Jenni
1…my dishwasher back together.
I took a break from screwin’1 to stop and say hi. Hi!
I hope you are ready for some strong opinions, because here they come! Look out. OK, Friday night, The Sexiest Man Alive and I saw ‘Supersize Me’. It was the most frightening horror film I had ever seen, and not only should you go see it, but you should never, ever eat fast food again. For real.
You’ve probably already heard about it, but the premise is that the filmmaker, a guy in perfect health and great shape, decides to eat McDonald’s at every meal for an entire month. And yeah, you probably knew it would do bad things to him, but you didn’t suspect it would come close to killing him. The movie makes too many excellent points to go over here, but there were a couple things that were mentioned that I wish he would’ve discussed more. First, the fact that it’s nearly impossible to find healthy, nutritious food at any restaurant, let alone fast food. That’s the reason I eat at the same two or three restaurants all the time: there aren’t many places you can dine and not worry about disastrous effects on your diet.
Also, after just a few days of McDonald’s, he started to notice major effects on his mood: he felt sluggish and depressed all the time. His sex life went to hell; his girlfriend said he had trouble even getting it up. (BTW, how much do I love that his girlfriend is a vegan chef? Ha.) We don’t hear anywhere near enough on the effects of nutrition on mental health. I’m no scientist, but I can tell you with absolutely authority that the blood sugar rollercoaster fucks with your head in alarming ways.
Last, there seems to be this assumption that people know fast food is bad for them, but they choose to eat it anyway. That’s probably true, but I don’t think they know why. When it comes down to it, most people know very little about nutrition at all. And that’s no surprise, since we’re never really taught about it, either. Learning the USDA food pyramid in high school health class is bullshit.
Alright, enough of that, since I know you’re going to go see the movie now, and we’ll all be happy. And you won’t even hear me rant about movies again until that film about corporations comes out. I’m pretty sure that’s my favorite political topic ever.
So! This weekend. Saturday morning I worked on the garden. I like growing food a lot, but I make a point of expecting nothing from it every year, just so that when stuff does grow, it’s a nice surprise. Heather told me we should borrow a tiller for the vegetable garden, but there’s something about doing it by hand that’s immensely satisfying in that flashback-to-youth way; I was elbow-deep in mud and worms. It was misting outside, enough to make it really easy to pull weeds, but not enough to melt my contacts to my eyeballs. I planted roma tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, two kinds of winter squash, zucchini, green beans, jalapenos, thai chilis, red and green peppers, herbs, and corn. Corn! I really expect nothing to come of the corn, but if it does, I’m gonna be damn excited about it. In the backyard, we also have this monster raspberry patch going. After I cleared out all the other stuff growing in there and mulched last year, it’s like a raspberry jungle. Nice.
Up front, I planted a round bowl of some bright draping plants that you put by your door and make people feel like they’re really welcome in your home. I put the rest of those flowers in the front garden by my arbor, and also planted these flowering vines that are supposed to grow a million feet a day and provide the most dazzling display of color ever seen in Richfield, Minnesota. Or something. So, yeah, the front gardens are pretty nice this year. I’ll take pictures when it stops raining sometime next year.
Later on, Heather and I painted the kitchen cabinets. The kitchen remodeling is a project one year in the making, but now it’s getting done. It looks awesome, and one of these days, the cabinets might actually have handles. No way. Today, we’re going to do the second coat of paint on the cabinets. I put switchplates back on the walls, hung up the clock and some artwork, and laid on my back fighting with the dishwasher for 20 minutes. I was planning on walking 10 miles this morning, but, you know, rain. Which is why they invented the YMCA.
Oh, there’s more, but I think it’s time to paint. Until next time, I remain…
Yours,
Jenni