On line at walmart. I was supposed to be on a date with Ty to hear a cello soloist but he blew me off.
Wanted to play at the park with his friends instead.
I showered and put on a dress and eyeliner and everything but no bra
OK. I put the dress on so that after the cello concert Bruce and I could just take off for Date Night.
OK. I put the dress on so that after the cello concert Bruce and I could just take off for Date Night.
Dinner and a movie.
It's not a fancy dress. I wore it every day in Mexico.
Now I'm wearing it layered with a hoodie and scarf and leggings and my mom's old sweater.
It's a floor length dark brown knit maternity dress from Old Navy.
Very flattering and super comfy.
And no I am not pregnant
When Ty blew me off I felt stood up.
And no I am not pregnant
When Ty blew me off I felt stood up.
I thought about going to the cello concert by myself, but figured I should be productive instead.
If I stayed home, I'd feel compelled to clean but then I'd get my dress dirty.
There's no food in the house. We're even out of ketchup and the gerbils have been eating cat food for a week.
So. Off to Walmart. In my dress.
Walmart on a Saturday afternoon sucks. Walmart at any time sucks.
So here I am on line spewing into my phone and Fuck I forgot kitty litter.
Poor kitty is pooping in a half inch of litter...
OK. It's 5:08
OK. It's 5:08
I'm on the fastest line ever in the history of the tumultuous hell that is my relationship with walmart. The question is can I leave my cart on this line and get to the pet supply end of this airplane hangar and get back with kitty litter before it's my turn to get rung up. strung up. strung out.
5:09:34
Made it. Carrying a 34lb box and now my dress is covered with kitty litter dust. Fuck it.
*****
I'm waving the white flag of surrender. I'm giving up kind of on the fight.
I've realized it's a goddam waste of my energy to try and save the planet one local organic unprocessed unpasturized unpackaged meal at a time.
It's a frootloopless endeavor.
I've fought long and hard, but my resolve has been beaten back too many times and my troops are diminished.
I'm not home 3 evenings a week.
For 3 years my most awesome babysitter has been tortured by my food issues.
It's her responsibility to feed my kids dinner, yet I'm so conflicted in my food purchases that frequently she only has spaghetti and goya black bean soup and organic butter and illegal amish meat to work with.
And she, by her own admission, can't cook.
My Tuesdays and Thursdays I spend half my day cooking a Real Family Meal ending in an Epic Fail and lots of leftovers for me to take to work.
My poor kids are tortured by my food issues and they torture me right back.
Mom can we get Pop Tarts? How bout Fruit Loops? Or Trix?. Or Trix Yogurt?
How bout Hot Pockets?
Do you know the first ingredient in Hot Pockets is ham water?
What the fuck is ham water?
gross
I can't bring myself to buy that kind of stuff. I've tried, but then I look at the ingredients label and it's so fucking long.
So I allow them to eat Rocky Road ice cream for breakfast instead. And Oreos.
I just turn off my brain when I think about the partially hydrogenated double stuff that they love so much.
I'm the poster mom for Arbitrary Rules.
Yup. I'm fucked up.
Orthorexia Nervosa. Unhealthy obsession with "right" eating.
In my quest to solidify partially hydrogenate a budget, I looked at our food spending.
And this is what I've decided.
I'm gonna give the Most Awesome Babysitter a hundred bucks a week in food allowance.
They can do with it what they wish. This way her life will be easier, the kids will be happier, and I won't have a goddam nervous breakdown every time I open the fridge or stand in the frozen food aisle.
I can stop buying a gazillion dollars worth of food that doesn't get eaten.
And Bruce makes delicious yummy healthy organic mostly unprocessed totally dinners on the weekends.
That the kids love. I can take comfort in that.
Hopefully they'll respect the limits of my sanity and not come home with anything that will put me over the edge.
Or at least eat it all and dispose of the evidence before I get home.
We shall see.
oh my gosh, i love this post. the gerbils eating cat food and the poor cat in the inch of kitty litter. me too, right now, the cats, i keep forgetting to get it. i would've run too, in line. glad you made it. i do that a lot.
