Skip to main content

I Like Cookies

I like cookies. "So what" is what I'd say if someone were to say that to me. "So eat them." The problem is, sugar and other carbs don't sit well with me. They make me fat and unhappy, and I get all jittery and dizzy and want to lay down. Or break something.

I first discovered I had a problem with hypoglycemia when I was at an antique store looking for a tea cup (oddly, I collect tea cups). Anyway, I has holding a cup and saucer from Czechoslovakia, and my hands were shaking because I hadn't eaten in a while. The cup was rattling against the saucer, and I couldn't stop it. I bought the thing and got in my car, thinking that if I could just grab a sandwich from a drive thru quickly, then I'd be OK. I backed the car into a telephone pole on the way out of the parking lot, and then I managed to cross the street and get a sandwich. Within fifteen minutes, I was steady.

My doctor suggested I might be hypoglycemic, and he put me on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. Voila, I lost forty pounds, and I stopped with the dizziness and shakiness. I say "voila" as if it was magic and instant, but it really took months of work and discipline.

At the time I worked with a guy who was on the same eating plan, and we walked around the office claiming to be Atkins Disciples. People would see us in our white shirts and black ties, and they would lock their doors and pretend not to be home. Every morning, the co-worker and I would recite a mantra: "no candy. no cookies. no candy. no cookies."

Years later, I have lost the discipline and the co-worker, and I have abandoned the mantra. I like cookies. I also like wine and chocolate and cheesecake and creme brulee and bread from Macaroni Grill dipped in peppered olive oil. Sometimes I like the simple pleasure of a rustic pasta meal. Sometimes I like to just eat the food that is in front of me and not feel like I need to be a chemist to put together a healthful meal. Other people can eat the white food, why can't I? White food seems to be the culprit.

It's a tough time of year to not be able to eat white food, like the last Christmas cookie on the plate--it's a Santa face with chocolate chips for eyes. Last night, I ate the Santa face that was blind because Daughter #2 had eaten the eyes. Daughter #2 said I shouldn't discriminate against the disabled, so I chose the blind one, but I felt bad afterwards. I shouldn't have eaten either one, the blind or the seeing one.

But I like cookies.

Comments

dive said…
OOOOOOOOOO!
Eating Santa's eyes!

If I were daughter no.2, I would be bricking up my chimney double quick, 'cause when the Big Red guy and his seeing-eye reindeer catch up with her, things are gonna get messy.

Yikes!
Scout said…
I can hardly blame her, given the eyes were made of chocolate. If I had thought of it myself, I would have done the same thing.
dive said…
"He sees when you are sleeping.
He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good.
So be good for goodness sake!"

I'm not absolutely sure on where she stands legally, but I have a feeling that "blinding in effigy" will at the least result in an empty stocking on the twenty-fifth.

Perhaps if she were to bake some more …
Sassy Sundry said…
The Atkins' Diet seems very odd to me. One can have a steak wrapped in bacon and slathered with butter, but nary a banana should cross one's lips?

Eat Santa. Be happy.
hey Robyn, I'm really into the high protien diet. I've slimmed right down and my muscles are ripped. LOL no, really I do feel better after a good protient shake rather than a brownie.
Gina said…
I like cookies too, and I don't know many people that really SHOULD eat them. But, you gotta live a little!
Scout said…
Gina and Sassy, I was out of the house for several hours today, but now that I'm home, I have eaten the little guy's hat.

Rich, Atkins might be an extreme form, but in general, eating high protein low sugar makes me so much happier and gives me so much more energy. sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it's a great challenge.

Dive, I'm considering making cookies this weekend myself, if I can find the strength to give them away.

Popular posts from this blog

Cindy Loo Who In October

What is it with people and Cindy Loo Who? Of my last one hundred blog hits, forty have been direct visits from regular readers, and fifteen have been as a result of people searching for "Cindy Loo Who," the little pixie from Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas . A couple of years ago, I posted an image of the original Seuss illustration as compared to the TV cartoon image, and for some reason, that post is bringing in the crowds, relatively. Maybe it's the weather. It isn't even November yet, and already we've had frost and have had to dust off our winter coats. When it gets cold like this, I start to think about Christmasy things like listening to Nat King Cole and decorating the tree. It's ironic because I am offended when retailers start pushing holiday stuff early, but I don't mind my own private celebrations. When my sister and I were much younger and still living with our parents, we would pick a day in July, close the curtains to darken the ...

The Ultimate Storyteller—in Life AND in Death

I wrote about The Autobiography of Mark Twain in yesterday's edition of Small Town Newspaper. You can read it here , if you want. This is the photograph I had in mind while I read Clemens' dictations. He really was a masterful storyteller, even when rambling on about the poorly designed door knobs in Florence or in describing the Countess Massiglia, who he described as a "pestiferous character." About her, he said, “She is excitable, malicious, malignant, vengeful, unforgiving, selfish, stingy, avaricious, coarse, vulgar, profane, obscene, a furious blusterer on the outside and at heart a coward.” And I laughed out loud.