Food Anthropology: Gangman style...Shamrock Shake

So, for those of you who live out of the American collective of fast food establishments...good for you. You're saving your money, your waistline, the environment (from all the superfluous shipping and packaging), etc. etc. I attempt to live a clean-whole-natural-organic lifestyle, but only about 85% of the time. I follow 100 Days of Real Food and I feel venerated in the fight towards label reading and food company transparency.  I love me some Coca-cola. That chilly, flavorful, sparkling HFCS is amazing. When my classes have parties (as I allow/encourage) about once a month, I pile a paper plate full of whatever preservative-laden-food-garbage they brought in: Little Debbies, Hostess cakes, Cheetos, Funions, cookies that probably could make it through the apocalypse-- you get where I'm going with this. My colon and rest of my organs appreciate all the salads and fresh fruit I eat, but some days, man-oh-man, a pile of cheese puffs with that magic orange cheese glitter being washed down by some orange Fanta-- it's the best. Thanks, 'Mrrica. You're doing it RIGHT!

In doing a little internet research (cough, cough Googlesearch), I found that there is a lot of McDonald's "art" with this marketed as a "limited-time only" milkshake. I get the allure of the seasonal products-- it makes you want something because you can't have it. 

Say Shamrock Shake. Now say it in the same voice as the Gangnam Style guy. Hah! Now you've got it stuck in your head too.

Scarcity used to be part of the human condition. For most of the world it still is. Ask any Anthropologist or Historian, and they will tell you that the search for water, game, and food was the majority of why civilizations were created-- to make the scarcity less scarce. To secure food protein-- to provide for future generations. 

The strange part of that is that fast food is, in its very nature, all about immediate, NOT delayed gratification!

So, when the business model of, say, Chickfila leaves us wanting chicken nuggets and special sauce for 24 hours when you can have access to them most other days from 6 am to 10 pm, why does it work? Wendy's sweet potato fries are seasonal, Chick-fil-a peppermint, banana pudding, and peach milkshakes are only around for a bit, and Dairy Queen promotes a certain blizzard (um, how many Pumpkin pie blizzards did we eat from that one in Decatur, Marcus?) during each month. Starbucks has their seasonal drinks and desserts (and pretty poster)-- I get pretty disappointed when I want a slice of that perfectly moist pumpkin loaf and I can only have lemon cake when I'm shopping at Target or Kroger or wherever else a Starbucks has popped up for my convenience. 

Why does this work? I think because it taps into our history as hunter-gatherers. Historically, we can only eat foods that are ripe, and certain foods are only ripe during certain times of the year. We used to only eat foods that were local to us or recently killed in that area (meat-wise). However, with economic demand, the ease of the vast network of global transportation (planes, trains, boats, trucks-- everything a toddler boy wants to have miniatures of in his mom's purse), and human ingenuity-- we can have virtually any food any time. 

This of course, has a massive cost on the Earth. Farmers produce more than the demand is so that unions get paid. Foods are picked unripe, shipped, and gassed to look ripe. Laborers are exploited all over the world. Why? So we can have that immediate gratification. But then there's the human condition of being let down. We want to feel close to the farmers, the land, the people who made our food. It goes against the massive food industry-- but we have these urges to  go with seasonal.

So what did clever marketing teams do? They created that vacuum. You can only have that Pumpkin Pie blizzard around Thanksgiving. (Cuz, duh. Pilgrims wanted low-fat icecream with candy stuck in it that would survive a trip in the cupholder sans lid!) You can only have the Coconut-lime-verbena-sugar-sanded-key-lime-pie-drizzled-frappucino-magic during summer time, because it reminds us of the island vacation we took one time. (Or never took because we're so busy working.) It put a price on our memories-- and allows us to feel like we are tapping into something bigger-- a time that we once had-- and a time when we once COULDN'T have everything we wanted with immediacy.

For those of you who do occasionally (or more frequently; I'm not judging) hit up a Mickey-Dee's drive-thru (or Chick-fil-A, or Wendy's, or Dairy Queen, or TacoHell), you know that late winter and early spring is the only time to get the magically minty Shamrock Shake.

