What Thanksgiving Used To Mean

For a client, I wrote a blog post on fatty Thanksgiving foods after being inspired by one of the most disgusting food videos I've ever seen. (Blog post is here. :) )

I thought it'd be a great topic for the week before Thanksgiving, but when I was doing my research on the fattiest Thanksgiving foods, the only things showing up in search was low-cal Thanksgiving recipes. My searches for "fattiest Thanksgiving recipes" and "high calorie Thanksgiving foods" turned up articles on a lighter Thanksgiving, a low-cal Thanksgiving, and advice on how to not overdo it during the holiday. 

What happened? Why are we now obsessed with making lighter dishes on Thanksgiving, the one day of the year we celebrate our abundance of food? It's because Thanksgiving is no longer the one day of the year we have more food than we know what to do with. We regularly over-indulge, regularly eat beyond being full, and regularly feel sick from too much food. 

Now, the internet is full of Thanksgiving recipes that teach cooks how to make the same dishes with fewer calories. Now, we're told to not put marshmallows on our sweet potatoes, skip the cream of mushroom and fried onions on the green beans, bake potatoes rather than mash them with butter and cream, and skip the bread and rolls. 

I know I'm being a bit of a hypocrite when I say this, especially since running a blog called We Should Be Fat, but I wouldn't mind going back to when giant meals were a special occasion. I wouldn't mind us, as a country, enjoying our meals for what they are, and knowing what they are. We should put some butter and cream in our mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving and enjoy them without worrying about how many miles we'll have to run to work it off, but we should be far more sensible about how we eat on a more regular basis. 

Louis C.K. says the meal is not over when he's full, it's over when he hates himself. And it's funny because it's true for a lot of us. (He also says he runs 5 miles every other day to keep up "this shitty body.") We eat, and then we keep eating until our bodies tell us we're full, and then we feel like absolute shit 20 minutes later, when those last few helpings have settled in. And it's not like we're shoveling in vegetables... we're eating meat at every meal, often with bread, followed up with sweets. And we wonder why there's an obesity crisis.

I was a supporter of Prop 37 that would have required the labeling of genetically modified foods because I saw it as a step in the right direction. We have no idea what we're eating, partially because we don't read the nutrition labels to know what actually comprises those frozen chicken nuggets and partially because a simple ingredient like corn (which is in fucking everything - go look) is comprised of a number of new chemicals that aren't listed. We're eating more, enjoying food less, and suffering because of our over abundance. Our farm animals get the vast, vast majority of our antibiotics (not because they're sick, either), we're polluting our country and other countries laugh at us because of our food habits.

If we don't go full steam ahead with every meal and regret the vast majority of what we eat, we can enjoy what we eat more and worry about it less. We can let Thanksgiving go back to what it used to be - a day to be thankful for what we have, which in this country is more often than not an abundance.

Living Alone... Kinda

I seem to end up in the 4th apartment...

About a month ago my roommate moved out. Well, kind of. Her bed is still here, as is her dresser and shelf, and a lot of bathroom stuff, and her fiance's table is in the kitchen. But other than that, I'm pretty much living by myself. Well, with the cat.

Back in August, my roommate got engaged. (Yay!) They'd already talked about moving in together and decided she'd move to Fullerton, so I knew it was coming (actually, she even knew the proposal was coming because he'd let something slip a few months earlier). While all this was happening, my roommate was also trying to buy a place.

So, we talked about it and came up with one of the strangest agreements. My roommate placed an offer on a condo in August, which was approved by the owners  in October. But it would have to gain the approval of the bank (short sale), which could take time. My roommate would still stick to her plan to move out to start her new job in November. I agreed to pay a little bit more rent and we'd keep our apartment while she waited to hear if she got the condo. If she gets the condo, I tentatively agreed to move in and be her tenant, leaving one room open for them to visit. If she doesn't get the condo, I offered to find another, smaller, cheaper 2 bedroom and she'd rent out the small room.

