Where is the blog??

The Princess and Hero are traveling, and the blog may not appear for an undetermined amount of time. Then again, you never know. Unlike some lucky people who are going to warmer climates for the holidays (we do not know any personally, or we would be inviting ourselves along), WE are heading right into Winter Storm Draco, which would not seem nearly so scary if it didn't have a name that sounded like a cross between Drano and Dracula.

How to eat healthy around the holidays -- we think

We have a holiday tradition in our household that involves the local grocery store, a grocery cart, several bags of cute holiday-wrapped candy, and very little willpower. You can probably discern what this tradition might involve.

Some people may have tried to circumvent such temptation by going about their shopping trip with a handheld basket instead of a grocery cart the size of the Louisiana Purchase. But consumer research suggests that people who shop with a basket are actually MORE likely to make impulse purchases -- but only if they are holding the basket with their dominant hand. Honest. I wish I had known this sooner. All this time I've been carrying baskets with my nondominant hand. Think of all the impulse purchases I've missed out on!

The research of course implies that to avoid buying more than we intend to, we should carry the basket in our nondominant hand, in the hopes that the other hand will calmly, rationally, start picking up loaves of 17-grain bread, organic/dairy-free/wheat-free/vegetarian/calorie-free beets, etc. and place it in all someone else's bas -- I mean, in our basket.  

Recently I read some tips about how to consume more healthful foods during this time of holiday overeating. The first tip was what to eat for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving. The sensible advice given in the article was: Have a slice of pumpkin pie for breakfast. 

I liked this author immediately. Not that I am particularly fond of pumpkin pie, but might not the principle extend to, say, chocolate cake for breakfast? Her reasoning went something like this: You KNOW you are going to want that pie sometime during the day. Yet in an effort to behave yourself gastronomically, you will eat sensibly all day, telling yourself you will NOT eat any pie, and believeing yourself until about 10 p.m., when a little voice says, "You DESERVE this pie," and in the pie goes. Boom! You have just gone 350 calories over your limit that day. Whereas, if you consume the pie first thing in the morning, you have already factored those calories into the day's equation, and you can set about being virtuous the rest of the day.

This rationale was soundly denounced by my coworkers, who declared that were they to choose such a course, they would STILL have a second piece of pie at night.

Yet the idea fits in nicely with my own personal philosophy of rewarding yourself BEFORE you have really done anything to merit the reward. And if it theoretically works so well the day after Thanksgiving, why not EVERY morning? Indeed, the Hero is lobbying for just such a lifestyle change, citing another group with similar wise, healthy eating habits: the Shakers.

After watching a documentary on the Shakers, he announced that the Shakers were the wisest people ever, at least in respect to their breakfast meals, which according to the documentary included apple pie EVERY DAY. 

"Apple pie for breakfast! EVERY day!" He was in awe.

Sadly, the Shakers have pretty much disappeared into  history now, and with them this fine idea of eating pie for breakfast. I can think of only one improvement to make upon their ritual: Have breakfast all day long.

This week

The Princess apologizes for the scarcity of blog posts this week. What started out as promising topics turned out, upon reflection, to be better relegated to the recesses of her imagination. And the Hero has not provided much material for her, being engrossed in pursuing his master's project in sonification, which is a word the Princess suspects he made up.

We sincerely hope next week will bring more exciting topics to pursue, or we may have to start making things up. It's not as if it hasn't been done here before.

Born to be...me

Dear Coast Guard,

This letter is in reply to your radio ad currently airing in Maryland, in which a very deep, confident-sounding male voice makes a stirring case for joining your establishment. In the ad this individual says, roughly, the following:

"I was not born to take it easy. I was born to test my limits--physically and mentally. I was made to stretch myself, to meet every test laid before me. To know who I am, to seek the edge of my abilities and then push myself beyond them. I was born to excel, to achieve. To exceed expectations. I was born for the United States Coast Guard."

I must say, this ad has stirred something deep inside my soul. It is difficult to describe, but I believe it can be summed up in one word: Laziness. 

Frankly, all this talk about pushing personal limits makes me really tired. I really WAS born to take it easy. To grab the Fritos that are lying within my reach. To be comfortable in the realm of my current abilities and to stay well away from their edges. My idea of pushing myself is to go pick up the mail that came through the mail slot in the door and is now lying on the floor. Stretching myself occurs only around Thanksgiving.