I had NO idea that every time I read the "Shamrock Shake" advertising  (and it makes me hum "Gangnam Style" in the same rhythm...arrgh)...that it has a longer history than the less than 5-year-old McCafe. It is a St. Patrick's Day drink! They invented that Grimace (whatever he is anyway) has a green cousin who demands a different milkshake...and fortunately for you, dear consumer, he gets his way. I mean, he does have a Shilleleagh and a vest with Celtic knots. It seems legit. I don't remember any commercials, but I'd venture a guess that he has a Lucky (from Lucky Charms) Irish accent. 

See, he's real Irish. You can tell from the hat and the fact that he'll do RiverDance soon.

What is this? A styrofoam cup??

I mean, gosh. Who knew this thing had been around for so long? That cup in the bottom picture is still styrofoam! They got rid of those by the mid-90's when all those Tree-huggers got to the McDonald's buyers and made us replace our Styrofoam Big Mac boxes with flimsy waxed paper. 

Crazy!

So, to end this rant...with the idea that started it...I'd been teaching sonnets to my 12th graders. The assignment was to create the 14-line sonnet (the couplets didn't have to be exact) and each line had to have 10 syllables (it didn't have to be exact Iambic pentameter). 

The theme: Something You Love.

I got a delightful variety of subjects-- of course, the romantic love poems (they are 17, so love is very awesome), and the angry, bitter love poems (they are 17, so love is very awful). There were kids who took it a little less emotionally-- and wrote about literal things they love-- some of them poignant-- their love of education and accessing knowledge, their love of video games and the entertainment they bring, their love of certain-branded shoes and the designers who created fashion empires. And then there was the Shamrock Shake. 

The girl who authored it is hilarious and deep. She writes brilliant essays and hangs out with the artsy kids. I don't know if she makes visual art...but she sure can make some verbal art!

 

[And in case you want to know JUST HOW healthy these milkshakes are...here's a link to the official nutrition page. You're welcome. (In case you don't want to read it, there's like a million bazillion calories and stuff. Duh. That's why it tastes good.) ]

So yes. The Shamrock Shake. It has a funny poem now. And I had no idea that it was part of the McDonald's history of marketing and tapping into other cultures. I knew it made me want it...when I can't have it later in the year. 

Putting the attitude in gratitude

I jotted down some notes about this—which should be a great way of starting the pre-writing process, except for me, I’m a bit of a (as my friend Christy would say) one-draft-wonder. I write to have catharsis—I write to release—I write to share—I write to maybe enlighten, and very possibly entertain. If I write it down in my journal or notebook, I basically have released it. It’s a different sort of release than typing and/or blogging, but it’s been set free from the dizzying confines of my mind and is therefore somehow laid to rest. When I draft an outline, that’s usually as far as it goes.

I think I was kicking around ideas for this as a pro-con list. I like to make my pro-con lists when I’m in a euphoric mood—that way, when I look back over them later, if I should happen to be in a bad mood, it still makes me happy that I have so many darn pros in my life! Who can argue with that?

Lemme start with the bad…but I didn’t write it in this order. It was hard to think of the bad stuff.

The cons:

HOME: My home is a shitty townhome. I have a roommate and I’m almost 30. That is stupid. Then again, when you have a roommate, it’s kind of like having a sister who’s always there—we talk, cook, walk, and hang out a good amount of time. Eh, move it to the pro side.

WORK: I have a crappy job that I 80% loathe. Despite the colleagues I like, there are a couple of MCB (see my teaching blog for more explanation), disappointing administrators, a colleague who should have been fired outright for all her actions (in other words, someone who leads by negative example), and piles of kids who seriously need some rules in their lives. It sucks to be demoralized, treated misogynistically, and overworked on a daily basis; working for this paycheck has some serious drawbacks.

PET: My Sweetie Petey-Bella Boo is quite the leash aggressor. She pulls really hard when there’s another dog around and I haven’t tried a dog park in years with her. That’s tough, because I’d like her to be more social, but then again, she started life in a really rough way, so I’m more than happy with how awesome she is.

LOVE LIFE: Hah. No such thing.

