You are what you eat..... (part one)

A couple of years ago totally out of the blue I got sick and an evil, evil, evil clusterfuck took up residence in my intestinal tract...

Stomach pains,  bloody poo and a massive and sudden weight loss took me to the doctor and then to the emergency room and finally to the hospital where I was diagnosed with an Irritable Bowel Disease known as Ulcerative Colitis...

"Irritable"... Having or showing a tendency to be easily annoyed or made angry.

Ain't that the truth...

I've got an easily annoyed gut.

I can't eat shit...

or regular stuff w/o consequence.

Incredibly frustrating to a girl who could eat a kitchen sink (and all it's contents in one sitting).

My gut and I are forever trying to work out a compromise...

I feed it what it will tolerate

and in return I get no pain

and no public embarrassment...

(toots and such)

I'm beginning to realize that my crabby belly would like to me to slow down on the cow and pig and beef up on the chicken and fish.

Poultry had been off my radar as sustenance for years ever since my Grandma K brought a couple of chickens to live with us in the suburban town of Dearborn Heights Michigan for two weeks back in the 1970's...

We city children took to the chickens like ducks to water...

For two weeks we pretended to live on a farm...

and farm living it truly was when Grandma chased down one of our two "pets" and wrung it's scrawny necks right there in our back yard...

and then before our saucer sized bulging eyes she chopped off it's little head,

then put it's lifeless, plucked featherless body into a pot of boiling water where it stunk up the kitchen with such a horrible, horrific stink that I remember it, vividly, to this day.

I watched in horror as she squeezed the chicken body of it's feather roots... like she was popping huge blackhead pimples..

Holy be-jeeesuz ... it was awful.... (AWFUL!!!)

But not the most awful part...

the most awful part came when she sang.....

"DIN-NER............!!!!"

Oh hell no....

No no no no no no.....

I couldn't devour little Clucky... or any of his kin.

So for years I've managed to avoided chicken like the plague.

However, my crabby belly has different ideas on that.

We make chicken a lot at work and so lately I've been "forced" to partake.

I mean, come on...if I won't eat the food (and yes, the loveables notice when I don't eat their food).. then they probably shouldn't maybe eat the food as well...?

I started off with little bits of chicken smothered in anything that could help take my mind off of the "blackhead" issue...

I kind of hold my breath while I chew and swallow quickly.

Over time is has gotten easier...

Easier especially since my gut doesn't growl or grumble at me (at ALL) when I eat it.

I haven't yet gotten up the nerve to prepare any at my own house...(for personal consumption)

I still find it hard to get that "smell" outta my mind.

Initially I chalked that up to just one more crazy ass personality flaw until I read this little snippet....

The Frontal Cortex by Jonah Lehrer, a contributing editor at Wired

While olfactory associations enjoy a "privileged brain representation," that hippocampal link is less important than the unpleasantness of the smell, which is much better at predicting whether or not we'll remember the memory a few days later. 

This is the bleak truth of the brain: it clings to what we don't like.

So from now on, I don't answer to "hey crazy"...

Call home... call home...call home....

Saturday, I had the occasion to be in the car with my sister Susan (you may know her as the one who doesn't read this blog)...

We have lots of history in cars.

Going to the beach with mom.

Going to the beach with dad.

Drive-in movies.

Double dating...well, not really, since Susan didn't have a date, she was just sent to spy on me and a very young Daddio.

Well into our 20's we even got into a bit*h slap fight once in the car.

Where we traveled across three lanes of heavy traffic and back all the while we slapped at each others slapping hands.

(To this day I still wonder what the drivers around us must have been thinking)

I'm not all that fond of riding in cars with my sister.

She is a downtown "Deeee-troit" driver all the way.. she tailgates, she flips the bird, she ziz-zags in and out of lanes.. she is disregardful of pedestrians and yield signs and traffic cops too. 

Crazy as frick.

I like to sit in the back seat.

Where I can duck, hide, and pray.

Pray we don't get our asses kicked or in an accident.

On Saturday as Susan played NASCAR (with Googie as her co-driver) I sat and quietly bit my cuticles, ate my cheeks and periodically shit my pants.

Every now and then I screamed offered helpful hints from the back seat... they were unappreciated and ignored.

Susan and Googie got into a conversation about a feature that many new phones/cars have...hands free dialing.

I had it for a bit with my new car a couple of years ago.... I would yell commands at the damn thing and it would always call the wrong person.

Susan told a funny story about her mother in law trying to get the car phone to call her home.

"Call home" Susan's MIL said over and over and over.

The phone made no move to call anyone.

Susan's MIL tried to change her voice, adding, subtracting inflection...

Time after time the phone refused to cooperate.

Which made Susan laugh.

From the back seat I added my two cents.

"My phone would be just as stupid" I said "after a short awhile of intense aggravation I would cuss and  yell "CALL FUC*IN HOME.."

and finally, finally that damn phone would make a move..

"dialing Frank" it would say.

xoxo