I watched the Tiger Woods apology today. I didn't really plan to but I sort of half jokingly checked CNN to see if it would make their crawl...not only did it make the crawl, they carried it live! So I ended up watching. I was struck by a few things during his statement and they have been bouncing around in my brain all day so now you get them.
I am pretty firmly in the camp that Tiger Woods didn't owe me an apology. I'm not married to him, I don't sponsor him, I wasn't one of his mistresses and I am not his kid. So to me, nothing is due. And I sort of wanted him to say that today. To come out say, "Kiss my ass" and drop the mic. But there was a part of me that understood a little bit about where people felt they deserved more. There was one caller yesterday on the morning show I listen to who said his issue was with the Tiger Woods Foundation and the kids Tiger has been mentoring through that organization. He said that Tiger told them all that the game of golf was honorable and that they needed to play the game with honor and to live their lives that way as well. So now those kids are hearing the news and are kind of left feeling suckered. So okay, those kids and their parents deserve an apology as well. But the rest of us? Still no.
But I watched the news conference anyway. And I was fascinated by it. It hit a lot of the standard notes of a mea culpa conference, but with some really interesting differences. First off his wife was not standing next to him at the podium. I was glad to see it. That is one of the things that always blows my mind in these sorts of things. The wronged spouse standing up there by their man. Usually stoically, sometimes offering reassuring pats or glances. I always wonder why they do it. They have to feel humiliated, betrayed, angry, sad, who knows what all is going through their heads and then to stand up there like nothing is wrong? No way. So I was glad to see that Elin wasn't there. But his mother was. The camera kept cutting to her in the audience. Sitting stone faced. Looking every inch the mom who has walked her boy down the street to apologize to the neighbor for breaking their window. Stone faced, serious, not giving an inch. Until he was done speaking and then she hugged him for a good long time and you could see him break down and cry in his mother's arms. Then her face softened she hugged him and patted him on the back and then pushed him away to face the rest of the people there. Go Mom.
There was the "going back to my religion" piece. But instead of the typical Judaeo-Christian beliefs we normally get, "I've prayed and Jesus forgives" we got Buddhist teachings. He spoke about how he had fallen away from his beliefs and began to live for things instead of people and how this really was the start of his problems. He talked about how he needed to get back to those practices. Again, Go Mom.
We got the "I've been to rehab" part. This is necessary now it seems. You screw up you go to rehab. I always look at it skeptically. Like it's just something to check off the PR box. Okay, they've done rehab so now they are better. It's always the drugs or the alcohol or the sex addiction that is at fault. But with Tiger we got something else today. He stood there and claimed responsibility for it all. He was the one that screwed up and he explained why. He felt that the rules didn't apply to him, that he had worked hard and deserved to do what he wanted. Wow. I have said this about professional athletes for years. That we as a society lead them to believe that. We treat them like they are different and then wonder why they don't feel the need to play by our rules. But to hear him acknowledge that? To own it? I was impressed.
And then came the part I really had wanted to hear. He took the media and through them all of us to task. He said, basically, Look, I screwed up. Me. My fault, my mistake, my errors. Now leave my family alone. Stop writing things about Elin, stop following my children. I understand you are curious but it's not any of your business if Elin and I stay married, that is just between us. It's not any of your (my, our) business. I like that. Because it's not. He is a golfer, let him golf. He made huge mistakes in his marriage, let him and his wife work on that however they choose to. And leave the kids alone. This is going to be hard enough on them. I have mentioned before how I worked for the sons of a prominent Albuquerque business man who died while at his mistress' house. Now these guys (and their younger brother and sister) knew that most of the people they met on a daily basis knew how their dad had died and what he had been doing at the time. There were people who would even make jokes about it to them. Unbelievable right? But people did. Tiger's kids just entered that hell. Now instead of just hearing about how well their dad plays golf they will get their share of grief over his philandering. Leave them alone, it's gong to be hard enough for them.
Up until this point I have not been a huge fan of Tiger Woods. I don't play golf, I don't watch golf, I find golf to be boring, frankly. I understood he was huge ratings for the game and could appreciate the money he made through sponsorships, but he didn't interest me. When all of this started to blow up all over the media and you couldn't avoid hearing the count go up every day, it was interesting. But interesting to me in the sheer number. The number of people that had to have known and not said anything, this was going on for years, how in the world did he get away with it for so long? And then once one woman came forward the rest fell all over themselves to get their cut. But again, not that interested. It was nothing to do with me, don't care. But today, today Tiger Woods showed me that he might be someone to watch. Someone with a story to him. Now we will just see if he decides to come back into the public eye and share any more of that story.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Spoiler alert!
Spoiler alert! I don't like spoilers. There now you don't have to read any of this blog at all. Don't you feel better? Didn't I save you a ton of time? Aren't you ever so grateful? No? Okay, then keep on reading.
I like reality T.V. I know, I know, it's bad for my brain, it's the downfall of Western Civilization, it's one step on the path to our doom...what ever...I like it. I watch an odd ball collection of them. The main stays, Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, The Biggest Loser. And then an odd collection of others, Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, Salon Takeover, Dancing with the Stars, My Life of the D List. I am sure there are others that I am not thinking of right now.
