For the Love of Taco Bell

I celebrate each and every one of the "Real Men of Genius" Budweiser radio commercial ads, but the one about Taco Bell being the "conquistador of the calorie" takes the cake. It's so true that they have fooled the American public (no small feat, we all know) into believing that they could create "healthy" snacks. As the radio personality for "Real Men" ponders out loud, "Some may ask, 'is your taco salad healthy?' Of course it is; it's a salad."

As of late, Taco Bell has become even more clever by creating their very own drive-thru "diet" and "unique" meal items. Forget the Adkins diet with the gobs of meat intake necessary. Forget those diets where you only eat pea soup from Monday through Thursday and a banana only on Fridays. Eat Taco Bell! It clearly is the first and best choice for dieting.

Taco Bell boasts seven meal items that have less than nine grams of fat. Here are two major problems with this diet: 1) While ordering one of these seven items under nine grams of fat, you also encounter the other 100 menu items with 95 grams of fat or above. Please take a moment and visualize with me the "cheese sauce" that is a colloid, characterized as a) a form of matter having qualities of both a solid and a liquid and b) the consistency of Elmer's glue. In essence, this "cheese" is orange colored, salty ooze. Delicious, but not quite a diet item. 2) While in college, my good friend took a course called "The Meat We Eat." She learned in this class what grade of meat various familiar restaurants serve. Apparently, Taco Bell uses a meat Grade F. That's right, friends. Taco Bell's meat would have failed high school could definitely not have passed FCAT.

Each day, I drive past Taco Bell on the way home from work (thus, the fascination). I noticed that they are "Excited to Announce the Arrival of their Shrimp Tacos." I am excited to actually peruse these shrimp tacos. Even though we live on the coast, I would imagine these not to be creme de la creme shrimp babies. In fact, I wonder if there are hundreds of little plastic containers in the rear or the Taco Bell kitchens harvesting sea monkeys. I asked my friend Amy whether or not sea monkeys were a viable meat source for Adkins. I'm still waiting to hear back from her. I don't think they were in the manual.

For now, I run from the border.

life's eclectic poisons

everyone has a poison. the cliche phrase rattling around bars, night clubs, cocktail parties and private dates is: "what's your poison?" (a subtle way of asking for someone's drink preference)

for some of us, our poison is a margarita after a long day. for others, going to a driving range allows the building angst in our back muscles to be relieved. for my sister, dumping a load of snow cap candies into a bag of popcorn is a mighty fine high. for my good friend huldah, a banana milkshake makes all the bad stuff go away. during my first year of teaching, my punching bag was my greatest friend. for my mom, it's rolling the metallic wrapping away from the wax paper that sleeves a stick of gum.

the other day, i saw two people almost collide into one another as they were entering/exiting a tanning salon. do millions bask in this artificial sunlight every day? yes. but, it always seems that you see people duck out of tanning salons as if they are trying to hide their previous moment's activities. flaunt your orange sheen and your funky body smell! the fictitious person you are imagining in the parking lot who is judging you has a vice as well.

i considered recently that vices do not have to be addictive substances, tangible items that we consume. the most interesting ones are people or places or experiences...those moments that we feel that natural high...that naughty delight. we almost feel bad for feeling so overwhelmingly engaged.

my brother-in-law's face was priceless when he stared at his baby daughter, just moments old. i could see the tears pooling in the corner of his eyes. he has other children, but this was reagan. she was new and different and unique and special because she was reagan. another baby was born just days ago. his mother and father could not have been more proud of his arrival. watching their faces swell with pride as they shared in the initial moments of life with elias was priceless. his coos, the flickers of his eyes, the changing colors of his skin all seemed to be something to watch and remember. you could see the "high" feeling in their eyes. you could see the awe of new life. watching such things is addictive and makes us feel temporarily immortal.

raging, fiery sunsets can be like a shot of tequila warming your senses. helping a stranger can be like a chocolate covered ice cream cone. someone remembering your birthday. someone recognizing that you "seem off" today. walking down the same street in a foreign place but feeling as if you belong...believing you own those serendipitous deja vu moments. rain. dolphins. recognizing the smell of someone before they appear. hearing your grandmother's favorite song...closing your eyes...and remembering her presence as the cannon rolls.

taste. smell. touch. hear. see. experience. believe. know. hope. dance. cry. laugh. lose. win. hurt. heal.

"...and for everything, there is a season under Heaven..."

on dance class

when I was 3 years old, my mom started taking me to dance class. we had to wear white tights, a standard-issued baby blue leotard, schweet dull pink ballet slippers and our hair had to be tied back in a bun (this looked pretty awesome with my chop-shop-across-the-forehead-into-the-eyes-80's-bangs). the conformity my teacher was hoping to convey didn't really mesh with me.

the only pictures my mom took/kept from this class are of me being off-task. (E.g. high-kicking when the class was clearly forming their feet into second position. in the photo, the class is also intently listening and watching the movements of our small town prima ballerina. i am looking down - a motion necessary to get the kickline started!) instead of telling me to get in line, my mom took pictures. i treasure that.

most pictures from my childhood are not group shots. i'm not even really sure any of us knew how to take group shots until we started playing sports. mom took "action" shots. forrest smiling after painting our dining room wall. kathryn after she cut her own ponytail off and threw it over the top banister of our stairs. my dad and his shotgun after he blew out our back window and shattered our awesome orange blinds. terri sliding down a dirty mountain with a white jumpsuit on. susan playing in the middle school band.

i never make a fool of myself for the benefit of others' entertainment. i just naturally live outside the box. as my dad says, "you don't march to the beat of a different drummer. you hear a totally different band."

"crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret...it's you or me...amplified. if you ever told and lie and enjoyed it... if you ever wished you would be a child forever... " - girl interrupted