Lunch Wars: The Underworld Of School Food*
Lunch Wars by Amy Kalafa is exactly what the book purports to be, a guide on “how to start a school food revolution.” Filled with facts about local produce, the business of school meals, the impact of nutrition on children’s behavior and overall well being, as well as practical advice on who to approach in your school’s food program when working for change, templates for letters and petitions demanding better lunches, and lists of resources to get you started, Lunch Wars is the ultimate how-to guide for building a healthier school cafeteria.
Kalafa takes what would seem to be a daunting task – weaning children away from sugar and snacks to healthy meals while staying on budget and getting the school system’s support – and breaking it down into manageable and logical steps.
She never claims that the transition will be easy, but her determination and success stories are inspirational.
When I started the book, I was pretty sure Kalafa was preaching to the choir, and while she was doing that with gusto, I wasn’t always enjoying the read. (When the idea of foregoing candy on Halloween for other sugar-free activities came up, she almost lost me.)
I am not a mom, but I have had my own experiences with school lunches as well as spending time in cafeterias as a substitute teacher.
In my elementary school, the “cool” kids brought their lunch from home. I went to private school my entire life, so bringing lunch from home wasn’t a show of money, it just meant that if you already had your lunch in hand, you were guaranteed a spot at the cool table rather than having to wait in the lunch line and risking that the only seats left would be on undesirable cafeteria real estate. We also always had half an hour for lunch, so time was never a concern.
In my high school (also private), lunch was included in the price of tuition, so everyone ate at school. Also, since my high school was populated with both boarding and day students, you could eat three meals a day there. Our lunches included the standard hot fare of pizza and fried burritos, but we also had a baked potato bar and salad bar. There were healthy options, and when one attractive high school girl takes a salad, the rest tend to follow.
(My school was founded on the motto “learning through living,” so at one time it had been an actual working farm with students tending to cows and going to class. That ended pretty quickly since taking care of a farm can be too time-consuming when there’s other book learning to be done.)
My high school remains ahead of the trend in the “lunch wars” by Kalafa’s standards. Today, students grow a garden on the grounds and sell their produce at a local farmer’s market throughout the summer.
With my experience based only on private education and wealthy school districts, and conscious of the socio-economic makeup that seems to dominate my Saturday visits to the farmer’s market, I had concerns about less affluent schools that have trouble finding money for books, let alone freshly grown produce.
As a former managing editor of a magazine, I visited a school in an under-served area when the kids were given a playground as part of a grant from Kaboom!. I kept thinking that if playgrounds are a hard sell, what happens to school food – especially when government regulations are involved.
However, Kalafa changed my thinking on that. Her examples and anecdotal evidence come from all kinds of school districts throughout the country. Her data and commitment are compelling, and the end of Lunch Wars convinced me that healthy eating must be a priority in our schools and culture. I began to re-think my own eating habits, and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in food politics and the ever-changing landscape of how and why we eat the way that we do.
(Not that I'm ready to give up all of my bad habits yet, Cadbury Creme Eggs will always have a special place in my heart.)
* This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.
In Other News
Please check out my upcoming creative writing classes in the left-hand sidebar. "Telling Your Story" will be a class focused on essay and memoir as well as general good-writing practices at Canterbury United Methodist Church. "Fundamentals of Creative Writing" is a broader course covering the basics of creative writing as well as both fiction and non-fiction genres offered through Samford University's After Sundown Continuing Education program.
My friend and former colleague Michelle Hazelwood-Hyde and I have also recently published a children's book for the Birmingham area entitled Night Night Birmingham. I invite you to check it out and also join us at our launch party at Oak Hill Bar & Grill on Thursday, September 15 from 5-8 p.m.
Thanks so much!
Gone Fishin'
Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I've gone fishin' -- in the figurative and not literal sense, and without the hat pictured below. I'll be back and (fingers crossed) ready to write next week. I'll also have the raccoon tan/burn affect that comes with wearing big sunglasses while you spend time in the sun. Please try to laugh only once I've left the room.
In the meantime, I wrote a little about BBQ awhile ago, but I'm afraid of the door I might open considering how many BBQ experts there are in Alabama. (And I wouldn't count myself among them. I just like to eat.) Read more here.