This season I am even watching The Bachelor. Now, this is not one I normally watch. The concept of it bugs me. One person gets to date a lot of people who only get to date this one person and WATCH as they date all of the others. Ummm...no thanks. But this year it got me. I wanted to see how they handled one of the potential pool dating someone else as well. Would they see the irony in telling her that she could only date the bachelor while he dated 24 other women or would they shame her and send her on her way? I figured I would sit in for an episode and see how it turned out, but along the way I found out that a friend of Megan's was on the show this season, so I wanted to see how she did. Turns out she has done very well and is one of the final two, so I was kind of in it until the end.
Now, living on the West Coast it's a real trick to being able to see a finale show without knowing how it ends. Prime time doesn't even start until 8. By dinnertime my friends on the East Coast have seen the finale and know how it ends. What this means is all internet connections have to be off. No Facebook status checks, no Twitter feeds, not even MSN can be on or else I will know how the show ends before it even starts for me. I call this inadvertent spoilers. Frustrating for sure, but nothing malicious behind them, it's just people want to talk about what they have just seen. I figure it's pretty much up to me to not look at anything that can give it away since people tend to forget those of us out west who haven't seen the ending yet.
But the Spoilers that drive me crazy, that make me angry are the ones who are posting just to show that they know something you don't and can ruin your viewing pleasure because of it. There was one year that the list of order of finish for Survivor was leaked. I turned on the radio one morning to a local show and they were reading a list of the current Survivors on the show. I thought, well this is interesting, they are going to talk about the show...nope, they were reading the order in which everyone got voted off. Worst season ever for me. There was no drama, not investment, no pleasure. I knew who was going that night. I knew who was going the next week. I knew who the final two were. Boring. And why did they read off the list? Because they could. Because it would show they were in the know. That they were smarter than everyone else. Gee...thanks...
I used to subscribe to Entertainment Weekly. I was one of their original subscribers. Over the past few years they have gotten more and more into publishing spoilers in articles. They even hired a writer whose entire job was to publish spoilers of T.V. shows and movies. I had gotten fairly deft at avoiding them in the magazine but the final straw for me came when they published a spoiler on the cover of the fall T.V. preview two years ago. Why? What was the point? To show how cool they are? How in the know? Again...gee...thanks...
And people will post spoilers any place and every place. The Bachelor I was mentioning earlier? I have known since the second episode who one of the final two was going to be. Read it in a comments section on a blog about the first episode. Someone just posted it. So every episode though I hoped that person was wrong and there would be at least a little suspense, I knew who at least one of the women getting a rose was. I know who is going home this Sunday on The Amazing Race. Same thing, someone just blurted it out on a comments section for something unrelated. When they were called on it by another poster their reply was.."It was already out there, it's your fault you didn't already know." Seriously? Gee...thanks...
And didn't there used to be an art to reviewing movies? Where the reviewer gave you an opinion about the movie without telling you all of the important plot points? What would The Sixth Sense and The Crying Game been like if every reviewer gave away the twists? Now instead of review it seems like most of the time we get a recap. I don't want a recap, I want to watch the movie and be interested in the story, not knowing exactly how it's going to turn out. If I am going to pay that much for a ticket I would really like to be transported by the story, not sitting there knowing not to get too attached to the main character's best friend because he dies in a freak accident that you would have never seen coming...that is unless you read the movie review...gee...thanks...
When Stephen King wrote and released The Green Mile he did it as a serialized collection. You had to wait for each new section. When he released the first section he said he did it that way to prevent people from spoiling the ending for themselves. Seems it drives him crazy when people turn to the last page of a book before they get there. Just to check the ending. So this way he could control that and keep people from seeing how it ended before he wanted them to. Pretty ingenious. I just wish there was a way I could do that with everyone. Stop turning to the last page and reading it out loud to me. I don't want to know. I want to be surprised. I want to experience the ending, not anticipate the ending. Is that really too much to ask?
Here's another spoiler alert for you...I am going to touch on this again in a blog sometime down the road about the internet and social skills. Now you can wait for it. Gee...thanks... ;-)
I like reality T.V. I know, I know, it's bad for my brain, it's the downfall of Western Civilization, it's one step on the path to our doom...what ever...I like it. I watch an odd ball collection of them. The main stays, Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, The Biggest Loser. And then an odd collection of others, Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, Salon Takeover, Dancing with the Stars, My Life of the D List. I am sure there are others that I am not thinking of right now.
This season I am even watching The Bachelor. Now, this is not one I normally watch. The concept of it bugs me. One person gets to date a lot of people who only get to date this one person and WATCH as they date all of the others. Ummm...no thanks. But this year it got me. I wanted to see how they handled one of the potential pool dating someone else as well. Would they see the irony in telling her that she could only date the bachelor while he dated 24 other women or would they shame her and send her on her way? I figured I would sit in for an episode and see how it turned out, but along the way I found out that a friend of Megan's was on the show this season, so I wanted to see how she did. Turns out she has done very well and is one of the final two, so I was kind of in it until the end.
