THE FIVE-SECOND RULE (OR: EAT IT AND DIE!)

"DON'T EAT IT, BROTHER, I'M TELLIN' YA! IT'S BEEN ON THE FLOOR FOR TWO SECONDS ALREADY!"

I heard some disturbing news on the radio on the way home from work tonight. (No, it wasn't about Mayor Rob Ford; I said disturbing, not traumatizing.) It started off with this teaser: "So you dropped your sandwich on the floor. Is it still safe to eat?" 

Then they cut to a commercial and let listeners stew for a good five minutes, wondering if that piece of cheese they scooped up off the carpet at work (well it was that really GOOD cheese, plus no one was looking) will be the death of them.

According to "a new study," it just might.

Remember the 5-second rule? Yes, I know it was true last week, but now there's "a new study," so it's not true anymore. The new truth is that food is going to be MOLESTED by horny bacteria the very second it lands.

According to this study and to kidshealth website, bacteria can attach to food as soon as it hits the floor. Even floors that look clean can be crawling with bacteria. "Without a powerful microscope it's impossible to determine how many are present." (Subliminal message: Go out right now and buy a powerful microscope, or your kids might die.)

Well now I won't sleep tonight worrying about how many brazillions of germs I ingested in the past week alone. 

What I worry about even more than the cooties I might have caught off that piece of floor-cheese is this: has anyone told those poor folks in countries where they still live in mud huts and DON'T use anti-bacterial spritzers 500 times a day? 

It's a miracle the planet has lasted this long without this crucial bit of obsessive-compulsive wisdom. How did we ever survive the germs that must have been everywhere when we used to poop in outhouses and have babies on the horsehair chesterfield? 

Anyway, my point is, I think we worry too much. If we accidentally ingest a few hundred bacteria a day, I'm pretty sure we'll survive.

And if that's not comfort enough for you, then just wait a few weeks. Another "new study" is sure to come along and prove that this other new study was complete bunk.

I'll find out about it when I'm driving home from work and hear this teaser: "It's the most important nutrient you could possibly eat . . . and it's found on your kitchen floor!"

WHAT TO REALLY EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING

Hello, my name is Jade. I weigh 7 lbs, 2 ounces. 
I almost ripped my mother in half and no one warned her.  "Just do your breathing," the nurses said.
"GO DIE OF HERPES!" she shrieked in reply. It was epic.

I sat beside a very pregnant young woman on the bus home from work last night.

She was sitting there with her hand on her monstrous belly, reading a book of baby names. So I felt safe asking her what I almost never ask women who look pregnant but may just be fat: "When are you due?"
"Next Saturday," she said, smiling shyly.

"Your first?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm having a girl, I think. I'm pretty sure."

"I know what you mean," I said. "I knew all three times that I was having a girl."

"Wow," the young woman said, "three girls. So how was your first childbirth?"
 

Uh-oh.

Careful now, I told myself. Because that's a very telling question.

Notice she didn't say: "What's it like having three girls?" or my personal favourite, "You don't look old enough to have three kids." 
She said, "How was the childbirth?"
See, most of us instinctively know the unwritten code of womanhood: Never tell a first-time-pregnant woman the truth about childbirth and the horrors of the immediate afterwards or she will jump in front of the next available train, and truthfully, that's probably a less painful fate. (Warning that occurs to me a few sentences too late: If you are pregnant, stop reading NOW. Nothing to see here. Move along.)

Once she has already had a child, the game changes.

Get a group of women who've had kids together and things get gruesome. They try to outdo each other about how many stitches they had, how long the baby's head was stuck in the "birth canal," how long it took before they could pee without screaming.

But you don't tell a woman who's pregnant with her first child any of that. Because you know there's nothing she can do about it at this point except be scared shitless from now until the baby crowns. 

You know that, just as it was with you and your sister and your aunts, once she's mid-birth, she will feel like she is live on the set of The Exorcist. She will scream and twist and sob, she will beg for drugs, she will wonder how "this thing" is ever going to get out of her.

And then she'll be fine.
She will even, eventually, forget how it almost killed her.
It's nature's way of ensuring that we keep getting knocked up. And "the code" is part of that cosmic conspiracy.

So when I looked at that young woman's shining face and innocent, hopeful eyes, I just smiled back.

