Melting Kitchen Utensils and Other Pointless Randomness

Yesterday I was sad. Today I’m happy. In fact, I just ran several laps around my apartment, which made me slightly dizzy because my apartment’s pretty small.

Gracie merely eyed me; she was probably thinking, “What the…? Why is she running in circles – I’m not even chasing her. And she’s not chasing anything!”

Well, Gracie, I was chasing down my thoughts, OK?! So don’t judge.

My thoughts tonight are running randomly, alighting on various unrelated occurrences from the past few weeks.

Like when I made Elixir of Spoon instead of rhubarb compote. As I caramelized the sugar, I also caramelized the spoon. My beautiful rhubarb had to go away, down the sink. I maybe cried. Just kidding. But I did scream and stomp, and the elixir remnants then turned to cement on the bottom of the pot.

There are just things you shouldn’t do in the kitchen, and cooking over high heat with plastic spoons is one. Also, putting whole trunks of broccoli into a running garbage disposal is another. Note to self: only on Home Improvement do garbage disposals actually shred things like hockey pucks, broccoli heads, etc.

Also, leaving a rubber Pyrex lid on top of a hot stove burner should be avoided. You will no longer have a complete set of Pyrex dishes with matching lids. And you will never – EVER – get the melted lid off the burner.

Finally, you should use oven mitts. Just saying.

My second attempt at rhubarb compote succeeded since I decided wooden spoons would be a wise investment. It is the loveliest jewel-pink color and tastes perfect on top of my morning oatmeal.

Here’s another random incident: while walking to my car headed to work, I looked down to see in my hand my pocketbook and the TV remote.

And then, this phone call while at work:

Me: “Good afternoon, this is Meredith.”

Guy: “Meredith?!” 

Me: “Yes….”

Guy: “Well! My name is April.”

Me: “How can I help you? (?!?)”

Guy: “I’m the Caaaab Maaaaannnnn…I pick up all them drunks? And I’m ’bout ready to come over there and pick you up.”

He was calling to find out the balance on his account.

Oh, my job.

Oh, life.

Oh…JOGGERS! If you are one, listen carefully.

Carefully. 

Shouting, “WE’REGONNABEONYOURLEFT!!!!” 2 seconds before you are, in fact, on my left, isn’t helpful.

All right – I’m signing off of this pointless post.

I hope I don’t get picked up by The Cab Man.

 

For good measure, one other thing you probably shouldn't do - photograph and drive.

Finally, because I'm obsessed with my dog, and it rained today!

5 Years of Mays

Tuesday, May 16, 2006 

At Remuda Ranch

Gone with the Wind is on. I am so tired. With the new summer schedule, I’ve been getting up closer to 4…

Today was a wonderful weather day. The morning was mild, the evening has been exciting and stormy and patio umbrellas were blowing into cacti and the clouds were terrifically dark. We felt a few raindrops! Walking back from chapel in the wind and dust I was thinking about how before the rain, the storm comes…it stirs everything up, it’s scary. In my mind I can hear the sound of the rain as it starts to fall, then the rush as it is released. It is a healing sound to me, the sound of grace…

Wednesday, May 17, 2007

I am sad tonight. I am really struggling with my eating disorder right now…I feel like…it’s slowly closing in around me. Like a domed ceiling slowly closing over the stars. Like a tyrannical voice in my head. The compulsion to exercise and restrict, to control my body. I worked out again at the SRC this afternoon. It’s incredible how 2 days on the elliptical machine and doing ab crunches on the ball can draw me into the “womb” of my eating disorder and away from the world. I want to lose weight, but if I do my parents will notice and tell me “we can’t go down this road again,” and I will feel like saying shut up, I can go down any road I want to. I could be so much more than I am right now, life could be more. But with my eating disorder, possibilities and dreams and desires – everything becomes dulled. I’m wearing myself out. I want to, I don’t want to, I want to, I don’t want to, I want to, is the story of my life right now.