Why? Even though she moved to Fullerton, she still has lots of connections in San Diego to bring her (and her fiance) back on a regular basis. So far she's been here almost every weekend since moving out, and if we didn't have our place still they'd have had already spend a good amount on a hotel. So having a place in San Diego that they can come to makes sense for them, especially while they're planning their wedding. And she's been wanting to buy a place since I met her (and as much as she denies it I'm convinced they'll eventually move to San Diego permanently).

What's in it for me? The potential ability to live "alone" for a lot less money than I'd have to pay otherwise. The upside is a pretty significant savings and the potential ability to live in a nicely remodeled condo, have a dedicated parking space and laundry room, and it'd be a few miles closer to the boyfriend. The downside is it's not in my neighborhood, which means no more walk to work, walk to bars, walk to restaurants, walk to grocery stores. And it's not in the safest of neighborhoods so I wouldn't feel comfortable going for a run, which would mean either a lot more gym time or a lot more driving to a better place to run (or changing at work and running from the office). 

So I'm undecided. There are appealing parts and there are things I wouldn't like about it. I won't have to decide until we know if she gets the place, and I'm really hoping we know this week so we can give our 30 day notice in December... not having to pay for another month in our current apartment would be awesome.

Farewell, Foundry

One of my most favorite places in North Park, The Foundry, closed its doors this week. It's the closest bar to my house, and one I really loved walking to. They had amazingly delicious hot pho, which I ordered every single time I went there. Unless they were out. Then I got super sad.

It turns out the owner had to make a decision between participating in and touring with his band and running a bar. And he picked the band. He sold The Foundry to someone who wants to open a sports bar. *shudder*

The last bowl of shrimp pho ever.

Not a fan of sports bars. But I'll more than likely at least stop by and check it out, at least to see what they did with it and what kind of beers they have. Who knows, maybe it really will be the less-douchey sports bar in North Park.

Farewell, Foundry. I did enjoy thee.

Growing Up

Divorce at 1:10

To the surprise of exactly everyone, two of the boyfriend's friends announced they're getting a divorce. And just like that, this stuff is in my generation.

I have certainly not been in the picture long enough to get a good idea of the type of relationship this couple had, but I have been around long enough to be completely shocked. This couple was known among the group of friends for having the most fun wedding- with a nacho bar (oh yeah, stealing that). The boyfriend has a photo of their friends' faces after they realized there was a nacho bar at the wedding. It's amazing.

And just to be a total cliche, they seemed so happy. Granted, when I did see them it was always the two of them together, and they both were upbeat, smiling and generally... happy. I didn't hang out with either of them one on one and obviously I have no idea how their private relationship was.

But all of their friends are just as surprised.

It's a really unsettling prospect. The husband is a little older but still in his thirties and his wife is just a year or two older than me. She just moved to Seattle for a better job, where he was going to follow at the end of the semester, when he dropped the ax. The super unsettling part? Apparently even she was blindsided.

Now, if that's not something to make you question relationships in general I don't know what is. When I was younger I usually assumed my relationship was about to end when couple-friends would break up. When The Ex's best friends broke up I thought for sure we were on the chopping block. As if break ups are contagious. A few months ago the boyfriend's BFF and his girlfriend broke up, and that didn't affect me or my relationship with my boyfriend at all (for one, I don't still worry that my boyfriend's friend's relationships will have much of an impact on ours, and for another the boyfriend has made me feel very secure about our relationship). But a divorce is different. A divorce isn't just a break up.

I was told that once I turned 26 it would be all weddings and babies and grown up stuff. That kind of happened - Facebook has far more weddings and babies than it did even a year ago, and my new friend requests are in long term committed relationships, if not engaged. I'm even going to be in a wedding. It's weird. People have been telling me this part would come but it's still surprising to actually see it. The other day I got my haircut and the woman asked me if I had kids. Because I look old enough.

And now people my age are getting divorced.

People are still making the same mistakes our parents made, still not talking to each other, still letting problems sit until they're ready to explode. Did we learn nothing? Am I that naive to think we actually would?