Now, living on the West Coast it's a real trick to being able to see a finale show without knowing how it ends. Prime time doesn't even start until 8. By dinnertime my friends on the East Coast have seen the finale and know how it ends. What this means is all internet connections have to be off. No Facebook status checks, no Twitter feeds, not even MSN can be on or else I will know how the show ends before it even starts for me. I call this inadvertent spoilers. Frustrating for sure, but nothing malicious behind them, it's just people want to talk about what they have just seen. I figure it's pretty much up to me to not look at anything that can give it away since people tend to forget those of us out west who haven't seen the ending yet.
But the Spoilers that drive me crazy, that make me angry are the ones who are posting just to show that they know something you don't and can ruin your viewing pleasure because of it. There was one year that the list of order of finish for Survivor was leaked. I turned on the radio one morning to a local show and they were reading a list of the current Survivors on the show. I thought, well this is interesting, they are going to talk about the show...nope, they were reading the order in which everyone got voted off. Worst season ever for me. There was no drama, not investment, no pleasure. I knew who was going that night. I knew who was going the next week. I knew who the final two were. Boring. And why did they read off the list? Because they could. Because it would show they were in the know. That they were smarter than everyone else. Gee...thanks...
I used to subscribe to Entertainment Weekly. I was one of their original subscribers. Over the past few years they have gotten more and more into publishing spoilers in articles. They even hired a writer whose entire job was to publish spoilers of T.V. shows and movies. I had gotten fairly deft at avoiding them in the magazine but the final straw for me came when they published a spoiler on the cover of the fall T.V. preview two years ago. Why? What was the point? To show how cool they are? How in the know? Again...gee...thanks...
And people will post spoilers any place and every place. The Bachelor I was mentioning earlier? I have known since the second episode who one of the final two was going to be. Read it in a comments section on a blog about the first episode. Someone just posted it. So every episode though I hoped that person was wrong and there would be at least a little suspense, I knew who at least one of the women getting a rose was. I know who is going home this Sunday on The Amazing Race. Same thing, someone just blurted it out on a comments section for something unrelated. When they were called on it by another poster their reply was.."It was already out there, it's your fault you didn't already know." Seriously? Gee...thanks...
And didn't there used to be an art to reviewing movies? Where the reviewer gave you an opinion about the movie without telling you all of the important plot points? What would The Sixth Sense and The Crying Game been like if every reviewer gave away the twists? Now instead of review it seems like most of the time we get a recap. I don't want a recap, I want to watch the movie and be interested in the story, not knowing exactly how it's going to turn out. If I am going to pay that much for a ticket I would really like to be transported by the story, not sitting there knowing not to get too attached to the main character's best friend because he dies in a freak accident that you would have never seen coming...that is unless you read the movie review...gee...thanks...
When Stephen King wrote and released The Green Mile he did it as a serialized collection. You had to wait for each new section. When he released the first section he said he did it that way to prevent people from spoiling the ending for themselves. Seems it drives him crazy when people turn to the last page of a book before they get there. Just to check the ending. So this way he could control that and keep people from seeing how it ended before he wanted them to. Pretty ingenious. I just wish there was a way I could do that with everyone. Stop turning to the last page and reading it out loud to me. I don't want to know. I want to be surprised. I want to experience the ending, not anticipate the ending. Is that really too much to ask?
Here's another spoiler alert for you...I am going to touch on this again in a blog sometime down the road about the internet and social skills. Now you can wait for it. Gee...thanks... ;-)
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Or maybe not...
Spoiler alert has been moved to tomorrow. I spent time re-organizing iTunes today. Is there a bigger time suck around than getting into your iTunes library and trying to organize play-lists? Possibly YouTube...but I am not sure which is worse.
So anyway...today was spent delving into music and trying to get everything reworked into a few different play-lists. Today was the Kid Tested Client Approved List. Songs that are appropriate for work but not your standard massage music. Eva Cassidy, Marc Cohn, Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls mellow songs but not the standard chimes and rain noises. Though I do have that as well, if that's what relaxes the client then that's what I will play.
I still need a lot of work; my old iPod Nano is dying and I did direct loading onto it instead of setting up separate play-lists last time, big mistake. I have over 300 CDs plus all of the songs we have downloaded over the last few years. It's a lot of music. Mine, Brent's, Christopher's and blended. So anyway...I am taking the music I will use for work and putting it back on the Nano, taking music I want to take with me to the gym and putting it on Brent's old iPod and setting up a variety of play-lists to make sure I don't have this problem again!
So it got me thinking, what are your play-lists?
Here are mine:
Move that Ass (work out music, house cleaning music, any thing that gets me moving)
All Pleasure No Guilt (I don't do guilt, remember?)
Life is Hard (rock, thank you very much)
Place in the Country (Country music)
That's Just Classic (Classical)
Jazz Hands Everyone (Jazz)
Rainy Days and Mondays (music for when you are down, and okay about it)
Waterfalls and Rainbows (traditional massage music)
Kid Tested Client Approved (music to relax by)
I will blog more about music and memory and emotion later this month. Today was just the sorting later will be the sorting out. :-)
So anyway...today was spent delving into music and trying to get everything reworked into a few different play-lists. Today was the Kid Tested Client Approved List. Songs that are appropriate for work but not your standard massage music. Eva Cassidy, Marc Cohn, Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls mellow songs but not the standard chimes and rain noises. Though I do have that as well, if that's what relaxes the client then that's what I will play.
