A totally crack-tastic post
Dec. 5th, 2011 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThe residents of this house, two-legged as well as four, are perfectly law-abiding citizens when it comes to actual controlled substances. Metaphoric ones, though? Different story.
There are two substances under this roof which are colloquially referred to as "crack."
Here's the first:
Eleanor bought home the first couple of nickel bags of this shit several months ago (only a non-British/French version, apparently). From the first dispensing of it to the 9-Live Crew, we've had nothing but howls of approval from the cats AND both neighboring dogs in sight of the stuff. The mere unsealing of the pouch is enough to bring ten beady little eyes into our kitchen, all falling over themselves to get in on the action. And the experience here is quite typical, from what we've heard from other friends (other than one cat lover who might be named![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bluesilverkdg, whose alleged kitties seemed oblivious to the stuff when I visited down there and tried tempting them with standard dope peddler free samples).
Problem is, they've been a bit too Pav-loved around here when it comes to the triggers for such things, and now, any packaging even resembling the Temptations pouch is a siren song to the Fearsome Fivesome. Wegmans prepackaged croutons? Crack, as far as they're concerned. And more recently, Wegmans high-end gourmet decaffeinated coffee became their Obscure Object of Desire. I practically had to wrestle the scoop away from them as I tried loading the carafe with a stash for several cuppas.
But you don't drink decaf, Ray. What's with that?
Not-so-funny you should ask.
----
A week or so before Thanksgiving, I was booted from a blood drive because my diastolic number was a point or two too high for them to drain me. Two days later, on an empty stomach and after a good and stress-free night's sleep, I beat it down the needed points to get my blood sucked, but just barely. Then, late last week, another random retest on one of those in-pharmacy free-check machines brought up a third borderline Stage Two Hypertension reading, getting me even more worried and setting an appointment for next week to have it diagnosed.
Never satisfied by such plans, I got to thinking, and I gradually realized that in the past few months, I've probably increased my daily Regular Coffee consumption by 100-200 percent or so. Blame the damn beady-eyeded ones for that, too; one of them crashed my coffee carafe to the floor earlier this year, and I replaced it with a much bigger one, but still fitting-the-filler-cone, which can handle four fully-muggy cups at a time. Which, in the interest of efficiency, I've been making, and then, in the interest of intertia, I've been drinking.
Filled with this realization, I've replaced that pot-filling with decaf, reserving one cup a day of the real thing which now comes from a Handy Gadget gizmo we experimented with for Emily's high school coffee needs back when she had to be out the door before 7 a.m. The caffeine withdrawal is clearly here; I'll need to check later this week if it's had any good effect on the BP.
As noted, though, our current stash of decaf comes, unfortunately, in a Temptations-like packet, so the first time I tried brewing a pot of the stuff, I had a posse of four-legged crack addicts sticking kissers into my coffee filter before I could pour in the water. NO! IT'S NOT CRACK, I exhorted. Seemingly confused about the language, Michelle the cat responded by sticking her nose into the arse of Zoey the cat.
Okay, fine, I surrendered. THAT's a crack.
----
Then there's the other not-really-crack Crack in the house. This one's even properly labeled as such:
Eleanor brought the first couple kilos of these into the house a few months ago, and I immediately fell for their siren song of semi-healthiness, enough so that I've been routinely buying boxes of the stuff anytime I'm in any store for anything. Also enough so that I can singlehandedly consume a 450-calorie box of the fecking things without batting an eyelash. Only near-daily cardio has beaten back the ill effects of their caloric content, but now, dealing with this BP issue, I've read the rest of the label and found that each fractional "serving" within that box was singlehandedly filling a large percentage of my daily sodium requirement. In other words, I've been cracking myself to death.
So she's now in charge of the household crack purchases of both kinds. The way I'm wired, I am much more likely to leave (lower-case t) temptations alone, or at least slow my consumption of them, if I'm not the one who bought them. My total lack of crack willpower is exceeded only by my sense of guilt about eating Somebody Else's stuff.
And at least I've never mooned her (that I know of) while reaching for the damn things.
There are two substances under this roof which are colloquially referred to as "crack."
