Chick-fil-A-ters...

"... is the 't' silent?" ~ Jon Stewart

I'm not positive, but I'm quite sure that I've never eaten anything from Chick-fil-A.  Annie thinks that we might have been fed some at a Rose Bowl, so I can't swear that I've avoided the company completely.  They have funny commercials.  They host a college football bowl game.  I certainly don't hate the company.

I just don't support the company.  When given full choice of food options, I've avoided Chick-fil-A for years.  It's been long known (not just these past couple months) that it's leadership has a very pro-Christian mindset.  I don't really have a big deal with that, as long as their business is an Equal Opportunity Employer and respects all of its customers, even if they're closed on Sundays.  If they were rude to Jewish or homosexual customers, I'd have a much bigger deal with them.

However, I can't, in good conscious, have the smallest fraction of the money that I've paid for an over-priced chicken and bacon sandwich go to some executive who is going to use those pennies to support policies that I strongly oppose.

Now there's this whole blown-out-of-proportion anti-gay-marriage chicken-eating protest.  Fat America's favorite protest ever.  And there's only one group of people losing:  fat people.

Get over yourself, homos.  We all know that you'll have all of your marriages soon.  I can't believe it's even still a debate.  Though it certainly sucks for you now, it does give my generation the perspective of how ludicrous it must have been growing up during the segregation or suffrage movements and looking around at those opposing equal human rights and thinking, 'wtf?'

Fat people.  That's who's getting fucked right now.

You know what I'm talking about.  The smell of White Castle.  The sight of a perfect curl on the top of a freshly poured Wendy's Frosty.  The sound of Coke fizzing as it's poured into a frosty mug.  That first bite of an Oreo that's just been pulled out of milk.  Crack to fat people.

I've been perfectly fine in my personal quest to avoid Chick-fil-A.  I just don't think about it.  If I pass one one the road, I remind myself that I'm busy and how unhealthy fast food is, and I'm able to move on with my day.  For the past week, Chick-fil-A has been in every conversation, every news article, every talk show.  Pictures of delicious-looking, perfectly golden, deep-fried chicken sandwiches taunting me everywhere I look.  And let's be honest, I have zero self-control.

Now, all I want is a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich.  I'm no Judas.  I'm just hungry.  And that's how the anti-gays are winning.  Fast food wins.  It's unfair.  I'd love for Michelle Obama to save us with her healthy food, but she's bringing cauliflower to a gun fight.

So, if I stagger helplessly into a Chick-fil-A this week, it's not because I hate the gays.  I have to be at least a quarter gay (DNA test?).  I'm there cuz I've snapped, and I want a politics-be-damned chicken sandwich.

Judge not lest ye be judged, or whatever...

It better be delicious,
~RoB

Wendy

Let's say you're in charge of a fast food chain.  Might there be a better way to advertise your food than to parade around the obese daughter that the food chain was named after?  I mean, nothing says 'look how good I turned out' like the cute redhead cartoon we grew up with as we were dipping fries into a Frosty turning into:

I mean, I'm not skinny.  I shamefully eat fast food when it's convenient.  I recognize that my diet is shit, and it started with being fed crap throughout my childhood.  I can't wait for America to make the change to be healthier.  Until then, this is sad and should be unacceptable.  Yet, I really want a Spicy Chicken Sandwich.

Eat fast food.  Get Hot 'N Juicy like Wendy,
~RoB

Last Breakfast

I woke up on Leap Day to the serene sounds of a tornado siren.  It ended up not being a huge deal for where I live, specifically, but there's no better way to get my ass moving before the sun comes up.  Annie's not from the Midwest.  She knows as much about what to do in a tornado as I did for earthquakes when I originally moved to California.  So, along with turning on the news and checking the batteries on my flashlights, I had to make sure she remained calm.  It wasn't a big deal, she got to focus on Angel, who was losing his shit.  Figuratively.

Within about 30 minutes, I was hungry for breakfast.  I'd like to say that this was a sign of stress, but I've always been one that could shove a big hearty breakfast into his pie hole as soon as his eyes opened.  What I did not expect was the craving.  I really wanted McDonald's breakfast.  I've mentioned how much I love McDonald's breakfasts, but I've also been pretty good about not eating them.  They're not good for you.  Fast food is not good for you.

However, my body flat out told me that if this was to be our last breakfast, it would prefer McDonald's.  Specifically, a bacon-egg-n-cheese bagel with extra sauce.  They don't have those in California, and I thoroughly miss them.  I haven't checked to see if they have them in Lexington, because that might be a slippery slope that I don't need right now.

