Cake/Pie Day
It's my birthday!
Moments before Noon, I was returning home with my family and a carry-out order from Subway in tow. As I passed through a familiar neighborhood, I noticed a familiar mailbox. The mailbox was also a fish.
I began to wonder what sort of person would actually go to the bother of replacing their mailbox with an awesomely goofy mailbox. Based on real estate signs and moving trucks, I knew that these people had moved in about 2 years ago and based on seeing stuff I knew that the fish went up about 6 months later. But why?
Then, a thought occurred to me! I suspect that very few people actually buy novelty mailboxes for themselves. I can't prove it, but I think that at least 99% of all fish, horse, and cow-shaped mailboxes are gifts. That's the only way it could work. I mean, I'm often silly but doing something that really just bothers the mail carrier every day is far beyond my range. It must have been a gift.
And that is the story of how I made a thought today.
You might think I'm going somewhere with this and I want to head you off right there. Maybe Charlie got a weird birthday gift and he's trying to figure out how to politely not post his mailbox? Nope. I haven't been blogging much lately and I promise you won't find anything that coherent here today.
Vacation
Speaking of thoughts, I should mention why I'm blogging at 3:00 in the afternoon instead of slowly, haltingly attempting to update some computer software for my employer. Slightly more than 3 years ago, I made a thought.
Background: like many people, I don't generally use up all of my vacation time. This isn't because anybody is pressuring me, it's because I'm a hoarder - which is stupid because my excess vacation days are annihilated at the stroke of midnight on Dec 31. It's also because I sometimes feel a bit shy asking. If, for instance, I wanted to go scuba diving in a giant ocean sink hole, I would be fine. But, when I want to take Friday off because my brain is dead and I just want to lay in the grass and not think, then I'm embarrassed to ask because that isn't awesome. Also, I think my employers might be a little afraid that I'd be using idle-looking time to organize some sort of uprising or power grab or exodus or something. (*cough* Which I'm totally not!)
The Thought: I should make my birthday an official holiday. Asking for your birthday off is beyond reproach. You can schedule it waaaay in advance without worrying that something will cause plans to change. Also, I think birthdays create in other people a desire to do nice things, like give employees the day off, no questions asked.
And thus, for the last few years, I have taken my birthday as a vacation day. Not only has it totally eliminated guilty feelings for screwing something up job-related on my special day, but I also get to play and have fun. This year I decided that the vacation should be viral and I gave the person that watches Greg during the day a paid holiday too - which makes me feel fancy.
Julie is working this afternoon, Greg is presently asleep, and I'm dusting off the blog.
Science! Experiments Stuff I'm Sorta Trying
I'm experimenting with intermittent fasting via the 5:2 diet. If you are not familiar, this is a diet where you pick two non-consecutive days of the week (e.g. Monday, Thursday). On those days, you don't eat. Actually, you are allowed 500-600 calories on the fasting days, but last time around I ate about 300 calories worth of olives, carrots, and roast for lunch and that was it.
The first two fasting days absolutely sucked. Especially the second one. After that my body no longer complained. It's easy. Which is actually really unsettling. I figure the biggest thing to look out for is an eating disorder.
I weigh myself first thing in the morning after the not eating day and I've been losing about a pound from one fasting day to the next. Because it isn't every day and I can wiggle the fasting days around social stuff, it's the easiest diet I've ever been on. The biggest downer is that it seems to provoke a strong reaction from some people when they hear about it - which does make me feel kinda bad.
Speaking of eating, I've also decided to like olives. I read that they are "good". The hitch is that until a few days ago, I was not at all a fan of olives. Presumably, my distaste of olives was born of ignorance and I decided to give myself a proper education.
Aaaand, it's working! I've been eating lots of olives every day. I made very clear snacking guidelines that require me to eat olives before other stuff. Now instead of tasting non-descriptive flavors: "bad", "boring and bad", "weird", "too olive-y", etc. I instead taste actual olive flavors. Sadly, I don't know words for them. At any rate, I'm excited because I read that olives are "good".
Oil pulling is another weird thing that I'm doing right now. One or two times a (non-fasting) day, I will swish sesame oil around in my mouth like it's Listerine. For 20 minutes. It seems like a really long time to swish, and it is, but I got used to it. According to traditional Indian ayurvedic medicine, this will pull all sorts of horrifying toxins out of my body via my mouth. I think that is complete BS. However, I did read that lots of people saw big improvements in the health of their gums after lots of oil pulling. My gums could be better and, following some unimpressive results, I've grown somewhat skeptical of both floss and brushing. Now I do all three. I have been at it for about a month and a half. I'm pretty sure floss does something. Not so sure about the other two.
I think we're done here, so I'll finish with a flourish. Here is a picture of Greg!