How To Make A Man Feel Special
The SO and I had our first date on August 2. We went to a Def Leppard concert, which is really another story for another day, but I will say that it was memorable. Believe it or not, when you don’t know someone very well, it’s uncomfortable to sit through “Pour Some Sugar on Me” sober.
“It’s kind of awkward that this song is so dirty, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah.”
I’m also not sure whether or not this means our song has to be “Rock of Ages,” but I try not to worry about it too much.
Later, when I realized that we might make it past the first three weeks of hanging out, I thought I would do him a huge favor and move our anniversary to August 1. Men are infamously bad at remembering dates, right? So, if I turned our anniversary into the first of the month, how much easier would that be on him? Plus, I kind of passed my romantic phase at the age of 23, so the 24 hours didn’t really bother me.
(Maybe it’s not that my romantic phase went out the window, I just decided that remembering umbrellas, putting dishes in the dishwasher and letting me watch chick flicks on occasion was more important than flowers, chocolates or limos. My love languages are quality time and acts of service. It turns out that gifts are way down the list. I also have no problem using gift cards and coupons on dates. I consider that smart, not cheap.)
Fast-forward a few months. When I happened to mention that I was looking forward to our August 1 anniversary, the SO looked at me funny.
“Our first date was on August 2nd. What’s with this August 1 stuff?”
“I didn’t really expect you to remember the day,” I said and then explained my reasoning behind the little shift.
“Are you saying we have a real anniversary and an observed anniversary?” he said. “Is this like what happens when the 4th of July falls in the middle of the week but your boss wants to make sure you have a long weekend?”
At first, I think the SO thought it was a way for me to get more gifts – that he might have to honor the two anniversary nights instead of the one. Or, maybe, he’s just a good guy.
Either way, every year I hear about whether I’d like to celebrate our real anniversary or our observed anniversary. I usually go for real – unless it’s easier to get reservations on the observed one or something like that.
I’m totally normal.
My Cans
Here's a little story that I told back in April of 2008.
I am a diet soda addict.
Rare is the day that I have less than two diet drinks (Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper are my two favorites, but I'm also likely to enjoy a Diet Pepsi from time to time), and sometimes, when it's dark (in that emotional "how will I get through the day" kind of way) and I haven't gotten enough sleep, I'll drink up to three. After 4:00, when I don't allow myself caffeine anymore, I might even try a Fanta Orange Zero, Sprite Zero or Diet Sierra Mist because I just like the way fizzy drinks taste.
It used to be that, when the diet soda cans built up on my desk, it didn't bother me to stick them in the trash when no one was looking. Of course, that was before we went and did a green issue of Lipstick. After reading about the ozone and lessening my carbon footprint and energy-efficiency and local eating for four weeks, I can't even think about throwing away those cans without finding myself awash with guilt (and shame from the judging stares of Tina and Nadria).
Unfortunately, between my addiction and my busy work schedule, I had ended up with about 25 empty aluminum cans on my desk. (It was starting to look like I time-shared my desk with a frat boy, only being that Diet Coke was taking over and not Miller Lite, I guess he would have been the most boring brother in the chapter — you know the one, you'd probably ask him to do your homework before you asked him to join you at Innisfree on a Friday night.)
When one of my co-workers from HR walked in, peeked at my desk and said, "Have you heard of water, Laurel?" I decided it was time to take action. On my lunch break, I went over to the recycling center on 25th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue North. And, what a lovely time I had — seriously. It was so easy to sort my cans and plastic bottles, and once I was done discarding the evidence of the carbonated monkey on my back, I took apart the cardboard box I had transported the cans in and recycled it, too.
In five minutes at the recycling center I accomplished far more than any other lunch break I've had. (Unless, of course, you count the time I was challenged to a corn stick eating contest over at John's ...)
Not Where You Want Your Hand To Go
As I’ve mentioned before, my stress level really tends to show itself at the gas station. Apart from typos I normally wouldn’t miss, an occasional tendency to flip out over what the dogs should or shouldn’t be doing (God help my children if I ever have any) and a mild conviction online shopping can fix my problems, it really takes the service station to bring out my state of mind.
One of my latest trips to fill-up was no exception. Despite my successful efforts to pay at the pump, start the gas flow and even clean out my car, when it was time to leave, I found myself without car keys.
