ila: my across-state move sucked balls, so i can't even imagine how much mo
Kimberly: Woo, almost a month late! My first car was a '98 Dodge Neon. I got
Lauren: I don't know why but I'm always good at shutting this kind of thing do
Lauren: Yay house! twitter tells me you're still working on it, but even so! (
Having been a child raised on packets of Hamburger Helper, boxes of Jiffy muffins, and canned green beans, it took a long time to be exposed to foods in their... you know... natural states.
It wasn't until I moved back to California in my mid-20s that I first experienced avocado in its natural state. The very first time I got one, I sliced it into thin strips and ate them with scrambled eggs and coffee as a spur-of-the-moment Saturday brunch. Every bite was a revelation; a delight. From that day forward, I was utterly smitten. Now I regularly carve one in half and chop it up to toss on top of dinner or lunch, or simply spoon scoops of it into my mouth as a snack.
I gotta be honest, I dread reading blogs this time of year. Hell, I dread reading anything this time of year. My inbox is full of Groupon deals for raw food cleanses, workout bootcamps, and fat-melting injections. My feed is full of folks avowing their weight loss resolutions, fitness goals, and strict diet plans.
And I? I am full of prickly venom, wrath, and scorn.
I am also full of a sense of irony that I am blogging about how I hate reading about dieting on other blogs.1
When I booked my tickets to Detroit, the email confirmation read “Republic Airlines on behalf of United.” This made me frown slightly, for Republic is not among the airlines at my tiny Santa Barbara regional airport, nevermind the fact that I’ve never even heard of such a company. So when I arrived at the airport I figured the United counter was my best bet. I swiped my card at the kiosk and the screen told me to go check in at Frontier Airlines.
Sure, why not.
While I was standing in line to check my bag at Frontier Airlines, I overheard a lady from the Alaskan Air counter ask a traveler in the terminal if her name is Lyn. “I’m Lyn,” I called to her, and she brought over the boarding passes for my two flights. “You could have checked in with me!” she mock-scolded.
“Okay?” I said.
Later, as the man at the gate scanned my pass and handed me the stub, he looked me in the eye and said, “Go through the doors and to the left. Look for the plane that has 'Midwest Airlines' painted on it.”
"Okay?" I replied.
It was only when I was strapped into the plane that I noticed my tickets had “British Airways” printed on them.
I was on my seventh circuit around the kitchen table. Past the rotary telephone mounted on the wall; below the tiered wire basket holding one lonely and very overripe banana; making a hard right at the cupboard where the off-brand Cocoa Krispies bought especially for me were kept; steering wide of the sink that reeked of loamy well water; past the stove you had to light with matches and the rusted refrigerator; and under the dangling fly strip.
Eight. Nine.
Stop.
“Grandma, I’m gonna go outside,” I announced to her back as she hunched over the sink with a vegetable peeler in hand. “Don’t stay out too long,” she replied. “We’ll have Popeye when you get back.”
“Okay!” I called, already bounding down the steps, through the breezeway, and outside. The screen door had just whooshed shut behind me when I stopped dead in my tracks to wonder: Popeye?
Today there was an office holiday luncheon downstairs in the break room. For thirty minutes, I stayed upstairs at my desk, ignoring it. I knew exactly what was going to be spread out on those folding tables without even looking, because every work luncheon features exactly the same preservative-riddled delights purchased in bulk from Costco. The only thing that ever changes is what color of seasonally-appropriate frosting they slather on the goods. Who knows what even goes into that heavy, icky stuff? Ugh. I was better than that damn luncheon, dammit.
But after thirty minutes of enjoying how clever I was, I went in the bathroom and braced my hands on the counter. I leaned into the mirror and took a good, long look at myself. The sickly yellow potlights in the ceiling above cast my features in stark relief. I gazed at every harshly-lit pore, every wrinkle, every wayward nostril hair. And then I knew.
My god. I've become a food snob.