I still need a lot of work; my old iPod Nano is dying and I did direct loading onto it instead of setting up separate play-lists last time, big mistake. I have over 300 CDs plus all of the songs we have downloaded over the last few years. It's a lot of music. Mine, Brent's, Christopher's and blended. So anyway...I am taking the music I will use for work and putting it back on the Nano, taking music I want to take with me to the gym and putting it on Brent's old iPod and setting up a variety of play-lists to make sure I don't have this problem again!
So it got me thinking, what are your play-lists?
Here are mine:
Move that Ass (work out music, house cleaning music, any thing that gets me moving)
All Pleasure No Guilt (I don't do guilt, remember?)
Life is Hard (rock, thank you very much)
Place in the Country (Country music)
That's Just Classic (Classical)
Jazz Hands Everyone (Jazz)
Rainy Days and Mondays (music for when you are down, and okay about it)
Waterfalls and Rainbows (traditional massage music)
Kid Tested Client Approved (music to relax by)
I will blog more about music and memory and emotion later this month. Today was just the sorting later will be the sorting out. :-)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Short Blog
Today is a filler blog. A short blog. A mini blog. A tired brain blog.
Brent had to fly down to Chandler on business so it meant having him at the airport by 5:30 AM. He then flew to Arizona presented some information in a meeting and flew back to Oregon. Christopher and I picked him up at the airport at 6:45 PM. So in thirteen hours he traveled 1200 miles, went to a meeting, then traveled 1200 miles back home.
These sorts of things kind of blow my mind.
Tomorrow when my mind is unblown I will write a longer blog. Spoiler alert...I think that's what I am writing about. Spoilers. :-)
Brent had to fly down to Chandler on business so it meant having him at the airport by 5:30 AM. He then flew to Arizona presented some information in a meeting and flew back to Oregon. Christopher and I picked him up at the airport at 6:45 PM. So in thirteen hours he traveled 1200 miles, went to a meeting, then traveled 1200 miles back home.
These sorts of things kind of blow my mind.
Tomorrow when my mind is unblown I will write a longer blog. Spoiler alert...I think that's what I am writing about. Spoilers. :-)
Monday, February 15, 2010
Babies Babies Babies!
Over the past year at least a half a dozen of my friends have had babies or are expecting babies. Just this past week there was the late arrival of one adorable little girl and the unexpected 3 1/2 week early arrival of the cutest little boy born in California in a long time! Every time a friend announces that a first baby is on the way or posts pictures of their little one I just smile. Life as they know it has just changed. And there is no way to explain it, you just have to experience it.
Brent and I always say Christopher was born after the longest pregnancy in human history. We got married at 18 and at least 3/4 of the guests at the wedding were eyeballing me to see how far along I was. I mean, who gets married at 18 unless there is a baby on the way? Well, Brent and I did. And then we waited until Brent got shore duty before we decided to have any children. So we were about as ready as two married people can be. We had been married for 5 years, we planned, we waited, we read everything and planned for everything and pretty much got as set as we could before Christopher was born. And yet, I still sat on the couch holding him the first day home from the hospital wondering why they let ME take him home. I had NO clue what I was doing!
We had a little trial by fire his first few weeks. He was born on Saturday morning and my milk didn't come in until Wednesday so all of our best laid plans for breast feeding went out the window by Monday as he was literally starving. He had an exceedingly high bilirubin level so we spent a lot of time going back for blood tests to make sure he was getting better. And it was heart-wrenching for both of us. The only way to get the blood to test was to jab his little foot for a sample. Which of course made him scream which then made me cry. I felt like the biggest failure ever. I couldn't feed him, I kept bringing him for tests that made him cry, I was pretty sure I was already the worst mother ever. And it wasn't any easier for Brent. He is an only child and really was relying on me to know what to do as I had at least been around my nephews when they were born. And I was falling apart in the hallway of the doctor's office while our baby screamed behind the door.
But all of that went by quickly and within the first few weeks after switching to formula he started putting on weight and his levels went down and we found a routine of sorts. Though those first few months are all a blur. I have never been so tired in my life. I am eternally grateful that I was able to be a stay at home mother. I cannot even imagine what my fellow moms who have to go back to work at 6 weeks go through. I can remember waking up one night and panicking because I had lost Christopher in the bed. He was fussing to be fed and changed and I was busy patting all over the bed looking for him and getting more and more frightened before waking up enough to remember he was in his crib. The level of exhaustion is amazing.
At the time Brent was doing rotating shift work so he was able to take the middle of the night feeding shift during two of his shifts and that made all the difference in the world. It's amazing what an uninterrupted block of 5 hours in bed can do for you! But there were still days that a shower was out of the question and forget wearing anything other than sweatpants for the first few months. It just wasn't going to happen. The hair was sacrificed at 6 months with the realization that the time it takes to care for hair down to your butt was long gone!