The good news for me is that I don't let things stew. If I have an issue that bugs me I bring it up -  for better or for worse. I don't like going to bed mad, really don't like waking up mad, and want things to be resolved as quickly as possible. The down side is this tendency has caused a few sleepless nights, and not in the good way.

Louis C.K. once chastised his audience for "awwww"ing when he announced his divorce, saying "no happy marriage has ever ended in divorce." The man has a good point: happy marriages last - unhappy marriages sometimes don't. I guess the only thing you can do is try to make your partner happy and hope for the best.

In Which I Kill A Fish

These guys will always be around.

I killed my pet fish.

It was a mercy kill, putting my fish out of her (pretty sure it was a girl) misery. She'd been sick, not eating, puffed up to more than twice her size, and was so bloated her scales stuck out. It was disgusting, and I imagine not comfortable for her. Possibly even painful. So I ended it for her.

Thing is, the other fish in the tank (same species, same sex), might have also been sick because she hadn't eaten in a couple of days. But the morning after I killed her companion she was as lively and hungry as ever. Could it be she hated the other fish and was finally happy to be alone? Could she have recognized what I do to fish that are dying and made a change? Probably neither, but it is a pretty big coincidence.

Because there doesn't seem to be too much information on how to actually kill a pet fish on the internet, I'm going to go through what I read and what I did, so if you don't want to know how people kill their pet fish maybe this just isn't the post for you (but seriously, do you not read titles?).

The internet thinks that the best and most humane way to euthanize a fish is to separate it into another bowl, and mix the water with drops of clove oil. The clove oil puts the fish to sleep, literally. Much like euthanizing animals, it's the overdose that's the lethal part. First, you put just a few drops of oil in to calm the fish and put it into a sleep- it'll go belly up but still be alive (don't mistake the belly up to be death...). Then, once it can't feel anything and isn't stressing, you give it the lethal overdose and in time it dies. It's supposed to take a while, but at least it doesn't feel anything, which is different from freezing it (some fish can survive in cold temperatures, so they're very much alive when they slowly die).

Since it was late on a Friday night and I did not have any clove oil on hand when I noticed my bloated fish was belly up but living, I could not use that method. There are other methods online, which fish enthusiasts use, but none seemed like a quick or sure death (Alka Seltzer being one of them, garbage disposal being another). But I did have other tools on hand, which I figured would be faster and possibly more humane anyway, if only I had the stomach for it. That... that was hard. I know it's only a fish, and I know I've had pets euthanized before due to illness, but being the hand that deliberately killed an animal was new to me.

I set up a plastic cutting board and a steak knife (meant to cut meat but not so sharp as to cut the plastic bag I wanted to use and without ridges) on the counter in the kitchen, next to the sink. I gathered my nerves and made the decision that this was the only option and I was not going to panic or hesitate. I scooped the fish into a plastic bag with just enough water to carry her through the apartment. Back in the kitchen, I emptied most of the water into the sink, sealed the bag, laid it on the cutting board, took a breath, and sliced the head off.

My fish was a platy, and other than being bloated was a very small fish. I don't know if it would have been as easy on other species, certainly not larger fish, but this fish was big enough to get a grip on but small enough to be easily decapitated by a steak knife. Once it was over, and it was very clear she was out of any pain or suffering she might have experienced, I felt relieved. I took out the trash, cleaned my tools, and put them in the dishwasher (for good measure). 

I didn't hesitate and it was all over within a minute from plastic bag to death, so the suffering at my hand was very minimal. And I felt good that I'd been able to take control and speed nature along when possible pain was being felt. But afterwards I couldn't just go to bed. I stayed up late surfing the happiest parts of Reddit to make myself feel better, or at least flood my mind with cuteness so I wouldn't go to bed with the image of my fish fresh in my mind. It helped- at least to the point that I didn't have a nightmare. 

I'm really hoping I won't have to do that again, though. The other fish is doing really well- swimming enthusiastically, eating voraciously, picking on the snails, pretty much being a happy fish. Which is good. I'm a little nervous she won't survive the move, whenever that ends up happening, but at least I'm a little more prepared now.