Food Preferences- or why my chicken is cuter than yours . . .

*Names have been changed in the interest of confidentiality (and my ability to maintain Facebook friendships)

As we all know my relationship with food leaves much to be desired, I try to reserve judgement about other people's food choices - particularly when I have friends who will do the judging for me. 

I have friends, relatives, and acquaintances with incredibly odd food allergies, preferences, and practices. My friend John* is deathly allergic to milk and dairy products. Additionally, he keeps kosher, so it's always an adventure to find a restaurant that can feed him and avoid killing him (preferably both, though concessions must occasionally be made). I have another friend - Elizabeth*- who is highly allergic to mushrooms. Heidi - whose name I won't change because I believe she will want credit where credit is due - merely finds mushrooms offensive - though she will clarify that this should not discourage others from eating them in her presence. Yet others of my friends are lactose intolerant - some pathologically so.  I also have friends who keep varying degrees of kosher, which is always an interesting thing to figure out when choosing a restaurant. Some of my friends eat no animal products. Others will eat fish, but not chicken or beef. Some simply avoid red meat. I've lost track of who will die eating (fill in the blank) and who wouldn't be caught dead eating (hey - another blank) - so I try to pick neutral locations and figure people will speak up if an issue should arise. Every once in a while, though, needs clash and cause the following situations to unfold.

Last night, Heidi and I went over to Melissa's* house for a girl's night in. After putting our individually made pizzas in the oven, we settled in for some conversation. Melissa shared a story about her trip to Amish country several years prior. A bunch of people went to the general store, but Melissa "didn't want to buy Amish stuff" and chose to entertain herself on the large field adjoining the store. There was a calf roaming through the grass and it came rather close to Melissa, so she pet the calf. At some point, a friend came out and snapped a picture of Melissa petting said calf, much to the dismay of the Amish boy who accidentally ended up in the corner of the picture. It was from this point on, Melissa said, that she could no longer eat hamburgers because she would always feel like she was eating the cute Amish calf. Heidi  - who speaks her mind without provocation - inquired as to whether chickens were an acceptable food choice and Melissa nodded her head as if this were an obvious fact.

We frolicked through a trip down memory lane to an evening when we (I may have been there - who knows) were having dinner with some other friends. Heidi mentioned to Jessica* that the steak was rather tasty. Jessica shook her head, indicating that she did not eat from this section, so Heidi looked at some other dishes. Several people who consider themselves to be vegetarians (myself included) will eat fish - so Heidi pointed out the sea bass. Jessica then looked excitedly at the menu and ordered a chicken dish of some sort. The remainder of the conversation went something like this:

Heidi: But I thought you didn't eat meat?

Jessica: No, I just don't eat beef.

Heidi: But you eat chicken . . 

Jessica: Yes

Heidi: Why?

Jessica: Chickens are ugly.

Heidi: I see. So you're a cute-arian?

Jessica: What?

Heidi: You won't eat animals that are cute.

Jessica: Hmm, I suppose so.

Which brings us back to last night's conversation. Heidi, a mathematician, likes things to be clearly laid out and defined, so she pressed on. 

Heidi: Are lambs cute? 

Melissa: Yes. 

H: Shrimp?

M: So not cute.

H: Ok, are pigs cute? 

M: Yes. 

H: Have you seen a real pig before? You realize Babe is a cartoon, right?

M: Baby pigs are cute.

H: I see. So you won't eat animals that were, at one point, cute?

M: No, I just don't eat animals that are cute.

H: What if there is a particularly ugly cow?

M: What?!

H: An ugly, deformed cow. That's not cute - would you eat that?

M: What? No!

H: Actually, that's probably a good choice. There's probably something wrong with that cow that makes it deformed - so it wouldn't be good to eat it anyway. 

H: But little chicks are cute (hand gestures indicating chirping birds) peep, peep, peep.

M: Chickens are not cute.

H: Again, little furry chicks are cute (hand gestures) peep, peep.