Babies are work. Anyone who tells you differently is either lying or not raising their own kids. But it's work that is so worth it. There is nothing like the feeling of a baby in your arms. Looking at that face knowing you are responsible for another life is the most overwhelming feeling ever, but it's mostly an overwhelming feeling of love. It will change you and shape you in ways that you didn't think possible. More love, more protective feelings, more of everything.
When Christopher was probably 6 months old we were at the mall shopping and Brent was playing goofy baby games with him. Parents know these games, some noise or face tickles your child and makes them giggle so you must do it over and over just to hear that sweet laugh. Well Brent is doing this with Christopher and I look over and see two young sailors just staring at him. These two were students of his and had never seen Petty Officer Mastenbrook laugh let alone make googly faces at a baby! I laughed so hard at that.
So for those who have had babies in the past year, welcome to the club! And for my friends that are expecting right now, either their first or their fourth or any in-between, welcome to the new adventure! It's going to be such a great year for you! I can't wait for the pictures!
Brent and I always say Christopher was born after the longest pregnancy in human history. We got married at 18 and at least 3/4 of the guests at the wedding were eyeballing me to see how far along I was. I mean, who gets married at 18 unless there is a baby on the way? Well, Brent and I did. And then we waited until Brent got shore duty before we decided to have any children. So we were about as ready as two married people can be. We had been married for 5 years, we planned, we waited, we read everything and planned for everything and pretty much got as set as we could before Christopher was born. And yet, I still sat on the couch holding him the first day home from the hospital wondering why they let ME take him home. I had NO clue what I was doing!
We had a little trial by fire his first few weeks. He was born on Saturday morning and my milk didn't come in until Wednesday so all of our best laid plans for breast feeding went out the window by Monday as he was literally starving. He had an exceedingly high bilirubin level so we spent a lot of time going back for blood tests to make sure he was getting better. And it was heart-wrenching for both of us. The only way to get the blood to test was to jab his little foot for a sample. Which of course made him scream which then made me cry. I felt like the biggest failure ever. I couldn't feed him, I kept bringing him for tests that made him cry, I was pretty sure I was already the worst mother ever. And it wasn't any easier for Brent. He is an only child and really was relying on me to know what to do as I had at least been around my nephews when they were born. And I was falling apart in the hallway of the doctor's office while our baby screamed behind the door.
But all of that went by quickly and within the first few weeks after switching to formula he started putting on weight and his levels went down and we found a routine of sorts. Though those first few months are all a blur. I have never been so tired in my life. I am eternally grateful that I was able to be a stay at home mother. I cannot even imagine what my fellow moms who have to go back to work at 6 weeks go through. I can remember waking up one night and panicking because I had lost Christopher in the bed. He was fussing to be fed and changed and I was busy patting all over the bed looking for him and getting more and more frightened before waking up enough to remember he was in his crib. The level of exhaustion is amazing.
At the time Brent was doing rotating shift work so he was able to take the middle of the night feeding shift during two of his shifts and that made all the difference in the world. It's amazing what an uninterrupted block of 5 hours in bed can do for you! But there were still days that a shower was out of the question and forget wearing anything other than sweatpants for the first few months. It just wasn't going to happen. The hair was sacrificed at 6 months with the realization that the time it takes to care for hair down to your butt was long gone!
Babies are work. Anyone who tells you differently is either lying or not raising their own kids. But it's work that is so worth it. There is nothing like the feeling of a baby in your arms. Looking at that face knowing you are responsible for another life is the most overwhelming feeling ever, but it's mostly an overwhelming feeling of love. It will change you and shape you in ways that you didn't think possible. More love, more protective feelings, more of everything.
When Christopher was probably 6 months old we were at the mall shopping and Brent was playing goofy baby games with him. Parents know these games, some noise or face tickles your child and makes them giggle so you must do it over and over just to hear that sweet laugh. Well Brent is doing this with Christopher and I look over and see two young sailors just staring at him. These two were students of his and had never seen Petty Officer Mastenbrook laugh let alone make googly faces at a baby! I laughed so hard at that.
So for those who have had babies in the past year, welcome to the club! And for my friends that are expecting right now, either their first or their fourth or any in-between, welcome to the new adventure! It's going to be such a great year for you! I can't wait for the pictures!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Comfort Foods
So a few weeks ago I was looking through a cookbook that "lightens up" comfort foods and I started thinking, what exactly makes something a comfort food? What makes the cut? The cover of this particular cook book has a picture of baked macaroni and cheese. Yummy for sure, but not a comfort food for me. My mac and cheese came out of a blue box growing up and that is the stuff I crave when I crave mac and cheese.
And that's where I started thinking about what makes a comfort food a comfort food. My best friend from middle school's mom used to cook only a couple times a year and when she did she would make baked macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, collard greens and bread pudding for dessert. This was heavy duty comfort food for them. I can remember the first time I sat down to that meal. First off, I had never even heard of collard greens let alone eaten them, like I mentioned before mac and cheese came from a box, not from the oven and fried chicken should be in a bucket! But for Chrystal and her mom this was the perfect meal. It was a lot of work on Chris's part and she wouldn't even hear of either Chrystal or me helping her. It was her way of putting love on the table. So it became comfort food to Chrystal.