As a pro at losing my car keys, even I was flabbergasted as to how I could have lost what some of my friends refer to as a “janitor key ring” in such a small space and window of time.
After going through the entire car and walking the convenience store, it began to dawn on me that there might only be one place to look. And that one place was also the last place anyone would want to look – the trash can at the pump.
More scared than I’ve been since the last freakish horror movie the SO asked me to watch, I approached the plastic waste bin. Peering over the edge, all I saw at first was the lack of a trash bag and the dark, dirty sides of the trashcan. Within a few seconds, empty Mountain Dew cans and gum came into focus. Then, without fail, I saw the edges of what looked like both my keychain library card and my CVS rewards nob.
There was no denying that if I ever wanted to leave the BP station, I was going to have to go in – barehanded.
As someone with more disinfectant in my purse than cash, it was not a proud moment. Next to dumpster diving and the bins of disposed needles in the doctor’s office, I can imagine few garbage receptacles less appealing than the one at the gas station where they sell porn.
There was lots and lots of hand-washing – surgery-prep style – as soon as I got home.
What might be even worse is that this isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I had to rescue my keys from the trashcan at Goo Goo car wash a few months ago.
So, I leave you with this:
1. Keys are special. Don’t only learn to appreciate them once you’ve had to dig past the accumulated waste of all your fellow road companions.
2. The woman shoulder-deep in the gas station trash bin isn’t always crazy. Sometimes, she’s just really, really tired and should have had caffeine before pumping gas rather than waiting to buy her Diet Coke at the station.
Hot Times In The City
I have a knack for getting myself in trouble in the heat.
When I was 16, I had a mild heat stroke at my parents’ country club on July 4th weekend. I had gone with them to work out when I got slightly overheated. (It’s possible that my failure to exert myself physically in the previous two months might have had something to do with it, too.)
After sitting in front of a fan for 15 minutes or so, I decided to go to the snack bar for something to drink. That’s when I proceeded to faint and start vomiting -- in front of about 30 kids and their parents enjoying the pool over their holiday weekend. Oddly enough, if you know me, throwing up doesn’t bother me, but throwing up in public upsets me immensely. My legs were wobbly, and I was covered in some throw-up and shame. It was every teenager’s dream.
My father found me, scooped me up like a child and carried me to the car, so we could go home.
At 18, as a freshman in college, some friends and I were on our way to the first football game of the season when someone started complaining about the heat.
“You can’t think this is bad,” I said. “You should try living in Alabama.”
Well, I might as well have shot myself in the foot because it wasn’t even 30 minutes later that I had an EMT student checking my vitals and recommending that I get back to my dorm before I had a real heat stroke.
Here comes the weird part of this story: A friend of mine decided to help me back to the dorm, and to do so, she had her arm under me for support. We were ambling along when a frat boy on his way into the stadium yelled, “Lesbians!”
It’s not that I was offended; I just think it’s really strange. It was almost like he thought he was on a road trip and should point out interesting specimens on route to his friends. “Oh my gosh, did you see that deer by the side of the road?” Only this time, his fascinating find was lesbians?
Surely a college male has seen women and women that are close to one another before in his life. Also, everyone else was already in the stadium. There was one, count it, one, person, to hear him, and if he really wanted to be offensive, I’m sure you can imagine the terms we would have expected to hear.
My friend thought his behavior was very rude and would have liked to tell him so, but since I was having a little health issue, we tried to turn it around. We agreed that we would make an incredibly attractive lesbian couple, took it as a compliment and moved on.
However, the hottest I can ever remember being is in the summer of 2003. My friend Annie and I had purchased around the world plane tickets and were on the last leg of our global tour in Italy. There was an infamous heat wave in Europe during the summer of 2003 – to the point that the train was often delayed by melted sections of track.
We were in Venice, and we checked ourselves into the hotel we’d found in our guidebook. Being 23, we thought we’d save money by staying in a hotel without central air.
This was not a good idea.
As Annie later said, “The next time we see a woman lose consciousness in the lobby of a hotel as we check in, it’s probably a sign that we shouldn’t stay there.”
After dinner and some drinks, I feel fairly confident in saying that I then spent the most uncomfortable night of my life trying to fall asleep in that sauna they called a hotel. At one point, I even got up in the middle of the night convinced that a cold shower might save my sanity.
