O the Joy of Fat-free Bran Muffins [Sarcasm]

My original Beer vs. Bread entry received this comment: “Just give me a big homemade cinnamon roll!!” It was from my mom and I see her point. To use notation you haven’t seen since you took the SAT, I believe she was saying:

bread : beer :: bran muffin : cinnamon roll

If the lingo of standardized tests never was your thing, that translates as “bread is to beer as that dry, crummy rock of a muffin is to a hot gooey cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven.” Mom’s cinnamon roll would be the equivalent of my beer: its sugar and fat providing the decadent departure that parallels the bubbly buzz of barley. On the other end of the spectrum lies the healthy but uninspiring fat-free bran muffin. Mmm, mmm.

If you ever did have a delicious bran muffin, it was probably not fat free. It was loaded with real butter, tons of sugar, and other rich indulgences. But at the Yin-Yang Cafe that is life, there are some mandatory side dishes that aren’t much fun. Tom Robbins, in the book Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, called such daily nuisances “maintenance.” Toothbrushing, flossing, seeing the dentist (just about anything to do with your teeth) are good examples. Tending to your innards and the latter parts of your body’s consumption of fuel are also good examples of maintenance. Robbins’ globetrotting idealist, Switters, only barely tolerates these dull necessities. Ultimately he despises them.

So, just to carry the point right through to your lower intestine without delay, let’s make our hypothetical yin muffin a vegan, nondairy, gluten-free, wheat-free, naturally unsweetened, whole spelt muffin loaded with psyllium husk. Now as joyless as this hockey puck of a baked good may sound, for some folks with acute intestinal grumpiness, this may actually be their key to regular daily comfort. Or else they could swirl Metamucil in tepid water and gulp it down like a full eight ounces of slug slime twice a day. My prescription should you find yourself so afflicted? Skip the mucilaginous drink. Take two muffins, drop the kids off at the pool, and do the paperwork in the morning. [Editor’s note: Ah, toilet humor. Never lose your inner teenage boy.]

So, was there a point here or did we swirl into mucilaginy? [Ed.: not sure if I’m coining a phrase, but the world just seemed to need an official term for “a state of slug sliminess”] Ah yes, the importance of sustenance and simple survival-minded maintenance in our daily lives. Did you know that was where I was going? Bravo: that makes one of us.

Absolutely I’m a fan of homemade cinnamon rolls, Winchell’s doughnuts (the maple French cruller is brilliant), beer, and life’s other decadences. But they are decadences. Remember my mechanic’s warning that if you don’t work like a farmer, don’t eat like one? That doesn’t stop me from eating Little Debbie snack cakes, sugary cereals, and more than my share of high-fructose corn syrup— I interpret his advice as incentive to go out and spend those extra calories and preservatives on something exhausting and frivolous. There’s a reason a sugar high makes you want to bounce off the walls: you’ve got fuel to burn. So go ahead and bounce. And then get back to your maintenance.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,
Greg

Photo by izik

Be Kind to Sick Bats

There I was, doing silly-looking physical therapy stretches on a lounge chair in the middle yard. He showed up out of nowhere and said “hello friend.” Now, setting aside my embarrassment over being caught in a battle with a stretchy yellow band, this would not have been an unusual occurrence. Now that we have a fence to corral our dog plus several others from the neighborhood, our middle yard has become a bit of a thoroughfare. But, you see, what made this unusual was that my visitor didn’t walk in through the gate, but rather flew in.

“Hello new friend,” I replied.

“It’s old friend, I assure you. I am Sonny.” He executed a flourish and a deep bow.

I could feel my grin pushing my earlobes back. “Sonny?! The little injured baby bat I gave water and a grape and set up on top of the arbor until you were able to fly away?”

“The very same. I am alive thanks to you and the neighbor who brought me to you.”

“It seems I have become the neighborhood authority on flying mammals.”

“I suspect it was also because your neighbors know you as kind.”

“Funny, that’s the very topic I need to blog about this month. Kind is the sixth point of the Scout Law, after helpful, friendly, and courteous. I’ve been having trouble seeing the difference between each of those. Aren’t all four pretty similar?”

He examined the tiny fingers on one of his winged arms. I found myself wondering if bats have fingernails— what marvelous little clippers they must have! He said: “Well, I’m sure you can do the nerdy word wrangling as well as I can, comparing etymologies, connotations, and sample usages. But it would be nice to go deeper, right?”

“Exactly,” I answered. “I was thinking that courtesy and helpfulness are based on something external: following rules of etiquette or responding to other people’s needs. Kindness and friendliness seem to come from an inner source.”

“OK, but how is being kind different from being friendly?”

“Well, friendliness can be sort of solicitous, like you’re putting forth good vibes in hopes of getting something back.” I pondered a moment then caught myself scrutinizing my own fingernails. “Kindness seems more selfless. I think it comes from the heart.”

