Just the Magic, Please

Today is a magical day.  Every day is a magical day; and notice that we don't have to put every ight next to day just because they could also  sometimes be a different word.

I'm typing this without my glasses and I can almost read it.  In fact, since I know what I am typing I can actually make out most of the letters.  I can certainly tell when the red squiggly line comes on that tells me there is a typo.  So my eyes continue to improve.  The other day I had a slight headache, but that was the only day in many where I've worn glasses to read, taken them off, put them on, etc. over and over.  Generally I really don't want to wear my glasses to drive and I can see fine except for reading, but if I back up farther than usual I can read better.

My dear cousin and her children had the best Disney vacation.  My acupuncturist spoke to me today.  My work week went well and is now concluded and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  I have been craving McDonald's, which isn't new, but I have been limiting myself to the cheap Sausage McMuffin without the two dollar egg, and the iced coffee- and refilling it mostly with unsweet tea.  My McDonald's general menu has changed.  I was avoiding sugar for awhile (one word) but of course since being introduced to Arnold Ehret I have been eating much more fruit and trying to eat what I crave or better yet, figure out what my body really wants and have some of that... not just whatever sounds good at the moment or whatever is handy or whatever I am in the habit of eating.

A few years ago I was into vegetables and avoiding sugar and salt.  That meant I wasn't eating much fruit but I was eating berries such as black, blue and some straw.  Once I figured out that strawberries aren't really that sweet when not perfect, I ate more of them.  I was craving salt and specifically French Onion Dip, fried chicken, and potato chips.  One day it got to the point where I had to eat salt.  I would avoid it and drink so much water that I was going to the bathroom all day; but jobless at the time, I had nothing else to do and really- no matter how stupid it sounds now, looking back- I guess I fell for the marketing scheme.... You know, water- good, salt- bad.

Hello, we need water and we need salt.  That really shouldn't be up for debate. 

It wasn't until my teenage years that people started thinking they couldn't walk across the street without a water bottle in their hands.  That's the way Joan Rivers put it once; and actually it wasn't until years after that.  It wasn't until my teen years that water was actually for sale in any form other than sparkling to the general public.  I'm sure water was for sale somewhere; but our conception of it was that it was free.

Nothing's really free, but how nice it was to think that one of the necessities of life was free and available for every one.  (not everyone; which would be a pronoun? or stand in for one?)  I digress.

water was considered free.  And there were public water fountains and people could ask for water at restaurants - maybe not in big cities, I don't know- without feeling as if they should pay or tip the server who brought a glass.  We didn't feel like we owed anybody anything for dirtying the glass or taking up time.  We were drinking and people need to drink.  Then Coke took out the syrup and still charged for it; calling it Dasani, and because Perrier had already done it with individual bottles of sparkling, and some other companies did it with still; suddenly water cost money.

And suddenly we needed to drink it every moment we were awake; which intruded upon our sleep because we all have to get up in the middle of the night to get rid of it after we reach age fourty five because our bladders aren't made for doing that all day every day.  Duh.

And we blame it on caffeine.

Caffeine may well have something to do with this.  I certainly crave caffeine and am drinking much of it these days, and much of it in some days past.  I used to avoid but crave Coke.  Now I want coffee and tea.  But for years I've considered a category I want and alternately give in to or try to avoid- called "Things That Are Not Good For Me."

I think the key is that everything is good for me- if it is taken in quantities of one grain or less.  But growing up, food was divided between "good for you" and "not good for you."  So many days, I knew without hesitation that I really really wanted "Something Not Good For Me."  I don't remember what this category actually consisted of at first.  I didn't like food.  My Mom would arrange colorful bites of everything available on a blue plate to entice me.  And it worked.  Over time- a long time; I came to like every thing.  But it was a very very long process.  I didn't like everything until two years ago.  And even now, I really don't like everything because I tried a liver-cooked onion the other day to make sure I didn't like it again; and I did not.  I planned to eat one bite of liver.

I did not.

It was a very good decision.

When I was eight; everything I wanted to buy was a quarter.  It didn't matter if it was a case-quarter or not.  But my Dad would take me to the convenience store in Westgate and I could choose between a bag of potato chips; which seldom won; a soka- either grape or orange; which seldom won; a comic book- which often won; a candy bar- which sometimes won; or a couple dime candy boxes, with a nickel one.  The dime and nickel candies were things like rectangle boxes of lemon heads (which I did not get) or jaw breakers (in an aqua box which I did get) and grape sticks of long gum and maybe those Boston Baked Beans.  I didn't want Coke or Pepsi, but I did like it.  I liked every sugary thing I tasted, but clearly some more than others.  I also liked bright colors and of course; associated purple with grape.  I love purple and always have; and orange with orange- which is my least favorite bright color and I am very particular about it.  I like it on natural things like fruit and sunsets and tropical fish.

So I'm not sure at that age what foods would have been "Something Not Good For Me."  But whatever that food group contained; I didn't want it all the time; but I did want it when I wanted it.  I got very tired of taking thirty minutes to choke down a hard boiled egg while the other kids were at recess.  But it wasn't just eggs.  i didn't like to eat.  It seemed to take me just as long to choke down a whole apple.  Slices. on the other hand, did not intimidate me.