I stepped into the icy cold water only to have it switch to burning hot water within three minutes. I stepped back out of the shower and waited. A few minutes later, there was more cold water, and I climbed back in. Then the hot water came back.
I couldn’t even find cold sink water to save myself. By the time the morning came, I was an angry and nearly insane person.
“We said we’d stay here for two nights,” Annie said.
“I don’t care,” I said, when I decided to speak. I was so angry with Mother Nature or the world or our guidebook – you can pick one --- I didn’t even want to talk. “I don’t care what we have to pay. I can’t spend another night in this misery.”
“But they have our passports.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Believe it or not, I am normally a nice, non-confrontational person. Most of my bad thoughts are just that, thoughts, and when I recount long strings of crazy, confrontational statements, it’s what I wish I’d said, not what I actually did.
This was a different day.
After we had packed, I walked into the hotelier’s office. I had money to pay her for one night in cash and was hell bent on a passport for cash trade. “We’ll be leaving now,” I said. “I’d like our passports back, please.”
“You made reservations for two nights,” she said.
“We changed our mind.”
“But you said you would stay for two nights.”
“Your shower runs boiling hot on the coldest setting.”
“That happens sometimes.”
“That happens sometimes?” My voice was rising at this point, and I thought I might lose it. I wanted to ask where this happens. I thought most of the Western world had conquered plumbing and faucet settings, but we were in a very delicate place in our negotiations. I’d also seen her turn towards the cabinet where our travel documents were, and I wanted to keep what little of my wits I had left since I was pretty sure I was going to get what I wanted.
“In the summer. It is hot here in the summer.”
The idea of a physical attack briefly crossed my mind. As if I didn’t know that summer was the hottest month of the year? Instead, I nodded.
She brought the passports over; I basically snatched them out of her hand, gave her cash with my other hand and was at the door before she could say anything else.
Annie said a little “Thank you,” while I told her to book it out the door before the conversation could go any further.
Still angry – heat makes you crazy, there’s a reason the South has so many more crimes of passion than other areas of the country – we went to find lunch, and half a pizza and some white wine later, I finally felt human again.
Annie found us a great hotel for that night. It was more expensive, but you have no idea what I would have paid for a bucket of ice, let alone an air-conditioned room at that point. When we opened the door to our new room, and I saw a thermostat I could control on the wall, I think I cried tears of joy.
My advice to fellow travelers is to pay attention to those hotel ratings in travel books. Two stars are not enough, three is cutting it close and you will pay in so many non-financial ways if you’re not careful.
Also, if you ever really need an enforcer, deprive me of some AC for a few hours, and it’s like having a hive of angry hornets at your disposal.
When You're Not Out In The Club
Weekend before last, I went up North to hang out with my friend Jane* and meet her new four-month old baby. Our friend Rita joined us, and we had a great time together. On the Saturday afternoon of our weekend, we decided (or really the one of us who is actually a mom decided) to hire a babysitter so that we could go see Bridesmaids (loved it, wish I could be Kristen Wiig, must move on now).
When we got back from the movie, Rita and I decided that it was wine time. This set us off on a slew of questions:
Was the babysitter 21? The answer: yes.
Should we offer the babysitter a glass of wine? I mean, we’re Southern, so it feels rude not to ask, but she is the babysitter and has to drive. We went with “no” on that one.
Is the babysitter going to judge us for drinking at five? Does she think we’re the lush friends of our suburban mom friend? The answer to that one is probably a sad yes.
I could have sworn that yesterday I was babysitting to supplement my income (and due to the Great Recession, “yesterday” is probably closer than you’d think), and suddenly I was on the other side of the babysitter scenario. I do not know when this happened. (In my head, I’m 17. Seriously. I just wish my face would stop giving me away.)
The next day, the babysitter came back so that Jane could drive Rita and I to the train station and the airport, respectively. While I was trying to hide just how much wine S and I actually drank the night before, we struck up another conversation with the babysitter.
“So, did you go out last night?” Rita said.
“Not really,” the babysitter said, “I was pretty tired.”
I decided to ask my own questions about where she liked to go and what there was to do around town.
