Thursday: Run, Gilad, Cookie Update and Prophylactic Story Number One Million

Ahhhh, Holiday Thursday!!  I stayed up late reading my new book Cutting for Stone, slept late and slunk around all day in tatty yoga pants and NEVER EVEN LOOKED IN THE MIRROR.  I once read an interview with Andie McDowell, and she said that in her family her mother never allowed her to look in the mirror to try to teach her to not be concerned with her looks.  LA-TI-DAH, is what I what I say to that. I have wiled away days of my life in front of the mirror, because I want to make sure all my eyebrows are laying in the right direction, I want to see which of 10 blush colors makes me look the peachiest, I want to perfect my mascara techniques, ect. ect. ect.  You get the picture.

So, when I say that I did not look in the mirror, it is a fine line that I am on my way to going to the grocery in a snuggie with "I DON'T CARE ANYMORE" lettered across the front, popping up at dinner in my sweats, or scratching inappropriately in mixed company.  Things are bad, and I need to put the holidays behind me.  On the upside, I have had no candy today and only two cookies.  I am pleased to report that there is only one cookie left, and I will eat it tomorrow and then go cold turkey off refined sugar.  This may whack out my system, and I hope that I am not howling in the front yard by noon tomorrow.  I am a fighter, and I can beat this thing.  The moonshine is still here however, and it is cherry flavored, and I keep telling myself it is a cough suppressant.  I will deal with odd holiday alcoholic nonsense after I deal with the last cookie.  You cannot beat it all at once.

Now, after Ivan's nap, I got in a really nice four mile run and then a Gilad workout.  I accomplished all my paper work, managed my Ebay account and had a very healthy lunch of smoked salmon and raw broccoli.  In the evening, in an elaborate comedy of errors, disaster occurred.

I had set out two boxes of angel hair pasta and from the corner of my eye saw two tiny hands reach up furtively to grab at the boxes.  Sensing imminent danger, I grabbed the boxes with all haste from Ivan's hands, and lo and behold, both boxes were open at the ends.  My grab was too fast and the ENTIRE CONTENTS of both boxes flew into the air in an angel hair pasta storm, pasta covered the floor as if a haystack had been decimated in the kitchen.  It was really terrible.

Now someone foolish (and by "someone" I mean myself) had put away all the baby gates, because someone (and by "someone" I again mean myself) thought that they were unnecessary.  Pasta is very difficult to clean up when it is as fine and tiny as angel hair, you really cannot suck it up in the vacuum cleaner, because it is too brittle and long.  It was impossible to keep Ivan out of the kitchen because he was too enthralled by the mess.  At one point, while I was cleaning with my back to him, Ivan rushed the kitchen like an overwrought fan at a concert, and I turned to see him hurling dry pasta into the air with both hands.  When he made eye contact with the fire in my eyes, he was undaunted, yelling "yay!!!  yay!!! It pasta!!!  Pasta!!!".  He was so thrilled.

It took many minutes to scoop and trash and sweep and scoop and confiscate what Ivan was trying to sprint away with into the darker recesses of the house.  It was so terrible.  I have located the baby gates and put them at the ready by the kitchen door, and I would like to file this terrible story away in the prophylactic file.  I mean honestly, nobody should get into all this unless they are fully prepared.