nutrition

awesome article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?ex=157680000&en=ec2685fd6c213846&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

For a Christmas present, Steve gave me a weekend at the Hotel Monaco, downtown, assorted spa services at Ummelina Day Spa, and a luscious dinner out, so long as I invite someone who's not a man. Hours of internal thought musings completely unchecked by drive frame intervals, auto-behave loops for countertop wiping, or sibling rivalry instruction-set interrupts... wow. Where does the mind go? Round and round, round and round.

As luck would have it, there was some kind of storm, and the wind made it pretty undesirable to walk the streets of the city. I leaned across the street to the public library. I had a nap. I got to my spa appointment (facial). I made it to dinner (luscious) and I had epiphanic realizations of the smallish-but-good order. Composed 4 pages of an artist's journal and like 5 pages of a photo album. Read some. Pretty fantastic. Pretty much exactly what I needed.

I have to admit I'm kind of suspicious of spas. Like,

Wet Cat Posters

Why do so many people find it amusing to look at pictures of cats being ladled out of a pot of spaghetti, doused with a bucket of water, or wearing a football helmet made out of a grapefruit rind? My scientific survey shows that 28.8% of U.S. citizens paste these photos to their office doors or refrigerators or frame them for their desks. We all know that there are cat people and there are dog people, and clearly cat people make up the majority of compromised-cats photo fans. But why are these images so funny to them?

Is it because cats are the most humor-impaired creatures on the planet? A dog has a good sense of humor, by contrast. If you pounce on the floor and say “arf” to a dog, it will paw at the ground, jump all over you, and generally take up the game with as close to a giggle and guffaw as you can get. A cat will scratch your eye out and dangle it in front of your still seeing eye before you can say “meow,” “whuh?” or pray to God that your epidermis may be spared a ninja hailstorm. A cat’s idea of a good joke is to bite the head off a squirrel and put an acorn in its paws.

So why the wet cat posters? My theory is that people are kind of mad at the cats that they love so much, and it feels like vicarious revenge to see a cat bear the brunt of a stupid prank. Say, a loving cat owner bends down and says “Hello putty tat, come here so mommy can scwatch your widdle tummy” and the cat says, as is its wont, “F you, I gotta go rip the hellouta some $80-a-yard drape fabric.” Well then, the cat loving person can just walk over to the fridge, see the picture of a cat looking like it just survived the Exxon Valdiz of water spills and all the anger melts into renewed love for Felix.

The Proverbial Gingerbread House

Come to think of it, I could pretty much title any photo that I'm likely to take of these two with the starting words "The proverbial." The proverbial Christmas morning. The proverbial first day of school. The proverbial supermarket meltdown. The proverbial mommy mixing another martini -- ahem, carbohydrate-enriched mood enhancer.

This photo is actually a pretty accurate portrait of their inner states. Sam's beaming with the innocence of childhood. Abby's getting ready to mess wit yo head. 

Hey, so this is a first, um, post. Let's see how short I can make it. Bye!