In the Thicke of it

YOU GUYS, my radio keeps saying stuff like, "The tenth caller will receive an invite to a roof top pool party with Robin Thicke! Whooo!" or whatever and my brain goes right ahead and autocorrects Robin to Alan and then do you know what my brain does? It immediately has me being the tenth caller (even though I do not know what station I am listening to, or what the phone number would be, and also I am driving and couldn't find my phone this morning but NONE OF THIS MATTERS) and then I am at a party where Alan Thicke and I are riding the train from Silver Spoons (nowhere near the roof edge, don't worry) and talking about how weird Kirk Cameron got. It could happen.

That is me in the green, there. (Okay, not really.)

I am totally aware that Growing Pains and Silver Spoons are two entirely different shows, but in my mind, all 80s TV is interchangeable to an extent. They are at least neighbors. They are each other's kids' emergency contact, even if they are third tier, after grandparents who live out of state.

My brain is awesome at making big, amazing leaps like that. Also, I don't know who Robin Thicke is, which helps. I stopped absorbing new information about celebrities in 1997. On February 21st, approximately.

Also exciting is that we started watching Under the Dome and even though we are only done with the first episode, I am super concerned re: the absence of Pauly Shore. At the absolute very least, he and Carla Guigino should be standing in the background of a shot, tending to some cows or whatever. That was some serious hilarious opportunity wasted, and I do not respect that. There was a chance for some Under the (Bio-)Dome and they didn't go for it. I feel like following the decision makers around and yelling "Boooo!!" like that old lady who publicly shamed Buttercup in The Princess Bride. She knew what was up.

I did very much enjoy that they employed a Steve Baldwin as a minor character (Resident/ Rough Patron.) For one very happy minute IMDBing, I thought it was the Baldwin of BioDome and I was all Fist Pump! but, no. Still good, though. Maybe I'll shelve the Boo-ing.

Today, I went to Target. It was a luxurious trip, which means I went ALONE, and not just alone, but alone after a weekend of solo parenting, which means bringing the kids everywhere with you, so, for example, getting milk is a 45 minute long (minimum) exercise in seeing how many times you can say "do not LICK that" in public. So things like going to Target alone or taking a shower and either not hearing a major crash or, at the very least, knowing that if you DO hear a serious crash and breaking glass and whatever, you can be assured that it is being dealt with by a competent adult, and that that competent adult is not the mailman that your son asked in and who came in worried that you'd left your five year old home alone when, no sir, you actually were just taking a shower which would explain why you now have soap in your eyes and you are squinting here in a towel.

But I digress.

ANYWAY so I was at Target. And while I was at Target, a little girl, whom I would put at 3 years old, came barreling around the aisle mouth holding her butt and yelling, "I have to poop!" in increasing levels of panic. Following her a moment or two later was her slightly older sister, who grabbed her around the waist and yelled, "Stop yelling!" (I enjoyed the irony, personally.) Anyway, the three year old (understandably) freaked out and the intelligible "I have to poop!" went out the door and was replaced by growling and generalized yelling while the five year old started hauling her away.

At this point, the mom rounds the corner, talking rapidly into her cellphone, and tells her kids to knock it off and be quiet, and I am reasonably sure that she has no clue that her daughter has sent up poop emergency signals at threat level Alpha (I checked the codes: It goes to Alpha when they hold their butt while yelling.) since she missed the intelligible portion of this show, and only came in for the wrestling and shouting part. So, do I say anything? "Ma'am, sorry to interrupt your phone call, but I, person who is currently without her kids and so who is not currently carrying her parenting membership card which would make this statement less creepy, wanted to let you know that a moment ago, your daughter there was holding her butt and yelling 'I have to poop.' And we all know that the butt holding is threat level alpha, am I right?" I am pondering this, while appearing to read a label (but not really reading the label) when the kid solves my problem for me and starts up with articulate "I have to poop!" again. Yes! It is now out of my hands.

But... what's this? The mom takes the phone away from her mouth and says, angrily, "I asked you if you had to go before we left the house and you said no, so now you're going to have to wait!" and goes back to her call.

INSERT RECORD SCRATCH NOISE.

Okay. I try not to be parenting judgy, because I have for sure had my moments, but... really? Not to get all literary, but I am pretty sure that Jane Austen said "It is a truth universally acknowledged that any child who is screeching 'I have to poop!" and clutching their butt is going to take a crap right in their pants in the middle of Target if you do not RUN to the nearest restroom, which is all the way on the other side of the store behind the customer service desk."

Not everyone reads Austen, though, I guess.

I am sorry to say that our paths then took us in different directions and I do not know, nor did I smell, the end of this story. Alas.

Quitter.

