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Musings by Bobbi Ann Chukran Texas book author, writer, poet Editors may contact Bobbi at bobbi@bobbichukran.com |
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The Best Ever Peach Cobbler It's all my mother's fault that I ate a big bowl of hot peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream for lunch today. Yes, I know what you're thinking. "But you're 51 years old, and your mother's 74, how could she make you do anything?" How can you even ask that? Any woman knows that her mother is perfectly capable, no matter what our age, of brainwashing us into doing things. It's like long distance hypnotism, and these days, it's happening via e-mail. Yes, my mother is an e-mail hypnotist. I don't even have to talk to her on the phone, or hear her voice, for her evil powers to seep into my brain and change the way I think. Normally, I would NEVER under any conditions eat cobbler for lunch! Never. Never. Never. Well, almost never. If you have pizza for breakfast, you feel like you'd be justified in having dessert for lunch, wouldn't you? But that's neither here nor there. We were talking about how my mother hypnotizes me. Today is a really good example. She's been on a weight loss diet, and has lost quite a few pounds, and for that, I'm proud of her. Her body has changed, but her mind hasn't. She frequently sends me three or four e-mails a day, usually listing her most recent aches and pains, what the doctor said, what meds they gave her, or wouldn't give her, etc. etc. I was used to that, and learned to skim for the interesting bits. You know how you skim e-mails? Blah blah blah blah your brother's in jail again blah blah blah blah his twelve year old daughter just got married because she's pregnant, blah blah. Etc. etc. That sort of thing. But then her medical news started coming back with tidbits in it like blah blah blah special cream for a yeast infection under my breasts blah blah blah diabetes blah blah blah I took notice. Turns out, she's not actually diabetic, but the doctors were warning her that she MIGHT become diabetic at some point in time. I think that was to scare her into the weight loss. Whatever. It worked. But from that moment in time, she had a new lease on life, a new thing to drive my sister and I bonkers with..the DIET! I was glad she was losing weight, but then the e-mails started taking a sinister tone, and this is when she started hypnotizing me and implanting evil urges into my brain. They start out sweet and innocent. "Dear bobbi, blah blah blah, weather is wet, blah blah blah. I lost four pounds this week, blah blah blah, but I'm craving a BIG FAT JUICY DOUBLE MEAT HAMBURGER from the SONIC Drive-In. With Onion Rings and 66-OUNCE COCA-COLA. blah blah blahbut I guess I'll just have a boring salad blah blah blah instead." Then the next one, two hours later. "Dear bobbi, blah blah blah, sun is shining, blah blah blah, I didn't lose any weight this week, I'll get lettuce at the store, blah blah blah, BUT I want a NICE BIG THICK JUICY PIECE of FRIED CHICKEN with white gravy and mashed potatoes and FRIED OKRA.blah blah blahand I sure do miss having DESSERT afterwards." See what I mean? I think her doctors forgot to tell her that dwelling on food like that is not a good thing when you're trying to lose weight. Of course, she hasn't read thousands of self-help and self-talk books like I have. I know better than to dwell on something you can't eat. Hey, eat the salad, think about something else, and get on with it! Right? I held out as long as I could, but her e-mail this morning put me over the edge. I made the mistake of reading a really long one from her before I was truly awake and coherent. It started out, as they all do, with the safe stuff, but then quickly turned into a diatribe of what she WOULD eat if she WAS ABLE.she listed everything from eggs with hollandaise sauce, to chocolate cream pie, to fried okra (again!) and then started talking about how long it had been since she'd had pizza and how she really really missed all that hot gooey cheese. She reminisced about the pies and cakes and the best ever peach cobblers we used to be able to eat, back before we all decided that we were all TOO FAT to eat cobbler. So you see? I told you it was her fault that I had pizza for breakfast and peach cobbler with ice cream for lunch. If she hadn't mentioned it, put those nasty food triggers into my head, I would have had a nice scrambled egg, no oil, a piece of dry toast for breakfast, and then later a nice green salad without croutons for lunch. Really. I wouldn't lie about something like that! ------------ Copyright 2008 by bobbi a. chukran More about Bobbi can be found on her website and blogs. |