And not to be snarky, but what is all that "I was born to excel, to achieve, to exceed expectations" stuff? I am all for improving one's vocabulary, but your ad sounds like a thesaurus entry for "succeed." 

No, you are not talking about me in your ad. But should you get really desperate, you should have no trouble finding me: I'll be on the couch. With my Fritos nearby.

Car reprise

I hereby retract my apology in a previous post, in which I expressed remorse for unleashing ourselves on various car salespersons in the area. On the contrary, the salespersons have proven themselves well equipped to deal with clueless car buyers such as ourselves, in the sense that we come away from discussions with them feeling even more clueless. This, of course, is what they are trained to do. 

Our most recent salesperson evidently has taken an advanced training course in Bewildering the Customer. In this course, participants learn to wear customers down by simply talking on and on about the details of their own lives. We now know this woman's family intimately, including the heights of all her siblings, their complete history of parking tickets, and what her two children are getting for Christmas. We almost feel as if we should send the kids Christmas cards ("Hi, Jasmine. You don't know us, but we just thought we'd wish you a Merry Christmas. Do you want to know what your mom got you for Christmas? We can tell you where she hid it, too. We helped finance it, by the way.").

The tactic did not wear us down enough to beg her to sell us a car, although it did suffice to send us straight home after our visit instead of stopping at any of the nearby competitors, which we had fully intended to do. 

But her tactic may have been quite deliberate. All of her personal details were related as we were sitting in the car, giving us plenty of time to tune her out and become one with the car, visualizing zipping over mountain passes in it, imagining smoothly cutting through snow-covered roads. She probably hoped that we would bond so completely with the car that we would just refuse to get out of it, and demand that the manager get in the car with us to go over all the details so that we could just take it right home.

But we are wiser than that, of course. We stayed focused on the important things we want in a car -- e.g., that it has a sufficient number of cup holders. We voiced our relief at discovering that the car we were considering offered an extra two cup holders when the middle armrest in the backseat folded down.

"Oh, do you have little ones?" the saleswoman asked.

Um, no. Just us. 

As the Hero observes, our concern about always having beverages within reach would lead one to believe that we have been impoverished for most of our lifetime and are afraid that, at any moment, we might be deprived of life-nourishing liquids. Let me just say that we both were duly provided with adequate hydration during our bringing-up years and were in no way neglected in this respect. 

Another concern in a car, along with the cup holder count, is color. At least for me. The Hero warned that, particularly if we were to go with a used car, I might not get EXACTLY the color I wanted. 

This comment was met with such a stare from me that he began to worry that he might not EXACTLY get dinner that night, either, or any other night. Nothing further has been said on the subject of color.

And finally, a third important feature in a car is comfort, mainly because, like cup holder and color, it starts with c. Happily, the car we were considering is very comfortable, although if it had a bed and refrigerator it would be REALLY comfortable. But we wouldn't want to be too greedy.

Just as long as the ratio of cup holders to people is at least 3 to 1.

Nontraditional Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, as usual, we and a large number of people we presume we are related to in some manner celebrated by eating too much. We were not allowed the customary post-Thanksgiving recovery period, however; we were not even done eating yet when a Series of Events was announced by certain Young Persons in attendance.

We were given a choice of activities: We could participate in a bowling tournament in the family room, attend a fashion show in the living room, or patronize the child-run bakery downstairs. There was no fourth option, but I suspect that certain adults, in an effort to get in on some of that recovery period, climbed into one of the vans in the driveway for some shut-eye.

I signed up for the bowling tournament, envisioning those little plastic bowling sets with the pins that can be knocked down by an ant. Instead I was given a Wii controller and introduced to my character, a brunette with pigtails and glasses and hands, but no arms. (Sometime later we also discovered that none of the girl characters were, strictly speaking, wearing pants, whereas ALL of the male characters were fully clothed, even though they no more had actual legs than the females. We thought this highly unfair and lodged an official complaint, which was thrown out on a technicality.)

I won the preliminary round of bowling and moved on to the finals, which I also won despite no prior experience in bowling without the benefit of arms OR pants. My victory drew admiration, although it also caused my arm to throb for two days. Had I been interviewed about my win, the headline would have read: "Bowling champ injured while engaging in fake sport."

