Corn

My apartment still smells like popcorn.

It was really good popcorn though.  I prefer popping it like my dad does, in a pan on the stove.  He'd make buckets of it when we were kids--just salt, no butter.  We would eat it out of the salad bowl set that my parents got for their wedding.  It was covered in daisies with a green background.  (You can actually see an example of the pattern on the ice bucket on the kitchen set of "That 70s Show.")  I still prefer to eat popcorn out of those bowls when I visit him.

We watched Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging and were both pleasantly surprised.  It wasn't as bad as we thought it would be.  It was even cute with some segments just like the books.  On the other hand I was able to watch (most of the time without digital issues) The Ugly Truth today and it was as I was afraid it would be.  The movie was predictable (who's surprised) and Gerard Butler just didn't look like I wanted him too look.  No CGI.

I started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan last night.  I realize I am coming a couple years late to the table (ha) with this one, but I kept asking my sister if I could borrow it and she kept saying her friend had it.  I've been looking for something to read, mostly looking for escapism in books like Sunshine by Robin McKinley (awesome), but Pollan's book has stuck me right in the middle of a reality that is almost as fantastic as vampires and magikal beings.  I've already read through the corn section.  Tonight while I sipped my decaf pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks and ate my Chipotle burrito (steak, pinto beans, no rice) in front of the TV, I wondered just how much high-fructose corn syrup I was consuming.  At my stop at the grocery store the entire section loomed threateningly, composed to my eyes entirely by stalks of corn.  I couldn't bring myself to buy any groceries (okay, I have plenty at home and didn't need anything really.)

I grew up in Iowa, though not on a farm.  The elementary school I went to was edged by corn fields.  There was a period of time when my sister started acting particularly wacky and my mom found corn kernels in her jacket pockets.  Mom decided that the wacky behavior was due to an allergy to the corn being absorbed through her skin.  My family had completed the elimination diet (do you know how bad rice crackers were in the 70s?) in the months previous and my sister had come up with that corn allergy.  To my mind I have largely outgrown the allergy as an adult, but in reading about the prevalence of corn and corn syrup in the diet of the average American, I have to wonder what those old allergies think of the junk we pour in with an increasing addiction to every drop.

Then I took a lovely, relaxing bath in Lush (60% organic) bubble bath.  I do wish my bath weren't an apartment size clawfoot, but the GIANT full-size clawfoot I bathed in as a child.  (Of course I was much smaller.)

And then I started the section of the book on grasses while in the tub.  What exactly is 60% organic?  What is organic?

I've been seriously considering trying to go 100% organic (more expensive = less food = smaller me.)  My cats went completely organic a couple of years ago because one of them almost died due to a blockage due to a build up of crystals caused by a dry and ash-filled diet.  They now eat 100% organic, human-grade chicken and herring everyday.  They are all smaller, no visible dander, and have glossy beautiful coats.  So I also reason organic for myself will also result in a smaller me with a glossy beautiful coat.  I'm not going to go District 9, but I see the benefits and I am tempted to follow the cats' lead.  And I thought shopping at Whole Foods would do it.  How disappointed am I.

Just a note on that cat food issue.  They've stopped enjoying the chicken and herring.  Time to move on to a seafood flavor.  I thought cats prefered a single flavor.  Does anyone know about cat preferences?

So I can't wait til the farmer's markets open up again when I can eat locally-sourced, hopefully really organic fresh vegetables all summer.  I plan on quizing the growers.  I miss garlic scapes.

Angus Thongs & Perfect Snogging
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Sunshine