Back to Whole Foods.
We all know it sells hippie food at designer prices, but I love it for all its crazy and delicious choices. Also, the samples are incredible. Whenever you’re hungry, you should go directly to Whole Foods, walk around, and eat anything attached to a toothpick. Better yet, grab five and put them in your pocket.
The cheese cubes travel better than the chicken quesadillas.
But to stay on point, Whole Foods has every fruit possible in its produce department, where you can choose from organic or “conventional.” I always buy conventional because I am conventional. Also it’s cheaper, and I like my apples pretty. If they sold plastic apples, I’d be happier, but either way, I appreciate Whole Foods for its euphemistic “conventional.” They could have called it “for people who cheap out on their family” or “for people who choose style over substance” or “for people who think a little DDT never hurt anybody.”
But they didn’t.
So I went to Whole Foods with my shopping list and was happily collecting mangoes and multigrains when I came upon an endcap that showed an array of mysterious plastic tubs, each larger-than-life. The labels read: whey protein powder in natural vanilla flavor and whey protein powder in natural chocolate favor.
I blinked, bewildered. The only whey I’d ever heard of came with curds and a spider.
Next to the whey powder were big vats of soy protein powder, also in chocolate and vanilla, then next to that were tubs of Green Superfood Berry Flavored Drink Powder and Green Superfood Chocolate Drink Powder, made with “organic green foods.” All of the powder tubs came with a 28-ounce “Blender-Bottle,” like a sippy cup for grown-ups.
It was dizzying. They were clearly some kind of meal replacement, so I was looking at a wallful of drinkable food. Just add water. That’s my favorite kind of cooking.
I spent the next hour squinting at the labels, comparing the nutrition facts and deciphering the language, such as “includes Free-Form Branch Chain Amino Acids.” Now, I don’t know about you, but when I want to cheat on my diet, I head straight for the amino acids. Especially if they’re from the branch and not the main office. Which is so not free-form.
There was even a big white tub of MegaFood, which immediately got my attention. If I were going to put any prefix in front of the word “food,” it would be “mega.” Except, of course, for pizza. I looked but couldn’t find any MegaPizza-Food, which would have made my day.
I bet Acme has it. Next to the Splenda.
Instead I had to settle for the DailyFoods Organic Greens Dietary Supplement, which billed itself as “revitalizing greens for women over 40.” It promised “detoxification,” but I wondered how I became toxic. Was it merely the act of turning forty and being a woman? Or maybe it was those frozen margaritas over vacation. Or that time I ate all the Snickers out of my daughter’s Halloween candy. Which happened for the entire ten years she went out for Halloween.
Amazingly, the tub of girl powder had vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin K, which I didn’t even know existed. It also had riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, and 19 mg of chlorophyll, which is the powder equivalent of eating your shrubbery.
Plus it had “Anti-Aging SuperFoods,” and I’m so there. If there’s anything I’m anti, it’s aging, especially as applied to me. I’m also anti-dying, but not even Whole Foods sells that stuff.
Or if they do, it’s really really really expensive.
Bottom line, even I could figure out that the powders were packed with more protein, vitamins, and minerals than anything I had in my shopping cart. I looked at the shiny tubs of powder, then I looked at my lame cart of old-fashioned broccoli, pears, and lettuce. Suddenly, it looked so terribly . . . conventional.
How had I come to the food store and bought all the wrong things—food?
Obviously, anything in the tubs was superior to the groceries in my cart. For starters, all the stuff in the tubs was one word, with capitals even—FoodState, SuperFood, DailyFoods. How can a lower-case banana compete? And broccoli doesn’t come with a BlenderBottle.
So I’m confused.
If you could make all food taste like chocolate, why wouldn’t you?
And why have a meal, when you can have a meal replacement? You can throw away all your silverware—and your teeth.
