Pedophile or Infertile?

I have a friend who I helped adopt a son. I like hanging out with her, but I also enjoy hanging out with her kids, especially my special little boy. She will sometimes take her kids to the free lunch in the park and when I am available, I will meet her there and we chat while the kids play. Last week I got to the park just as she called to say she was running late. Now I am standing in the park, but haven't brought any kids with me. I had the strange feeling that I looked like a pedophile. Really? Who comes to the park at prime time, but doesn't bring any children with them? Yeah, the pervert. The other sad half to this story is that my husband and I are certifiably infertile. We just don't have that procreative magic that will produce anything to birth and so it is not always easy to hang out with other people's kids. So I probably got out of the car, had that "look at all those lucky moms with all those darling kids" look on my face, and instead of running over to meet up with the ones I belonged with, I took a phone call and went back into my car. I know I don't get off on kids, but in the idea of avoiding the appearance of perversion, in that moment I wanted to hide, that or issue a public statement to all the moms in the park, "Its okay, I am here with kids! Their ride is just late!!! Please don't call the police on me because I am a single woman in the park with no apparent reason!" So I sat in the car, that thankfully I parked facing the street, until my fiends came. While waiting, someone laid out a blanket on the tiny strip of grass in front of where I was waiting and fed their kids. "Hello? Yeah, you who are keeping your kids from the park? Yeah, you see, I'm trying to not look creepy and having you sit in front of me while I eat my lunch by myself in my car isn't helping!"

So next time you go to the park and some lonely person shows up with that look on their face, just think, "Oh, they are just meeting someone who is late." If they reach in their pants, feel free to call the police. I would call too. After I bashed their head in with the nearest stroller. "Yes officer, I was trying to unfold this stroller, you know how complicated that can be, and it just came down on this dude's head! But good thing, you can see by his unconscious poise that its a good thing this 'accident' happened." (cheers).

Maybe some day I will have a baby or be the chosen family for adoption, but until then, I will just be fashionable late to lunch in the park.

Noise Natzi (Yes, spelled wrong on purpose.)

My Sexy Husband calls me the Noise Natzi. I never bothered killing my ears during high school with crazy loud music, so now I wish I had because I hear EVERYTHING. Of course, there have been some good things, like hearing the sump pump in the middle of the night and stopping a flood. But there are way more bad things.

I suck at sleeping. So much so that I sleep in the basement, I have earplugs at my bedside should some random dog start yapping, a gun at the bedside (because I hear all the fake break in sounds too) and I positively CANNOT sleep if I hear a noise and can't identify it. If you can imagine it, traveling is ridiculous! I could totally rip apart hotels for the amount of weird noises they make, and I am not talking about rude neighbors! One time there was a mini-fridge that sounded like it was dying, so I unplugged it, only to be awoken later by the dripping water as it defrosted! And I hear all the water running through the pipes and the elevator at the end of the hall. At my house, I can be upstairs and my husband will be watching a movie and using headphones and I can tell him what movie he was watching because I heard enough to know. From his headphones. Upstairs.

Its really sad actually. I kept dreaming when I was younger that I would be able to put it to good use. Like hearing the neighbor kid choking and rushing in and doing the Heimlich Maneuver and saving the day. Or stopping a break in because they should have not breathed from the street. But alas, all I get is a few times every night where I wake up to who knows what and can't fall back asleep until I solve it. Our neighbors like their gate open and when it is windy, if the rock isn't holding it open well enough, lets just say I am glad I have never been caught when I am fixing it at 3 am.

Thank goodness I live in a nice neighborhood. I would hate to be raped because I was out trimming a branch in the middle of the night and a hoodlum walked by and disarmed me and no one would ever hear me scream. I would, but that doesn't matter.

I have a great husband who is very patient. Its a trade off we have going on between us. He puts up with my super sonic hearing and I put up with the man stuff. At least he doesn't spit.

Fixing my marshmallows

I am on another diet. Last time it was the Ideal Protein diet. It worked well, I looked great and got awesome sex as a reward. But then summer ended and nursing school started up again. Darn, food is yummy and a great stress reliever and so here I am on my second diet ever in my life. This time I chose the HCG diet from our healthfood store. I only went on this crazy diet because my cousin did and it is working well for her. And I can eat fruit. Not that I love fruit when I am not dieting, but that is something I craved when I was on the last one. The other perk to this diet is that there is an end to it. That's right. You can only go a max of 40 days before your system is sensitized to it and you have to take a break. Nice. Its like permission and I needed that.

Since I am barely eating food right now, naturally food is on my mind. All the time. And only desserts. Because why would I crave granola or soy products on a diet? Yeah, that's what I thought. But the important part of this ramble is that since I find I am craving my favorite desserts, I also have the motivation to change my recipes for the future moment when I can eat them.

