Cheeky's Hideaway

You Can't Spell 'Diet' Without D-I-E

Not long after our triumphant return from Antigua Oodgie and I decided the bulbous, squishy parts of our bodies have to go.  Months of feasting, carousing, and general abuse of our bodies have finally caught up with us--although you could argue that they caught up to us in our late 20s and we've been ignoring it since.  Our weapon of choice?  The South Beach diet.

For the eight of you not familiar with this diet, it in no way whatsoever resembles the actual South Beach.  The implied decadence of the name is immediately countered by the word "diet" after it, which means that no matter how easy the diet may be you'll still feel like a POW two hours into it.

We're freakin' starving!

I have noticed a few bad habits I'd picked up over the years as a result of this suicidal challenging decision.  Apparently my brain is hard-wired to grab a bag of chips 20 seconds after I walk in the door, and the battered chicken fingers which make up 63% of Cheeky's diet look more and more succulent every day.  I've been trusting my young, fit body to absorb my indiscretions, forgetting that neither adjective applies to me anymore.  Now I'm picking the croutons out of my Caesar salad (oh, the irony of it all...)

Far and away the most traumatic change, though, is the strict prohibition of beer.  We all know that it sometimes occasionally has been known to in some people to possibly maybe contribute to weight gain.  OK, I get it.  But seriously....none whatsoever?  The timing of this could not be worse.  The biggest national holiday of the year and they expect me to sip mineral water?  I 100% guarantee that there's a loophole somewhere that I can exploit!

...as long as I'm OK with the consequences.

Any one else have any diet war stories they'd like to share?

I could just fancy some cheese, Gromit. What do you say?

Look no further for evidence of my excellent taste in spouses (at least recent ones) than my plans for this evening.  For my birthday Oodgie signed me up for a craft beer and artisanal cheese class, which I'll be attending tonight.

Let me say that again, so I can savor the sound of it:  craft beer AND artisanal cheese.

For me, that's the rough equivalent of fabulous wealth and a "happy ending."

Oodgie's keen powers of perception picked up on my love of delicious specialty beers.  Perhaps it was the way I close my eyes and wipe a tear from my cheek after each mouth-watering, soul-quenching sip, or the way I'd pet the glass or bottle and whisper softly, "I love you."

She's also noticed that when the 6-year aged Gouda, the Humboldt Fog, or--dream of dreams--the Gorgonzola appears on party platters, the shadowy figure in the corner double-fisting crackers stacked with inch-thick hunks of each bears a striking resemblance to me.

The genius of combining the two cannot be over-stated.  I'm happier than Flavor Flav in a costume shop. 

Now I've got less than two months to top that for Oodgie's birthday.  Internet, I need your help.

My lack of romantic sensibilities has legendary status in our home.  My idea of a romantic evening is a bottle of wine and laser tag.  I'm not a complete ignoramus (yes, yes, sparkly jewelry, spa treatments...I know about all those) but I could use a little creative spark to help come up with something good. 

So, do you have any ideas?  Let me know! 

Spoon Drivel Anthology

Every night when I set the table….no wait, let's start over.  Every night, when I carry my plate to the coffee table...wait, that's still not right.  On the occasional night when I decide to use a plate—generally only when Oodgie is looking—I'll grab a knife, fork, and spoon out of the drawer, snatch a napkin, and waddle my ever-enlarging ass over to the couch.

There are many, many opportunities for ridicule in this image.  One could stare in awe as the food vanishes in roughly the time it takes a Ferrari Daytona to get from 0 to 60.  Or wince in disgust as I rest the plate on my belly or leave a chicken drumstick unnoticed in my chest-hairs for ten minutes.  Oodgie, however, is more likely to point out the following:

"Why did you grab a spoon?"

I’ve had a spoon next to my plate since I was a wee lad.  It would never occur to me that there was anything wrong with this.  Oodgie maintains, however, that it’s "only for soup," like I’m a Gigantopithecus or something if I use it.  What, then, is the big deal?   The spoon is a very useful tool, and I think it's time we acknowledge that.