"It was fine," I said. "You'll be fine."
Then I got off the bus and prayed I wouldn't see her again until after she'd had the baby.

JUSTIN BIEBER: HE'S CUTE BUT DUMB AS A BUNNY

I'm pretty sure I am the only adult in Canada who likes Justin Bieber. I know he’s too much of everything: too packaged, too famous, too young, too pretty, but the guy can sing and he’s cute as a bunny. 

Except it turns out bunnies are a whole lot smarter than the Biebs. The just-turned-18-year-old graces the latest edition of Rolling Stone looking like James Dean’s baby brother. (Where’re ya going, James? Can I come? Huh? Can I? Can I? Awww, why can’t I?) In it you will find everything you could already have guessed about the fledgling heartthrob, plus a few shockers. 

Such as this gem: Apparently, he is of  mixed ancestry. He says, and I quote: “I’m actually part Indian. I think Inuit or something. I’m enough per cent that in Canada I can get free gas.” (Yes, well that would mean you are also “per cent” enough to get free post-secondary education, my boy. And you might want to look into that . . . )

NEARER, BY GOD, TO THEE

So many people commented on the earlier Sugar Beach post  Sugar Beach's Sugar Daddies, I decided to reward them with a little more eye candy. In this instalment, we get a much better look at the thong-sporting gent in Where the Boys Are. 

Hmm. So what IS this, really? Is it a pair of black tightie-whities with a thong on top? Is it a one-piece, bi-layered bathing suit? Is it an optical illusion? 
I just . . . I can't . . . how is this even . . . it makes me want to thing. Thing a thong. Thing it loud, thing it thtrong.   

 OK that's enough. Soon I will never get invited to anything if this is how I carry on afterwards.

WHAT I ATE TODAY (UNCENSORED)

 IS THAT PASTRY? I SEE PASTRY!

That's me on the left, gleefully applauding the cake. 

You should see what I do when someone brings eclairs to the table.

Donna, my ex-common-law-sister-in-law (we need a shorter word for that) called me last night in a tizzy.

Donna: "Omigaaawd! I made cookies and ate them ALL and now my stomach feels like it's made of cement! Why can't I control myself?"

Me: "Life's short, Donna. Eat the cookies. The guilt will kill you before the sugar will."

That's what I tell her. But  do I follow my own advice? 
Not so much. 

In truth, I torture myself about food all the time. I deprive myself for days, feel smug and disciplined, then I think, "This is silly, my weight isn't going to change more than 5 pounds either way; I should just eat!" 
Then I go bonkers and eat and eat and eat.

Before age 50, I never had to worry abut calories. But once you hit that tombstone milestone, everything changes. 

I combat it with hyper-disciplined phases during which I forgo snacks, kick up the workouts, swear off the carbs. 
You don't want to cross me on those days. If you have something unpleasant to discuss with me, you should call me and make sure I had toast for breakfast first. (Typical no-carbs day:  Co-worker: "Good morning! Isn't it a lovely day?"  Me: "Go fuck yourself.") 

But really, this hyper-discipline doesn't make much difference.

It's like your body is thinking: "Bring it on, bitch: starve yourself, eat nothing but seaweed, rub low-fat yogurt all over your thighs, whatever. I'm still gonna make you fat! Oh, and by the way, YOU! ARE! 50!"

Then I lapse into hopelessness and think: Why am I even bothering? I HATE low-fat yogurt!

Today was one of the days the go-ahead-and-eat-it voice won. I basically consumed whatever I laid eyes on, no questions asked. This means that tomorrow I will be wracked with self-loathing and will eat nothing but a bag of baby carrots and three sugar-free mints. 
But that's tomorrow. Today is all that matters when you're shovelling red velvet cake down your craw.

Here, for kicks, is the full run-down of what went down the hatch today.

Breakfast: Coffee with Baileys, two squares of Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt. 

Lunch: Arrive at work starving, greeted by heavenly aroma of bbq smoke and realize today is building's tenant appreciation day. Hands literally trembling as I get a plate and fill it with bbq'd brisket on a bun, bean salad, lots of mixed green salad. Eat this at my desk making gross "mmmm, ooooohhh, so good!" sounds.