Pros:

HOME: I live in a home surrounded by my comfy bed, cute clothes, fancy-smelling candles, interesting books, pretty art, fancy cooking appliances and dishes, and my clutter. Yes, the clutter is still a pro. It’s my clutter and I like it. It's in a good neighborhood that I enjoy being near places.

WORK: I go to a job that is honestly AWFUL, but I have made many, many shiny spots in the blackened and dreary kettle over the proverbial fire I work in. I have a really good work buddy (I’m ALWAYS friends with the art teacher!), a funny neighbor down the hall whom I admire, a curmudgeonly-young colleague, a grandfatherly-department chair, sister vegans, a sassy librarian, etc. My attitude about my shit-ass job has made it more than survivable for the past 7 months. Go me. The point is, I have a job, where others in the world do not. I’m grateful. 

I also do teach a ton of amazing, creative, kind, deep, unique, and intellectual kids who I feel incredibly blessed to see on a daily basis. What a weird society we live in—we send our children off to hang out with strangers for 8 hours a day. I feel fortunate to be that stranger to drop some knowledge on some of these kids. 

The art chick and I have a rather elaborate note-passing game going on.

PETEY-BELLA: I have a rescue American bulldog. She's 8 and had a tumor removed this summer, and she seems to be doing just fine. She’s my child with 4 legs and man, she is the bomb-diggity. She sleeps most of the time, she follows me around when I’m home, she never gets sick, she is insanely happy to eat her dog food and boring treats,  she barks at noisy bad things, and she snores when she’s doing all that sleeping. Honestly, she’s a cuddler. When I’m in bed working on things, she stays at the foot, but not underfoot (You catch what I did there?), but when it’s time for the human to do the sleeping, she repositions herself accordingly. How cool is that? She’s also learned (I could say I’ve taught her, but it’s more like conditioning) to pee and poop on command. I tell her “Go potty Petey,” and she squats where she is. It’s great. “Go poopy, Petey,” and “Go baffroom, Bella,” take a little more time, but generally the result is there. I’ve been jogging/running lately and she’s totally been game. She has about a mile to 1.5 in her before she’s totally a Petey puddle of pup on the ground and I have to drag her home, but still, that’s pretty good for a really lazy dog.

It's a rather difficult life sleeping on mounds of pillows and a duvet.

EXERCISE: Speaking of the 1.5 miles, I’ve been walk-jog-running nearly every day since Christmas break. It has been awesome for me. My stamina grows each day and my emotional well-being is, well- being awesome! I know doctors recommend exercise and stuff, but it’s hard to make happen with a busy schedule. I’m turning over a leaf towards daily movement and it feels good…like there are little fizzy muscle cheerleaders in my cells being like, “you’re awesome, work us out some more!” I enjoy seeing my neighborhood from the perspective of a walker and knowing which houses have which gardens, pets, and recycling. I'm mainly just nosy. Hah.

FOOD: I’ve also been doing pretty well about prepping food for going to work and cooking at night. I follow some food blogs and I’ve been applying what I’ve picked up from those venues. Don’t get me wrong, if I could afford to eat out every night of the week, I most certainly would. I like my dishes and all, but I like it better if someone else washes. I’ve started adding flax or sesame seeds to salad…sneaking in bits of protein and fiber where I can. I was doing a calorie counter app on my phone, and I haven’t kept up with it that much, but the idea of it keeps portion sizes in my head. It feels good to eat well.

MUSIC: I auditioned for and began singing with Emory U Chorus again this semester for the Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony—the Ode to Joy. It’s so cool to be in a room with 215 people, all watching the same skinny dude wave his arms around, while we read dots and dashes on a page in German, and make simultaneous noise pop out of our mouths at the same time. When the orchestra’s there, it’s going to be straight musical magic. Hellz yeah.

FRIENDSHIPS: I also started up a lady book club—not one I run for my students. That has its own place, but I wanted a chance to fellowship (femme-ship?) with ladies I didn’t work with and have a reason to read and talk about books—or a reason to get together and drink wine and not just talk about banal stuff. We had our first meeting, and there were only a few of us…but I felt good about it anyway. The euphoria of being with a group of women—that kinship—is strong and beautiful.