And who wants dumb, old-fashioned peas when you could have powder with “Cold Fusion FoodState Nutrients”? This is food that splits the atom, people. Or maybe fuses it together. I don’t know, I always forget what cold fusion is. Clearly, this food is way smarter than I am.
Maybe it is rocket science, after all.
Eggistential
I have a problem to solve, and I’m talking about something really hard, like programming a VCR, or marriage.
I’m talking about what to eat.
Here’s what happened.
I used to eat everything, including red meat. Hamburgers, steaks, the whole thing. I loved rare roast beef with extra Russian dressing, which I used to order at a place called the Corned Beef Academy. That’s how much of a meat eater I was. Even my restaurants were carnivorous.
But then daughter Francesca was born and we started going to a petting zoo that had the cutest calf in the world. Brown eyes like melted Hershey’s Kisses, and a spongy nose as pink as the inside of a conch shell. In no time, I’m naming the calf and visiting it way more than anyone should. Francesca lost interest, but I didn’t, and after a time, I felt too guilty to eat red meat. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t an ethical thing. I just couldn’t take the guilt.
Then years later, I saw the movie Babe, starring a baby piglet. I know that was only a story, but I saw that Hollywood piglet do everything the fictional piglet was supposed to do, so I started feeling too guilty to eat pork chops and bacon. You have to be crazy to quit eating bacon. Bacon is the meth of meats.
And to be clear: If you eat meat, I don’t judge you, I envy you. I want to be you again. I don’t know what to eat anymore, because it gets worse:
As you know, I have these chicks. They need a special fence with a top to protect them from hawks and stuff, so until the fence gets built, I sit and watch over them like a chicken security guard. In other words, I get no work done and spend way too much time watching them, and you know where this is going.
Now I can’t eat chicken.
First off, they’re all cute and little, like cartoon chicks. You remember Sylvester and Tweety Bird. I Taw a Putty Tat! How can I eat Tweety Bird? Even with fresh rosemary?
Plus, they do cute things. They make adorable peeps and coos. When they drink water, they throw their heads back like they’re gargling. They run around gathering tiny twigs and running back inside the coop with them, like me after a sale at Neiman Marcus.
And each chick has a different personality; Buttercup is a show-off, Yum-Yum bosses everyone around, and Josephine never shuts up.
They’re women, remember?
The Bard Rocks, the black-and-white chicks who make up the chorus, love to be held. They’re soft as a pillow in the crook of my arm, and their little feet are warm with blood. They even stay still while I kiss them, and I’ve become a big-time chicken kisser.
I try not to touch their breasts.
That would be weird.
So now I can’t eat red meat or chicken. I even look at eggs funny. Is a yolk a future Yum-Yum? Or is it just yummy?
When does chick life begin? It’s not an existential problem. It’s an eggsistential problem.
Remember, I’m not preaching at you, because I’m not even morally consistent. My car has leather seats, and I own a leather jacket. I buy leather shoes by the boatload. As long as I don’t eat them, I don’t feel guilty.
Meantime, all I can eat is pasta, bread, and oatmeal. I went from a no-carb diet to an all-carb diet, all because of guilt. I’ve gained five pounds, and now I feel guilty about that.
And tofu isn’t the answer because I’ve done everything possible with tofu, which means drown it in something with flavor. I rotate
teriyaki sauce, soy and ginger sauce, and even tomato sauce, which could cause me to forfeit my Italian-American credentials, should it come to light.
I make protein shakes like they’re going out of style, and now I’m even getting sick of chocolate.
What’s the matter with me? How can I change it? What should I do?
All I know is one thing:
I’m not getting a goldfish.
Willing
I’m making out my will, and, as you can imagine, I’m having the time of my life.
Or death.
It’s a laugh riot to contemplate your own demise. Not that it takes a will for me to do it. As you know, my mother taught me that I can perish at any moment, especially if I stand near a toaster during a thunderstorm. But I never had to make so many decisions, all of which involve things that take place after I’m dead. You’d think that at some point, I’d get to stop worrying, but no. Evidently, death isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I bet my skin doesn’t even clear up.