And then it happened. I should have seen it coming, but it was a little like a freight train – not really welcome, but unstoppable. Within five minutes of what should have been a very innocuous conversation, I started to relive my “glory days” that were, if you know me well, not really so glorious. (I thank the magazine writer who put a piece in something I read about how she spent most of her early ‘20s in a bar bathroom stall crying about some dude or other before getting her act together. It gave me far more hope than any older adult or mental health professional at the time.)
Before I knew it, Rita and I were on a little bit of a roll. These are the kinds of phrases that came out of my mouth:
“I actually had a fake id that said I was 30 for awhile. It came complete with a social security card. Can you believe that?”
“Hey Rita, remember when I used to have a beer or two while I wrote my summer school papers? Did I really think Latin American economic policy and Bud Lite were a good mix?”
“What was that guy’s name we met in Adams Morgan over Spring Break? Didn’t somebody make out with him?”
And my favorite, which I believe I threw in there as I was walking out the door (a parting gift if you will):
“Don’t worry about having a gay ex-boyfriend or two. It happens to all of us.”
?!?!?!
In a way, my hope is that the babysitter got bored and stopped listening to us pretty quickly. Otherwise, I have a sinking suspicion she went home that night hopeful not to turn into the older crazy lady that was disposing of wine bottles and reminiscing about her borderline-indecent going out wardrobe from college.
*Names have been changed.
D.C. Trip Part One: In Which We Barely Make It Out Of The Airport
This past weekend, Volvo graciously sponsored a trip for me to return to my Alma mater, Georgetown, and watch one of the biggest games of the season, Georgetown v. Syracuse.
Our trip began with a two-hour delay due to winds in Baltimore ... [Read more]
My Top 5 Car Care Pointers
I don’t think this will come as a surprise to most people, but I am a very neat person. I love storage bins – easily identified thanks to my handy label maker. I enjoy doing laundry, and I might consider my steam mop more than just a cleaning apparatus – it’s kind of like an anti-bacterial friend ... [Read more]
Most Awkward First Dates
In my dating life, there have been a number of unfortunate moments. And I may or may not have once inadvertently forced some wait staff to stay long past their shifts were over because no one wanted to tell the crying girl at table 7 the restaurant was closed, but since I decided to limit this post to first dates, here you have it:
1. The World’s Shortest Date
Shortly after I graduated college, I met a man who was out with some guy friends of mine. He was in D.C. to interview for a job on the Hill. He asked for my number so he could call me when he moved to town. I gave it to him thinking, “I’m sure I’ll hear from this one.”
But, strangely enough, three weeks later while I was shopping in the Safeway, my phone rang. “Laurel, it’s Joe.”
Luckily, he was kind enough to give me some context clues because I had no idea who Joe was by then.
“Anyway, I got that job,” he said, “so I was thinking I could take you to dinner once I got up there.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, and we made plans for an upcoming Thursday.
Joe came to pick me up, and we decided to walk to a restaurant in my neighborhood for dinner. We ate, talked about what might have happened to Chandra Levy, and he walked me home. From doorstep to doorstep, it took all of 45 minutes.
“How about I give you a call this weekend when I know what I’m up to?”
“Sure,” I said, knowing full well that phone call would never come.
Maybe the real me didn’t match up to the memory, but I’m not sure what I did to warrant holding onto my phone number for three weeks only to end up being someone Joe didn’t even want to spend an hour with.
2. We Shouldn’t Have Talked About Music
Date #2, who we’ll call Dan, was an office fix-up. Now, in my opinion there is little more awkward than the office fix-up. It’s pretty hard to say “no” when Sue from HR or Tammy from accounting wants you to go out with their adorable nephew or wonderful son when they know you’re single. There’s never a good excuse (especially if you did not create a pretend boyfriend on day 1 of the job), and you usually just have to go. Also, if it goes wrong, as it usually will, you quickly go from being the cutest girl in the office to the evil heart breaker who thinks she’s too good for everyone.
While Dan was watching me eat nachos on our date (he couldn’t have so much food because of a recent surgery), I turned to the gold standard of dating small talk – music. Since “With or Without You” happened to be playing overhead, I said, “I really like U2.”
“What?” he said.
“I really like U2.” I even pointed upwards thinking he would somehow catch the music playing in the background even though he couldn’t hear me, and I was sitting right next to him.
There was a long pause.
“Oh, uh, I like you, too,” he said.