I later visited the downstairs bakery, run by two sisters, and a subsidiary store run by their younger brother. The girls graciously gave their brother a great deal of business by sending their own customers to him, but only after the customers had purchased something at the bakery and had consumed it. "When you're done with your cupcakes," they told us, "we don't have anything more to do with the food. You can take it to his store," pointing at the Tiny Male Relative. "He'll take care of it."

This prompted the Hero's later observation that, although the young male proprietor believed he was running a market, he was "actually the garbage man."

"But an elegant one," I noted. "The garbage was delivered to customers on silver platters."

So on Thanksgiving we filled up on fake food and hurt ourselves playing fake sports. What more can you ask for?

Serving notice

I apologize to all the car salespersons in our area, upon whom we are about to unleash ourselves in our quest for a new car. We have already accosted two of them, and they are undoubtedly at this very minute seeking either a) a new profession, b) a new therapist, or c) both.

It's not hard to see why. We ask deep, thoughtful questions that cause the car salespeople to pause, ponder, and in some cases reach for a bottle of Tylenol. For example, if a salesperson starts talking about such car features as torque, we might frown in concentration as he explains, and then ask one of those deep clarification questions, such as "Is that available in different colors?"

This is not to say that we don't do our homework on car buying. For example, as I drive I have studied the cars around me to the point where I can now recognize my favorite models, causing me to say, "Look, a  CX-5!" and swerve dangerously as I try to get a closer look to confirm that yes, it is indeed a CX-5, and the driver is now looking alarmed and is likely calling 911 on his Bluetooth to report a deranged driver.

One reason it is so difficult for us personally to buy a car is that the last time I was car shopping, cars had far fewer options. Either you could get the Flintstones model, with foot power, or the Dino model, foot power plus an extra turbo boost. The Hero's car dates to a much more modern time, roughly the Model T era. So we are understandably overwhelmed by the vast array of car options available today, including -- we were actually told this by a salesperson -- headlight technology that is used on spaceships.

Car salespeople have been known to be pushy, of course. It is not a requirement that you have actually met a salesperson for this to be true. In a span of a day and a half, I have received severald emails from three different salespeople at a particular dealership in which I have yet to step foot. The communication from them, beginning on a Monday, progressed thus:

Salesperson 1: We pride ourselves on providing our customers with a superior shopping experience. [Princess's note: Does this mean they have free samples of chocolate? And foot massages?] We are confident we can meet your expectations. Would it be convenient for you to come in next Sunday?

Salesperson 2, a couple of hours later: My manager [Salesperson 1] has informed me that you'll be in on Wednesday. I'm sure we can find just what you're interested in, take it for a test drive, and, hopefully, you'll be driving away in a new car.

Salesperson 2, one hour and thirteen minutes later: Did you get my earlier email? Cars are flying off the lot. You'd better hurry while there's still some choices available. We're all set for your visit tonight, or would it be easier for us to bring the car to wherever you are?

Me: Pick up my Thanksgiving turkey and a large pizza on your way here, and you've got a deal.

Of course I did not actually respond in this way, but I admit that the idea of them bringing the car right to you seems a stroke of genius. They drive a brand-new car to your house, park it prominently in your driveway, and let you strut around it while they go and knock on the doors of curious neighbors to invite them over. Tell me you are going to turn this car down if they ask whether you want to buy it.

Salesperson: So, ma'am, to make things a little smoother we brought all the paperwork with us --

You: Yes! Yes! Where do I sign?

Neighbor, reading paperwork over shoulder: Say, it's a little blurry -- is that 5% financing, or 50%?

Salesperson, shoving neighbor behind a bush: Ha ha! I think we can take care of the rest without an audience, don't you, ma'am? Now if you'll just sign right here...

It's important to keep the high-pressure tactics in perspective, however. You want to buy a car. The salesperson wants to sell you a car. But here your mutual goals end. Your goal is to pay as little as possible for your dream car. The salesperson's goal is to retire and have enough money to employ a personal valet who will carry him aloft on a litter to his pool at his house in Tuscany.

So, as we continue our own search for a car, we are mindful of one thing: We must wear down the salesperson first, or we might be the ones carrying him to the pool on that litter.