Hey, guess what? Metamorphasis was not my bag. Surprise! It really did get too Kafkaesque after a while. I would 100% rather be lifting actual weights and running instead of having a dance-based seizure and calling it exercise. Also, the pull toward disordered eating was strong and I don't want to go down that road because life is too short.

Accomplishments!

When I say "accomplishments" up there in the title with a jaunty and excited exclamation point, you are thinking, "Whoa! This Tracy Anderson Metamorphasis junk works, huh?" Well, not really. What I mean by "accomplishments!" is that I remembered to out on pants before I walked the kids to school this morning and then I mowed the lawn for the first time since the time I ran over and underground wasp nest and then ended up with one hundred wasps having a violent argument inside my shorts.

But, yeah, Metamorphasis. I haven't turned into vermin and been abandoned by my family yet. What actually has happened so far is that I have gotten atrociously bored and disillusioned with the whole thing and also managed to have a multi-day migraine that kind of punched any ideas of working out in the face. Plus it is the end of the school year for my kids, which means my short daily window of not having children watching and judging my every move is nearly over, and episodes of Wallander on Netflix are not going to watch themselves. So I am sort of on a break from it. I will probably restart soon, because I kind of miss eating double digit puréed apples every other week.

Bitterness, with just a hint of feet.

So, in a fit of deciding to be a healthier person aided and abetted by Amazon Prime, I am now the owner of a ton of sun dried Goji berries. Here is the thing, though: They taste like bitterness, with a hint of feet. (I am assuming. I have never eaten feet.) The tag line on the back of the package says, jauntily, "Eating your way to health!" It sounds like a threat. There are a lot of them left. 16 ounces is a lot when they are dried so throughly as to be almost weightless.

Hey, but that's okay, because do you know what week it is? Body Reset Week! Also known as Subsist on Air and Hardboiled Eggs! So, actually, I'm not supposed to be eating them anyway. But I am sort of ignoring the air part of the diet and eating additional food so I don't, you know, keel over. The workouts are going fine. They're not hard, they're just weird and the sort of thing that I really hope no one ever witnesses me doing because I am afraid they would harm themselves with laughter and the resultant pulled muscles. I do not want that on my conscience.

Confessions

I confess that the other night I ordered truffle fries and I did ask the kitchen to puree them, nor did I ask the waiter to pre-chew them for me. What I am saying is: I blew it. I ate adult food. There were also some other tapas I don't remember and only one of those was pureed and I didn't even do that part on purpose.

I have been, however, doing all of the 30 minutes of spastic bouncing and then the 30 minutes of lifting "weights" (weights can be no more than 3 lbs, ever) and kicking like an injured donkey.

Speaking of the lifting no more than 3 lbs:

"Honey, I need you to carry this kitty litter upstairs."

He starts to walk toward me, totally willing, but then slows down when he sees me standing there, empty handed, and his joke-o-scope starts beeping or whatever it is that happens when he senses that I am full of crap. "Uh, okay. But are you serious?"

"YES. If I lift more than three pounds, I may engage some of the, like, larger muscles or whatever and then I will bulk up and be completely unlovable." (I may be paraphrasing but I am reasonably sure that's what the pamphlets were getting at.)

Anyway, I then carried the litter upstairs, but I wept silent tears for my poor, manly arm. The litter was 20 lbs. I'm no math genius, but that is 17lbs of rule breaking right there. (I did that math in my head, even! Nice!) 17 lbs! I am no goody goody (see: non-pureed fries), but that can't be good.

The Dynamic "Eating" Plan! Week One.

Do you know what I am enjoying right now? Well, nothing. Do you know what I am eating? Carrot Parsnip Puree. I am eating it because Tracy told me to eat it. It is 1/2 cup each of carrots and parsnips, boiled and then, you guessed it, pureed. There is a half of a pinch of salt in there, too. (I added some turmeric because I am living on the edge, even though Tracy specifically instructs me that no additional anything, not oil, not salt, not spices or additional seasonings may be added. Turmeric is good for you, I muttered, and added some, then stirred it in before she could see. She wasn't there, but one has to be careful.) It is... orange. It isn't terrible or anything, I have nothing against carrots or parsnips, but it is not my average breakfast. It just is what it is. It is tautology food.

But, yeah, let's talk about this eating plan. Week one, which I am on day 3 of, is a Nutrient Boost week! This is when you push the red button on your dashboard that then engages your nutrient tank to blow some blue flames out behind you while you go faster for a while. By that, I obviously mean that you get a ton of fruits* and vegetables and then basically make baby food out of them, and then eat baby food for a whole week.