Then an even longer silence set in – partly because I was embarrassed and partly because I really didn’t know where to go from there. I also didn't like him that much, so half an hour into our "relationship," it was already based on a lie.
When he walked me to my car after I made up an excuse to go home before 10, I literally said, “Good luck with everything” and gave him the double pistol shoot with my hands to make sure there was plenty of space between us as I got into the car.
If there’s ever a biopic of my life, I’m hoping that moment of social genius doesn’t make the cut.
3. There is little shame like the shame of being judged at the Olive Garden
My first date was a double date with another couple. While I’m sure the other couple was brought along to make the situation less uncomfortable and awkward for me and my date, well, we all know what they say about the best-laid plans.
The couple my date and I were doubling with had recently gone through a break up due to some cheating but had gotten back together.
After our 45-minute wait at the Olive Garden, we were seated. We ordered our meals. Things seemed to be going well. Then, the trouble began.
I’m not sure how the cheating came back up, but as the waitress was delivering our food, my friend said, “You know Mike, if you aren’t happy with what you had, you’re welcome to send it back for something else.”
“No, I’m perfectly happy with what I have,” he said.
“Well, you certainly don’t act like it. Maybe you’d like something newer and more interesting.”
“No, no. I like what I have.”
This conversation went on much longer, but my date and I were able to finally signal to the bewildered waitress that she could deliver the food and walk away. (The metaphor was not nearly as clear to her, and she kept offering to ask for changes in the kitchen.)
The fight culminated when my friend slapped her date. In the middle of Olive Garden.
You’d think it’s impossible to bring everyone to a dead halt in a chain restaurant, but just like that, you learn that it isn’t all that hard after all. Everyone was looking at our table. The room was silent.
My date and I spent the rest of our meal staring into our plates of spaghetti. On the ride home, my friend and her date “made up” in the back seat for most of the trip. Needless to say, we didn't go out again.
Not to point any fingers, but this may be one of the reasons it took me about 15 years to get a better handle on the dating thing.
Staying Up Past My Bedtime, The Economy And Crepes
It turns out that a lot can change between a decade and a systemic economic collapse. Last week, Volvo challenged me to write about my top picks for late night eating near my Alma mater. While this would seem like a really easy topic for someone who likes both food and late nights as much as I do, let’s just say time and geography have not been on my side in this one ... [Read more]
Save The Skeet
When I was younger, we took a lot of family vacations that were combined with various lawyers’ conferences. At nine, I took my first trip on a plane, and we went to Disney World. It was awesome (and that’s only talking about the plane trip), and since my dad took me with him to pick up some papers in the hospitality area, I had some unexpected and treasured one-on-one time with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
For fourth grade Spring Break, we went skiing. I liked skiing, but what I remember most from that trip is boarding the chartered bus that would take us from the airport to our condos and being surrounded by attorneys demanding a stop to buy booze on the way. (I kid you not when I say there was an actual chant at one point along the lines of “li-quor store, li-quor store.”)
However, it was our trip to the Greenbrier in West Virginia when I was 11 that was my favorite vacation by far. It was July, and I loved everything about the place. There were huge indoor and outdoor pools as well as a bowling alley and movie theater in the hotel. (How is that even possible?) The Greenbrier is also one of the few places I know of where you can practice falconry even though my dad wasn’t handing over the money for that one.
Also, being 11, I was right at the cut-off age for the kids’ activity groups. (At lawyer conferences, it’s very important to separate the children from the adults as soon as possible so that networking and happy hour can commence immediately.) While at first I resented not being able to go with the 12 and older set, once I made a friend, we, armed with our respective sisters, ran the under 11 group. The popularity and power were intoxicating. People fought for the right to sit at our dinner table – where we enjoyed three-course meals and used all of the correct silverware so as not to shame our professional parents.
This was also around the time that the news was beginning to break that there might be bunkers for government officials built in various strategic locations throughout the country in the event of nuclear war. The Greenbrier was a prime candidate, and my sisters and I liked exploring the resort hoping to break the story wide open.
“I think I see a tear in the wall paper over there.”
“Does the wall sound hollow to you?”
Superb detectives we were not. Good shuffleboard players? Yes.
At 16, we went back to the Greenbrier, but it wasn’t quite the same experience. By then, the Greenbrier had admitted to its underground bunker, so it was very cool to actually tour it. On the other hand, trying to reconnect with my lawyers’ conference friends from five years earlier didn’t exactly go as I had hoped, and I was full of the expected teen angst.