Miss Manners may say that you should use a fork alone for everything it can manage, but I disagree.  Are you telling me that a spoon doesn’t work better with peas?  Why scrape my fork around the plate 20 times to get something that a spoon could capture at once?  And maybe I’m heathen enough to scoop that left-over dollop of ketchup in my mouth.  I’m not dining with Maria Theresa, you know.

I'm actually not generally as crude as the above might imply, and the spoon usually goes unused into the dishwasher.  But the relegation of this utensil to pariah status is just unfair.  Who gets to decide these things anyway?  Spoons have been bringing food to people's mouths for centuries, long before that interloper, the fork, took over the left side of your plate.  Without spoons we may never have taken in the nutrients to develop higher brain functions, leaving us to be enslaved by dolphin overlords.  Next time you eat a spoonful of ice cream you should take a moment and thank it for saving you from a brief, unpleasant life as a squid-mongerer for Lord Flipper the Merciless.

And while we're at it, let's acknowledge other great contributions of the spoon:

• to sometimes violent card games
• to modern music
• to snuggling
• when "greasy", to fine dining
• to Jason Bateman's career

Don't worry...if you invite me over for a fancy dinner party of komodo dragon and baby-seal steaks with the Rockefellers and Carnegies I'll use the proper utensil.  I may also wear pants, but only if you ask nicely.  But while everyone else chases their platypus eggs around the plate I will forever embrace my spoon in my less formal moments. 

At least, that is, until mankind perfects the next generation of utensil technology.

Spring Fever

Man, today is one of those days that I just don't want to be inside.  One of the few advantages of working in Queens is the utterly spectacular views of Manhattan I get from my office window, and on glorious days like today I just press my face against the glass and wish it were time for recess.  I wonder if there's any way me and Huck can sneak out early and play hookie down by the river...

We had a huge breakthrough the other day at Casa de Cheeky.  As much as I LOVE the deltoid workout of holding a bottle suspended over her mouth, when Cheeky grabbed the handles of her water bottle like Jeff Gordon catching a bite at Talladega and lifted it to her lips we went nuts.  YES!  Independent eating, or at least the early stages of it!  Of course, she still thinks corn puffs are projectiles and spoons are drumsticks, so we're not over the hump yet.  Next stop, swallowing the Cheerio…

Nobody Better Lay a Finger on my Butterfinger

If you'd known me in high school, you would have known a substantially larger man.  When I was a kid I liked eating...a lot.  I used to come home from school and eat anything that didn't have a Mr. Yuck sticker on it, and by the time I was a junior I resembled Captain Lou Albano.  Through a revolutionary diet of ice cream and watermelon, and by discovering racquetball, the one sport (besides tetherball) in which the ball actually comes back to you, I dropped 90 lbs. over the one summer and came back my senior year as a lean, mean, love machine. 

The residual effect of this is that I think more about my weight than a lot of guys do.  I'm not quite the two-dimensional being I was that year, but I've managed to stay within acceptable boundaries of mass and girth.  I've accomplished this with periodic diets and spurts of exercise, which ironically coincide with periods of gluttony and debauchery.  Look, that burger is going to taste better with cheese and bacon on it...it just is...and if you think I'm eating carrots for dinner for the rest of my life you're wildly mistaken.  Right now, though, Oodgie and I are jointly recovering from all the mass quantities of turducken and nog consumed over the holidays, so I'm trying to be really good.  For the record, I've been a regular freakin' Susan Powter for the last few weeks. 

Except...

I'm walking through the dim fluorescent glow of our office today, and I happened to pass a cube which I knew...I knew...bore temptation.  There's lots of candy floating around our floor, including some insanely high-end chocolate and cookies sent as bribes by vendors.  I've ignored it all, secure in my pursuit of better health and a vague Andrew McCarthyness.  But I have no defense against the orange/yellow glow of Butterfingers.  Even worse...they were FUN SIZE!  I want to have FUN!  Butterfingers are FUN!  And so, soooooo good.  That fun size fits right in your pocket (in fact, you can get between 8 and 24 in your pocket, depending on the pants you are wearing...so I'm told) and in the palm of your hand and crunch crunch crunch it's gone, leaving that buttery chocolate taste on your tongue and compacted crispety crunchiness in your molars.

