Easy as pie...

I have been writing very short stories here and here, so if you want something to read, be my guest and indulge. I've been using this weekend to catch up on such things and it pleases me very much to do so, because I get a chance to read what other people have written and comment on those stories as well. We short story writers need a lot of encouragement, although I think the true dedicated ones will write without it also, just for the sake of writing, as long as there is a forum for them.

Today is the glorious day of Sunday, the day on which no work is done, officially. I did clean up the kitchen and living room a bit before I sat myself down here, but I ought to do some dishes and it may be possible that I'll do those yet and a load of laundry. As long as I'm doing it out of my free will, and not because I'm compelled to out of a feeling of guilt, I think I can handle those few chores.

I've just used the last tall glass that was in the cupboard to drink my juice from and now I only have little glasses left, so I must do the dishes, because I refuse to drink from a little glass. I'm a true American and only want large portions of anything. I also drink my coffee from the largest mug that I have in the apartment and it is just big enough for a double serving of Senseo.

When offered a cookie, I always take two. One cookie is nothing. It hardly opens up your taste buds, but here it's normal to take only one. I think that's so Puritan. I think you really should eat four cookies at one sitting. Two at the time with your two cups of tea. That's not too much, is it?

When having people over for dinner, I think there should be an abundance of food and not just enough to go around. People should feel free to take seconds or thirds and you should never be in the position where you have to say to them that the food is all gone, except for the meat dish maybe, or if it is an individual fish portion. All other things should be piled on. You want people to waddle home and groan while they're doing it. I learned that while being part of a large American family and no, I wasn't overweight then.

Until I was forty, I was a comfortable size 10 in the States, or a size 40 In the Netherlands. Then I started to take anti depressives and anti psychotics and mood stabilizers and I gained a tremendous amount of weight, but nobody warns you about that or sends you to a dietitian to guide you through this process. I'm not the only one this has happened to. People gain 40 or 50 kilos on those medications.

Well, anyway, let's not look back on that too much, because it is water under the bridge and I am losing weight, but I had to lie my head off to get that gastric band.

I just had a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce and it was delicious as ever. They are just very small tins, but I can handle one of them. I always burp something awful afterwards and can't drink anything for half an hour or so. That would overload my system and I have to wait until the food has passed the band. Therefor all the burping.

I have been drinking a light vitamin juice, beside the regular vitamin juice that I drink, because I want to drink less coffee and it's nice to have a cold drink now that the days are so warm. The fact that it's a light juice, makes me feel not so bad about drinking it, because the regular vitamin juice is packed with calories. I have two glasses of that a day. I have two or three glasses of the light juice and an added benefit of that one is that it keeps you regular, if you know what I mean. A woman my age can use a little help. Another option would be prunes or prune juice, which are not as great.

I like it better than drinking the light coke, which has a lot of caffeine in it and no vitamins and I do want everything that I eat or drink to be healthy for me. Even my coffee has low fat milk in it and not a little bit either. I'm quite generous with it. I drink almost a liter of milk a day, so that's about a quart. Some of the milk goes to the cats who need theirs refreshed twice a day.

My, how did I get so serious all of the sudden? You'd think I was preparing a food manual. Maybe mackerel is brain food and my brain cells have been affected. I need something to make me funny fast. It's too bad I know only one good joke and even that one is of dubious quality.

I'm actually a quite funny person, you know. A la Monty Python, in a very silly sort of way. I like the ridiculous, like slapping people about the head with large fish and the department of silly walks. My son and I always used to do that one. He'd say, "Walk this way," and go off walking in a very silly way and I would follow him walking in the same silly way. He was a great Monty Python fan.

Well, now I'm going to do a few of those chores I was talking about. If I can pull myself away from the computer, that is. It's so addictive and then you get new emails that need to be answered.

Have a good rest of the Sunday and be restful, please.

Ciao...