I spent most of the week lounging by the pool and reading The Virgin Suicides.
My father did want us to participate in one day outing as a family, and it happened to be skeet shooting. He figured it was one of the safest ways for us to learn to use a gun. (Even though we’re not gun owners, as anxiety-driven people, we do feel compelled to know how to do all things in case an emergency should ever arise. The killer drops his weapon? Be prepared to take charge of the situation. Not that a shotgun is often used in burglary and/or stalker-confrontation moments.)
Anyways, being as I was, full of teen angst and toying with vegetarianism, I was fairly dead set against not going. I looked my father straight in the eye and said, “Doesn’t anybody think about the poor skeet? Why should they be sacrificed for sport? The poor things.”
“Laurel,” my father said, “skeet are clay pigeons. Clay.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I guess you’re coming with us?”
“I guess so.”
I’m sure my father has never been more proud that he paid for all of that private education.
Toy Story What?
So, is this a product marketed towards children or very, very short frat boys?
Cargo shorts, sunglasses and what looks like a Tervis tumbler? Either somebody's dad still wears his class ring and works out in tees from his '99 Beta formal, or this kid showed up with some scary, scary eyes on the day of the shoot.
One Resolution I Won't Be Making
As we all know, I tend to think that we all have limited supplies of certain virtues or abilities, like patience, and every so often, we need a refill.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling that way about my creativity. No new ideas. No outside-the-box thinking. Not even adjectives with more than two syllables. I kind of figured I’d run out of this year’s supply and would probably need to wait for 2011 for some good stuff – knock on wood. (Or mediocre stuff. I’d take either at this point.) So far, I haven’t had much luck.
Fortunately, the SO, in a lovely show of support for my writing, gave me a box full of journals, pens and other fun stuff for Christmas. (He also included The Art of War for Writers, which would only be his fifth attempt to get me to read anything related to Sun Tzu, earlier versions including the plain old Art of War, Art of War flash cards, a mini-book/abbreviated version of The Art of War and The Art of War for Women at Work. Do you think he might be trying to tell me something?)
Moving on, one of those gifts is a small book shaped like a block called, wait for it, The Writer’s Block. (How I love those clever marketing gurus.) It comes complete with 786 ideas to jump-start your imagination – and a hilarious attack on The Bridges of Madison County, which I might have appreciated more than the ideas.
The first prompt I turned to was a jump-start word. So, with that in mind, here we go with “diet.”
I have never been good at dieting. Of course, until I was 19, I didn’t need to. I could eat whatever I wanted. I was that person with a naturally high metabolism that I now despise. I’ve covered this before, but since I lost 15 pounds my freshman year and ended up with a sunken in face, I actually needed to gain weight in the summer of ’99. Luckily, I took a job at a Mexican restaurant, so between that and my boyfriend’s all carb/athlete diet, I gained back those 15 pounds and about 15 more. For the first time in my life, I was overweight, so I turned to Slim Fast.
I gave myself two weeks to get rid of the weight, so I was on a bit of Slim Fast extreme. I remember sitting at Chili’s (a family favorite back in the day; the Mills love an awesome blossom) with my head on the table. “I’m just so hungry,” I said. “So, so hungry.”
But, I wouldn’t give up, and by the time I got to Georgetown to start my sophomore year, I was back to my self-imposed ideal weight of 118 pounds. (Just writing that number is hard for me right now.)
I was fine again (mainly because I spent too much of my budget on clothes rather than food) until I took my first office job. That’s when I learned the hard way that if you sit all day and make regular trips to the vending machine, you will not exactly stay thin.
When I literally split a pair of rather expensive capris ($105 is a lot to pay for pants that are going to take both your money and your dignity), I looked myself in the mirror and decided it was time to take action.
Unable to afford a gym, I went back to Slim Fast for breakfast, Lean Cuisine for lunch, a piece of toast as a mid-afternoon snack, some kind of dinner and hour-long walks around my neighborhood. Most of my waking moments were devoted to the thought, “I’m so hungry,” but after a few weeks, I got the affirmation every woman wants:
“Have you lost weight?”