Seeing that this wasn't going anywhere - in addition to the fact that we were all in absolute hysterics - we let that particular topic go - if only for a moment.

Heidi then pointed out another friend she'd met at a dinner (we'll call him 'Frederico') who also had interesting theories about acceptable food choices. This particular friend would not eat anything that walked. Heidi, again, needing clarification, pressed on. 

Heidi: Ok, so chickens?

Frederico: Walk, yes.

H: Ok. What about ducks?

F: No - I won't eat ducks.

H; But they don't really walk, they waddle.

F: Yeah, I still say they walk.

H: Ok, so no crab or lobster?

F: Lobster is ok.

H: But crabs and lobsters walk.

F: No, they sort of scuttle . . .

H: Well then chickens don't really walk either - they kind of bob side to side and veer in odd directions. 

F: (blank stare)

H: Ok, so walking and waddling are cute and scuttling is annoying and punishable by death. I think I get it.

As none of us can leave well enough alone, we (Heidi, Melissa, and I) dug deeper into the realm of weird food practices. I have a second cousin Sarah*, for example, who only eats raw foods. Melissa looked puzzled, so Heidi explained that the theory is that cooking food strips it of all its nutrients, thereby making it useless and disdainful (or something like that). Of course an argument ensued as to whether this theory had any validity, how many nutrients are actually removed during the cooking process, and where one would find a raw-food eating hippy commune in the midwest (Yes - there is such a place). We then spoke about fruitarians - trust me that I'm not making this up. Heidi - the consummate realist - wondered how such a diet was sustainable. Would one need to wait by an apple tree and hope something would fall? What if someone were to run into a tree, thereby causing the fruit to fall off the tree? Would this be murder? How can it truly be determined that fruit fell off the tree and was not pushed, plucked, or otherwise manipulated in some way? Is there a governing body?

Melissa quickly tired of this conversation and made a statement she felt we could all agree on. She declared that she made sure not to buy any makeup or skin care products tested on animals. Taking my cue from Heidi, I prolonged my agony and asked if it was ok if the products were tested on chickens.

And you all thought I was weird.

Paging Dr. Freud . . .

My dreams have officially become bizarre. Not in the trippy/LSD/flying kind of way. In the - I can't believe I actually had a dream about a coffee mug- kind of way. If you know any good dream analysts - have at it - I would definitely like to know the subconscious significance of Q-Tips.

Some highlights:

• I have two polar bear coffee mugs that I got as a housewarming present five years ago. I rather like them, though their shape requires particular positioning in the dishwasher. I had a dream the other night that I had two more of them and was trying to figure out how to fit them in that particular load of dishes. 
• I'm picking up a repair at the Apple Store when I see the top shelves lined with boxes of Q-Tips® (Yes - I did take the time to find the ® symbol). I don't remember the rationale for them, but they were giving them away freely. I noted that I could have used that before buying the box I'd purchased recently.
• When working at Apple, there was a day where I needed a blank CD and we were out of them. I'd requested more from the ICS. That night, I dreamed that the spools had come in and brought them back to the Genius Room to use. The following day, I went to that same spot in the cage and realized the spool of CDs existed only in my dream.  
• The other night, I had a dream that one of my coworkers told me to go to another for tax advice. He's one of the guys who designs Happy Meal Toys. No - he does not moonlight at H&R Block.
• At some point I had a dream that I ran into several of my users while waiting to pick up a car at Enterprise. 

If we go way back in time:

• Every night from the ages of 4-5, I had a dream that a witch killed my father. My father killed the witch at some point when I was 5, thus ending the dreams. There was a notable one, however, that involved a rice cake bridge. The witch ate away at the bridge while I was hanging off of it. I think my dad was dead in a car (also on the rice cake bridge). To the best of my knowledge, no Benadryl was involved.

All that said, my dreams are mundane enough that I often wake up, go about my day, then realize something I've seen, someone I've talked to, or something I've done only occurred in my dream. If I talk to you about something that is completely plausible but didn't happen - I ask that you play along.

None of the Shriers have cable TV . . .