Don't judge me...you know you're craving one now, too!  I may be eating cardboard tonight as punishment, but it was worth it.

Area Man's Face Freezes After Making Funny Faces All Day

We're back safe and sound from New Hampshire after a nice Turkey Day.  Cheeky made it through her first road trip without a major hitch, although Mom, Dad, and ECG weren't doing so well after the staggering 6.5 hour drive (I'm guessing we would have made it there faster via tractor or snowshoes).  I'd love to meet the highway engineer who designed the exits connecting the Merritt Parkway, I-91, and I-84 in Connecticut, as I have some feedback. 

The trip home wasn't nearly as bad, and we decompressed today after all the activity over the last few days.  One of today's activities was Cheeky's Christmas pictures.  As tempting as it was to get 2 5x7's and 8 wallet sizes from Sears Portrait Studio, we opted for the simpler and conveniently located "grab the camera and prop her on the couch" studio.  One of these pictures will be in the obligatory photo Christmas card which, as I mentioned on DadCentric, puts me in the ackward position of becoming that which I most mock.  Fortunately we didn't force her to wear a Santa hat or stand in front of a tiny replica of the Brooklyn Bridge, and since she's the most adorable human being to ever grace this planet I'm certain everyone is looking forward to seeing them.

But you'll have to wait if you expect them here.  HA!  Psyche!

We also introduced "real food" into Cheeky's diet today.  It turned out to be just that--an introduction--because Cheeky and the food really didn't really get very acquainted.    This "food" (if you can really call it that) was far more effective as a decorative rivulet on her chin than as a form of subsistence.  We made the mistake of tasting it to see what we were putting in our daughter's mouth, and if you are a parent considering this my advice would be don't do it.  Yuck.  This stuff had better be packed with nutrients, because it tastes like feet.  We'll be trying again, of course, although we may opt for something more flavorful next time, like nachos.

Oh, and one other thing.  I have a special message to all you Giants fans out there.  HA!

Be Gentile With Me

We got back from Florida tonight, fresh off a fun-filled, Cheeky-free weekend at our friend's wedding.  Although we certainly missed the little kid, it was really great to spend time together with just the two of us.  We stayed out late, slept in, and...other things.  There's a little guilt floating around the house that we enjoyed ourselves so much, but the way I figure anybody who sleeps for 16 out of 24 hours in a day can't possibly miss us that much anyway.

The wedding itself was a lot of fun, and it was my first experience at a true Jewish wedding.  I was raised Catholic, and until now almost all the weddings I'd been to were some variation on a Christian theme--churches, bible-readings, etc. (Quick shout out to my boy Anton who tossed a few nice pagan rituals in for good measure).  Even my own wedding, in which I actually married a Jewish girl (Oy!) didn't have the trappings of the traditional spectacle we attended this weekend.  Since many of my most loyal readers do not live in places where the office empties on Yon Kippur, or have never tasted challah or gefilte fish, allow me to share my goyish observations (as CroutonGoy, if you will) on the experience, and how it compares with what I grew up with:

	Jewish	Catholic
Length	20-30 minutes	45-60 minutes	Advantage   – Jewish, by a wide margin
Supplementary Language	Hebrew	Latin	Advantage   – Catholic. Latin is much more elegant, and phonetically pronounceable.
Location	Temple	Church or Cathedral	Advantage   – Catholic, but only if it's a classic old cathedral with the stained glass and pipe organ.
Invocations to elephant-headed gods	None	None	Advantage   – Push.  But from what I hear things  get crazy when Ganesh is involved
Headgear	Yamulke	None required	Advantage   – Catholic. Sorry, but from behind it looks like everyone has periods on their heads
Food & Drink	Wine before ceremony. Cocktails and food immediately after. Dinner until 1 AM.	Reheated lasagna in an aluminum container.	Advantage  – Jewish. I chased the tray of pigs-in-blankets for half an hour…AWESOME
Musical High Point	Havah Nagilah – everyone joins hands and dances in a circle while bride and groom are hoisted dangerously on chairs	Chicken Dance – everyone looks like an idiot.	Advantage   – Jewish. And the Jews are rightly laughing at us.
Cinematic Equivalent	“Fiddler on the Roof”	“The Godfather”	Advantage – Catholic. “Someday—and that day may   never come—I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.” No contest whatsoever

I hope that clears up things for most of you, and offends the rest fairly equally.