Now for me, my mother stopped cooking for the most part when I was 12 or 13. She would still trot out some of her specialties here and there but for the most part she just stopped. Where most families would have a food schedule like, on Tuesday we have meatloaf we had a restaurant rotation. Goody's, Andy's, Furrs, McDonalds and a few others that would come in and go out for variation. This was the way it went all the way through my high school years. When you were sick, you couldn't really go to dinner with everyone so after dinner you would get something brought home to you. For me it was McDonald's. A Big Mac, fries and orange drink. So now when I get sick, that is what I want. You can keep your homemade chicken soup, bring me a burger!
For Brent it was Chinese food. When anyone in his house was sick they ordered Chinese food. So when he is sick, that's what he wants. And we have been married long enough that now if I am sick for more than a few days my second or third day I want Chinese food as well. Won-ton soup to clear my nose thank you. Christopher leans towards the Chinese food, in case you are wondering.
Then there are emotional bandage foods. Any kind of chocolate works. But a brownie is best. I can remember eating almost an entire pan of brownies at different points in time during my youth. That and raw cookie dough. Chrystal and I used to buy a roll of cookie dough and split it between us. No cooking them, just eating them. Brownies and cookies. So when things are stressful I still want them. Ultimate comfort food for me.
Dropping the weight this year has meant trying to not fall back on comfort eating when faced with situations like stress, not feeling well, what ever the triggers are. And for a long time I really worked at it, did the whole questioning of "Am I hungry or am I stressed?" and if it really is just a stress reaction can I stubborn my way past it and not eat? And if not is there a lower calorie substitute I can have? And the conclusion after almost a year really paying attention is that comfort foods are just that. Comfort. And it's okay, every once in a while to indulge in them. For me the emotional benefit I get from that Big Mac while I am sick is worth the extra time at the gym when I feel better. Instead of a pan of brownies, buying one and enjoying that one can help make a truly bad day seem like a distant memory. And learning that an apple with peanut butter is really one of nature's perfect combinations for any situation (and good for you as well) has been a blessing.
So how about you? What are your comfort foods? What triggers the craving? And do you feed it or ignore it? I think for me I have found the balance. But if you ever see me sitting down to a pan of brownies, know that it's been a really bad week and you might want to walk in a wide circle around me!
And that's where I started thinking about what makes a comfort food a comfort food. My best friend from middle school's mom used to cook only a couple times a year and when she did she would make baked macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, collard greens and bread pudding for dessert. This was heavy duty comfort food for them. I can remember the first time I sat down to that meal. First off, I had never even heard of collard greens let alone eaten them, like I mentioned before mac and cheese came from a box, not from the oven and fried chicken should be in a bucket! But for Chrystal and her mom this was the perfect meal. It was a lot of work on Chris's part and she wouldn't even hear of either Chrystal or me helping her. It was her way of putting love on the table. So it became comfort food to Chrystal.
Now for me, my mother stopped cooking for the most part when I was 12 or 13. She would still trot out some of her specialties here and there but for the most part she just stopped. Where most families would have a food schedule like, on Tuesday we have meatloaf we had a restaurant rotation. Goody's, Andy's, Furrs, McDonalds and a few others that would come in and go out for variation. This was the way it went all the way through my high school years. When you were sick, you couldn't really go to dinner with everyone so after dinner you would get something brought home to you. For me it was McDonald's. A Big Mac, fries and orange drink. So now when I get sick, that is what I want. You can keep your homemade chicken soup, bring me a burger!
For Brent it was Chinese food. When anyone in his house was sick they ordered Chinese food. So when he is sick, that's what he wants. And we have been married long enough that now if I am sick for more than a few days my second or third day I want Chinese food as well. Won-ton soup to clear my nose thank you. Christopher leans towards the Chinese food, in case you are wondering.
Then there are emotional bandage foods. Any kind of chocolate works. But a brownie is best. I can remember eating almost an entire pan of brownies at different points in time during my youth. That and raw cookie dough. Chrystal and I used to buy a roll of cookie dough and split it between us. No cooking them, just eating them. Brownies and cookies. So when things are stressful I still want them. Ultimate comfort food for me.
Dropping the weight this year has meant trying to not fall back on comfort eating when faced with situations like stress, not feeling well, what ever the triggers are. And for a long time I really worked at it, did the whole questioning of "Am I hungry or am I stressed?" and if it really is just a stress reaction can I stubborn my way past it and not eat? And if not is there a lower calorie substitute I can have? And the conclusion after almost a year really paying attention is that comfort foods are just that. Comfort. And it's okay, every once in a while to indulge in them. For me the emotional benefit I get from that Big Mac while I am sick is worth the extra time at the gym when I feel better. Instead of a pan of brownies, buying one and enjoying that one can help make a truly bad day seem like a distant memory. And learning that an apple with peanut butter is really one of nature's perfect combinations for any situation (and good for you as well) has been a blessing.
