"Ripley: Why do you care about them?
Annalee Call: Because I'm programmed to.
Ripley: You're programmed to be an asshole? You're the "new model" asshole they're putting out?"
Alien Resurrection, 20th Century Fox, 1997.
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.
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:
Whenever I think of First Blood (1982) I think of Sly Stallone andBrian Dennehy. I actually think First Blood would not have been as successful if it were not for Dennehy's portrayal of Sheriff Teasle and Jerry Goldsmith's goose-bump inducing background score. The only other "villain" who has impressed me as much on the silver screen would be Alan Rickman's character of Hans Gruber in John McTiernan's excellent Die Hard (1988).
Back in 2009, a buddy of mine and I did a motorcycle camping trip to Nova Scotia and back. We were on the road for two weeks. We camped one night in a small town, more of a hamlet really, called Canso in the easternmost point of Nova Scotia. Anyway, we rode our bikes that night to get dinner in town -- the campground was a bit outside of town. The restaurant also seemed to serve as a dance hall, a video game place and possibly was also the spot for folks to gather to vote, for town hall meetings, etc. There were only a bunch of people there that night. Anyway, while chomping down pizza, I spotted a young couple and their two young children having a bit of fun by a video game machine.. and it immediately made me wonder as to how they got along in general in that fishing hamlet far away from the big city lights of Halifax, Boston and New York. And now.. now I am wondering how that family is doing? Have they paid off all their debts and are getting by comfortably in the current global pandemic situation? Did they eventually move on from there seeking a bigger and better life elsewhere? Are they even still together as a family? I guess I will never know.
...as soon as this pandemic is over, I am heading to one of my favorite destinations of either England or Germany for a week out in the country.
Or I might just stick to a bunch of walking trails in one of many New Hampshire farms serving fresh donuts and coffee, ignore the firearms and pretend that I am in England. Woohoo!