“Good thoughts,” said Sonny. “Ponder this: it’s easy to be kind to animals, but sometimes tougher to be kind to your own, ahem, kind.” He began making motions to depart: “I’m afraid I have an appointment for a manicure. Can we continue this another time?”

“Certainly. It’s good to see you flying, Sonny.”

“And it’s good to see you, um—” he glanced at the yellow band which was still tugging on my Achilles, and he grinned mischievously: “—stretching.” His expression became earnest and he said emphatically: “Thank you, friend.”

These important mammals are threatened[By the way, there is currently a very real threat to bats across the U.S. Should you find a spot of kindness for these creatures, which are incredibly valuable to our ecosystem, please look into the current spread of White Nose Syndrome. It has become a legitimate epizootic (a disease epidemic afflicting only animals). While this is not a disease that can spread to humans, it has already killed millions of the world’s only flying mammals. That includes endangered species as well as those contributing significantly to the balance of life by devouring agricultural pests, spreading seeds, pollinating our flora, and providing spectacular nightly aeronautics for our middle-yard viewing delight. There are groups working to study this disease and stop its spread. Over 50 conservation groups have petitioned Congress for funding— which can take time and is hardly guaranteed. Any help you can provide would be a kind gesture to our ecosystem.]

Thanks for reading. Cheers,
Greg

Blog #6 of a monthly series on the 12 points of the Scout Law.

Photo by noiseburst. Map by Bat Conservation International.

Phlegmy, Unshaven, and Fragrant

[Here I submit a sort of book review I emitted last week. Full names have been withheld to protect the fragrant. Perhaps you, too, will find merit in this recommendation. If intrigued, listen to author T.R. Pearson reading from this very book.]

To: Patrick
Subject: RE: Thinking of you…

Patrick: I must admit that the email below contains a falsehood. You were, in fact, the first person to come to mind as I began this T.R. Pearson novel, but there are two reasons why I have fictionalized that detail for my friend Mr. Stephenson:

  1. I was under the impression that Mr. Stephenson was not his usual cheery self these days and, in my way, thought that perhaps associating him with dog farts might somehow bring him round.
  2. The opening of this book contains an extended account of one Clayton, “phlegmy, unshaven, and fragrant in his ordinary fashion,” which, while not an image I compare to your own, might nevertheless be taken as an indelicate assumption, were I to mention that you had come to mind in the early pages of this book.

So, suffice it to say that the book recommendation below, though I am only one chapter deep, is one I can enthusiastically extend to you. And, more to the point, the suggestion that we continue, in person over beers, such unflattering comparisons of each other to various forms of flatulence, is more an insistence in your case than a suggestion.

Yours Truly,
GH
________________________________________

To: Mr. Stephenson
Subject: Thinking of you…

Mr. Stephenson: a book recommendation for you, assuming, as our mutual friend Mr. Edwards was once queried in the vicinity of your upbringing, you’re one of those types who finds reason to read. You were the first to come to mind as I began reading one of the more recent of that T.R. Pearson’s novels, a book called Polar. And the shade of yourself that came to mind in a fond sort of way for me was not the well-dressed type who arrives on a fine imported motorcycle and drinks imported beers.

No, the gentleman of whose company I was reminded was that variety of Stephenson who emerges conversationally upon the occasion of deep-fried food, served by a pock-faced waitress who nonetheless boasts a figure that inspires indelicate thoughts in the mind of the average male patron. He is the same sort of Stephenson who trades his usual inky English ale without complaint for a lager of the NASCAR persuasion.

And if it goes any further in recommending this book to you, I offer this passage on canine flatulence which brought to my eyes a surprised and, frankly, envious rush of tears as fit for that Pearson’s prose as for the “vaporish toxins” of which he writes:

Then, of course, there was his dog as well, an ancient mongrel named Monroe. She was sullen and unfriendly, greasy, matted and vaporish in a grand and foully intrusive sort of way. She broke treacherous wind, that is to say, with a kind of ceremony. She would still herself and hunker and tauten, and there would come upon her features an expression of devout concentration as if she were running the figures to reconcile the national debt in her head.

The way the chief’s wife told it, she and her beefy unbetrothed niece couldn’t help but watch that mongrel squatting by the hearth where the planking yielded to masonite beneath Ray’s fuel-oil heater. They couldn’t decide if she was about to drop dead or recite a holy psalm, but clearly something of moment was afoot. So they watched her, and they waited. They even went together prattleless for a time which caught Ray’s notice, and he joined the two of them in study of Monroe until she’d broken the wind that she’d been ushering through her tracts and ducts and went back to shoving her paw in her ear and groaning.

The smell arrived shortly and fairly much seized them with its ghastliness. “We stopped out on the parkway,” Ray informed them. “I think she ate a squirrel.”

If, by chance, your day is lacking in personal gratification, perhaps it’s some small recompense that such a passage might bring you to mind. See you soon over either an inky pint or else a “beer that tastes like ambitious water.” Cheers,

Greg

Photo by Vagabond Shutterbug