Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2004-12-04 - 9:07 p.m.

Of Brown Rice, Urban Legends, and Hot Beds

Younger Child announced recently that she is considering becoming a vegetarian, having come to the conclusion that killing eating animals is just wrong. I told her that was fine with me, but that she'd have to go and do the research on vegetarian nutrition, because if she were going to restrict her diet she'd have to be sure she was getting adequate replacements for the nutrients meat provides. I felt virtuous; I didn't point out that the only vegetable she'll eat is romaine lettuce, and she doesn't care much for whole grains or rice or most kinds of beans, which pretty much leaves out good vegetarian nutrition. What she wants to be, I think, is a cheese-atarian, or better yet, a Chee-to-tarian.

It will be interesting to see if she pursues it, and better yet, if her spiritual convictions force her to expand her range of tastes. I could totally eat red beans and brown rice with my kid. Right now, if that's my dinner, she and her sister demand frozen taquitos.

I had a ratbox for dinner. There's only one person in my life who will know what that means immediately - but for those who don't, a ratbox is Kentucky Fried Chicken. My best friend and I used to go and eat their meal-in-a-box sometimes, when we were rather young, and because of the old urban legend about the person (always a cousin of someone you knew) who opened a bucket and found a piece with a tail, we called them ratboxes. Once, we had eaten us some ratboxes when it was announced that a worker at the local Ratboxeria has hepatitis, and we had to go down and wait in a long line with a bunch of other guilty rat-eaters to get a free shot of gamma globulin. There were rather a lot of rat-eaters, so the Public Health office was swamped and running us through as efficiently as possible, writing our weights and dosages on our foreheads with grease pencil (not really, but close) and metering us through every available examining room, office, or broom closet. I expect it will be the only time in my life I ever hear the direction, "Drop your pants and put your elbows on the typewriter."

But I digress.

I had a ratbox because I was GOING to cook, really I was, but I shopped instead. I shopped that lovely kind of idle shopping where I hadn't anywhere I had to be, and I bought nothing in the end except some floor cleaner and a flappery duct-thingy (they love me at the hardware store) to go in the duct in my range hood so the cold air will quit whooshing down through it and making my kitchen into an ice field. And when I was done shopping I realized I was more in the mood to EAT than to cook, and I was across from a drive-through Ratboxeria, so I took it as a sign from God, maybe making up for the whole thing about the glasses yesterday. So I ate KFC and I put in my duct-gizmo, which was less than perfect because the duct was all deformed during the original installation and now the gizmo is slightly out of round too and doesn't open and shut perfectly and the kitchen is still an icehouse because NOBODY COOKED ANYTHING IN THERE. Ha! The best plans still don't get laid.

But I digress. Where the hell did I start?

Oh! The best plans not getting laid. BF is sick. I was to go with him to his company Christmas party, but he's sick. No, he doesn't need anything. He said no. Nothing. I think he means it. I have always been the ministering angel to his illnesses, but in a selfish sort of a way, giving him what I assume he'd want because I want it; follow that logic all the way out and he'd end up with string bikini panties with Volkswagens on them, I guess. I'm not doing it this time. I'm on the No Soup program. No Soup for you! I don't think he'll notice one way or the other, but when he's well, I will have to tell him that I am a Much Soup sort of a girl myself, and when I am really sick I want someone to offer to go to the store and get me ginger ale and a new paperback or maybe a good video, and then do it even though I say I don't really need them to, and then come over and see that my blankets are all straight and comfy and stuff. I have only a very thin layer of stoic. It cracks easily. He's lucky because I hardly ever get really sick, I haven't been since that Australian flu thing six or seven years ago, and when we all had that we just lay around and didn't want anything anyway because we were all too sick to watch movies OR drink ginger ale, and the girls lay at opposite ends of the sofa and never once bickered about whose feet were touching whose by accident so I knew they were really really sick, or I would have known except that I think I was too sick to care as long as I knew they were probably still alive because I could hear them coughing.

Where was I again?

Right - the ice field. I am typing with a jacket on, and my back aches some from the tension of being too cold in my little house. It's damn cold here. I can't really whine because I know people who may read this who have SNOW and ICE STORMS and shit like that where they live, not wimpy little California beach-thong winters, but I went out to go to work one morning this week and I had forgotten to put the Westy's towel over his face so he didn't ice over and I had to go get a bucket of water which I threw on the windshield and, of course, right back onto myself, so I was sopping wet as well as freezing and had to drive the girls to school that way and then stop back home to change and be late to work, making that THREE mornings I went in late in one week: Younger Kid is Sick Day, Older Daughter Has Killer Cramps Day, and then I Threw a Bucket of Water on My Shirt Day. They love me at work. They have to.

I'm going to bed. I have an electric blanket. Ha! I hear they cause cancer, and that they're a terrible fire hazard, and lots of other things, and I do not care. I do not care one bit. I have no children this weekend, I am all full of ratbox, I am NOT sick, and I am going to go turn that blanket up to Nuke and crawl in with a paperback. Happy Saturday night, y'all.

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