I would even eat the seeds and parts of the core.

It's amazing to me now what I was picky about then.  Eggs were one of the last obstacles to loving every food.  So was beef; I believe- well, steak.  Hamburger, meatloaf, salisbury steak, chopped steak- I love and always have- but a slab of meat isn't so great now and wasn't so great then.

Some time in high school I gave up pork for awhile.  But I never lost my taste for bacon and have never.  I did lose my taste for ham during that time and have since gained it back.  Today, nothing sounds better than a slab of cold ham on bread with maynaisse and butter.  But that would have disgusted me as a child and during that time also.

Then I gave up mammals.

Then I started eating meat again.

I never gave up birds and they were my favorite meat until recently.

Extremely recently, I started associating birds with omens, signs, augurs and wonders- spiritual activity of all sorts.  The other day I drove around, happy to be in the fresh blue sunlight, and noticed that wherever I went I was happy and wherever I went there were birds leading the way.  Now I realize this wasn't as obvious as the blue herons that lead us down the river while canoeing who are obviously trying to keep an eye on people.  But driving along in the sun on rural roads; one sees birds.  And if one follows them. and likes to drive, it is very easy to associate following birds with being free, happy and care-free.  Birds lead me to where I want to go.  Driving in the country- taking new paths. being underneath canopy roads.... what is better?

One day I drove around and found a neighborhood with peacocks..... lots and lots of them.  I love them.  They taste like chicken.

Actually I have no idea what they taste like, but I like them from knowing that their sound is used in Tarzan movies.  I like them from their association with wisdom evidenced in the Tiffany Chapel in Winter Park's center gold panels celbebrating Sophia; a name (and Loren, a woman) I love.  I want to go to the Hagia Sophia and I want wisdom.  I don't, however, want to live near peacocks, but I like watching them and my dear friend MJ collected their castoffs.

I've eaten chicken, turkey, duck, Cornish hen, pigeon, goose and maybe more but birds were my favorite meat until recently when it switched or switched back to beef.

For a long time, "Something Not Good For Me" which I define as a food I really wanted but thought I should avoid, was anything chocolate.  My taste for fruit flavors with sugar wasn't gone bun it may as well have been since it was trumped, not Trumped, by chocolate.

Then, there was a time when that group was chocolate or mocha.  Then the group expanded to include chocolate and more darker things like dark chocolate more often, mocha more and then plain coffee and tea.  So most recently it was a while group of dark plant materials containing caffeine; but of wildly different amounts including Coke.

So what are these things "not good for me" and why do I want them?

Another day, I drove around and followed birds (not really but saw birds wherever I went, and counted them.  Then I forgot the number and don't think I blogged about it.  But the most interesting example was when I went to another county's library and for professional reasons wanted to stop in.  Also it was for personal reasons.  I was driving around and wanted to explore.  I got out of the car and walked up to the door before i realized it was closed.  Getting back in my car proved exciting because a big rooster seemed to think he needed to guard his hen from me and I ran around and jumped in the passenger side before he got too close.  Before that i had seen many birds of various kinds including hawks and I think a bald eagle.  I'm not sure if it was that day; but I do see them, but right now it's rare.  There were birds outside my doctor's office- which I was convinced were singing to celebrate the fact that my insurance got me a discount and is not a waste of money anymore.  No, I'm not sure of that; but when I notice that I saved money and noticed birds being happy--- I notice.

Today a black bird was pecking at a discarded McDonald's wrapper.  I thought it was funny and I told him not to eat junk food; partly in jest because I don't think he knows English and I ate at McDonald's today.

I have been collecting the Monopoly pieces and when I looked at the wrapper closer after the crow left; it seems that those black pieces against the bright yellow wrapper were the things he was trying to get.

I wondered about that.  Would a crow or grackle or whatever kind of bird that was be attracted to a junk food wrapper?  I know they'll peck anything to investigate. but what do they want to eat?  It seems to me that there are not birds of prey.  All birds will eat whatever is little enough to eat that they like.  And I think they all will eat bugs and spiders and most bigger ones will eat lizards.

So, was the bird leading me to McDonald's or McDono's as I like to say?  Or Mac Donald's as I like to say?  Why do I like that place?

I learned during the time that I started eating salt again without trying to avoid it- due to near fainting spells, one almost vomiting session during which there was a true life tv story of a kid killed by intentional salt poisoning, that I certainly didn't need a whole combo.  I at first craved the fries, then craved the drink, then settled on sandwich with drink.  Then I got into the iced coffee and then I watered down the sugar with unsweet tea, which I am back to as of today. 

But what is the connection between wanting these items and should be having them?  At one point I did not like the fries.  At other points I gave them up because I thought eating only one junk food item was better than eating two.  There is a connection here between what I want, what I think I want and what I actually should be eating.  But what is that?

If the two Monopoly game pieces that the crow was pecking right outside my car parking space at my home bring me a million dollars, well I'll just have to give half of it to the Church.  Childhood movies might lead me to the notion that he, a black bird, leads me to bad things.  But I don't believe that.