Cartwheeling

Just when you thought it was safe to go down the cereal aisle.

*Cue Jaws music*

Little Debbie may never be the same again. Come on over to An Army of Ermas and let me tell you how my "8 Simple Rules of Grocery Shopping" can change your life. . .just like it did for Uncle Ben.

Core Care

This year I finally decided to try yoga as form of excercise to replace my previous routine of "No Exercise at All." Lately I can’t perform the “Trying to Tie My Shoe” dance in the privacy of my own grocery store without a friend pointing out snippily that yoga would strengthen my core muscles and give me balance.

The only core I care about is at the center of my candy apple. At my age, self improvement is just another name for “Deductible."

For the Shoe Dance, I just stretch down toward my foot and simultaneously raise my Reebok while hopping on one foot and trying to catch my shoe strings. I don’t need yoga, I need higher shoes.

However, in the spirit of avoiding the “I told you so” song performed by a choir of the sagest of my friends and family, I decided to learn some yoga. I figured it wouldn’t take a bloomin’ Lotus to convince them to take their downward dog faces somewhere else. Besides, given my motto of "no excess movement unless there is a fast-moving spider involved," it beats World Cup soccer as a form of exercise.

“You need to work on your asanas,” my sister perked.

“Well yours isn’t getting any smaller, either,” I snapped.

“No, I mean your poses. Start with some Sun Salutations for warmup and work your way through.”

“Through what? Do I have to greet everything in the sky? There’s a bird up there that I am NOT speaking to until he cleans up my car."

I decided that as a modern woman who once engaged the delivery room nurse in hand-to-hand combat over the rights to the Demerol, I could at least create my own yoga positions. Poses that would fit in with my graceful and elegant, if slightly advanced, lifestyle. I’m including them here because my goal in life is to help other people. That, and I also have a video camera and a lifelong wish to win the big money on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Down with the Dog Position: Stretch as far as possible across the bed until you can at least touch the dog, who is presently indulging in a flagrant violation of house rules by reclining dreamily and just out of reach on the bed as if he’d received an invitation from Lassie for Dogs Rule Day. Smack at his paws with the tips of your fingers until he rolls his eyes, sighs heavily, and jumps down in exasperation.

Tiny Print Eyeball Squint: This is an exercise for the muscles of the face. Try to read the answers to yesterday’s crossword puzzle in the newspaper without wearing your glasses. Squint eyes tightly, wrinkle your nose, and draw the upper lip toward the wild hairs sprouting from your eyebrows. Pull newspaper so close to your face that you could inhale the letters off the page, and repeat the exercise. Extend arms to full length, leaning to one side to allow more light onto paper. Repeat exercise. Give up and roll up paper to use later during Down With the Dog position.

Crossed Legs Sneezing Position: As a mother of two children, I am at the time of my life where a single sneeze can cause an embarrassing fashion disaster. (During cold and flu season I leave a change of clothes in every room, two in the trunk of my car, and one in the glove compartment.) I find that the following exercise eradicates the dangers of a water hazard should respiratory systems erupt during a heated discussion at a PTA meeting. When a sneeze threatens to attack, quickly cross one foot carefully over the other and squeeze the thighs together like lemons at juicing time. This exercise may draw comments from the crowd, but allows you to put off the purchase of designer adult diapers for a little while longer.

Late for Curfew Aerobics: What good is an exercise program that doesn’t elevate your heart rate? When the teenager is out past curfew, sprint to the window every five minutes to check for their car. Sprint to the telephone and snatch up the receiver to see if there’s still a dial tone. Sprint to your purse and dig for your cell phone to see if there’s a message from the Sheriff. When the errant teen finally wonders in, indulge in a rapid toe tap while crossing the arms over the chest. Breathe in and out quickly to stimulate blood flow to the heart. Produce an atom-splitting tirade on House Rules to cleanse the body of impurities.

