... Funky Shit Goin' Down In The City...

I've returned from a weekend trip to Baltimore to stay with some friends I hadn't seen in about a decade. I was able to fly free as I had some miles to redeem but my options were so severely limited that it was nothing short of highway robbery (do you realize how many miles you have to log to even get a free flight, for chrissakes?) As a result my trip was very short, only a day and a half. During that time I managed to fit in a nice dinner of Maryland crabcakes and made a day trip to DC.

My impressions of that area of the country weren't very favorable. I don't know that you could pay me enough to live in Baltimore, at least not the east side where my friends do. They have an adorable little brick Cape Cod and the neighborhood was quaint and comfortable but when you got in the car to go anywhere there was something unkempt about the atmosphere that gave me a sense of unease. It felt old.

Don't get me wrong. I love old if it also manages to impart a sense of the place's history. This wasn't that sort of old. This was submissive, squandered old, teetering on that awkward fence between slovenly and dangerous. I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed the company and I enjoyed the time away from my routine but I didn't like Baltimore much.

My trip to DC was very much the same. Driving in through the surrounding neighborhoods we passed rowhouses that reminded me of those in Philadelphia and in Boston. They are -- or could be -- genteel multi-storied bricks with refined lines and black wrought-iron gates. But no. These were painted so garishly that it detracted from the elegance of the old buildings. Bright yellow, mint green or salmon, paint chipping from the windows and tattered curtains. Boys and men hanging out on stoops or crouching under the ironwork.

So you drive on and suddenly you're surrounded by the glamour that is downtown DC. Buildings from the Civil War, the Potomac winding around, the Smithsonian. The White House. Blair House. The Lincoln/Jefferson/Washington Memorials. The Vietnam and Korean War walls.

It's like heads and tails or silver and gold. Opposites. A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps.

I know that all cities have this two-sided coin vibe to them; the rich and poor and the in-betweens live everywhere. I've seen it over and over again. I suppose it became more apparent to me when I was there because it was our nation's capitol. I've always heard that the crime in DC is some of the worst in this country and having seen the neighborhoods I can see why. While I don't believe it justifies crime in any way, shape or form, I am not without empathy and am able to grasp how some would feel quite strongly that to be poor in the city supposed to represent all that is glowing about our nation is the pinnacle of irony.

Still, DC isn't all that and a bag of chips. It's just a city with a lot of power condensed in a relatively small space. As with Baltimore, I wasn't impressed. Wouldn't live there. But it was a nice trip.


((Song: "Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller Band. Lyrics here:
http://www.oracleband.net/Lyrics/jet_airliner.htm ))

It's My Bar Of Chocolate! Give It To Me! Now!

This week my workplace has placed six giant bags of M&Ms in the freezer for everyone to snack from at will. Now I don't mean giant bags like the ones you get in the store. I mean 48-count fishstick bag size! Everyone who knows me knows that I looooooves me some chocolate so putting this stuff for me to grab right there in my company freezer is like supplying an addict with his daily dose of crack.

I learned today that Hershey's has changed its ingredients in many of its products. It's taken cocoa butter out of many things and replaced it with palm oils. Bah! Cocoa butter is what gives chocolate its creamy texture. Besides tasting better, it offers health benefits by protecting chocolate’s antioxidant properties. What’s more, cocoa butter doesn’t raise cholesterol levels like vegetable oils do.

You can tell what's what by looking at the ingredients. The removal of cocoa butter violates the FDA’s definition of milk chocolate, so look at the label -- if it says “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey” instead of "made with milk chocolate," you know you've got a re-do.

Funny thing though -- I don't know if this is because I've been watching my intake of carbs, but when i got some M&Ms to eat I realized they were making me feel funny. I ate some again today to find out if the result would be identical and it was. Hm. For the first time in a long time I found myself growing a bit uninterested in chocolate! I am thankful for the reaction no matter its origin though, because I needed those bags of M&Ms like a hole in the head.

I don't think they've done this presto-chango with dark chocolate, thank goodness. I rarely eat milk chocolate as it's way too sweet and sticky for me. The recent M&M ingestion was an exception because yeah, there's just something about that candy coating. Hee! Ah, but thank goodness the M&Ms weren't the dark chocolate kind. I would have been lost. Simply lost.

However......

I think once a month I might treat myself to a rich treat just for sticking to my healthier, lower-carb routine. Since chocolate is my drug of choice, where better to start than there? One bar spaced out over each month isn't too drastic and well...chocolate is good for you, especially the dark, deep, intense chocolates that I really love.

So I'll do some research and see what kind of specialty rockin' chocolate I can get for my treat each month. Single origin 60-70% dark preferably, but I'm open to trying new flavor/spice combos as well. I won't mind if it costs me $10, it's a month long savor.

Yay!