Long story short, I guess my last breakfast, should the situation arise, would be a McDonald's breakfast sandwich with a hashbrown and heck, maybe even a cini-melt.  Fuck it.  It's my last breakfast.

Fought the temptation, but I wonder what my lunch craving will be,
~RoB

Things I'm Learning in Lexington

1. Driving.  People stay behind the line until they are fully prepared to make a left turn.  I'm one of those people that creep out into the intersection waiting for a gap in traffic.  One of those people that always turns left on yellow.  They don't really do that here.  Don't they have anywhere to go?

2. Vernacular.  "Y'all" can be used to refer to a single person.  I'm the only left at the dog park, because you are leaving.  It's perfectly acceptable to say, "Y'all have a good day."  Well, I guess, 'we all' will.

3. Interwebz.  People just don't really use the internet.  When we tell some local Mom-and-Pop shop that we found their store online, they're always blown away.  Expect to get funny looks if you say anything like "Urbanspoon" or "Yelp".  No room for that kind of funny talking here.

4. Horses.  One of the main roads surrounding the cooler parts of Lexington is called Man O' War.  Dedication to some war vet?  Nope, a famous racing horse.  Horses are fucking everywhere.  Ok.  Not really having sex, but everywhere, nonetheless.  Horse capital of the world, I've heard.

5. History.  I was walking along a road parallel to Main St. downtown.  There are a few things over there, like the Opera House, but nothing that spectacular.  Bam!  I find a historical marker that says "In this house, Mary Todd Lincoln (Abraham's wife) was born in 1818 and spent her childhood."  Random.  (All states around here take some major claim to Lincoln, but we all know which state puts him on the license plate.)

This is apparently inside along the $18 tour.

6. Driving.  These people have to be some of the worst drivers I've seen.  Keep in mind that I've lived in Los Angeles, New Jersey, and near the Ohio border.  On several occasions I've thought, "Is that a student driver without a sign?"  The fire trucks are always pulling out of their nearby station to go rescue people from car accidents.  There isn't a very big population here, and there's plenty of room to drive.  Stop running into each other!  (And that old lady needs to turn off her damn blinker, turn on her damn lights, and turn off her damn wipers.)

7.  Food.  I expected fried chicken.  I didn't expect Ethiopian or Sushi.  Turns out they don't have Ethiopian, but they have some successful sushi restaurants.  Every roll is either partially or completely cooked, but it's a start.  I've already had some of the best biscuits and gravy of my life.  Oh, and the Kentucky Fried Chickens in Kentucky have all-you-can-eat buffets.  Hellz yeah!  I'll have everything in one bowl smothered in cheese, please.  Thanks.  Now I'll have another.

As Annie likes to say, "Colonial Buffet".

8. Accents.  Until proven otherwise, I will continue to subtract IQ points from anyone with a southern accent.  Look at a map.  You're in the Midwest.  I don't know why that accent starts in the middle of Ohio.  Not that there aren't smart people here, just none that drawl.

9. Fast Food.  It's king.  I'm flabbergasted at the amount of fast food everywhere, and how much everyone eats it.  People line up for each meal of the day.  It makes a normal person queasy.

10. Walking.  Nobody does it.  I feel like people are peeking through the windows thinking "Who is that weirdo" as I'm walking by.  A cop drove by as I was walking a mile to a bakery, and I seriously thought he was going to pull over and say something.  He was giving me the stink eye.

11. Thunderstorms.  Angel's never been in one, and we've already had some crazy weather.  He is not happy.

But oh how I missed being surrounded by fat people!

One of the buffalo herd again,
~RoB

Challenges

Annie and I are constantly challenging ourselves to be better people.  And by that, I mean we literally have little challenges to find out who is the better person.

We went sans chain establishments for about half a year.  This was a great challenge that we started after Earth Day 2010.  For the first month, everything had to be free of chains, emphasizing the importance of sustainability and local economies.  Our rule was that it had to have no more stores than Sprinkles to be considered a local chain.  Food was purchased at farmers markets and local grocers.  Auto repair was done at local repair shops.  Gas purchased from independent fuel providers.  It was a wonderfully healthy and informative time.  We eventually settled on no chains that would benefit us the most (so I couldn't eat at chain restaurants and she couldn't drink chain coffee).  We both decided to break it together when we went to a Buffalo Wild Wings to watch a Michigan Football game.  It definitely helped permanently ween me off my addiction to fast food.  (Though who doesn't like an Egg McMuffin every once in a while?)