Corpse Pose: This is an actual yoga position designed for total relaxation at the end of a workout. The body is stretched out on the floor much like a murder victim on CSI. It doesn’t work the core muscles, but it sure beats trying to get up until an Emergency Responder carrying oxygen and a tow rope happens by to give you a hand. So if you happen across a woman with untied shoes stretched across the Weight Watchers aisle in the grocery store, step over her. It's me. I'm either finding inner peace or waiting for the tow truck to arrive.

Alfredo Agony

*Yep, I've joined another blog carnival. If I have to suffer, I want to share it with you. Today's humor topic is Injustice. Let's watch the fun.*

Injustice is a lot like a cat. Its path is unplanned and chaotic, but when it settles in your lap, it's there long enough to turn your legs into pincushions unless someone starts up the electric can opener and whirs your way to freedom.

That’s how I feel about the Alfredo sauce. Not the cat part; there’s no cure for that short of finding someone with a more comfortable lap or a bit of string stuck to their shoe. But from years of experience as the youngest of four children, and therefore susceptible to various methods of sibling torture, I have intimate knowledge that injustice is tolerable only when it is ruining the lives of people I don’t know.

When it hits me squarely in the grocery store shelf, it’s unbearable.

The trouble is that I’m not the type that spends a lot of time in the kitchen for fun. For me cooking doesn’t have the allure that, say, cruising down the Autobahn at a number divisible by 150 or stalking Johnny Depp on Twitter might have.

So in the interest of compromise, which is acceptable whenever it benefits me personally, I like to visit the “bottled for your convenience by the loving hands of somebody else” section of the store for a couple of jars of Alfredo sauce for a quick, pre-Twitter meal.

I’ll even go as far as opening the jars myself when I get home instead of asking the “What’s For Dinner” twins to do it for me. Teenage boys are nice to have around the house when you’ve got leftover pizza on hand or there’s some obvious body humor jokes that have been seriously overlooked, but when it comes to kitchen labor, they’re about as useful as a bonnet on a tom cat.

My doctor tells me that eating the stuff is kind of like caulking your arteries, but I don’t know much about caulk, either, except that it’s not near as good as the white sauce when you add it to noodles. It’s just one of nature’s little jokes that something so good to eat fills the body’s passageways with the stuff that Elmer’s is made of. But that’s injustice for you. Once you get a little patch, it spreads like tacky clothes in Ashley Olson’s closet.

If it’s that bad for me, I want to get it on sale. The savings offset the petrified artery situation. But it’s when the little glass jars of goodness go on sale that I have a problem.

I suspect my family is holding the newspaper hostage. Or perhaps once the newsprint hits the breakfast table, Scottie beams the whole thing down to a planet filled children who rip out the comic sections and stuff the rest behind the couch. So before I find out the stuff is on sale, it’s all sold out.

You’d think you could count on your family when time is short and price reductions are on the line. But the priorities in my house vary widely according to random factors such as the amount of gasoline in the car or the availability of high-speed Internet access. When it comes to something as mundane as the grocery store circulars, interest polls reach a new low, and the newspaper ends up as kitty litter.

So when I aim my little grocery cart toward the pasta aisle, there’s nothing there but an empty shelf and an echo.

I guess it’s take-out for supper again. But there’s an Italian restaurant right down the street. I think I can live with the injustice.

Thanks for No Memories

It’s nice to know that, having lived for half a century, I’ve attained royal status. After all, you like to feel like you’ve accomplished something besides housebreaking the puppy and making sandwiches for four million school lunches during all those years.

Among my set, I’m known as the Post-It Queen. My subjects are thousands of brightly colored sticky notes that remind me not to forget to get gas, pick up the dog at the vet, or buy more sticky notes.

It’s not that my memory is fading, it’s. . .well I’ve forgotten exactly what it is, but I have a plastic tiara on my desk to remind me of what counts. Actually, it can be quite beneficial to be forgetful, particularly when it comes to lunches with people you don’t really care for or foolish promises you’ve made to small children.

However, I read in the paper a while back, I can’t recall exactly when or which one, about a lady that remembers everything, and I mean everything, about her life, from the time she was about eight years old. I don’t envy her. There are things I did when I was eight years old that I would just as soon remain shrouded in the mists of time or at least hidden behind the hot pants at the back of the closet.

