So much bad

The past 24-hours...so bad. Ok, here we go:

Around 5 last night I started trying to track down a package from DHL. I'd ordered a few new suits from Ann Taylor, and had two interviews today, so it was pretty important they show up. So, phone call, phone call, meltdown, phone call, meltdown, phone call....bottom line the package was nowhere to be found, was not delivered on time, and could not be delivered before my interviews.

Enter the nicest man ever in history: Will from DHL. Will offered to stay late, dig around in the huge warehouse of packages, find mine, and bring it to my house at like midnight. I love Will. So, instead of getting to bed at some reasonable time, I sat around waiting on Will's call. Sainted Will found my suits at about 10pm - disaster averted. I strongly recommend that you all immediately call DHL and tell them you love them. They're great.

So, off to sleep at midnight or so, and then woke up at 5 to get ready to catch my flight, and to email my boss that I was sick. Yeah, sick, that's it. So sick, I had to take a day off work to go interview for other jobs.

Went to the airport, went to get my boarding pass, and...I had no reservation. The travel agency had reserved my flight, but hadn't paid for it. So, I antied up a credit card and headed for the security line.

This is where things turn bad. Now, there are maybe 25 attorneys at my firm. And I live in a huge city. What are the odds I would run into attorneys from my firm at the airport? Turns out it's roughly 100%. Two partners from my firm were in the security line in front of me. Also on my flight. Also, I sat between them on the plane. Yeah, that was a little awkward.

So, the "Robin is Secretly Interviewing" cat is inadvertently out of the bag.

The interviews themself were fine. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here dreading the moment when I face my boss tomorrow and listen to snide comments about how I'm feeling, etc, etc.

Jesus Bread, Part II

Jesus Bread rocks. Woot!

I had two slices of Jesus Toast with my organic pasta and organic artichoke/tomato sauce and broccolini. It's been a big night in Robin's kitchen.

Jesus Bread is like the most grainy, wheaty bread ever. The slices are thin, but they are super heavy and chewy. I had two pieces, and I feel like I ate a brick. Jesus Bread is to be eaten in moderation, it seems. I'm fairly sure Jesus is on the record in favor of moderation, so that works.

After dinner, I was so pumped about Jesus Bread that I googled it to see what other people think about it. It seems that Jesus Bread is beloved by (1) diabetics, (2) cults, and (3) bodybuilders. I don't really fit in with those, so I think I'm starting a new category - (4) People who watch Oprah.

The best discovery of the night, however, was finding the Jesus Bread website: http://www.food-for-life.com/index.asp

Now, I can not only have Jesus Bread, I can apparently have Jesus Tortillas, Jesus Pitas, Jesus Muffins, Jesus Fettuccine, Jesus Hot Dog Buns, and Jesus Raisin Bran.

A few random things

1. I tood a nice swig of Pom juice at lunch. It tastes kind of like grape juice. Actually, it tastes exactly like the juice my church used for communion. So, I am convinced this is just a marketing ploy of the Southern Baptist Convention to unload surplus communion grape juice. But, I like it, so I'm in.

2. Am I the only one that sees "Porn juice" instead of "Pom juice"? I dunno. I try not to think about it.

3. Unlike Wonder Bread or Mrs. Bairds, which will hold a bread-like shape long after it has decayed, Jesus Bread is hanging onto the title of "bread" by a mere string. Since there are no chemicals or preservatives in it, it is sold frozen. So of course I threw it in my freezer. But now I can't figure out how to eat it. Do I let it thaw in the fridge, like chicken? Do I throw it in the toaster? Do I microwave it? My granny has been known to keep everything from hot dog buns to candles in her massive deep freeze, so I may have to call her and consult. Your ideas are welcome, too.

Jesus Bread

During law school, Oprah, Dr. Phil and I spent many happy afternoons together. Working for a living is really cutting into my free time - the three of us haven't hung out in quite a while. So, yesterday I decided to Tivo Oprah, to catch up on all the good times.

To explain what happened next, I can only say (1) there are no groceries in my kitchen, (2) I'm feeling a little bloaty, (3) my birthday is coming up and (4) Oprah is damn persuasive.