Eat me. Don't forget hash browns.

We've tried to tabulate everything we ate.  I had built this huge spreadsheet with nutritional information for just about any food I've come into contact with in the past 6 months or so.  It was part of my bout with nutritionists to figure out why I'm so fat even though I'm so active.  This fell apart after a week or two, but I still use it to track my weight (which is still kind of disappointing).

We've even attempted to co-author a book.  It was a fictional dystopia story where we got to point out everything we felt was wrong with society and try to fix it.  We collaborated on it via Google Docs while we were living in different parts of California.  It's so frustrating to have somebody judging everything your writing during a brainstorming session.  It fell apart pretty quickly.  No... it was a huge failure.

We've tried to minimize our electricity use.  (I'll claim that I am one of the greenest electricity users I know.)  The goal was to only have one light on per person when we're home.  I can typically spend a whole night in my house without lights.  It also included turning off computers more often.  I still feel like I run around turning off lights not being used.

Our current challenge has been to not say anything mean to each other.  We're both extremely critical about everyone and every thing.  Since we're constantly around each other, we have no choice but to continuously point out physical and personality flaws in each other.  I'd even go so far as to say we're downright rude to each other on a regular basis.

So, as we walked out of Oakland's City Hall after processing our domestic partnership, I came up with the challenge to be nice to each other.  Sounds easy, right?  We wanted to see how long we could go.  We were confident that it would reset a few times in the first few days (or hours).  However, we're coming on a week.  I'm kind of surprised how much more I like her now.

It's probably because we haven't spent much time together in the last few weeks (between my Zumba career and her Les Mis rehearsals).  But I think it mostly has to do with not being called fat every day, and me not having to call somebody funny-looking or dumb.  There's been significantly less whining about nit-picky things that nobody but the two of us can point out about each other.  Is this what the rest of your relationships look like?  No wonder you're all married already.

I'm still the smarter partner,
~RoB

Death by Fast Food

Last Saturday was one of those days where I just felt off.  Annie and I got up and rushed to Zumba.  (Have I mentioned how much I Zumba?  If you don't know what that means, don't look into it.)  Anyway, we were late (a typical occurrence lately) and it was packed full.  I told Annie I didn't even want to do it if there were that many people (I like a lot of space to get my dance on!).  She looked at me like I was being dramatic, but she gave in and we left.

We drove over to Bake Sale Betty in hopes that the fresh strawberries at the farmers' market meant that they'd be making her favorite dessert: strawberry shortcake using their buttery scones.  They had them, and that made her day.  We also found out that they can make their famous chicken sandwiches without green pepper, so I am excited to go back and try another one (their cole slaw is almost entirely bell pepper, and I didn't like it).

We then took Angel to the dog park for a while and decided to drive out to Alameda's Borders since it was due to close on Tax Day and may have a bunch of cheap finds.  The only way she convinced me to go was by saying that I could get my tennis racquet restrung at the Big 5 next door.  I broke one of my strings while playing the evening before.  So, I gave in.  It turns out that Big 5 doesn't restring racquets.  That, and the long line at Jamba Juice that I decided to avoid, got me frustrated.

Though I did find a book I'd needed to finish a series for $3 at Borders, I was still a little moody.  When I was walking to my car, I saw that the Jamba Juice was still too busy.  I noticed that See's Candy was empty though, and I snuck in for a few of my favorites: milk chocolate butterscotch squares.  Way better than bordeaux.  Way better.

I knew that Sports Authority restrung racquets, so we had to make the trek back to Emeryville.  After finally getting my tennis racquet in for stringing (which led to a free $130 racquet), I walked next door to Taco Bell for some comfort food.  I wasn't super hungry, but I definitely wanted something to help my sour mood.

It's really sad that I consider that comfort food.  Yet, like all fast food, there's something satisfying about it, even though it's certainly awful for me and regularly don't enjoy the feelings I'm left with.  It's like they use MSG or something.

Anyway, comfort food it was not.  All I wanted to do for the next few hours was throw up.  I tried a few times, unsuccessfully.  I don't think I'm even capable of throwing up any more.  I haven't actually vomited since I was in 8th grade, a story which has been retold so many times that Annie probably feels like she was there with me.  I pretty much laid around moaning until I finally just went to bed.

Everything went better on Sunday, and since then, but crappy Taco Bell really capped an already-bad day,
~RoB

I think I'm avoiding Toxic Hell for a while.