Moments before Noon, I was returning home with my family and a carry-out order from Subway in tow. As I passed through a familiar neighborhood, I noticed a familiar mailbox. The mailbox was also a fish.
I think it looked bass-like.
I began to wonder what sort of person would actually go to the bother of replacing their mailbox with an awesomely goofy mailbox. Based on real estate signs and moving trucks, I knew that these people had moved in about 2 years ago and based on seeing stuff I knew that the fish went up about 6 months later. But why?
Then, a thought occurred to me! I suspect that very few people actually buy novelty mailboxes for themselves. I can't prove it, but I think that at least 99% of all fish, horse, and cow-shaped mailboxes are gifts. That's the only way it could work. I mean, I'm often silly but doing something that really just bothers the mail carrier every day is far beyond my range. It must have been a gift.
And that is the story of how I made a thought today.
You might think I'm going somewhere with this and I want to head you off right there. Maybe Charlie got a weird birthday gift and he's trying to figure out how to politely not post his mailbox? Nope. I haven't been blogging much lately and I promise you won't find anything that coherent here today.
Vacation
Speaking of thoughts, I should mention why I'm blogging at 3:00 in the afternoon instead of slowly, haltingly attempting to update some computer software for my employer. Slightly more than 3 years ago, I made a thought.
Background: like many people, I don't generally use up all of my vacation time. This isn't because anybody is pressuring me, it's because I'm a hoarder - which is stupid because my excess vacation days are annihilated at the stroke of midnight on Dec 31. It's also because I sometimes feel a bit shy asking. If, for instance, I wanted to go scuba diving in a giant ocean sink hole, I would be fine. But, when I want to take Friday off because my brain is dead and I just want to lay in the grass and not think, then I'm embarrassed to ask because that isn't awesome. Also, I think my employers might be a little afraid that I'd be using idle-looking time to organize some sort of uprising or power grab or exodus or something. (*cough* Which I'm totally not!)
The Thought: I should make my birthday an official holiday. Asking for your birthday off is beyond reproach. You can schedule it waaaay in advance without worrying that something will cause plans to change. Also, I think birthdays create in other people a desire to do nice things, like give employees the day off, no questions asked.
And thus, for the last few years, I have taken my birthday as a vacation day. Not only has it totally eliminated guilty feelings for screwing something up job-related on my special day, but I also get to play and have fun. This year I decided that the vacation should be viral and I gave the person that watches Greg during the day a paid holiday too - which makes me feel fancy.
Julie is working this afternoon, Greg is presently asleep, and I'm dusting off the blog.
I'm experimenting with intermittent fasting via the 5:2 diet. If you are not familiar, this is a diet where you pick two non-consecutive days of the week (e.g. Monday, Thursday). On those days, you don't eat. Actually, you are allowed 500-600 calories on the fasting days, but last time around I ate about 300 calories worth of olives, carrots, and roast for lunch and that was it.
The first two fasting days absolutely sucked. Especially the second one. After that my body no longer complained. It's easy. Which is actually really unsettling. I figure the biggest thing to look out for is an eating disorder.
I weigh myself first thing in the morning after the not eating day and I've been losing about a pound from one fasting day to the next. Because it isn't every day and I can wiggle the fasting days around social stuff, it's the easiest diet I've ever been on. The biggest downer is that it seems to provoke a strong reaction from some people when they hear about it - which does make me feel kinda bad.
Speaking of eating, I've also decided to like olives. I read that they are "good". The hitch is that until a few days ago, I was not at all a fan of olives. Presumably, my distaste of olives was born of ignorance and I decided to give myself a proper education.
I really should have written down the names.
Aaaand, it's working! I've been eating lots of olives every day. I made very clear snacking guidelines that require me to eat olives before other stuff. Now instead of tasting non-descriptive flavors: "bad", "boring and bad", "weird", "too olive-y", etc. I instead taste actual olive flavors. Sadly, I don't know words for them. At any rate, I'm excited because I read that olives are "good".
Oil pulling is another weird thing that I'm doing right now. One or two times a (non-fasting) day, I will swish sesame oil around in my mouth like it's Listerine. For 20 minutes. It seems like a really long time to swish, and it is, but I got used to it. According to traditional Indian ayurvedic medicine, this will pull all sorts of horrifying toxins out of my body via my mouth. I think that is complete BS. However, I did read that lots of people saw big improvements in the health of their gums after lots of oil pulling. My gums could be better and, following some unimpressive results, I've grown somewhat skeptical of both floss and brushing. Now I do all three. I have been at it for about a month and a half. I'm pretty sure floss does something. Not so sure about the other two.
I think we're done here, so I'll finish with a flourish. Here is a picture of Greg!
Greg energetically embraces a new experience: oat bran.
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