2004-05-15 - 9:16 p.m.
Moment of Whimsy

I was opening one of those new "Betty Crocker Complete Meals" tonight, all the while thinking that it still seems total overkill to just be cooking for myself now when I'm used to cooking five portions at once and watching three of them disappear down my brother's gullet whilst gulping the other two because I know if I leave leftovers he'll eat them tomorrow while I'm at work and damned if I'm going to let him eat FOUR fifths of something paid for with MY money ...

Oops, got off on a tangent again there. The real secret of my weight gain these last few years, yeah? I've dropped about five pounds in the last couple of months since I finally stopped stocking food at the apartment altogether, and then moved out. Hah. Maybe in another year or so I'll be back to college weight ... that was something like 30 pounds ago, though people tell me you'd never notice it on my frame. In fact, I still keep getting called "thin" at 185 pounds! Even on a tall woman -- 5'9", in my case -- I wouldn't call that "thin". But it seems like the more I put on, the more pronounced I get in the T&A regions (a full cup size in the last two years), out of proportion to the rest of me, so they never notice that my waist is a size or two bigger, too. How lucky am I? Argh. I won't miss it when it's gone again, really; it's more trouble than it's worth. I certainly won't miss not being able to fit into my favorite dress anymore, even if it does give me serious cleavage in some of my newer dresses. Because, hey: I won't miss getting leered at, either. Hello, look up! It's like when I first got glasses, in high school -- it changes everybody's reactions to you, but they don't usually even realize that their reactions HAVE changed. Very annoying.

Oh, still on a tangent. Right. Well, so I was opening up the "Complete Meal", when I noticed this little line of text on the top: "Better If Used By 16Oct04". Normal, right? I tore it open, dumped the contents out, and started searching for the glass bowl to put it together in when it caught up with me: "Better". "Better If", no less. Since when have they stopped putting "Best When Used By" on things? Are they telling me it's never going to be in a "Best" condition, so "Better" is what I'll have to settle for? Or, conversely, that the thing is so loaded with preservatives that it never goes entirely bad, so you CAN eat it safely past the date and it won't affect the taste too much, but they don't want you wondering why there ISN'T a date on it? Because that scares me, too. Like when my parents bought that used camper ten years ago, and found cans of juice and such in the cupboards with expiration dates back in the 60's. Did the previous owners actually keep that stuff around with the expectation of using it? Frightening.

So, yeah. I'm in the new place. It's still very ... new. I have most of my things unpacked, except for a few boxes still piled up on the dining table and the stack of collapsed boxes in the living room. It's entirely and utterly quiet almost all of the time, except for the vibration of the bathroom fan from downstairs, which for some reason they never turn off. Huge change. I haven't actually watched more than ... let me count ... about five hours of television in the last three weeks. I used to get that much a DAY, because my brother never turned the [censored] thing off. I can't tell you how much difference that has made to my peace of mind. I have a feeling it's going to take a lot longer for the faint ringing to entirely go out of my ears, though. I can't believe he talked me into leaving my desk right next to the television all that time, when his was all the way across the room, and my hearing is way more sensitive than his is.

I'm going to stop that train of thought there, because that mental voice I have that sounds a lot like Madman is saying, "Shell, you let him walk all over you! You should have kicked him to the curb a LONG time ago!" It's almost as annoying as the mom voice: you know, the one that's always nagging you to eat better or pick up after yourself. And just to clarify here, I'm not talking actual voices, voices; not crazy! You know what I mean. And I'm not in the mood to berate myself tonight.

Speaking of berating. How many of y'all watched the Survivor All-Stars finale? And the follow-up episode? C'mon, who out there DIDN'T know that Rupert was going to get the second million dollars? He's the most popular Survivor there is, for lots of reasons; personally, I kept thinking "Hagrid" whenever I saw him, and his personality was appealing, in a straightforward kind of way. But the lecture that everyone gave Rob before voting his girlfriend to get the first million was highly entertaining to watch.

Something else: when I saw Johnny so-called Fairplay in the studio audience during the follow-up episode, I remembered seeing him during the reunion show for Survivor: Pearl Islands, bragging he'd be in All-Stars. Jeff Probst (the host) made some smart remark Thursday about him still being bitter about not getting into All-Stars after all, and I had to wonder if his shooting his mouth off had been what disqualified him from it in the first-place. He certainly was Survivor's best villain, even better than Rich from the first season in Borneo, which you'd think would have guaranteed him a place under Survivor logic, that is, imprisoning the most controversial mix of strong personalities possible in one small place for five weeks. You just KNOW they've got contracts out the wazoo to keep people from spilling anything about locations or participants before CBS is ready to announce the relevant details, so even if he HAD been picked, his mouthing off could have booted him from the roster.

The next one ... they still aren't saying who, but the did announce that Survivor 9 will be in Vanuatu. I thought immediately of KaDee when I saw that. She's married now, with three kids, and her husband is what people tend to refer to as a Missionary Kid (and you can hear the capital letters when they say it, too; it's practially a cultural label all its own). His parents were in Vanuatu for a lot of years. Wonder if he'll be watching this season? His ethics are a bit weird from the way he was raised, so I don't know if reality TV is on the taboo list or not. Premarital [censored] wasn't, but again, weird ethics. So you never know. If I can find KaDee's telephone number, I'll have to give her a call soon.

Better sign off now; dinner's about ready to come out of the oven. Guess I'll get to test my suspicions about the date-label for myself.

Blessings,
--Shell