Crankcase

Two bags of jelly beans, a ten-year old and a Tilt-A-Whirl.

I turn 32 tomorrow. I don't know why this one burns me a lot more than turning 30. The big 3-oh wasn't big and didn't have much "oh" neither. Thirty deuce is the one that decides to whip my hide. Go figure.

Anyhoo all toys, winning lottery tickets, sacks of cash and property deeds can be sent to me care of this website.

posted by: Jiggsy at 04/11/05 12:40 | link | comments (3) |

(Sung to the old Spider Man theme song)

Sushi Day, Sushi Day

Is anything better than Sushi Day?

It’s raw fish served with rice

It looks slimy but taste’s real nice

Look out, today is Sushi Day!

posted by: Jiggsy at 04/07/05 07:52 | link | comments (1) |

I have an addiction. I feel I should post this to let people know what’s been going on with me. In a way this will be rather cathartic for me to just come out and say it instead of trying to explain all the years of lies and covering up my actions. I have come to a point in my life where I am ready to accept whatever Fate has in store for me. Okay, here goes (deep breath).

I am a chocoholic and I have a problem.

Revile me, shun me if you must, but I am working to improve myself. Having been born to a chocoholic mother, I later discovered that the condition is largely genetic. In other words if you were born to a chocoholic parent, the odds favor that you too will succumb to the fruits of Theobroma cacao. I had secretly hoped that I would follow in my father’s footsteps; chocolate holds no sway over him. He has even openly shunned it in favor of some other non-chocolate dessert. Coffee and cigarettes are his drugs of choice. As for me, I expect to find myself years from now in a five dollar flop house, half clothed and muttering incoherently while Cadbury egg wrappers fall to the floor like foil snowflakes.

With a baby on the way, I realized I had to put this… this urge to rest. Can you imagine the shame if I was caught speedballing a bag of Toll House morsels? I couldn’t let the child see my weakness, I just couldn’t. I took it upon myself to not eat any chocolate for Lent (40 days before Easter in other words). So, how did I do?

The first weeks were the toughest. It seemed like everything chocolate was talking to me. Leftover holiday candies, cocoa powder, even freakin’ Ovaltine just seemed to mock me from every corner. “C’mon, have a hit, just one itty bitty hit. It’ll make the day go faster. People will like you more. Besides, new medical reports say it’s good for you.” I stayed strong and, strangely, developed a huge appetite for raisins. Yeah, raisins. Dole if you can get ‘em.

My one weak spot was the Polar Bear Plunge (sorry, no photos of it this year). We had our usual home celebration and without thinking I had a square of my sister Martha’s famous grasshopper brownies (made with real grasshoppers!). Only after I plunked down my fork did I realize what I had done. I chalked it up to poor blood circulation and vowed to be stronger.

I stayed up late the Saturday before Easter so I could consume some of the sweetened wonders that I kept myself from. I half slept, half meditated over the wafer of Ghirardelli dark just after midnight. Fantastic.

Now on the tail end of it, I have not conquered my demon, but at least moved him into a nice cage with weekend pass privileges. My intake has gone from just about every meal to a single Dove dark chocolate egg, melted on the tongue. As for chocolate itself, I have this much to say: most of it is utter crap. The pawed over cases you find in the local checkout is not chocolate, just something brown and sugary. Like everything else, it’s worth paying a little more for something of better quality. A local chocolate shop would love for you to become a regular, even if you only buy a piece at a time. Commercially made items also work, but you have to be choosy. Ghirardelli, Dove, Hershey if there is no other alternative. Reese’s only saving grace is their peanut butter (that’s for another Lent), while Nestle should be dragged out into the street and shot. And, since I am from the home town of M&M’s, CAN’T YOU FREAKIN’ PEOPLE MAKE ME A DARK CHOCOLATE M&M?! Were crunchy M&M’s really such a fantastic marketing leap? And how many meetings did it take to create that unholy amalgamation you call an Amazing Bar? I call it amazing only in that anyone would eat them!

Sorry, sorry, just lost my cool there. I think I’ll head down to the vending machine to settle myself…

posted by: Jiggsy at 04/04/05 11:13 | link | comments (3) |