*Let's talk about apples. So, when figuring out how much of everything I needed to do one week's worth of these foods (a broken down shopping list would have been really helpful here, but I think figuring it out yourself probably burns extra thought calories, so, good thinking, Plan Maker) and tallying everything up, I realized I needed 32 apples. And I don't mean, I needed 25 apples but also got some extra apples for my husband and children, no. I mean that I personally was apparently going to consume 32 apples in the space of 7 days. Well, okay. I mean, why have a colon if you're not going to use it, amirite?

So, I log on to my grocery ordering thingy, and punch in all of my kale and my 32 apples and my parsnips and man, I am getting hungry just TYPING all of this, whoa, and anyway, so I finish up my order, add some things for the rest of my household to eat while I am eating stuff that has been prechewed for me, and hit send, scheduling my pickup for the next morning. (You pull up and pop your trunk and they put the groceries in there! You don't even have to make eye contact with anyone if you don't want to! It's great.)

The kids and I roll into the pick up area and I give the attendant my card and he runs it and comes back and I'm waiting and the kids are hitting each other with various small plastic figures but they are both laughing so I let them get on with it, and a manager comes out.

"Ma'am?" she asks. "Ma'am, I am certain this is a typo and I almost called you this morning to confirm, but I told them, no, it's a typo, but I just want to make sure..."

"Yes?"

"It says here that you want 32 apples. I assumed you meant THREE, so I had them give you three, since you had three each of a few other types of apples." (These other apples being for the other people in my house.)

"Well, no, actually, I do want 32."

(Silence, during which I assume she is worrying about the fact that I did not also order toilet paper.)

"Oh! Well, okay, I'll go fetch them for you and then we'll have to re-run your card for the additional amount."

HA. So, you see, there is some outside confirmation of crazy. (Most of those 32 apples become Blueberry Applesauce, which is applesauce with blueberries in it. After I'd peeled and quartered 8 apples (two days worth) it occurred to me that they probably sell blueberry applesauce already made in stores. Tracy didn't say I could have that, though. She said I have to make it. Maybe the peeling calories are important. I am not taking any chances.)

And then I went home with my trunk full of fiber and nutrients and I proceeded to cook everything for one whole week. I started at 10 a.m., and I was taking care of the kids at the same time, and I only had one burner going (I only have one Dutch oven, so I only had a large enough pot for one thing at a time with the quantities I was making) and didn't finish until FIVE. My food processor hasn't done that much work since, well, ever, since I use it to make hummus about once every 2 months or so. It is probably looking over its contract right now to see if I am even allowed to do that to it.

When I was done making each dish, like, say, Sweet Potato Corn Pudding (which is1/2 of a steamed sweet potato and 1/2 of the corn off an ear of corn (don't make it ounces or anything, that is WAY too accurate for me and of course ears of corn are readily available at all times and no one uses frozen corn kernels or anything like that. What are we, animals?), I would spoon out my serving and eat it.

By dish number 5 (Gazpacho), I started farting. I am not sure how to put this delicately, but, here goes: They were the kind of farts where your dog (I do not have a dog, but I grew up with the best dog in America (RIP Mocha) and am therefore qualified with regards to dog behavior) will look disappointed in you and walk away. It was not good. It only lasted 20 or so minutes and I was alone in the kitchen so no one else had to suffer, but there was no getting away from myself. It is something I will have to live with, my Heart of Darkness. (The Fart of Darkness? The horror, the horror.)

So, the dishes in week one are, per day: 10 ounces of POWER JUICE ("and handful of beets" (does this mean by the stems? Or of chopped beets? No freaking clue. Measurements are for lesser beings.), kale, 1/2 an apple, and spinach), 4 apples worth of blueberry applesauce, 4 ounces of sweet potato corn pudding, 8 ounces of carrot parsnip puree, gazpacho, veggie protein soup (or, veggie "protein" soup, since the 2 ounces of chicken or tofu in the recipe is split between 3 servings), and 4 ounces of chocolate pudding (which contains dates and chesnuts and unsweetened coconut.)

And that's what you eat, every day for the first week. I have actually been eating most of it, and will concede that it is a ton of food by volume. It adds up to around 1200 calories, but I haven't been hungry. I have been doing things like skipping the juice (I broke my juicer a few months ago) and chucking the beet into the gazpacho instead, and I haven't actually had the pudding yet because I ate some macaroni and cheese yesterday and realized that I didn't feel like eating the pudding. I think I still resent how it came spraying out of the seams of my food processor and coated my kitchen in a thin miasma of cocoa powder, chesnuts, and water.

Week Two is going to be the real trainwreck, though. I added up the calorie counts for the options and it tops out at about 630 calories per day. Y'all, I spent a day in the ER a couple of months ago after passing out and do you know what I do not want to do? That again. So even though I am doing this in the interest of science and snark, there is no way that I am going to try to be a functional human/ present parent on that few calories, so obviously I will be supplementing the eating plan with actual eating.

I have to go bounce around my living room now.