, and also very pretty) but it wasn't in Elizabeth's size: she's a 4T and the biggest size was 3T.


Encouraged by a comment from Heather about L.L. Bean sizes running large, I considered ordering the 3T and hoping for the best---especially because Elizabeth is long-torsoed and needs a 4T mostly for the LENGTH, which wouldn't be an issue with a two-piece. So I went back to look at it and consider, and they HAD THE 4T IN STOCK. At $8.99 down from $24.50! So I bought that right the heck up.


Well, but I had a coupon for $10 off any order of $10 or more, and $8.99 is not $10 (see? math medal). So I did a little browsing just to see if there might be anything else I'd like to have. And I found this adorable fox sweater, $10.99 down from $26.50. That's still a little high for a sweater, since it's common to find sweaters post-season for under $5, but we have an interesting-to-us-but-boring-to-everyone-else fox appreciation that makes anything with a fox on it highly desirable.


And while I was browsing, I found these great tights, $6.99 for 2 pairs, down from $14.50. I can't tell from the photo, and the different color names probably mean NO, but it LOOKS like the coral tights might go perfectly with the sweater.

So I feel a little less irritable than yesterday. Now I'm going to write a bunch of postcards for Postcrossing, which always cheers me up too. I haven't yet had a repeat of my Postcrossing fantasy, but it could happen ANY DAY!

Irritable

I'm feeling crabby.

1. I lovvvvvve Jeffery Deaver books, and have been on the hold list for the new one (Roadside Crosses) for a long time. Normally I'm full-on into a Jeffery Deaver book by about page 10, but this one is not grabbing me. I'm getting irritated by the theme, which is "OMG TEH INTERNETS ARE DANGEROUS OMG YOUR PRIVACY OMG SOMEONE COULD KILLLLLL YOUUUUUUUU!!!" but even more by the recurring evidence that the author is not in fact familiar with Teh Internets. He refers to a blog post as a "blog." He refers to comments on a blog post as "blog posts." He says that what makes a blog a blog are the hyperlinks. Wher? It's making me VERY IRRITABLE, because he keeps INTERRUPTING THE PLOT with a character saying something like, "Perhaps it would be useful if I explained the history of 'weblogs'!" and then---if you can believe it---DOING SO. Plus, now I'm all skittish about saying anything about the book on the internet because OMG I COULD BE KILLLLLLLLLLED.

2. I bought a bunch of ice cream on a good sale at Target ($2.50 Breyer's, plus I got a $5 gift card for buying 5, so that's $1.50 a carton), and now it's gone. And now I'm in the habit of eating ice cream every day, so I want want want it.

3. I love tuna. Every time I eat it, I worry about the mercury. I can almost feel the mercury...accumulating. Meanwhile, every famous person on earth is eating nothing but "lean meat and fish!" Oh yes? And what are you doing about the MERCURY POISONING? Or are you TOO THIN TO CARE?

4. I got behind on my celebrity magazines, and I'm trying to catch up. This means I have been reading Jon Kate Jon Kate Jon Kate lean meat Jon Kate fish Jon Kate, and seriously, is NOTHING ELSE of interest happening in the celebrity world? I like a little Jon & Kate as much as anyone (assuming we're taking an average), but it's been, like, eight cover stories so far.

5. The kids are taking swimming lessons. Elizabeth is screaming "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" throughout each lesson. I don't know how much I'm supposed to get involved. Like, are the teachers wishing I would STEP IN AND HELP for heaven's sake, or are they hoping desperately that I'll GO AWAY so they can TEACH?

6. Rob and William have a....rocky relationship. In other words, they are bickering the living spit out of each other EVERY FROG-BANNED DAY. And each of them feels motivated to tell ME about EACH BICKER, and then BICKER about the inaccuracies in what the other one tattled.

7. I'm so sick of making dinner.

8. Every time Georgie coughs, I wonder if it's Time to Call the Vet.

9. I overpaid on a credit card ON PURPOSE, because it's a credit card I use for small occasional purchases and I hate writing teensy checks. But then the credit card company sent me a letter saying they were refunding my extra "as you requested" (which I HAD NOT) and I just found the refund check stuck in the wrong compartment of the bill-paying thingie I use to organize bill-related things, and it has EXPIRED. So hey, THAT was a LOT less trouble than WRITING A TEENSY CHECK.

Crisco

We need to have a talk, and I think it's best to do these things fast, like ripping off a jewelry store. WHAT is the problem with Crisco? Every time I mention Crisco, there is recoiling of the kind I don't get when I mention butter. Some of my brother's friends ate three or four chocolate-chip cookies each, then asked for the recipe and discovered the Crisco. I swear they went pale. You could see their thoughts: "Would it be impolite to barf this up? Is etiquette a reason to risk my very life?"

Here are the nutrition labels from Crisco and from butter:

Crisco

butter

Crisco has 1 additional gram of fat per tablespoon, and so it also has an additional 10 calories per tablespoon. But only 3 grams of Crisco's fat are saturated, compared to 7 grams of butter's fat. Crisco has no cholesterol; butter has 30 mg per tablespoon (240 mg per stick). Crisco has no salt; butter has 90 mg per tablespoon (720 mg per stick). Crisco has monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats---those are the "good" ones, aren't they? Crisco is made from vegetable fats; butter is made from animal fats. Neither has any trans fat.