So how about you? What are your comfort foods? What triggers the craving? And do you feed it or ignore it? I think for me I have found the balance. But if you ever see me sitting down to a pan of brownies, know that it's been a really bad week and you might want to walk in a wide circle around me!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Valentine's Day
I was going to post this tomorrow, but figured with the theme of this blog it makes more sense to post it today.
We don't celebrate Valentine's Day. Brent and I don't exchange cards, gifts, chocolates or flowers. We don't get dressed up and go to dinner with 100 of our closest friends. We of course are aware it's happening, how can you miss it? Especially now that the stores start putting out the heart shaped boxes at the day after Christmas sales. But we don't buy any of it. I was the one that made this call pretty early in our marriage. There were a few things that led me to that decision.
I will start with my favorite Valentine's Day memory and then explain how I got from there to not celebrating it at all. This particular Valentine's Day Brent was in the middle of a six month cruise and I was going to school in San Diego. I had spent the morning in class listening to my friends all talk about their plans with boyfriends and girlfriends for the evening. I was trying very hard and failing miserable at not feeling sorry for myself. Brent wasn't in port so there wouldn't even be a phone call and this was before email on the ship so unless there was a letter in my mailbox when I got home I wouldn't even hear from him. I had mailed a care package to him a few weeks earlier with cookies and chocolates but there was no telling if it would make it to him anywhere close to the date.
So anyway, I get home from school ready to sit down to a full on pity party for myself and as I turn the corner to head up to our apartment I see two long white boxes by the door. Now at this point I am thinking...it couldn't be...You know in the old 40s movies when a woman would get roses they always came in long white boxes? Well Brent and I had been watching an old movie before he left and I had mentioned how growing up I had always wanted to get roses in the long white box. It just seemed so romantic to me. But I had never seen them actually delivered that way. So here are two long white boxes by the door. I practically ran up the stairs to the front door to see if it really was what I thought it was. Two dozen long stem red roses from Brent. I sat on the floor and alternated between crying and smelling my flowers for quite awhile. Now to make this happen, he had to make arrangements with his father BEFORE he left on this cruise months earlier. Had to send him money and what he wanted the card to say and find a florist that would deliver them in San Diego in the long white box. Again, all of this in the age before internet and Google. How are you ever going to top that? Yes, it was roses which is a pretty traditional gift, but the thought and the planning behind that gift really was what mattered.
Fast forward a few years and we are living in Idaho Falls and Christopher is just over a year old. Brent had to work on Valentine's Day but after work he stopped at the store and picked up a couple of balloons with Sandra Boynton characters on them for Christopher and I. Now hopefully all of you parents out there are familiar with the Boynton books, they are really fabulous board books for little ones. Fun to read to them with adorable illustrations. Christopher was so excited to get those balloons! He hauled them around everywhere for a week until they finally lost all of their air and then we still kept them in his room as pictures. This time it was a really simple gift, but it was one that meant a lot to Christopher and I because the characters on them were something he loved and the fact that Brent made sure to stop and pick them up after a long day at work as a surprise.
So when I tell you we don't celebrate you can see that it's not because Brent isn't good at it, he is. It's because I reached a point right about that time where I really started not liking what the holiday seemed to be about. I watched married couples that we knew who were fairly awful to each other on a regular basis plan these huge celebrations, dinners, vacations, jewelry, roses, what ever it was and expect those things as well. "He better not forget, and it better be great" And let's face it ladies, it usually is up to the man to dote on the woman on Valentine's Day right? Anyway, it was like Yom Kippur for relationships. The day of atonement for every bad thing you had done the year before and if the gift was big enough and fancy enough then all was forgiven and you could go back to being awful to each other.
Not to mention what it does to single people. It's like this constant drum beat of "you are alone you loser" for the month of February. Now the month of January as well. What if you like being alone? There's nothing wrong with that. And what if you wish you were with someone else but aren't? Do you really need a constant reminder of it?
And oh the expectations! So if you are in a healthy relationship and you want to do something special on Valentine's Day and you make all of these plans for the perfect evening with your significant other how in the world can anything live up to those expectations? Restaurants are crowded, prices are high, the menu is pre-set. Hotels are booked ahead. That unique piece of jewelry you picked out is probably just like that piece her best friend got two years ago. The gifts are mostly cliche. And if you do find something unique to your relationship there is a shot that someone is going to be disappointed. Either the receiver because it's just not what was expected or the giver because the reaction didn't fit the image of the reaction you had in your head. Oh the stress...
So I told Brent that I didn't want to celebrate Valentine's Day anymore. I just didn't see the need for it. And he spent the first few years of that decision waiting to see if it was a trap. :-) But it wasn't. I really didn't want anything. No card, no candy, no flowers, no dinner out. Nothing. And I like it that way. Though I do have to tell people every year that we don't celebrate when asked about big plans. And I know half of them think, how sad, and half think, I wish we didn't! But it really isn't bad. I know Hallmark misses our money as well as FTD and See's Candy, but it's okay, they have everyone else to fill the gap.
