Bye, bye bidet

Regardless of whether you are rooting for Biden, you are very likely wondering whether a bidet in your toilet may make an immediate impact to your quarantined lifestyle. Listen, you do not need additional fittings in your toilet. Ok? It is already complicated in there as it is. Instead simply use a general purpose sprayer like the one pictured below. I have been using one of these since time immemorial to.. ah.. occasionally supplement toilet paper.

Here are the advantages:

1. Cheap.. something like $2.
2. Immediately available.. you just need to get it from a hardware store. No need to schedule and wait for a plumber, etc.
3. Lightweight.. even a child can lift it.
4. Portable.. you can keep it out of sight, if you need to. Moving houses? No problem. You are guaranteed the same quality of service at your new place.
5. Zero-maintenance.. Cleaning it (the sprayer, I mean) is easy. No need to worry about a bidet with all its fittings, etc. going bonkers on you.
6. Creativity-possible.. if you want to add a little bit of soap, fragrant oil, etc. to the water in the sprayer, you can do so.

Most of all.. it is guaranteed to leave you clean and feeling awesome. Its hands-free without being hands-free. Think about that! Heck, if you use it at the right angles and with the right amount/frequency of spray, you may not need to use toilet paper at all. Save the environment! All you need is a dry, cozy hand towel to pat yourself dry. Mmm. But.. just make sure you don't use that towel for anything else, ok? And wash it (the towel, I mean) regularly and by itself in soapy water, wring it well and leave it to air dry. Maintain a couple of towels for this purpose.

Life's good

Alright! Clearwater beach has been re-opened. I am looking into flight tickets on Expedia now.. can't wait to get there one of these weekends! I had been planning to go there this past winter when the virus roared in. Hopefully, we won't see any resurgences of the virus anywhere. Yay!

Scone me now

Now that I think of it, the last time I enjoyed afternoon tea was last December down in Falmouth center with a buddy of mine. The proprietor had a sign either out front or on each table requesting that patrons do not use their smartphones. I don't exactly remember which. So I do not have a picture of the delicacies that we gulped down that Saturday afternoon and washed it all down with some wonderful, aromatic tea.. and a great chat.

The exact location of Molly's Tea Room. I was the only male there.

But fear not. I have the wonderful shot below that I made from a couple of years ago at the Shangri-La in Toronto with another friend. Look at those juicy, mouth-watering gooey goodies!

Yap. Yap

Ok, now I have a hankering for tea things and naught I can do about it. Sad. Sad. Sad.

From gluttony to privilege

I didn't eat much in the way of junk food -- chocolate, ice cream, chips, cakes, etc. -- until my mid-30s whence I started a job that involved heavy travel to client sites. Around the same time, all my friends started marrying and disappearing.. and I started feeling a bit bereft. I was at that job for almost five years. Good money. And my client-facing skills improved and went through the roof. But my diet? My diet, workout regimen, discipline, etc. went out the door. Then, after I turned 40, I started reining things in. It was a bit of a struggle at first. These things always are.. otherwise everybody could develop clean, lean habits at the drop of a hat. But eventually, I stopped eating junk and started cooking pretty much everyday at home. There was still the once or twice a week dining out that was almost always accompanied by a couple of gin and tonics.

Bread out. More eggs back in.

Now with this pandemic roaring on, I finally put an end to that habit as well. I have not touched a drop of alcohol in almost six weeks now. After the early weeks in the pandemic experimenting with a variety of whole foods, I have pretty much settled on a macro diet of fish, vegetables, fruit, rice and oats. I was occasionally cooking chicken thighs at home but stopped once chicken became available in only humongous packs. I have not eaten red meat in almost a month. Not by design, you see.. just sort of fell out of it. Saturday nights, I have started a habit of getting chicken wings from Domino's through contact less delivery. And Domino's delivers in 20 to 30 minutes now.. used to be an hour or so before the pandemic started. So.. for all practical purposes, my diet has become as clean as it can get.

I have had to deal with some irregularities down in the deep, dark depths of my bowels because of both the change and volume in my diet.. as I am eating a 1/3rd less food every day than I was before the pandemic and had also added those little sandwich rolls. So I took the bread out. And "everything" is regulating itself out with elan. The calisthenics are being done with renewed vigor. And I have never slept better than I have in the last two months. The bags under my eyes , never significant before, seem to have shrunk a little bit. I have lost ten pounds of weight and yet.. and yet.. still look muscular, feel energetic and am moving with remarkable lightness and grace.

My one weakness: a bar of white chocolate that I get when I step out of my cave once a week to forage for groceries. When I get home, I sanitize what needs to be sanitized. I change into comfortable clothing. Then I slowly sink into my recliner. No TV, nothing. I slowly unwrap the bar. I take my time with it. I talk naughty to it.. before my mouth starts savoring it.. just like these chaps do in the video below: