Odds and Ends

I resisted it as long as I could...but Count me now among the young professionals who work too much. I’ve had a rough few weeks, and that looks to continue this week. How some people make a life out of this kind of schedule on a regular basis, I don’t know. But they are to be both congratulated and pitied.

Here are some highlights of what you've missed the past few weeks:

• A back injury Mother’s Day weekend (from playing basketball) that left me near bed ridden and hobbling on the big day.* Michelle still managed to get some nice gifts, and I even stayed home from church with Jared. Given the degree of difficulty of a cripple watching his 2 year old son for three hours alone during one his most active times of the day, it almost made up for me not taking care of the other things she’s come to expect of me on Mother’s Day, but then not really. (Still, I bet I fared better than another not too removed from us who purportedly decided on his own that he wasn’t going to do anything for his wife on Mother’s Day – since he figures it was a holiday Hallmark must have invented to generate more revenue. Perhaps your inclination too is that he maybe should’ve sought out a second opinion or two before he decided take a stand against materialism on his wife’s holiday.)**


• I took my first deposition, having never even seen a deposition before. I spent most of the time trying to convey anything but the impression that it was my first deposition. I'm sure that made my errors seem all the more like foolishness. Only afterward did all my superiors let me in on the dirty little secret of depositions: many, if not most, deponents lie, and many times there’s nothing you can do about it.
  
• I have been craving peanut M&M’s for weeks. And yet I cannot bring myself to spend $2.44 on a 1 lb. bag at Target. (We are under new budgetary constraints and, what's more, I'd surely eat the whole bag within an hour). On the other hand, the regular 50 cent size bag would hardly be big enough to whet my appetite (and besides, the 50 cent bag costs 65 cents and Ralphs). It’s one of those difficult situations in life that I don’t see any easy solution for. In the meantime, though, I’ve managed to suggest a bag of peanut M&Ms as the ideal gift just about anytime Michelle has asked for my input: birthday? Peanut M&Ms. Graduation gift? Peanut M&Ms. Baby Shower? A nice heaping bag of Peanut M&Ms. Seriously, rather than spending $50 on clothing, gift certificates, or DVDs, who wouldn’t be absolutely blown away to instead get $50 worth of Peanut M&Ms?


• Jared has transitioned from a crib to a bed. To give him incentive to nap in the bed, we offered him a prize: take seven naps in your bed and we’ll make you a cake and throw a party. He did it. So last Saturday, at his insistence, we had a purple cake (with candles) and watched the Lion King. Jared wanted us to sing him “Happy Birthday to You” but Michelle, sensing the moment, opted instead to lead to two of us in a chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Up until then I didn’t think anyone actually sang that song anymore.
• One of my favorite days of the month has recently become the day the electricity bill arrives. After years of leaving our main computer on all the time we started to wonder if something was wrong when our neighbor's electricity bills were often nearly $20 lower than ours. Since we've started turning that computer off when we don't use it, our electricity bill has honestly gone down 33%. (For the last few days I've been trying to build up the courage to propose to Michelle the idea that we earmark some of those saved funds for peanut M&Ms -- or maybe even create an M&M category in our monthly budget. I'm just waiting to catch her in a moment of weakness).


• I made time for the season finales of “American Idol” and “Lost” last week. It might not be safe to admit this, but I actually voted (for the first time) for Katharine McPhee last week. The saving point has to be that I only really did it to spite Michelle--who thought Taylor deserved to win.


• And lastly, I had enough time away from work today that we went swimming for the first time this year, and found time to fire up the grill to cook some tender steaks. I can’t be sure whether it’s my mastery of the grill or Michelle’s perfect preparation of the meat, but steaks have rarely tasted better. Adding to that grilled corn on the cob, watermelon, and nacho cheese Doritos (as well as a Klondike bar for the post family home evening treat) and you have yourself a Memorial Day to envy. The only thing that might've made it just a bit nicer is if we’d had some peanut M&Ms.

*By the way, I get almost no sympathy for my basketball injuries any more – no matter how debilitating. Michelle seems to have become desensitized to them. Before I would come home hobbling and she’d rush to my aid pleading “Is there anything I can do?” Now she just takes one look at me and jokes that I'd better not waste any sick time at work for it. It truly is a sad state of affairs in the Clark household.

**In the interest of full disclosure, I am the guy who tried to argue, unsuccessfully, that my wife, at 5 months pregnant, was not technically a mother yet and thus I was under no celebratory obligations.

One More For the Road

I like to spend quality time with my son in the evenings.  I’m can’t be sure what this might mean for other fathers, but lately for me it’s meant taking Jared on a walk with me to the grocery store across the street (Ralph’s) to peruse the day old bakery rack, and the cereal, cookie, and ice cream aisles.  On the way there and back we look for rabbits, and I usually let him ride in one of the grocery carts made out to be a race car.  He and I are of such a like mind now that he is the one asking to take a walk down the cereal aisle if I have spent too much time in front of the day old rack.* It’s our bonding time.

It may be hard to believe, but Ralph’s is still trying to clear out its Easter candy inventory. Granted there isn’t much left: spiced jelly beans, opened and/or broken (and perhaps half eaten?) chocolate Easter bunnies, and some devilish looking “Orange Créme Peeps” (I’m sure whomever came up with that idea no longer works for Peeps—because I can’t see those things selling at any price).