(One thing I don’t allow in my house is a scale. I go by the way my clothes fit. Scales just depress me, and I make the nurse hide my weight at the doctor’s office, too. I have only seen my weight twice in the last seven years, and both times were by accident.)
I was content again, and sure that I would remain my lovely size four self forever. A few years later, when I gained some depression weight, my father got me a personal trainer. (Yes, I used to work out six days a week. Strange, but true.) It seemed that there was always a simple solution.
Then, I turned 25, and my metabolism died. I also realized that I was faced with a choice. Having an addictive personality is not always the most fun. I can speed through jigsaw puzzles, but when it comes to food and exercise, addictions can be ugly.
During the days when I worked out six days a week – hours of cardio alternated with weight training – all I could see when I looked at food was a number. A bowl of soup wasn’t a tomato bisque, it was x calories and required x number of minutes on the elliptical to take it off. Gatorade was 120 calories. Worth it or not? And don’t even get me started on desserts. I started to realize that I could either enjoy food or actually remain a size four for the rest of my life. I admire people who can stick to regimens. (Really, it's more awe than simple admiration.) I had to make a different choice.
These days, I’m a pretty content size eight, and I like it that way. Plus, a nice mini quiche on a holiday party platter looks like a delectable snack without the number 220 (or worse) floating above it.
Eating and living healthier? Always a worthwhile goal. Personally, I just prefer to stay away from the "d" word -- I don't need another avenue to show my OCD tendencies.
I Already Gave At Home
I have often discussed the pitfalls of working from home – my inability to apply makeup, thinking of black yoga pants as business casual attire, sometimes prioritizing the shape of my eyebrows over a writing project – but even with the downside, there is one thing I will never miss about working in an office.
That thing, my friends, is co-workers trying to force their kids’ school fundraising catalogs down your throat.
Maybe that seems overly angry to you. Maybe you think I don’t like children. Or fundraising. But, the truth is, and I think any honest, sane person would admit the same, that I am sometimes sick to my stomach thinking of the $15 cheesecakes, rolls of $8 wrapping paper that only cover two gifts and Mary Kay blushers I’ve been guilted into purchasing.
It always starts innocently enough. “I’m just going to leave this brochure in the break room.”
But when sales get sluggish, the cubicle-to-cubicle approach kicks in. “Knock, knock.” (Not that I’ve ever had an actual office door.)
“Hi Linda.”
“I noticed you haven’t placed an order for any amaryllis bulbs yet. Would you like to get some now?”
“Oh, gee, Linda. I don’t have any cash or checks on me.”
“That’s OK. You can always pay me when the order comes in.”
“Well, I’ve really got to get this project to the boss before 5:00.”
“That’s OK, too. I’ll just leave this on your desk for awhile.”
“No, really, you can take it.”
“Oh no dear, I’ll be back for it later. Take your time.”
And we all know that if you don’t order something, said co-worker will only return later with a more powerful weapon – the uncapped pen and hover. I have tried to slip catalogues into mail boxes, I have refused to go into the office kitchen and I’ve even lied about allergies I don’t have, but somehow, I still end up buying something from one of those booklets.
“I’ll just put you down for two [fill in the blank],” Linda and all the other nameless, faceless office mates have always said.
And don’t even get me started on the holidays, when everyone in the office has a kid with at least one fundraising project. You can spend $100.00 before lunch if you’re not careful.
There is only one acceptable food for your child to sell and that is Girl Scout cookies. Girl Scout cookies are tasty. They cost $3.00/box. I would probably sell some of my relatives for a case of Thin Mints. This is a worthwhile and reasonably priced fundraising item.
Giant tubs of cookie dough, dream catchers and cheese baskets – at a 75% mark up – are not.
Worried your child will be disappointed that he or she isn’t the top seller in the class? Life is tough, and guess what? The electric company doesn’t accept scented candles as a form of payment. I would rather go to the Dollar Tree and buy your child a tub of sidewalk chalk or sheet of stickers that is probably comparable to whatever shiny item is being dangled in front of a second grader as a reward for selling enough pineapples to get that soccer team to a tournament in Selma than fill out one more form.
I am childless, and I pay property taxes – there’s my contribution to our schools. Please keep your entertainment books full of coupons only valid on Tuesdays between 2:00 and 2:30 to yourself.
But if you have Tagalongs, well, then we can talk.
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