ReplyDeleteyour food issues make so much sense, the round and round. you make me laugh. your solution is perfect. you are a smart woman.
i just loved this post.
sorry you got stood up in your dress.
;-)
ham water made me laugh too.
ReplyDelete(your comment on my blog meant so much to me, thank you for saying that)
We have similar food issues. Sometimes I prefer to get takeout at a wholesome(ish) place, rather than try to cook it myself. My poor child. I won't buy many foods due to the ingredient scare, but then Other Half shows up on the weekend with Cheezits and we all scarf them down...
ReplyDeleteI love your solution, and envy you having someone to cook for you on the weekends. In my next life, I'm having a personal chef, or eating out every night. That, or I'll be a monk and eat rice and nothing else.
Al had a box of hot pockets in his hands yesterday, I took the quickest peek at the ingredients and said no fucking way. He got organic spinach and feta cheese pizza instead.
ReplyDeleteHam water! This cracked me up.
ReplyDeleteWe are now in a place where both boys are gone from the house, and we look at each other at dinner time and say, "How about an egg sandwich?" So our issues are different, but the same. In happy news, I have figured out how to make a tiny (for me) batch of chili in a cast iron skillet and NOT have it last more than a couple of days as leftovers. xxxoooo
You are me and I am you. Orthorexia nervosa. It's driving me mad. Perhaps I'll do as you do. DAMD (Do As Michelle Does)
ReplyDeleteNow I'm off to eat some chocolate chip pancakes with my kids.
Joe chases his dinner with a bologna sandwich and ice cream every night. He's skinny but I still haven't talked him into checking his cholesterol.
ReplyDeleteThe food allowance sounds like a great idea. I can't wait to see if it actually works out :o)
We are on vacation, as you know but there is a kitchen here so last night we were in the Publix (where shopping is a pleasure), trying to decide what to eat for our supper. We both thought of chicken pot pies- the kind we used to eat as children and yet, I wouldn't buy them. Why? Have you looked at the nutritional panels on those things?
ReplyDeleteAnd so we bought crab meat and dijon mustard and onion and garlic and celery and a red pepper and asparagus and rice pilaf and I made crab cakes and they should have been DELICIOUS but no, the crab was just this side of not-good and they were such a disappointment and I had gone to so much trouble and the point is-
WHY DIDN'T I GET FROZEN CHICKEN POT PIES?
I have no idea what ham water is but I know I adore you.
We've just learned that 4-year-old friend of a friend of mine has aggressive leukemia. It's very scary and sad.
ReplyDeleteSomebody said to my friend, "Did they let her drink soda? Did she only eat organic?"
I would have slapped that person. WTF?! I'm hugely obsessed with my orthorexia nervosa, but let's get real here, people.
Your kids will be fine. The only worry will be when they say, "McDonald's AGAIN?! I'm tired of that!" (as my godson did yesterday - and his mom nodded, and then bought it for breakfast again today)
Ham Water - bogus! Wal-mart disturbs me on the same level as casinos and bus stations. Places where the desperation is palpable. Not to mention the megatheocorporatocracy aspect of it.
ReplyDeleteGlad you have a most awesome babysitter you can rely on. Also, I've long been envious of your chef husband. I have been known to propose marriage to cooks in my various favorite restaurants. So far no takers!
We're all stuck on the ham water, obviously. Whatever. I like Hot Pockets. I'm still going to eat them.
ReplyDeleteI totally have Orthorexia Nervosa, too. Only I don't see it as a problem. Yet. Of course, this means that I'm binging on things without labels from the cafeteria at work. Donuts are great when you can't see the ingredients!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea!
ReplyDeleteI think I have a very similar problem. But I think it's MUCH easier over here to stay off the "bad" stuff - and then I go and spoil it all by having McD's or hotdogs.
But you are so right - delegate. No need to torture yourself.
I love hot pockets...but ham water? ewww. Yeah, I look at labels a whole lot more than ever (thank you Michael Pollan and Food Rules). I find that almost anything I buy that is either Kashi or in the frozen section at Trader Joe's is yummy and some how they forgot to add the ham water.
ReplyDelete