So who has a fight to pick with Crisco?---or at least, a fight they don't also have with butter? Is it that vegetable shortening gets confused with lard, since they look similar and are sold in similar-looking containers? Or is it something else?

Pulling Over

I LOVE pulling over for emergency vehicles. I do it fast and early and as far over as I can get, and please stop snickering because none of that is funny. I think I like it because I WANT to be someone who is Good In Emergencies, but instead I'm someone who Freezes In Emergencies, and so I love these rare opportunities when my role is absolutely clear to me and I can execute it with ease. It gives me a taste of what it must be like to see a reflection in your martini glass of someone sneaking up behind you, and immediately spin around and knock him unconscious with one swift kick.

One of my Hot Buttons, driving-wise, is people who don't pull over fast enough or early enough or far enough. Worst of all: people who irritably PULL AROUND ME when I pull over, revving off as if, given a choice between two theories: (1) this lady has pulled over for no apparent reason so I should look around to see if I can figure out what the reason IS and (2) this lady has pulled over for no apparent reason so obviously she is a FREAKING MORON, they go right to option 2 because DUH. Someone even HONKED at me once, before revving around. I hate that SO much, it...it...the...flames...flames...flames on the side of my face.

I also get steamed if, after the emergency vehicle goes by, someone uses it as an opportunity to pass all the suckers who pulled over. ERG!! If it were possible to MENTALLY pull out a gun and shoot out someone's tires, I would probably cause additional emergencies because of doing so.

N.P.B.W.W.F. Muffins

I'm attempting to modify my muffin recipe to increase the nutritiousosity (including the fiber, Jane!), since we eat those things pretty much every day. Amy suggested using peanut butter instead of butter, which not only improves the Fat Quantity/Quality situation, but also increases the protein and fiber. My Peanut Allergy Consultant Kelsey says she thinks this could also be done with SunButter, a peanut butter alternative made from sunflower seeds.

I'm also experimenting with replacing some of the white flour with whole wheat flour and flax seed meal. This morning I made a double batch, which uses 3 and 1/3 cups of flour. I used 1/3 cup flax seed meal, 2/3 cup whole wheat flour, and 2 and 1/3 cups white flour, and the muffins were way drier and way less yummy. But! Everyone ATE them.

When making such changes, I recommend first depriving the children of muffins for a week. If you have Delicious Buttery White Flour muffins on Monday, and Nutritiouser Peanut Butter Whole Wheat Flax muffins on Tuesday, you may find yourself in the midst of a protest. But if you have D.B.W.F. muffins on Monday, Boring Unappealing Cereals for a week, and then N.P.B.W.W.F. muffins the following Monday, you will (we hope) get more of a "Yay, muffins!" reaction.

Another change I'm making is I'm greasing the muffin cups instead of using papers. Reynold's finally pushed me too far: The papers used to cost 39 cents for 50. Then they were 59 cents for 50, and I was still on board. Now they are 89 cents, and the package only has 35 papers in it. No! I DRAW THE LINE!

So I'm Crisco-ing (I tried pan spray first, but it didn't work well), and then having to wash the pans afterward, and I am split in my opinion of this. On one hand, it is easier than I'd thought it would be (though I did have to get a new muffin pan, since one of mine wasn't coated). On the other hand, I find it makes me less inclined to make muffins, and when a batch DOES stick to the pans for some reason, it makes me LOSE MY BAKIN' MIND. So there's that. But I am absolutely not paying nearly 3 cents EACH for BAKING CUPS.

Bad News: These are the Best Years

I know we've been over this and over this and over this, but it comes up fresh for me every time it happens and I feel the need to go over it yet again: I was in the store the other day with the kids, and a woman in line ahead of me told me that these were the best years of parenting and I should enjoy them.

When elderly ladies say that to me, I find it easier to let it roll off---though I did once get into a total fret when I was postpartum and TWO old ladies said it to me on one single outing, and I went home almost FRANTIC to Paul, grabbing his shirt and saying, "DO you think these are the best times?? DO you?? Because I am JUST BARELY HOLDING IT TOGETHER" and he thought it over and said, "I think these are the best times to remember," which I think he's exactly right about and now I translate it that way whenever an elderly lady seems to be telling me that it's all downhill from here.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The woman in the store. She wasn't old. She said she had teenagers, and I'd guess she was maybe ten years older than me. I've been in a funk over it for several days now, thinking it's not bad enough, apparently, to be overwhelmed and counting hours and feeling like I'm trapped: I can also now look forward to a future of beating myself up for not enjoying it more.

Part of it was the timing: the children were so demanding and giddy and intolerable on that particular errand, I'd gone over to the luggage section and looked dreamily at the suitcases, fantasizing about buying a nice big set, big enough to last me SEVERAL WEEKS. I'd also fantasized about running the shopping cart "accidentally" into the butt of one or both of my older children to see if THAT would be as funny as BREATHING and WALKING seemed to be. So it was not a receptive moment for hearing that these were the glorious days I would one day long for.

Part of it was her age: as I said, I can handle this kind of thing more easily from someone very elderly. But someone who's only ten years older than me? Surely she can still remember being my age and having children the ages of mine. Surely she can remember all the old ladies telling her to cherish every moment, and surely she can remember how she felt about that. So if SHE is telling me these are the best years, when she has the same information ringing still in her own ears---well, either it's TRUE and it really is a steady downhill roll into the Swamps of Suckitude followed by death, or else I should have shoved her "accidentally" in the butt with my shopping cart.