Also you have to wonder. Does she ever misplace her car keys or does she just have to remember back to juggling all those grocery bags when she came in and march right back to find them still hanging in the lock?

Does she have to relive that awful time in junior high when she tucked her dress into the back of her pantyhose during the bathroom break after sixth period and strolled down the front hall to the gymnasium affording everyone from the substitute shop teacher to the assistant principal a view of her flowered Fruit of the Looms?

Personally if I have to choose, I’d rather rely on a Hello Kitty sticky note that says Buy Buns than have instant access to every memory that I created before I became royalty. Hindsight may be 20/20, but there are times I’d rather lose my glasses for good than see the flooded toilets and wardrobe malfunctions I’ve left in my majestic wake.

But I would like to know what happened to my car keys.

Yoga As A Second Language

Lately I can’t perform the Trying to Tie My Shoe Dance in the privacy of my own grocery store without a friend pointing out snippily that yoga would strengthen my core muscles and give me balance.

The only core I care about is at the center of my candy apple. At my age, self improvement is just another name for “Deductible” on the insurance forms.

For the Shoe Dance, I just stretch down toward my foot and simultaneously raise my Reebok while hopping on the other foot and trying to catch my shoestrings. I don’t need yoga, I need higher shoes.

However, in the spirit of avoiding the “I told you so” song performed by a choir of the sagest of my friends and family, I decided to learn some yoga lingo. I figured it wouldn’t take a bloomin’ Lotus to convince them to take their Downward Dog faces somewhere else.

“You need to work on your asanas,” my sister perked.

“Well yours isn’t getting any smaller, either,” I snapped.

“No, I mean your poses. Start with some Sun Salutations for warmup and work your way through.”

“Through what? Do I have to greet everything in the sky? There’s a bird up there that I am NOT speaking to until he cleans up my car."

I decided that as a modern woman who once engaged the delivery room nurse in hand-to-hand combat over the rights to the Demerol, I should create my own yoga positions. Poses that would fit in with my graceful and elegant, if slightly advanced, lifestyle. I’m including them here because my goal in life is to help other people. Also, I have a camcorder and a lifelong wish to win the big money on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Here are my innovations. Be sure to notify your children before beginning any new exercise program as they will want to call in friends to help them make fun of you.

Down with the Dog Position: Stretch as far as possible across the bed until you can at least touch the dog, who is presently indulging in a flagrant violation of house rules by reclining dreamily and just out of reach on the bed as if he’d received an invitation from Lassie for Dogs Rule Day. Smack at his paws with the tips of your fingers until he rolls his eyes, sighs heavily, and jumps down in exasperation.

Tiny Print Eyeball Squint: This is an exercise for the muscles of the face. Try to read the answers to yesterday’s crossword puzzle in the newspaper without wearing your glasses. Squint eyes tightly, wrinkle your nose, and draw the upper lip toward the wild hairs sprouting from your eyebrows, furrowing your mustache attractively. Pull newspaper so close to your face that you could inhale the letters off the page, and repeat the exercise. Extend arms to full length, leaning to one side to allow more light onto paper. Repeat exercise. Give up and roll up paper to use later during Down With the Dog position.

Crossed Legs Sneezing Position: As a mother of two children, I am at the time of my life where a single sneeze can cause an embarrassing fashion disaster. (During cold and flu season I leave a change of clothes in every room, two in the trunk of my car, and an extra pair of stretchy pants in the glove compartment.) I find that the following exercise eradicates the dangers of a water hazard should respiratory systems erupt during a heated discussion at a PTA meeting. When a sneeze threatens to attack, quickly cross one foot carefully over the other and squeeze the thighs together like lemons at juicing time. This exercise may draw unfriendly comments from the crowd, but allows you to put off the purchase of Depends for a little while longer.