I think that I’m really angry at myself, for my eating disorder, for struggling. I felt very good and in control, I suppose, drinking my water with my zero-calorie raspberry white tea to-go mix and exercising hard and restricting and eating my wasabi peas one at a time. Is this relapse? Whatever, sometimes I don’t care. I wish I could say, these are the things I love about life, and I would rather have them than my eating disorder. But tonight I feel like I have to have exercise. I have to have products made with Splenda, chewable vitamins that are sugar-free. It’s not that I necessarily want or like these things, but I must have them…

Friday, May 16, 2008

Oh man – I feel out of control because I ate lunch, and felt like I sort of scarfed it down, and I ate 2 low-fat free cookies at Harris Teeter with some other samples…All of a sudden yesterday I started to flip out about gaining weight. I think it is because I went to Panera for lunch and had an apple, a French baguette, and a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup since it was a cloudy, windy, cozy day, and I ate it all. My wise mind tells me I didn’t gain weight overnight because I’ve been undereating and running every morning. This is an ED thought designed to keep me restricting. I will have to finish these thoughts tomorrow, but one last thing – as I was standing at the sink washing dishes, the most wonderful shower came through, just a heavy, straight-down, refreshing rain, singing in the leaves…the kind of rain that made me want to run out into it and twirl around!

Monday, May 18, 2009

All of a sudden I am struggling with ED compulsions and thoughts that seem to have come out of nowhere, really. Things I thought I was done fighting are back – yesterday going to the grocery store was harder than it has been in a very long time. I didn’t want to have anything to do with food. Having to make choices was too overwhelming; I just had to buy the bare minimum and get out of there. I even had a hard time making the bare minimum choices.

I haven’t felt urges to restrict and lose weight in a long time, either, but they are back, too! I’m thinking how can I do this without getting in too deep? I don’t think there’s a way – and do I really want to dig myself into this hole? At night I can’t sleep sometimes because my mind is fixated on how the insides of my thighs are touching. The last week or so has been a dark time for me. I guess I expect myself to maintain a “high” forever? which is obviously unrealistic.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Lord, you are so beautiful and so good! Thank you so much for all you have done. You send joyful, abundant rain on us when we are dry. I love to think of how you are like the rain – abundant, life-giving, refreshing, satisfying thirst. Thank you for the rain that is now falling. Yet I also think of the rain that fell in Nashville a few weeks ago that destroyed so much. Both good and bad are from your hand, and it is only your mercy that withholds, that gives us the rain we need yet restrains calamity, what as sinners we justly deserve.

I weighed myself and I was really surprised to see that I was XXX.X (!). I’m having a conundrum because I think if I exercised more, I’d be able to sleep better, but I would also lose weight which wouldn’t be healthy. Tonight I tried giving my muscles a good stretch – maybe that will help.

My favorite part of today was – well, there were several. One was when I came home at 5:30 and had to run through the downpour without cover and was squealing and jumping over puddles and small rivers and getting joyfully soaked and was then greeted by the world’s happiest dog.

Today, May 17, 2011, it rained. In the morning, so hard I didn’t think it could get any louder on the office roof; this evening so softly it only grew gradually on my consciousness. Today, I ate jelly beans, chips, and Reese’s peanut butter cups after dinner. Then I felt too full, out of control, and guilty. My worst fear loomed again: what if I get F.A.T.? My eating disorder whispered in my ear that I could make up for the “excess” by skipping breakfast tomorrow, or something. Better yet – skip a meal and exercise harder and longer.

All of a sudden, I became legitimately scared of losing my balance. I worked so hard for this, I finally feel mostly normal – what if I lose it again?! So I dug out my journals, curious to see how I’ve grown. It’s clear that even five years after inpatient treatment for anorexia, still…still it’s in my mind. But while reading my journals, I remembered that something else has stayed with me - God’s grace. His abundant showers. His storms. He has been in the good and the bad, from a few wet drops on my face in Arizona to this morning’s rushing downpour. The balance never was mine – it was His. So recovery is not mine to lose. Of course I had a hand in it, but it wasn’t the guiding hand.

I have no reason to fear.

Rain Joy

Today it rained. I love rain. When I heard it beating on the roof of my office, I discreetly started jumping up and down like a kid on a pogo stick. I wanted to run laps around the building in it! I wanted to do cartwheels! Skip down the street in yellow rain boots!

In honor of the rain, I submit the following poem I wrote in elementary school:

Rain in the woodlands

Rain in the trees

Rain in the marshes

Rain, if you please!

  

Rain in the buckets

Rain on the ground

Rain in the puddles

Rain all around!

 

Rain for the farmers

Grass for the herds

Mud for the children

Food for the birds!

 

Rain in the gutters

Rain down the drain

Dripping from the rooftops

Praise God for the rain!

A perfect expression of how I felt today watching the rain from the office window. *Every stanza ends with an exclamation point!

Thanks, God, for the rain!

“Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, O LORD our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this.” Jeremiah 14:22

*There are a total of 10 exclamation points in this post!