For those of you who know my family (or at least knew us circa 1999) - this is unfathomable. We bonded over TV. We watched TV as a family. Our nightly viewing of Politically Incorrect (at which time we would argue over the inane responses of the guest that evening) was sacrosanct. There's a video of my brother at two years old saying he wants to go over to Nondie's (my grandmother's) house to watch MTV. Any one of us could recite the Primetime lineup of the major networks in our sleep. The advent of TiVo only served to make this addiction worse. For freak's sake - I was paid and got college credit for watching television - How could any of us LIVE without cable??

Though it may be hard to believe, I have not had cable in my apartment for a full year. Perhaps I should rephrase - I have not paid for cable in my apartment for a year. Realistically, I've been without cable since July, and, much like my computer, I don't particularly miss it. Please don't take this as an invitation to take my computer away from me for more than a week - such things will get you shot and killed.

My reliance on television probably ended ten years ago when I went to college and didn't have cable (or television) in my dorm room. Mind you, this changed by sophomore year, but I'd already been weaned off, so it wasn't as dramatic a transition. There were certainly shows that I watched religiously (The West Wing, Will and Grace, Once and Again), and was known to watch Friends in syndication as much as possible, but my life did not revolve around TV. That is, of course, until my Junior year of college. My cushy liberal arts education allowed me to do classes on The Cosby Show and The West Wing, which required reliable access to Nick at Nite and Bravo. I used the cable in the dorms until I lived in off-campus housing senior year, thereby justifying Satellite TV. If only I'd thought to use that as a tax-deductible educational expense at the time . . .

In my lovely post-graduation apartment, I couldn't dream of life without the Boob Tube, so HBO and the 1400 other channels became my haven, yet again. Life continued in a similar manner until I began working retail, thereby destroying my regular schedule and prime-time freedom. By this time, however, there was DVR, so my days off were generally dominated by all-day marathons of Law and Order SVU. And then - last year - I moved to an apartment on my own in an attempt to save money (and my sanity). Cable was most definitively not a necessary expense, and when the move to digital cut off my free (ok - stolen) access, I wasn't going to break down and buy something that would only waste my time. If I'm dying to see something in particular, I can usually go to Hulu and call it good. I still have broadcast TV in my house, but it's only on for the specific shows I watch (don't even think about taking away Glee). I will admit, most weekends are spent playing on my computer or doing something similar with DVDs in the background, but this has seriously reduced the mindless hours I could spend in front of a television on any given weekend. 


How on earth could someone who majored in The Portrayal of American Politics in Television actually live without much of a TV? How could a former Journalism major live in a foreign country without a television in the house? Well, my faithful followers, people can change. Ha! Fooled you! That only happens on television . . . 

A cripple without a crutch

Now don't get all defensive about the title of this post. It's not meant to offend anyone (except me, of course). Several years ago, I was cut off from my drug of choice cold turkey, and it was hard, but oddly freeing. At the time, many of the people I was surrounded by did not understand my addiction; now, however, they've joined the club and have no desire to go through a 12 step program. That's right everybody: My name is Becca, and I'm an i-Thing-aholic. I arrived at my destination with my iPhone and was convinced it would only be taken from me out of my cold, dead hands. How could these people possibly deprive me of my iPhone and PowerBook? (You know what - I was old school - and that TiBook is still kicking, btw). I was told that my iDevices were being used as a crutch and I would need to learn to walk on my own. You want me to go on a walk without my iPod? Are you crazy?????

I did go through withdrawal and would have thoroughly appreciated a Librium taper for the process, but I digress. I bring this up today because I find myself in a marginally similar situation. My computer is being repaired and all I have is the iMac at work. I went through the weekend without my computer - and I kind of didn't miss it. I bought a puzzle book, went home, and lounged around my apartment. In other words, I wasn't crippled by my lack of technology, I was empowered. I found other ways of communicating with the world at large. My computer did not need to be my crutch. If anyone takes my iPhone from me ever again, though, there will be blood.