Chaser: Bag of peanuts and a Ferrero Rochet that mysteriously appeared at my desk weeks ago. Urp. Stuffed.

4 p.m: Peckish. Buy a Tims (large, double cream) and a chocolate chip cookie. 

6 p.m: Eat the dinner I packed before I realized it was tenant appreciation day. Pasta with butter, fried mushrooms, onions and three cheeses. Whew. That's it, really done for the day. 

9 p.m: Get home from work. Have a glass of wine, which makes me hungry for a snack. Have a handful of pistachios. And a handful of peanuts, a bowl of yogurt, another glass of wine, two pieces of cheddar cheese and three pimento-stuffed olives. It occurs to me that I have "snacked" my way through a full meal's worth of calories. Sandwich would have been a smarter choice, but oh well, not going to let the self-hate creep in at this late hour. Decide to go to bed. You can't eat when you're sleeping! Ah, but you can dream.

Wake up in the morning with taste of pillow in my mouth.

THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF CIVILIZATION

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Well how about EVERYTHING? Tarps? Muddy elbows? Damp food in plastic wrap?
HALF-EMPTY WINE BOTTLE? Good God, just take me to a hotel.

So, camping, what's with that? What's the thing? I just don't get it. To me it is one giant step backward for mankind. 

Think about it: you go to the bathroom in murky holes so fetid they trigger your gag reflex, you cook over an open flame (assuming you can keep it going long enough to undercook whatever meat you brought with you), you spend the better part of the day gathering wood and cooking and cleaning up and then, if you're lucky, you have time for a boring game of cards before the final, ultimate luxury: sleeping on a mat in the dirt. 

Really, people. Haven't we evolved beyond this point?

The On-Again and I had a chance to experience this sacred ritual recently when we visited my daughter and her husband, who were camping in Grand Bend. 

How quaint, we thought. Two generations bonding in the wilds. It'll be fun!

Instead, it turned out to be a textbook example of the worst time four people can possibly have, ever.  

For starters, it began raining as soon as we got there, and became torrential within minutes. So what, I says. Let's just have a drink and get din-din going.
Right. Din-din. 
Normally, I would rather eat the dirt you chip out from your sneaker treads than a hotdog. It's the ultimate mystery meat. And marshmallows? If you soaked a cheap pillow in aspartame for three days and then cut it into squares, that would taste better. Yet that day, I wolfed back these very items with zeal, because at least it took my mind off the driving rain and mosquitoes the size of kidney beans.
 

After three hours of this, we'd had enough. Sorry kids, love ya, gotta go. 

The kids debated cutting and running, then the rain stopped and they decided to tough it out. They told me later that it resumed raining at about 3 a.m. By 4 a.m., they couldn't take it anymore and drove 45 minutes to the nearest motel, where they slept until the hedonistic hour of 6 a.m. Then they went home and had a good cry.

Ah well, at least one member of the family had a great time.

CLICK HERE to see who loves camping

WHERE THE BOYS ARE ...

Putting the "sugar" in Sugar Beach. JUNE 30, 2012
http://www.pridetoronto.com/

Note to self: Before heading to Toronto's adorable Sugar Beach for a relaxing Saturday afternoon, check to make sure it's not THE BIGGEST GAY FESTIVAL OF THE YEAR. In my defence, I am apparently not the only one who didn't get the memo. Yes, you there on the right in the black dress, I am talking to you. See the hundreds of men all around you? Not one of them is looking at you, but if they were, they would be hearing this song in their head: "One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn't belong." It's okay, sister. There will be other Saturdays. Come with me and we will get a margarita and we will enjoy some insightful girl talk . . . starting with how unfair it is that that guy's butt looks better in a thong bikini (centre) than ours ever will.  

HOW TO BE WHORRIFIC: TIP # 16

AIRBRUSHED TIPS, DAY 3:
Observe chipped, sketchy-looking mess on thumb and 
middle finger. (Funny, I was just thinking of using that finger 
on the person who did this to me.)

If, at a nail salon, you are offered the choice between air-brushed tips and glue-on tips, always go with the glue-ons. Two weeks later, glue-on tips under gel nails will still look pretty. Three days later, air-brushed nails will look chipped and crack-whoreish. That's all for today. Tomorrow I will have some great advice on how to keep your linens smelling fresh as a field of wildflowers.