Year 2, Day 28: Slip Slidin' Away

"Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip sliding away" - Paul Simon

I was thinking about this song today as I desperately struggled to keep some of the eating under control. Between the pistachios, the pita bread for lunch, and the bread and oatmeal cookie for dinner, I felt somewhat out of control, and not for any particular reason of note. It didn't feel good. It's been coming on for a few days. At least there was a brisk walk with the full on Domania gang today (a reunion of sorts). Even though I went to the gym yesterday, I felt compelled to step ahead of the pack to work up a sweat. Of course most of that benefit is wiped away 40 pistachios later.

Breakfast
1 cup Kashi Go Lean!
1/4 cup Grape Nuts
1 cup Unsweetened Soy Milk
Tea

Snack
12 oz. Coffee (half decaf)
40 Pistachios

Lunch: Peter's Kitchen
Salad with Grilled Chicken
1 Slice Pita

Dinner
1 Slice Balthazar Rye Bread (just arrived)
Breast of Chicken
Sauteed Spinach with Garlic
Peppadews

Etc.
1 Oatmeal Cookie (Fed to me by Magnolia; but I ate it)

In this blog I have traditionally discussed way of eating and meals with loving remembrance, and a healthy dose of remorse. In my life I have picked up a lot of bad eating habits from my family and friends, but mostly developed quite a few on my own. Eating an oatmeal cookie tonight reminded me of my father, as he used to love dipping oatmeal cookies into coffee, which is something I used to beg him to do for me, because the hot coffee made the cookies soaking wet and warm and it was like they were coming out of the oven. You also had to eat them quickly because they wouldn't really hold together for too long. You could take a minute, but after that it was broke-back cookie. Also it wasn't like coffee today (very strong). Coffee was very weak back then, so it didn't really have an acrid taste that might make a kid recoil in horror. At least a few times he had to pour me my own cup because I was essentially ruining the coffee drinking experience, if I remember it correctly. I think for a long time I did take up eating cookies by dipping them into some hot beverage, before I realized you could eat a lot more cookies if you could skip the dipping step. By this time in 2004, a few months before my gall bladder surgery, I was probably eating about a quarter to a half a bag of ginger snap cookies a night. Seriously. I had read somewhere that ginger was good for an ailing gall bladder. I am certain it said nothing about cookies, but they made me feel better. When you think about that I was going through two or three bags of cookies a week, it's really just disgraceful, but amazingly, eating one cookie tonight made me feel like that all over again.


"And I know a father who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he'd done
He came a long way just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and headed home again

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip sliding away"