Checking out the Beltline art installation near Memorial Drive.

I’ve been spending some good times with good friends—ones I can count on my friend list (an actual one, not a list populated on facebook) for 5-10 years. Wow. It was pointed out to me how marvelous it is to have people in your life for that length of time—I hadn’t thought about it until I started taking stock. Good chats, good laughter, good food…good people in my life: I'm grateful for you.

Myself and one of aforementioned friends (Dan) at the High. The Klein Blue painting is particularly scary. If that Klein guy can get a color named after him, what else is he capable of??

LOVE LIFE: I have no boyfriend, but damn, I have got a lot of love in my life. Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of validation about my friends and how loyal, fun, and kind they are. My friends and family people know me, support me, and believe in me, even when I don’t have the courage to believe in myself. The right love in my life will come along when it’s supposed to, right now, the love I have is all the love I need.

BANGIN’ ASS BOD: Did I mention the working out and the eating more healthy thing? It has resulted in my body being AWESOME!!!! I have a scale that I left at my mom’s house, so I don’t really have any idea how much poundage I’ve retained/lost, but it doesn’t really matter. I look soooooo good naked!! I mean, I’m only getting naked for me and the shower (see love life, above), but still. It’s good to prance around in front of the mirror and be like, whoa, I look HAWT!

CONCLUSION: Bottom line, my attitude towards my life and body is pretty fiercely awesome. All that good attitude makes me have some pretty serious gratitude to nature, the universe, God, and all the other things that make it possible to have happiness, love, health, joy, and music in my world. That's worth singin' about.

Happy! Now go have a gratitude-attitude yourself. :)

Texts will get you no where.

For those of you keeping score at home...let me tell you about my evening!!

I posted a rather flattering picture of me doing the Mckayla Maroney "Unimpressed" face on facebook with the caption, "The boy from my blog and I are going to dinner. Ima go get groceries after. So whether or not he kisses me, ima be the cutest thang in trader joes tonight."

this one is much cuter than the "unimpressed" version

My date went well...actually, it went a little bumpy, as dates are oft wont to go-- he was frazzled, had the wrong address for the restaurant, and was running late (apparently punctuality is a thing people get excited about)-- but the meal was delicious (Thai food-- Mali's in the Highlands)-- incidentally, we both picked Massaman curry. Conversation was great, laughs were exchanged, plans were made for another date...perhaps even a Shakespearey one. I chided him a bit about the not calling bit-- part of me felt like I was nagging and being clingy, but the "Oh-hell-no-you-go-girl-get-em" loud persona inhabiting my brain was more encouraging on the gentle nudge toward regular-freakin-communication.

Well, let's just mention communication. He's not a big texter and I am. It's also important when one is dating to seed the questions and comments from ones friends before and after said date. I do this with SEVERAL of my friends-- we text outfit pics back and forth before the date, we fwd. messages and ask for interpretation, we text before dates and check in during to make sure the other party isn't getting murdered or something. I think it's girl-bonding shit that Carrie would recommend (from SATC) if she could work a smartphone. 

Not being one to kiss and tell.....

                                                                                                                          HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I was texting my girls as soon as I hit it up out that parking lot. So, um, I meant to text one of my friends the straightforward, "yay, kisses!" And I texted it to him. 

And he responded.

Bella is WISHING she could disappear right now.

So, um, yeah. That happened. And in Emily's words from a few years ago, "Y'ALL! I AM positively MORTIFIED!" He wrote back something congenial and self-effacing. I wrote back that I maaaaaaaybe intended that for someone else. Both parties were amused. (Not including me.)

I'm assuming since he doesn't do the smartphone--big-time texting thing, he's probably not getting the sheer volume of texts that come flying out of a simple brush of my finger's caress across that screen. Hopefully he doesn't overthink it... just thinking about it, I'm giggling and clapping my hand to my forehead, squinching  my eyes closed in shame. There's no one here to see me but the sleeping dog, and I'm still embarrassed.

So, the boy did kiss me. I liked it and had butterflies in my tummy. I don't think he has wings. I think I'm kind of an idiot for texting him about the kiss we just had.