Here's the first:
Eleanor bought home the first couple of nickel bags of this shit several months ago (only a non-British/French version, apparently). From the first dispensing of it to the 9-Live Crew, we've had nothing but howls of approval from the cats AND both neighboring dogs in sight of the stuff. The mere unsealing of the pouch is enough to bring ten beady little eyes into our kitchen, all falling over themselves to get in on the action. And the experience here is quite typical, from what we've heard from other friends (other than one cat lover who might be named
bluesilverkdg, whose alleged kitties seemed oblivious to the stuff when I visited down there and tried tempting them with standard dope peddler free samples).Problem is, they've been a bit too Pav-loved around here when it comes to the triggers for such things, and now, any packaging even resembling the Temptations pouch is a siren song to the Fearsome Fivesome. Wegmans prepackaged croutons? Crack, as far as they're concerned. And more recently, Wegmans high-end gourmet decaffeinated coffee became their Obscure Object of Desire. I practically had to wrestle the scoop away from them as I tried loading the carafe with a stash for several cuppas.
But you don't drink decaf, Ray. What's with that?
Not-so-funny you should ask.
----
A week or so before Thanksgiving, I was booted from a blood drive because my diastolic number was a point or two too high for them to drain me. Two days later, on an empty stomach and after a good and stress-free night's sleep, I beat it down the needed points to get my blood sucked, but just barely. Then, late last week, another random retest on one of those in-pharmacy free-check machines brought up a third borderline Stage Two Hypertension reading, getting me even more worried and setting an appointment for next week to have it diagnosed.
Never satisfied by such plans, I got to thinking, and I gradually realized that in the past few months, I've probably increased my daily Regular Coffee consumption by 100-200 percent or so. Blame the damn beady-eyeded ones for that, too; one of them crashed my coffee carafe to the floor earlier this year, and I replaced it with a much bigger one, but still fitting-the-filler-cone, which can handle four fully-muggy cups at a time. Which, in the interest of efficiency, I've been making, and then, in the interest of intertia, I've been drinking.
Filled with this realization, I've replaced that pot-filling with decaf, reserving one cup a day of the real thing which now comes from a Handy Gadget gizmo we experimented with for Emily's high school coffee needs back when she had to be out the door before 7 a.m. The caffeine withdrawal is clearly here; I'll need to check later this week if it's had any good effect on the BP.
As noted, though, our current stash of decaf comes, unfortunately, in a Temptations-like packet, so the first time I tried brewing a pot of the stuff, I had a posse of four-legged crack addicts sticking kissers into my coffee filter before I could pour in the water. NO! IT'S NOT CRACK, I exhorted. Seemingly confused about the language, Michelle the cat responded by sticking her nose into the arse of Zoey the cat.
Okay, fine, I surrendered. THAT's a crack.
----
Then there's the other not-really-crack Crack in the house. This one's even properly labeled as such:
Eleanor brought the first couple kilos of these into the house a few months ago, and I immediately fell for their siren song of semi-healthiness, enough so that I've been routinely buying boxes of the stuff anytime I'm in any store for anything. Also enough so that I can singlehandedly consume a 450-calorie box of the fecking things without batting an eyelash. Only near-daily cardio has beaten back the ill effects of their caloric content, but now, dealing with this BP issue, I've read the rest of the label and found that each fractional "serving" within that box was singlehandedly filling a large percentage of my daily sodium requirement. In other words, I've been cracking myself to death.
So she's now in charge of the household crack purchases of both kinds. The way I'm wired, I am much more likely to leave (lower-case t) temptations alone, or at least slow my consumption of them, if I'm not the one who bought them. My total lack of crack willpower is exceeded only by my sense of guilt about eating Somebody Else's stuff.
And at least I've never mooned her (that I know of) while reaching for the damn things.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:35 am (UTC)I even have sickeningly adorable names for the different ones. The beef treats are "moo moos", the dairy flavored ones are "milkies", the poultry variety are "chick chicks" and any variety of fish/salmon/etc. are "fishy wishies." Yes, I have lost my mind.
And speaking of becoming Pav-loved, Lil General has decided that any bag, box or any other container that might or might not contain something he could munch on is now HIS. *sigh* It didn't take long.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:08 pm (UTC)They come in Four Cheese and Cheddar varieties, too!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:56 pm (UTC)So now I take lisinopril, and it keeps my damn BP under control, and I can drink as much coffee as I bloody well like. So don't hesitate to tell them what you've already done to control it, and don't hesitate to agree to meds, either.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 04:41 pm (UTC)Meanwhile, caffeine? Can't get through the day without it. I get migraines when I try to quit.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-07 02:43 am (UTC)I've been off caffeine since '99 and while my blood pressure was slightly elevated right around when I stopped drinking caffeine it hasn't been since.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 03:03 am (UTC)