Late for Curfew Aerobics: What good is an exercise program that doesn’t elevate your heart rate? When your teenager is out past curfew, sprint to the window every five minutes to check for their car. Sprint to the telephone and snatch up the receiver to see if there’s still a dial tone. Sprint to your purse and dig for your cell phone to see if there’s a message from the Sheriff. When the errant teen finally wonders in, indulge in a rapid toe tap while crossing the arms over the chest. Breathe in and out quickly to stimulate blood flow from your face, which now resembles the surface of the sun, to the heart. Produce an atom-splitting tirade on House Rules to cleanse the body of impurities.

Corpse Pose: This is an actual yoga position designed for total relaxation at the end of a workout. The body is stretched out on the floor much like a murder victim on CSI. I recommend using this pose on that teenager that just came in late.

Attack of the Killer Alfredo

My husband thinks fully cooked meals spring ready-made from the oven like Venus rising from the foam, but with gravy. I don’t know how he survived eight years of bachelorhood before he met me, but I do know why he wore pants that would be relaxed-fit on Paris Hilton, and why his eyes glaze over with that faraway look when we drive past Burger King.

These days he’s making up for all the meals he missed by hanging out in the kitchen, waiting to see if the Pillsbury Dough Boy appears from the swirling mists in the freezer. It’s like watching a toddler get ready for a visit from Santa.

“What did you eat before we got married?” I quizzed one day as he stared into the empty tea pitcher like a motherless calf.

“Tuna casserole,” he answered, prodding a package of frozen hamburger in hopes it might turn magically into meatloaf.

“You ate tuna casserole for eight years?”

“No, I had the same tuna casserole in the freezer for eight years. I got custody in the divorce. Every night I had to figure out what to do so I wouldn’t have to eat it. I know the nutrition and pricing information for every item on the fast food market.”

At least I don’t have to worry about any fond feelings left toward his first wife. The woman did things to tuna that I couldn’t do to scrap metal without heavy-duty equipment. She didn’t use serving spoons. It took the jaws of life to separate the one that didn’t get away from the casserole dish.

It makes my life easy. If I defrost cinnamon buns in the microwave, he thinks they’re homemade. I hate to tell him, but if I can’t get it out of a can, jar, or economy size shrink-wrapped package, I’m not going to be serving it for supper. There was a time when a woman’s dreams were fulfilled by spending enough time in the kitchen to bake biscuits lighter than an angel’s wing, put up enough tomatoes to last the winter, and memorize the recipe for grandmother’s heirloom pickled poundcake.

That time is past.

When I discovered Alfredo sauce in a jar, I was more excited than a Brownie Scout on cookie delivery day. While I understand that I’m not going to find fettuccine Alfredo tacked up on the doctor’s bulletin board as one of your top ten heart healthy foods, it’s part of a meal that everyone in my family will eat, which goes a long way towards making it the star atop the food pyramid in my house. Add some grilled chicken, and everyone from Finicky Fred to the dog next door is happy. At the grocery store, I deviated from the list and popped a couple of jars of the white stuff into my buggy. Then I wheeled innocently down the aisle, full of the peaceful conviction that comes from providing a good meal for a loving and happy family.

Later that evening, while my back was turned, the beast, heady with the freedom that comes upon release from captivity and applied heat, shattered the air with a mighty blast and attacked. I screamed.

The children ran to the kitchen like the population of Tokyo pouring in to see Godzilla get the big one.

Kid One: “Did you start another fire?”

Alfredo covered the front on the stove like a dust ruffle. I had spatters up my sleeve and a striking Picasso-esque design smoked on my Snoopy sweatshirt. "Not yet sweetie, but stay tuned."

Kid Two: “Is supper ready?”

Kid One with conviction: “Supper can’t be ready. The smoke detector’s not going off.”

Suddenly the beast attacked again, rising from the depths of the superheated Alfredo like a milky Kraken surging to the surface from the ocean floor. This time I was prepared. No towering wall of Alfredo is going to threaten my family without me beating it into submission with a serving spoon and the lid to a two-quart boiler. “Run, kids, run!”

Heating supper from a jar should not require escalation of the National Defense Warning System.