But Brent summed it up best this week when a co-worker asked him about what he was going to do for me for Valentine's Day. When Brent said I don't celebrate his friend said how lucky he was. Brent (I imagine he did this with his wry smile) said, "Yeah, she expects me to be nice to her everyday."
We don't celebrate Valentine's Day. Brent and I don't exchange cards, gifts, chocolates or flowers. We don't get dressed up and go to dinner with 100 of our closest friends. We of course are aware it's happening, how can you miss it? Especially now that the stores start putting out the heart shaped boxes at the day after Christmas sales. But we don't buy any of it. I was the one that made this call pretty early in our marriage. There were a few things that led me to that decision.
I will start with my favorite Valentine's Day memory and then explain how I got from there to not celebrating it at all. This particular Valentine's Day Brent was in the middle of a six month cruise and I was going to school in San Diego. I had spent the morning in class listening to my friends all talk about their plans with boyfriends and girlfriends for the evening. I was trying very hard and failing miserable at not feeling sorry for myself. Brent wasn't in port so there wouldn't even be a phone call and this was before email on the ship so unless there was a letter in my mailbox when I got home I wouldn't even hear from him. I had mailed a care package to him a few weeks earlier with cookies and chocolates but there was no telling if it would make it to him anywhere close to the date.
So anyway, I get home from school ready to sit down to a full on pity party for myself and as I turn the corner to head up to our apartment I see two long white boxes by the door. Now at this point I am thinking...it couldn't be...You know in the old 40s movies when a woman would get roses they always came in long white boxes? Well Brent and I had been watching an old movie before he left and I had mentioned how growing up I had always wanted to get roses in the long white box. It just seemed so romantic to me. But I had never seen them actually delivered that way. So here are two long white boxes by the door. I practically ran up the stairs to the front door to see if it really was what I thought it was. Two dozen long stem red roses from Brent. I sat on the floor and alternated between crying and smelling my flowers for quite awhile. Now to make this happen, he had to make arrangements with his father BEFORE he left on this cruise months earlier. Had to send him money and what he wanted the card to say and find a florist that would deliver them in San Diego in the long white box. Again, all of this in the age before internet and Google. How are you ever going to top that? Yes, it was roses which is a pretty traditional gift, but the thought and the planning behind that gift really was what mattered.
Fast forward a few years and we are living in Idaho Falls and Christopher is just over a year old. Brent had to work on Valentine's Day but after work he stopped at the store and picked up a couple of balloons with Sandra Boynton characters on them for Christopher and I. Now hopefully all of you parents out there are familiar with the Boynton books, they are really fabulous board books for little ones. Fun to read to them with adorable illustrations. Christopher was so excited to get those balloons! He hauled them around everywhere for a week until they finally lost all of their air and then we still kept them in his room as pictures. This time it was a really simple gift, but it was one that meant a lot to Christopher and I because the characters on them were something he loved and the fact that Brent made sure to stop and pick them up after a long day at work as a surprise.
So when I tell you we don't celebrate you can see that it's not because Brent isn't good at it, he is. It's because I reached a point right about that time where I really started not liking what the holiday seemed to be about. I watched married couples that we knew who were fairly awful to each other on a regular basis plan these huge celebrations, dinners, vacations, jewelry, roses, what ever it was and expect those things as well. "He better not forget, and it better be great" And let's face it ladies, it usually is up to the man to dote on the woman on Valentine's Day right? Anyway, it was like Yom Kippur for relationships. The day of atonement for every bad thing you had done the year before and if the gift was big enough and fancy enough then all was forgiven and you could go back to being awful to each other.
Not to mention what it does to single people. It's like this constant drum beat of "you are alone you loser" for the month of February. Now the month of January as well. What if you like being alone? There's nothing wrong with that. And what if you wish you were with someone else but aren't? Do you really need a constant reminder of it?
And oh the expectations! So if you are in a healthy relationship and you want to do something special on Valentine's Day and you make all of these plans for the perfect evening with your significant other how in the world can anything live up to those expectations? Restaurants are crowded, prices are high, the menu is pre-set. Hotels are booked ahead. That unique piece of jewelry you picked out is probably just like that piece her best friend got two years ago. The gifts are mostly cliche. And if you do find something unique to your relationship there is a shot that someone is going to be disappointed. Either the receiver because it's just not what was expected or the giver because the reaction didn't fit the image of the reaction you had in your head. Oh the stress...
So I told Brent that I didn't want to celebrate Valentine's Day anymore. I just didn't see the need for it. And he spent the first few years of that decision waiting to see if it was a trap. :-) But it wasn't. I really didn't want anything. No card, no candy, no flowers, no dinner out. Nothing. And I like it that way. Though I do have to tell people every year that we don't celebrate when asked about big plans. And I know half of them think, how sad, and half think, I wish we didn't! But it really isn't bad. I know Hallmark misses our money as well as FTD and See's Candy, but it's okay, they have everyone else to fill the gap.
But Brent summed it up best this week when a co-worker asked him about what he was going to do for me for Valentine's Day. When Brent said I don't celebrate his friend said how lucky he was. Brent (I imagine he did this with his wry smile) said, "Yeah, she expects me to be nice to her everyday."
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