The guest on the show was Doctor Oz, who is very smart and very scary and basically says things like, "America, you are killing yourselves. Go ahead and eat that Pop Tart if you want to die. Look, here is an actual human heart, diseased from Pop Tarts."

Today, he was talking about how your diet ages you. He showed us very scary footage of a woman who ate snack foods and watched TV and slept 18 hours a day, and she was supposed to be 42 but she looked about 92 and had the energy level of someone 202. Let's call her Linda. Linda is in a bad way. Her poor kid has to beg her to get out of bed, and she uses a whole stick of margerine to cook a few eggs. Linda is in distress. Also, Linda wears stretch pants. And as I watch this show, I am wearing stretch pants. Linda and I are not looking good.

Then, we all learned the rules. They are something like the 10 Commandments, with 5 do's and 5 don'ts:

1. Do eat spinach.
2. Do eat garlic.
3. Do eat tomato products. Not ketchup. It has sugar.
4. Do eat olive oil. Did you know you're supposed to keep oil in the fridge? Am I the only one who didn't know that? Also, you're supposed to eat it plain, not cooked. Heat ruins the good stuff.
5. Do eat pomegranates and pom juice.
6. Don't eat foods with sugar. Because sugar is like crack.
7. Don't eat foods with high-fructose corn syrup. This is like gross gluey sugar, and it is in EVERYTHING apparently. The problem is that it blocks the chemical that tells your brain you are full, so you just keep on eating crap. This has bad implications, it seems.
8. Don't eat foods with saturated fat. This means fat that is solid at room temperature, like Crisco or lard. Yum.
9. Don't eat foods with hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenated means a perfectly good oil, like olive oil, has been all hyped up with hydrogen. That's because regular oil, when used to make something like a cracker, would go bad eventually. When hydrogen is added, the oil becomes the consistency of cake frosting, and the crackers can sit on the shelf forever. But it kills you.
10. Don't eat foods with "enriched" anything, like enriched flour. Enriched = crap.

OK, so we have our rules, and I'm a little skeptical, but OH MY GOD out comes Linda after following the 10 Commandments and she is BOUNCING around the stage in cute clothes and she's lost 45 pounds and her kid is all happy and she has all this energy and Doctor Oz tells her she's hot and she very nearly does a herkie, and Oprah has to physically push her arms away to stop the hugging. All this from eating spinach.

The basic idea, says the good doctor, is that we need to think of food as prescription drugs, and read the labels. Some foods (basically anything with 6-10 in it) is proven to make you feel empty, depressed, hungrier, moody, lazy, etc. Stuff without 6-10 makes you feel good.

So, after the show I'm thinking, I could do this. I'm a pretty healthy eater. Those are easy rules. I'LL GO GET GROCERIES!!!

So, that is how I ended up at Kroger at 10pm with a basket filled with the following items:

1. Vegetables by the millions. I won't lie, it was HARD to follow those rules, and veggies were a pretty easy cop out, so I have your usual suspects plus weird stuff like broccolini and spaghetti squash.
2. Pomegranate juice, spinach, olive oil, tomato products and garlic. Of course.
3. Amy's Organic frozen stuff. Again, this is kind of a cop out. I buy that stuff anyway. Those burritos are a gift from heaven. And all that stuff works with the rules.
4. Weird organic yogurt in paper containers. I figured my regular stuff would work, but apparently I have been slowly killing myself with fat-free Dannon. All kinds of high-fructose corn syrup in there.
5. Mozarella sticks made with no flour or chemicals or basically anything except low fat milk and love.
6. And my favorite, Jesus Bread. Or to be accurate, Old Testament Bread. I really tried to find bread without the Big Five. I even tried that really brown, grainy, nutty kind, and even THAT has high fructose corn syrup. But, I did finally manage to find one acceptable brand of bread in the organic frozen food section. Before I go further, let me assure you this is real. There is a brand of bread called Ezekiel 4:9, and the recipe goes a little something like this: "Take also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans and lentils, and millet and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it." Yes, that is a Bible verse. Apparently (according to the package) when all those things are combined and sprout, they make this perfect miracle protein and crazy good bread. I'll let you know. I'm a little leary about "spelt".

So, there you go. I am now the proud owner of Jesus Bread and Pom Juice. I'll post reviews soon.