(("I Want It Now" by the Oompa Loompas of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Lyrics here:
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/willywonkaandthechocolatefactory/iwantitnowoompaloompa.htm))

And The Walls Break, With A Crashing Within

When you're in any relationship there's a lot going on under the surface. There's pushing, pulling, compromising and making do, or saying things you don't really mean just to smooth things over or to keep the peace. Or saying things you do mean at the time because your emotions are swelling and you feel drunkenly full of them. Or maybe the other person's issues or words or proddings have managed to poke you in your own particularly vulnerable areas, and fear of change -- explicitly threatened or implicitly perceived -- drives you to attempt to maintain the status quo.

It sure is exhausting. It really is. It leaves you wondering who the hell you are sometimes. But if you subscribe to the belief that humans rarely do things they don't gain some sort of benefit from -- however twisted it may seem from the outside -- then you must be prepared to admit that all this sturm und drang must be beneficial. It must! Unless you're gaining some sort of cost benefit from doing it, surely the energy you waste and the pieces of your life you give away are not worth it otherwise?

So the next time you reach for your smooth it over paste, take a good look at the person across from you. Then ask yourself.....is it worth it? What needs am I trying to put band-aids on? What am I really getting from all this?

Other than older?


((Song: "Careless Memories" by Duran Duran. Lyrics here:
http://www.geocities.com/ladyxanax13/Lyrics/CarelessMemories.html ))

And There's A Reason Why I'm Feelin So High

I spent the greater part of the afternoon sitting at a down-home country restaurant chatting with my kiddo. Over chicken and dumplings and coffee for me and root beer for her, we talked about a lot of things. She did most of the talking. Me? I mostly listened. I liked it just fine that way.

Unless you happen to subscribe to the idea of reincarnation that says you're supposed to be living all these chosen lives and doing certain things with each one every time around, you don't pick the people who end up in your family with you. It's random happenstance. You're born and you end up somewhere and you do the best you can and sometimes your best isn't good enough. Sometimes you discover you've ended up with the shoddiest bunch of kooks to ever grace the planet and sometimes your family members end up putting up with you, one of those aforesaid kooks. It's a particularly interesting form of chaos in action.

Parents who have more than one kid -- hell, even parents who don't -- know deep down that they have favorites. They are loathe to admit it but they do and many times the kids are well aware of their parents' favoritism. Some take it personally but others seem to better understand and accept that its origins are not so much anchored in who loves who most, but who likes who most. Parents love their children equally, love just is. But you really get down to the brass tacks of things when you talk about the art of liking. Liking is something that creates friendships out of possibilities. Liking is choice. Liking is when you realize that the person in front of you has something within them that calls to you and that you want to find out what that is. But liking doesn't mean that the person you don't take to as much is a bad person or less worthy of love; it simply means that for one reason or another, two people just seem to feel an inaudible click that two others don't. That is just the way of these things.

I love my kiddo. Dearly, passionately, deeply. But today, as I was listening to her tell me about her school classes, her widening tastes in food, how her best friend needs to stop telling her mother that she hates her and be more positive about life, and how she believes that all bad things that happen end up being beneficial in the end if she just waits them out to see how they pan out, I realized that I truly liked this kid. I liked the person she was now and the person she was in the process of becoming and I couldn't wait to enjoy her as a friend as well as a daughter. I could see the relationship down the road for the two of us would only get better and better and that our personalities meshed for many other reasons than an accident of birth and shared blood.

And life doesn't get any better than that.

((Song: "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers. Lyrics here:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/bellamy-brothers/let-your-love-flow-22054.html ))

Everybody Loves Me, Baby....What's The Matter With You?

I find box-thinkers more and more irritating as I grow older. You know the types -- without empathy, without tact, without the slightest desire towards self-examination. Assured that their own opinions and thoughts are the only proper and correct ones. Things go over their heads. The blinders they wear prevent them from realizing that there is a vast difference between being correct and being right. I suspect only those who don't understand this difference will be confused by my last sentence.

These sorts of people want to try to help you see the right way of things -- their way, of course. You hear them offer you their help and their opinions, which are often unsolicited and even more often rude and condescending. People don't like the implication that they are considered stupid or irresponsible or unable to decide for themselves. As a rule they don't appreciate hearing that their beliefs and their thoughts and feelings have no validity. The amazing thing is that people who do this honestly believe that they are helping. Helping? Alienating would be a more accurate term.

You always hear that ignorance is bliss. Maybe it is. Parts of me envy the black and white world that these people exist in. It must be nice to move through the world feeling confident that your way is so correct that everyone on the planet would live in bliss if only everyone just listened to you.

But you can be correct and still be very wrong.

(Song: Everybody Loves Me Baby" by Don McLean. Lyrics here:
http://www.don-mclean.com/songsearch/viewsong.asp?id=27))