Eating a third, frozen chocolate chip cookie from a zip lock baggie in the freezer did not help me decide what to write about this week. But it did convince me that my diet vows are, at times, pointless drivel—particularly the one I made last night in front of my daughter when I proclaimed that I would not allow anything unhealthy to pass over my lips during the next seven days.
Obviously that diet declaration fell out of my mouth and onto the floor, where it scurried under the bed to hide among the dust bunnies—and with it my baker’s logic that if I put cookies in the freezer, I would be deterred from eating any.
Who was I kidding? They taste better frozen.
Come to think of it, I put the blame for my latest across-the-board junk food wagon ride squarely at the feet of the two potato chip and chocolate bar addicts whom I took camping with me this past weekend.
Both of them carried around a beach bag full of forbidden snack food at all times, with goodies often fanned out in front of them like a dealer’s hand in a game of Blackjack.
Before I knew it I’d gone from a lettuce and carrot salad menu on Friday afternoon to an hourly intake of Tootsie rolls, salsa-flavored potato chips, Hershey’s chocolate bars, and cinnamon buns by Saturday morning.
So as I sat here in front of the living room window on the holiday Monday in August, flexing my typing finger and watching my stomach inch its way outward and over the top of my jeans in protest of my latest foodie over-indulgence, an unknown dog of large and lanky measure appeared on the grassy knoll at the edge of my property line I share with my new neighbors. It sniffed about and promptly peed upon my blue spruce seedling.
My flat stare expression pressed up against the glass and my rapping knuckles went unnoticed except to the four little birds merrymaking in the grass, that I startled and sent in a flurry straight for me.
I ducked as the birds hit the window. Fortunately for my yet-to-be- allotted window budget and the birds, my fine-feathered friends flew off unscathed, save a few less downy feathers.
One would think I had just shouted ““SQUIRREL!!”
Most of the time the noun is my roll call to the dogs to help drive said rodent up a tree when it’s been spotted stealing sunflower seeds from the birdfeeder.
It also works as a “cat-a-lyst” when “Ozzie” the feline is lining up his stealth move against the lone finch I’m trying to save from his clawed grip.
The sudden commotion sent my own canine capers, which were sleeping soundly in the kitchen, into a barking frenzy that reached the ears of the four-legged scoundrel and sent it high-tailing back across the county line.
But I digress.
There I was standing at the living room window, lamenting no storyline for my column, overdone by too many cookies, my hair looking like the “Wrath of Kahn” and with enough static in it to wipe out a radio station, as I smeared sunscreen all over my face and neck before I headed outside to cut the grass with Big John.
Then the telephone rang. On the other end was a potential employer seeking me for a job interview in the next 30 minutes.
Was it some kind of weird loyalty speed test?
Regardless, I jumped at the opportunity to impress and made a mad dash for the bedroom and the one set of dress pants I owned.
I nearly took my own breath away when I looked in the mirror at my emerging “Don King” hairdo, and the creases around my eyes and that of my chicken neck streaked with white sunscreen residue.
And for the first time in nearly 14 weeks I got down on my knees and thanked the floor that I didn’t have a husband walking through the door right then farming for a kiss.
The budding single life does have its perks.
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