Bill sauntered around the corner, hands in pockets. “Need some help?”

“Sure. Do we have Chef Emeril or the Marines on speed dial?”

The lid on the pot rattled like a teenager’s knees at quarter past curfew. He whisked the pot off the stove, poured the contents into a bowl, added a paper plate lid, then tucked the whole thing neatly into the microwave. Slamming the door with a flourish, he performed the beep-boop medley on the keypad that told the machine to cook Alfredo sauce.

"Very nice. I guess all those years of bachelorhood prepared you for anything."

He grinned. “Once you’ve been face to face with an eight year old tuna casserole, everything else is easy."

Cart Wheeling

Not long ago, I had a near-death experience in the grocery store. I was bending over to check out Mrs. Fields’ fat grams when a woman wielding a grocery cart like it was a runaway bumper car rounded the corner on two wheels. If it weren’t for quick thinking on my part, I might have required a trip to the Crisco aisle to disengage that buggy from my body. For a second I thought I saw a bright light, but it turned out to be Register Six calling for assistance. Later, when I got lapped in frozen foods by a gray-haired granny with a number 5 pasted on the side of her grocery cart, I could see the need for a list of safety rules posted in a conspicuous place, perhaps tattooed on Little Debbie’s left cheek. With that thought in mind, I offer 8 Simple Rules for a Successful Supermarket Experience.
Show proper care for your vehicle. For the safety of everyone on the floor, do not select a buggy with uncooperative steering that can be guided only by a team of Iditarod sled dogs. Also, be on the lookout for features that may interrupt the aerodynamics of the cart such as toddlers left over from a previous shopper.
When perusing different item choices on the supermarket floor, please be sure to park only in traditionally acceptable parking areas. Nobody cares if you set up camp in front of internal organs in the meat department, but if you pause to check the fat content in the cookie aisle, we will forcibly transport you to the dairy case and secure you to the yogurt section with string cheese.
Please observe crowd-friendly speed limits. I know you’re in a hurry to rush home and get those tacos on the table, but don’t careen around the corners so fast that you initiate a forceful meeting between Betty Crocker and Orville Redenbacher.
Practice defensive shopping. Try to remember that there are people with immediate dietary concerns that may require them to effect a sudden stop in front of you to compare chocolate chip content on the cookie aisle. Likewise, you must understand that if you stop in the middle of the aisle while trying to decide between creamy and crunchy, you are likely to become a temporary member of the fresh fruit display. Take heart in the fact that kumquats should not do any permanent damage to your complexion.
Please show concern for the safety of other shoppers. Do not execute a sudden lane change without at least warning the gentleman who is presently rolling his cart over the heels of your Reeboks that he may suddenly find himself neck deep in summer squash. Likewise, don’t speed up suddenly, causing the six-year-old boy who is riding below the cart in front of you like a mudflap on an tractor-trailer to wrap around your front wheel like freshly chewed bubblegum.
Do not accelerate like Richard Petty on the straightaway at Talledega to beat me to the Express Lane, especially if your buggy is loaded like a Conastoga and you’re counting all 24 cans of Little Friskies as one item to make the 10-item limit, and all I’m carrying is a gallon of milk, two packs of Ho Ho’s, and a box of Ben & Jerry’s that has created a layer of freezer burn up to my elbow. I have killed for less than that.
Remember to return your buggy to the cart corral after you load your car. You may feel justified in aiming it toward the gate and assuming it will roll downhill to the target by itself, but let me assure you that grocery carts are not domesticated animals and will take every opportunity to separate from the pack and make a break for freedom. Lassie is not available to pull the buggy from quicksand, a well, or the tailpipe of a new Jaguar that happens to be in its path. The aftermath of the ensuing chaos will involve your insurance, and this is one case when the term “deductible” might be unsetttling.
Most importantly, steer clear of the lady dressed in a New York Yankees T-Shirt, stretch pants, and flip flops, who is wringing her hands and doing laps with a cart that contains two boxes of Ding Dongs and a frozen pizza. It’s me and I can’t decide what to have for supper.