We've got a VERY busy week ahead, as WCG² are coming to town to visit Cheeky (that's both WCGrandma and WCGrandpa).  It's possible they may even note our presence as well.  This kids getting a lot of spoiling packed into a short amount of time.  I'll try to keep everyone posted as the chaos ensues...

Feliz Día de la Raza

Gargantuan financial services companies aren't the sexiest places to work, but there's one big benefit--holidays.  I was hanging out Monday morning in my underwear, watching the traffic & transit report, sipping my coffee and listening to my daughter grunt out stink bomb, and thinking about all those poor fools crammed into subway stations, holding onto metal bars that are still warm from the last 64 people who were holding onto it.  HA!  Controversy and bomb-threats aside, Columbus Day ROCKS!

We finally got around to organizing Cheeky's drawers and closet, so we no longer have to move comic books out of the way to get to the diapers.  She's actually starting to grow out of things, and it's sort of funny to fold and stack outfits no bigger than postage stamps.   Speaking of clothes, Claud's been obsessing over what to get Cheeky for Halloween, and from what I've seen of the options she's been Googling "infant embarassment" to find costumes.  Maybe I'm naive, but I had no idea dressing kids as vegetables or livestock was so popular.  If it was up to me, I'd dress her as Lt. Ripley, but it's not.  Instead, the poor kid will probably end up looking like Amorphophallus titanum.

Oh, and note to Avent, the "baby feeding accessory" company...try testing your products while feeding a child in the back seat of a moving car, OK.  If "spilling the hell all over the place while trying to calm a screaming baby in an enclosed space" tests well with consumers, then by all means rush it to market.  But the "unique Avent Teat" (heh heh...I said "teat") with it's "patented anti-vacuum skirt" is about as effective at feeding our child as smearing creamed carrots on her forehead.

Zagats Rating

FORMULA  15 23 21 $25

“Good to the last sip,” this “comfortable”, “groovy” Brooklyn filling station has “a family-friendly” vibe without the “teens” and “tourists”. The “open kitchen” and “late night grub” include “hand-made” Enfamil (“to die for”) and Nestle “from the old country”. Although “spotty” service, "frazzled" owners, and “hair-band” music are downsides, its regulars insist it’s “improved since it opened” in July.

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun

As expected, we stayed around the 'hood this holiday weekend, choosing to wrestle with boredom in a city of 8 million rather than wrestle with boredom in the country.  For once, it was just nice to not have any place to be, so we "slept in" (which was around 6 AM) and milled about with the newspaper until the glorious weather beckoned us outside.  Once out, all we did was follow the path of Caleb Smith and walk the streets, eventually ending up at Pacifico in Cobble Hill for nachos.  By the way, for those of you who know me and my life-long quest for the perfect nachos, I'm laying it on the line and saying these were Top Five.  Home made torilla chips, chili, enchilada sauce (a nice substitute for salsa), fresh chopped peppers and onions, and, most importantly, good layering.  Deeeee-licious

Claudia tracked down this incredible item called the Amazing Miracle Blanket, which we've been using to imprison Chloe for the last few days.  I was starting to think she had some special gift (like Sgt. Riggs) to escape from straight-jackets or shrink-wrap (which I hadn't tested yet), but this thing has been like Fort Knox.  It's also fun to unravel, like rolling toilet paper across the floor, except with a baby.  Most important, of course, is that it's kept her from flailing around while eating and helps her sleep, although she still contorts like python when she has gas.

I'm not sure if it was a trick of the light, or if it was a vision of the future, but for a moment while feeding her tonight I sorta thought Chloe looked like Persis Khambatta (after meeting V'ger, or course).