on the sweetness of life

The day did not start out terribly promising. I got up before dawn, which sounds more impressive than it really is, given how late the sun gets out of bed at this time of year, and made my way down the dark stairs toward the treadmill. I had my usual black cat escort. At the bottom of the stairs, I paused, sensing, with my keen intuition, that not all was well. I peered in the half light shed by the tiny green LED in the smoke detector above my head. Was that a dark splotch on the pale hardwood floor?

Why yes, it was. Cat puke! Hooray! And look over there: is that a turd? I believe it is! Yippee!

So much for my run. I spent the time cleaning, instead. A friend consoled me via Facebook with a comment in a language I am not familiar with. Latin? Spanish? She’s fluent in a bunch of languages, so I figured I’d use Google Translate. Here’s what she said to me: Cago, cagare, cagavi, cagatum.

Here’s what Google Translate said:

That about sums it up in any language.

And then I went to work.  Which wasn’t one of my better days. Nothing terribly momentous occurred; it just wasn’t one of my better days. By the time I got home, I was mopey. What’s better for mopey than a run? Not much! I hit the treadmill hard, and found that my recent days of cross-training on the stationary bike at the gym have been paying off – I was a good .3 mph faster than I’ve been lately. Grrrr. Take that, world.

Last year, starting about a week before Thanksgiving, I got into the holiday spirit in the classic way: by making pie. But that led to the long slide into “Maybe I’ll Make Another Pie”, followed by “Wouldn’t Chocolate Chip Cookies Go Down Well Right Around Now?” and wrapping up with “It’s (insert day of week here), That Means Hot Chocolate”.

All that is right around the corner from “Didn’t I Used to Have a Waist?”

So lately, in addition to more diligent cross-training, I’ve been avoiding not only sugar, but even non-caloric sweetener (we use stevia). I’ve heard that if you really want to kick the sugar habit, it helps to avoid even the zero calorie alternatives – it helps you reprogram your taste buds so you don’t crave the sweet stuff. I’m here to tell you, folks, it works. I have not been craving sweets, and I’m finding some foods unpalatable – like fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt. I’ve been eating just the yogurt and leaving the fruit where it is.

Of course, there is a downside to not self-medicating with sweets. It’s called “feeling your feelings”. (Insert look of shocked horror here.)

We’re a week away from the Solstice – you know that, right? Apparently my system is very much aware of it, because I have been in hibernation mode. I didn’t volunteer at the hospital on Monday – I had a heinous foul splitting headache I couldn’t shake. (No worries: it was caused by our pillows finally giving up the ghost, a situation since remedied.) I didn’t go to chorus this week either (very unlike me.) I haven’t Bonded with Nature and the Camera for almost a week.

Fortunately for me, Kevin has very kindly contracted a temporary case of intermittent hiccups. Fortunate, because tonight I finally wrestled him onto the Reiki table – the beautiful purple massage table he gave me for Christmas last year – and sent him to sleep within about two or three minutes. For a good hour, he dozed, hiccup-free, while Reiki poured through us. Classical Christmas tunes played on Pandora.com, I periodically sipped chai (unsweetened!), and let myself relax and absorb the mellowness of the Reiki, and of the holiday season.

The darkness is upon us, but it’s a sweet darkness. I love my husband. I love our home. I love where we live, and the people I play with, whether at the hospital, chorus, or at my part-time job. This is a good life.

Now that’s the kind of sweet I can enjoy.