But I look on the bright side. If I had died when I was a struggling writer, I’d have nothing to leave but three maxed-out credit cards and a very hungry dog.
Bottom line, now I have to decide who gets the do-re-mi when I’m gone, which is easy. I have only daughter Francesca, and she’s cashing in. I told her this morning, and already she’s looking at me funny.
I’m locking up the steak knives.
I’m telling you now, if something happens to me, we all know who did it. She’s smart enough to make it look like an accident, so don’t believe a word. She went to Harvard, remember?
But who inherits is only one of the decisions I have to make. A harder question is raised by the living will, as opposed to the dying will, I guess. You know what a living will is; it’s a piece of paper that says what you want to happen if you’re completely incapacitated, like me after a head injury or two Cosmopolitans. The main question is do I want the plug pulled? I say no.
“You’re kidding, right?” my lawyer asks, over the phone.
“No. In fact, I want that plug duct-taped into the socket, so it doesn’t get kicked out by accident on purpose. And while you’re at it, get me an extension cord, a surge protector, and a generator, right by my bed. Just in case. And padlock it. Did I mention that my kid went to Harvard?”
“You mean that you want your daughter to visit you for years and years, even though you’re in a coma?”
“Yes. Years and years and years, even though I’m in a coma. You never know. I’m a light sleeper.”
The lawyer doesn’t laugh. “But that’s such a burden on her.”
“Aw, poor wittle thing. Where was she when I was in labor? Oh, that’s right. Being born.”
The lawyer gives up and we move on to the hardest decision of all:
The Anatomical Gift.
I see that phrase in the will and immediately I’m thinking, George Clooney. I bet he has an Anatomical Gift. And if he gave it to me, I’d die and go to heaven.
But the lawyer explains that the Anatomical Gift refers to my anatomy, which I may decide to give away after I’m dead. Plus I have to specify any “organs or body parts.”
Now I have a question for all of you:
Who wants my cellulite?
This is grade-A quality cellulite, and you can’t beat the price. Send me an email, write me an essay, fifty words or less.
Anybody else want my nose?
It’s big. Really big. My mother says I get more oxygen than anybody else in the room.
At least I did, when I was breathing.
So let me know. Yours for the asking.
But the lawyer gets me back to business. The last question is, do I want to be an organ donor “for transplantation or for medical research?”
This gives me pause. “I don’t want anybody pointing and laughing at my cellulite, in case nobody writes a good enough essay.”
“Please answer.”
“Okay, yes.” Then I get a load of the final provision in the draft will: Treatment which prolongs my dying may be temporarily continued or modified so as to preserve and protect for transplant the useful portions of my body.
Okay to that, too, but if they want my kidneys, they can make it snappy.
And trust me, my ovaries rock.
Step lively.
Exit Strategies for Women
and Chickens
Everybody asks me what daughter Francesca is doing now that she’s graduated from college. So I thought I’d let her tell you herself, because it’s something that your kids might be dealing with, too:
At some point in every young adult’s life, she has to make the most illogical decision of her life: to move out.
Moving out makes no sense. If we young people gave this any real thought, we would see that it’s a terrible idea. Take me, for instance. I’ve been living at home since I graduated from college this past spring, and I’m starting to feel that itch to move out. But the more I think about it, the more nonsensical it seems. In the rare moments when I have some objectivity, and I catch myself rolling an eye or huffing a melodramatic sigh, I have to ask myself, what do I have to complain about, really?
It’s awfully quiet here in the burbs. But am I so easily dissatisfied that I’m knocking a place because it’s too idyllic? There has to be something else. Living with my mom can be annoying. But, let’s be fair, I can be annoying. Occasionally annoying each other is the hallmark of a healthy mother-daughter relationship. Most of the time we get along pretty great, and don’t tell her, but I missed her when I was at school. A lot.