Part of my motivation comes from hating being on this diet. Yes, my Sexy Husband made homemade french fries for the first time in our marriage while I was on this diet. Nice. But everything he is eating sounds nice, even the stuff I avoided before. Some days I even feel totally food lonely because I am a social eater and watching Sexy Husband and Daughter eat french fries and not even use ketchup was a very sad moment for me.

The other part of the motivation was watching for the first time Super Size Me. I ruthlessly watched the 10 part Youtube version which was supposed to be only for educational purposes. Images of the "Downloading illegal stuff is illegal" commercials flashed through my head, but I truly was educated and I am a student, so I justified it. Besides, if the author was watching me watch his documentary and hear all the gasps coming out of my mouth every time they showed his lab values, I think he would be pleased.

So the moral of today's story is that I think I am on this second diet because I am a slave to corn syrup. I went through my cupboards and looked at the labels of a lot of the food my family eats and cried. By myself. I didn't want Sexy Husband or Daughter to think I was crying because I couldn't eat right now. I was crying because I made the commitment to cut corn syrup out of my diet before realizing it was in EVERYTHING I LOVE TO EAT!

But here is why I want to do this-
-I generally feel pretty crappy, except for while I am dieting. The first time around I figured it was because I wasn't drinking milk and eating wheat and all sorts of jazz. This second time around, I am getting wheat and a titch of milk is okay and it hasn't floored me yet, so trying to be a self listener, I will have to excuse those two in moderation.
-I don't want to diet ever again. Yeah, if there is a magical fix called generally eating healthy, I'll take it!
-I already generally took MSG out of my diet because of my first diet and my headaches decreased. And my siblings and other family members have showed sensitivity to MSG too so I don't have to re-research that one to individualize it.
-The saddest thing about ending my last diet is that I began to crave everything. But especially marshmallows. I know corn syrup is addicting because my favorite peanut butter rice crispy treats have it in it and I really have eaten an entire batch in one sitting because I just could not get enough. And no, my BMI has never reached Obese, but I don't need that kind of threat to decide to change my life.
-Its an easy target. Its in everything I crave that is sweet. Before diet #1, I drank soda and was gaining weight. I stopped. I maintained my weight, albeit bigger than I was comfortable with. The best part is that at this time in the American culture of food, its also on food labels pretty clearly. Finding MSG in stuff was pretty wicked because it is its own controversial additive and so I had to settle for not adding it to my food and avoiding the big offenders.

But the sad part of this story is that my favorite cookie happens to have a marshmallow right on top! And it is my family's favorite too, so I had to find a solution. I have decided sugar isn't bad, of course it needs moderation, but it doesn't need a bed companion of corn syrup. Hence I was delighted to find this recipe on Frugal Kiwi that was free of the offending ingredient.

http://frugalkiwi.co.nz/2009/09/corn-syrup-free-marshmallow-madness/

Homemade Marshmallows with NO Corn Syrup

1 tbsp (6.5g) gelatine
1/4 cup cool water

1 cups granulated sugar
1/4 + 1/8 cup water (halved recipes lead to weird amounts!)
1 tbsp honey
1/8 tsp kosher salt
1/4 vanilla bean, seeds removed or 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
(may substitute any extract here)

1/8 cup cornstarch
1/8 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp cocoa, optional

In a small bowl, stir together corn starch and powdered sugar, and cocoa if using. This is

Prepare a pan: Grease and dust a baking dish or cookie pan with a rim. If piping your marshmallows out, you can grease and dust some waxed paper instead.

Combine cool water and gelatine in a large bolw.

In a heavy saucepan, combine water, vanilla sugar, honey and salt. Bring to rolling boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until candy thermometer registers 115 degrees C (238-240 F), firm ball stage.

Turn on mixer at low speed. Slowly pour hot syrup into bowl. Splatters hurt! Mix until thoroughly combined, and then turn mixer to high. Beat until very thick, fluffy and lukewarm, about 12-15 minutes with a stand mixer.

Spread evenly into prepared pan, and cool overnight or at least 3-4 hours before slicing. To slice, remove entire sheet of mallows to a sugar/cornstarch dusted cutting board. Grease a very sharp knife or scissors, and cut into desired size. Toss with remaining powdered sugar mixture until all sides are evenly coated and no longer sticky.

If piping into “kisses,” let set for 2 hours. Then CAREFULLY remove from wax paper and coat with powdered sugar mixture.

Will keep for 2-3 weeks in an airtight container, but I doubt long term storage is going to be a big issue for you.

Also heavenly dipped in dark chocolate. But then again what isn’t?

Thank you Kiwi Lady. Now I just need to hit day 40 so I can experiment. It is no fun to make something awesome and leave it to others to eat without trying it myself! And yes, the chocolate cookie part needs help too, but that will come, that will come...