So given the sad state of the Easter candy bins, I certainly must’ve come off as one of those creepy guys from the wrong side of the tracks when I started digging through the candy bins trying to find what treasures there were at the bottom.  And oh were there treasures!  Tonight I found some Reese’s Easter Eggs, Snickers Easter Eggs, Dove Chocolate Truffle Eggs, Cadbury Caramel Eggs, and a few choice (and in tact) Easter bunnies—one of which was filled with Reese’s peanut butter and the other which had a Hot Wheels toy car inside the chocolate. Michelle must’ve been half crazed because, not only did she let me put all of these things in our otherwise barren grocery cart, she was right there digging with me!

I still had sense enough to feel a little embarrassed when I brought all of this candy to the checkout.  I tried to avoid eye contact with other customers in line who could see what I had in the cart, and then felt the need to make an awkward joke about feeling a strange need for Easter candy, nearly a month after Easter, to try and cover my tracks.  The checker saw right through me.  I’m sure he’d seen my kind before—probably even worse.

Ah, but it was all quality family time.  There’s nothing like spending time with family.

*The latest temptation:  a 3 lb. party plate of brownies bites, regularly $14.99, but on the day old rack for $5.  Tonight there were two of them.  I actually had one of them in my cart, but unfortunately Michelle was with me.  She could not see any scenario by which have that many brownies in our home would be a good thing.

Anatomy of a Failure

Here is the transcript of my introduction to group at the Gluttons Anonymous meeting:

[Rising to his feet sheepishly from his chair, Aaron, with his eyes staring at the floor in front of him, addresses the circle of people sitting in their chairs around him.]

Hello, my name is Aaron, and I am a glutton.

[Droning response from the crowd “Hi Aaron”]

I’ve been clean for three days—though I’m not sure I’ll make it through the end of the evening tonight.

Last week was atrocious. My wife and son left to spend some time with my father-in-law, leaving me at home alone for three days. My evenings quickly devolved into marathons of watching Smallville and finding out how much Easter candy I could pack away before it stopped tasting good.

By Sunday morning, before eating three pieces of strawberry cheesecake that evening, I knew that I needed to start over again Monday morning.

[The others seated nod in approval, with more than a hint of understanding and sympathy. Aaron now feels comfortable enough to lift his eyes slightly as he addresses the group].

Monday started remarkably well. You see, I often blow it on Mondays, sabotaging my efforts before they ever really get going. That didn’t happen this week. Instead, I anticipated I’d be REALLY hungry when I got home from work, and decided ahead of time that I’d eat ½ an apple with some peanut butter. It was a brilliant move. AND before I had a chance to overeat in the evening I got on the exercise bike and nearly set a record—burning 552 calories and riding 10 miles in 25:47.

[Various expressions of mild surprise from the crowd].

That made getting through the rest of that first evening without eating the rest of my 75% off Easter candy relatively easy. I went to bed so pleased with myself that I felt almost certain of success the next day.

Tuesday again started well. I was up before dawn and, before, long I was again pounding out miles on my exercise bike. Then oatmeal for breakfast and another ½ apple with peanut butter. I packed my lunch and headed to work feeling invigorated by the exercise and my lofty goals.

After my first few hours at work, though, it was a different story.

[Murmurings of understanding from the crowd.]

The more I thought about how good I felt at work, the more I realized how little I had to feel good about it. This always seems to happen to me when I make earnest efforts to start over, as the weight of my countless previous failures hangs over my head with constant whisperings of my foolishness for thinking I could break off the chains of my bad habits so easily. The more I wanted to rejoice in my 36 hours of near eating and exercise perfection, the more that unwelcome little voice mocked me for thinking I could keep up the current pace—or for daring to think that this week would or could be any different from five consecutive months of failure.

After battling internally all morning (and after eating my lunch at 10:30 a.m.), by 1 p.m. I was depressed. I went home for an unexpected ½ hour lunch, hungry, and feeling defeated. I escaped having only had 2 pieces of peanut butter toast, but from the way I felt they might as well have been ice cream sundaes.

[murmurings of from crowd get a little louder. Someone even lets out an errant “Amen!”]

It took a miracle to not tear through all of my Easter candy last night—even now I’m surprised I didn’t. Somehow, though, after eating a handful of chocolates I paused long enough to regain a modicum of control, and stayed away from the cupboard the rest of the evening.

This morning I exercised again, had a bowl of oatmeal (and a peanut butter apple) and struggled through work. Shortly after dinner I ate some candy and figured all is lost.

So that’s where I am tonight, still slightly hungry and constantly scheming on whether I should just try to eat all of the 75% off Easter candy now to get it out of the house [a favorite excuse of mine]. I have enough sense tonight, though, to know that any exceptions I make for myself tonight will only become the rule tomorrow night, before I abandon the rules entirely by Friday night, descend into madness on Saturday, and start the cycle again on Sunday. That’s how it’s gone for months (and even years) at a time, and it seems kind of foolish for me to think there’s anything particularly different about this week.

But I’ve made it this far. My name is Aaron, and I’m a glutton.

[Raucous applause as Aaron sits back down, futilely trying to hide a grin. He is among his own kind]