So what am I doing navigating back to Craigslist.com, refreshing my list of New York City apartments, “cozy” at five hundred square feet and “A STEAL” at an extortionate $2500 a month? I live in a house, for FREE, with my own bedroom and bathroom, and a washer-dryer—not down the street, but down the hall—and, oh boy, do we allow pets. Have I lost my mind? Is anyone with this kind of judgment even capable of taking care of herself in the real world? Why would I leave this?
It’s home.
And the psychology of the thing is topsy-turvy. For instance, you might have read the above paragraphs and thought to yourself, “Atta girl. She’s starting to appreciate what she’s got, now that’s maturity.” That’s the nutty part; as soon as I am mature enough to realize how good I have it at home, that means I am ready to move out. But then I start not wanting to! And if I start appreciating home too much, you’ll start to worry that I may never leave, so then I really have to get out of here, pronto!
I don’t blame you; I worry about me, too. For a twenty-two-year-old single gal, it’s scary how easily I can slip into home life. I complain to my friends about how dull it is, but secretly, I’m not bored at all. I have been far more bored by frat boys, flip cup, and other elements of “exciting” college life. In a way, I love this quiet life. I could live here forever.
Oh my God, what am I saying? I have to move out!
See what I mean?
Now, on the other hand, if I recognize that I am at risk of becoming a total mooch, and I should get out there and live on my own, well, then I have proven my maturity and I am free to take my time finding a place. So basically, when I want to move out, I don’t have to. But when I don’t want to move out, that means I have to—and fast!
A most ingenious paradox.
But what does it all mean? How can I make sense out of my illogical, nonsensical, paradoxical desire to move out?
Believe it or not, a little birdie told me.
We lost one of our little chickens the other day. In fact, she is the very littlest of our flock, “Peep-Bo,” a small Brown Sussex, who only just got her adult feathers and who mostly sticks with her twin sister and avoids being picked up. Somehow, she escaped from the fence and decided to bolt for the forest. She disappeared into the thorny brush, her speckled brown feathers blending perfectly into the fallen leaves. My mom and I tried looking for her for four hours, until darkness fell, and we went home devastated and cover
ed in mud and scratches. That night there was a thunderstorm, and all I could think about was how poor little Peep-Bo was outside, all alone, away from her sisters and her warm, dry house.
The next day, thankfully, Peep-Bo was spotted marching around the woods, and after a comical chase, my mom and I were able to catch her and bring her home.
So why did the chicken fly the coop?
Just to see if she could.
Password
In the beginning, God created the Internet and shopping online. I was an early believer. Where shopping is involved, I get in on the ground floor, especially if I don’t have to move from my chair. Shopping online was like having somebody bring you brownies and stuff them in your mouth.
In other words, impossible to resist.
Plus the economy was better then. It turns out that “shop until you drop” wasn’t such a hot idea. Or maybe we just dropped. Or somebody dropped us. Either way, don’t get me started.
To stay on point, early on, websites like Amazon and bn.com required a four-digit password. It was my first password, and what a thrill! Think of a secret word! It put me in mind of decoder rings, speakeasies, and people knocking on doors, saying “Sam sent me.” In those days, I used the same go-to password for everything—specifically, my goal weight plus zero. It was easy to remember because nobody ever forgets their goal weight, and the chance of ever attaining it is zero.
Then everybody caught on to online shopping, so much so that the other day I went into a pet store and they had only two dog collars, both large and blue. I wanted red and small, so they told me go home and shop online at their website. So you know where this is going. The bad news is that someday the stores will be empty. The good news is that there’ll be plenty of parking.
But somewhere along the line, passwords stopped being fun. Complex rules entered the picture, like an IRS Code for passwords. Nowadays passwords have to be eight or ten digits, mix numbers and letters, use both upper and lowercase, no asterisks or other punctuation, can’t repeat digits, and never on Sunday.