Death by Discourse

Have you ever felt that the words were out to get you?  "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!"  Oh, but they will.  They will hunt you down and wreak their vengeance upon you. 

Yesterday, during my "clean all the things!" phase, I was opening the stack of junk mail one by one and running it through the shredder. I came to one not so special envelope from Chase Bank, poked my left index finger into the side of the adhesive flap, and ran my finger along it to open the envelope, and GASH!  I'm not talking about a little wimpy annoying paper cut.  Oh, no.  I am talking about the paper cut to end all paper cuts.  It bordered on the line of being life threatening.  It bled and bled.  Instead of cutting perpendicular to the surface of the skin, it cut parallel, leaving a lovely piece of skin that I now cannot live with, but cannot live without.  I washed it, put ointment on it, and applied a band-aid.  Threat neutralized.  Right?

Wrong!  Just when I thought I had escaped the wrath of the written word, the spoken word came after me.  Today, I was standing in my boss's office explaining the logistics of transferring a reappointment application from Crystal Reports to a PDF, then to Word to sidestep the mysterious text box picture issue, it happened.  "As you can see, I printed the sample form on the back of some scrap Paepaeurrr since we're just going to edit it anyway..."  The word "paper" decided to be pronounced with a terrible fake French accent.  The word had a life of its own, and an animosity toward my sense of confidence and composure.  I certainly didn't choose to say it that way.  I'm pretty sure my boss thought I had lost my mind, or at least my control of it.  I got a funny look, and I dredged along through the rest of my explanation.  Sabotage. 

Maybe words are seeking to settle the score, since they are all too often mauled and misused by the average person.  Who can know for sure?  At this point, I am going to avoid alphabet soup, since I do not want to choke to death.  All this time, I thought we were friends, Mr. English Language.  I feel so betrayed.  So deceived.  At least now I know where I really stand.

Indian Princesses and Time Machines

I was a citizen of the good health community today. I went to the gym, despite the blustery and rainy winter weather that promises to be no stranger to Oklahoma this season. I put in thirty minutes on the treadmill and thirty minutes on the elliptical. This was no ordinary elliptical. It was of the variety which has moving handles, so you don't feel like you're at the gym. Oh, no. You feel like you're on some four-pedaled bicycle, trying to cycle your upper and lower halves into a fabulous new you.

While on the elliptical, the pictures of delectable foods in my Women's Health Magazine (irony?) and my lack of self control convinced me I simply must have a banana. So I went to the grocery store.

I got adventurous at the Neighborhood Market Walmart. In the snacks isle, next to the beer, I found Veggie Medley. It is a blend of crunchy vegetables, with what is much like a chip texture. There are green beans, taro- which I had to look up but is apparently a white edible tuber- sweet potatoes, and to my surprise, indigenous North American women. That's right, “squas.” Squa is an accepted alternate spelling for squaw. Sure, it is possible that the food label editor had the day off, or spell-check was turned off... more likely though, there is someone at Waymouth Farms Inc. who has a vendetta against Native American princesses. Far more likely, right? As for the product, I say two and a half stars for flavor, four stars for effort. I quickly found that the taros were my favorite part, so now, my Indian Princess Medley is sadly taro-free.

Since the only meat I eat is fish, it is difficult to get enough protein most days. This brings me to the soy nuts I discovered. For a mere 130 calories, three tablespoons will get me ten grams of protein! This came for me during a dark night. If I had to eat another protein bar, I was going to weep.

While I wrote this post, I sampled the trail mix, Indigenous Woman Medley, soy nuts, and yes, even a banana. I'm pretty sure I just ate more than I burned off on the elliptical/time machine. Did I forget to mention that one of the features of this elliptical is time travel functionality? Welcome to the future.