And damn, I did look good buying cheese and greens at Trader Joe's. 

For a little taste of random, here's a cartoon one of my students drew: 

(So adorable. I bet that octopus never wrong number texts. Octopi in jaunty hats never do stuff like that.)

Waffle brunch and waffling boys

Since it’s a delightfully out-of-season 67 degrees here, I’m sitting on my little shitty back porch (it overlooks my neighbor’s rotting privacy fence—where they ignore their dog 20 hours a day-- and has mildew spots where the gutters dump rain water all the time) blogging with my dog. She’s not adding so much to the blog per se, but she is adding to my iTunes soundtrack by barking in time at the squirrels. That poor little thing, I just went inside and got a little mat for her to sit on because I didn’t want to have to pick splinters out of her little paws or belly from the awful porch. It’s a rough (ruff) life for her.
 

And back to me. I’m a Taurus. This is important or it’s not. Making major life decisions based on dead particles of matter bazillions of light years away and how they appear to be formatted in the shapes of pictures of animals, according to our ancestors—well if that roll of the dice appeals to you, good stuff.  Taureans are supposed to be patient to a fault (think Ferdinand the bull smelling the flowers in the meadow), loyal, and reliable. Like many French people, once we trust you, we trust you forever. If you break that trust, well, we’re done with you. Snort, snort, paw the ground, horns blazing.

I put a certain amount of stock in astrology because it’s interesting. Sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes it isn’t. I also find birth order and seasonal coincidences (babies born 9 months after blizzards, etc.) about human behavior fascinating.  I’ve also had the fortune of working with anywhere in the neighborhood of 200-700 people in a calendar year for the past five years—meaning I’ve had some time to hone my observation skills about the nature of human interaction. I continue on this pseudo-science on a daily basis, and it’s great.

Per my last blog, I was waiting on a dumb boy to call. Based on market research (meaning I bugged my friends on Facebook and talked to anyone who I felt like sharing with), boys are dumb and dense. Loveable, handy, enjoyable, etc…but dumb and dense. So my poor little Taurus bull in my head has been getting a little frustrated with this boy and his slowness to call. I’m patient, but gawwwwwwd!

Upon further advice of a very trusted source and bestest friend, I was informed that smart, sexy, funny women are intimidating and I’m intimidating as hell. He told me to be down-to-earth and shoot a text.  Being that I’m a persistent Taurus, but also a pragmatic Feminist, I went ahead and sent the text. Oh, Technology, you make my life both endlessly complicated and amusingly frustrating. All is well, and I can go back to being a patient Fernandina, sniffing my winter pansies in my container gardens.

Oh, that, and I can cook food, between all that time being patient.

Maybe you have this problem too, but when you’re having a lazy weekend day, isn’t it impossible to choose what sort of breakfast items to have?? At restaurants, it’s pretty cost-prohibitive to have the coffee-orange juice-coke-water-apple juice-hot chocolate-sprite-sweet tea-hot tea-Chai latte-Cranberry juice all at the same time. Maybe water and one of those beverages, but not all of them. At home, I have whatever I want!

I also have difficulty picking between sweet and savory when I’m out. So dammit, I used my waffle maker and had waffles with walnuts and blueberries, with real butter, whipped cream, and a honey drizzle. Sha-blam, I also had scrambled eggs with tomatoes, truffle salt, cheddar, and sunflower sprouts I grew in the window sill. This breakfast was DA BOMB! Boom! In my belly!

And I mentioned my spoiled dog? Yeah, she got brunch too.

Oh, damn. But then there’s all the dishes.

Let’s be clear, this wonderful weather is WONDERFUL. I’m thrilled it’s January and I’m outside in shorts and a tank top. Global warming, you are real and I like it (today only). Let’s also be clear that I’m so grateful to the universe and my circumstances that I have the good fortune to make money for what I do and have a roof over my head and a suspect porch under my feet. (I'm devastated that there's another news story out of India about women being unable to safely ride public buses.)  My dog is happy her mom is sitting outside on a laptop and encouraging her to bark at long-tailed tree vermin.  No waffling allowed, life is, quite good.