Grim Weeper

URE, IT SOUNDS LIKE The Life: laying prone on the couch barely moving for a week, having the whole household running circles to satisfy every gnarled and gnashéd whimsy; steady cornucopious supplies of cleansed cherries and dark grape juice - how decadently Roman, how fittingly hedonist for this, the End of Civilization?

These are indeed End Times.

I'm not that old, dammit - really I'm not: I'm only forty feching two. Answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, all that? But I've surely crossed the threshold, been seduced by the down side. My lumpy corpus certainly seems to think so.

I've been flat on my back for more than a week, with a knee and an ankle bloated and swollen and burning and spreading. Arthritis from ancient sporting injuries, supposed to be - happened a hundred times before, random selection of the same four inarticulate albums - just never two of them at once. Part and parcel, Remains of the day, Things we just have to endure in this our veil of tears, blah-di-blah-di-blah. But No, not just. The beast has darkened, has evolved, is become [--*--] The great unmentionable. Blokes dahn the pub are nodding their heads and wagging their fingers now, grimly intoning: Rich man's disease. I much prefer to consider it a local instillation of malevolent humours.

Fat C**t, Bearded. What did you expect?

I could protest my innocence of the feloney charges - I'm not obese, I'm nooooot - but what would be the point? You'd never believe my excuses: not when you correctly point-out that I've enjoyed a six year hedonists binge since landing here in the Golden State. My heart, my life, my ample belly, my pockets too, have all been filled with brimming gold all spillin' over like some champagne cascade - one long unfettered Wheee-hee-heee! of over-indulgence - all too true.

As one grows older one comes to appreciate that for many of the Good Things in life there are windows of opportunity during which they may best be enjoyed. These windows do not open properly until one reaches a certain age: who, honestly, can claim to have enjoyed a glass of whisky before attaining thirty years? Plenty young men will try it, for sure, in an attempt to prove their manliness, and loudly proclaim both its delights and their toughness to gathered brethren at the bar, but that's all for show. None of them honestly can stand it - its smell, alone, is enough to make one's gorge rise. Until the age of thirty, thereabouts, upon which time even in its basest form, there is nothing to beat an unadulterated short of whisky. Add water or ice or, lord help us, mint, and all bets are off. I learned from my visit to New Orleans last year that Mint Juleps are an abomination, and I mean that in the Biblical sense.

"What have I done?", he said. "Can that be you?"
"Tee Hee!", quoth she, and clapp'd the window to.

Windows open, windows close: usually with a thump of embarassment. Or at least, one embarassment too many. And Bearded, so fortune framed the farce, put up his lips and...

Now, for almost the first time in his hoary life, Bearded is condemned to diet: to regulate the foods he eats. This is quite wrong, and totally contrary to his most closely-held beliefs. He must eliminate the purines, the ones festooning all his favored foods - red meats - wondrous rare steaks, kebabs of beef or lamb; white meats, roasted chickens and turkeys; shellfish - Nooooooooo! - lobsters, shrimp, scallops, mussels; most fish, delicate chilean sea bass prepared in tasty sauces are out, only steadfast tuna and salmon may remain; fatty cheeses GONE! and with them cheesie mashed tatties, though tatties themselves are alright; and get this all his favorite vegetables - asparagus, spinachk and peas peas peas. All out, all to be drastically reduced, almost to the point of elimination. Almost. I reckon if I can reduce my purines substantially during regular days, there's room for a once-a-month binge. Well, whether there is room for one or there isn't, an occasional binge there will be. And pork - trusty pork, not ham nor bacon - pork is clean. Chops and ribs, baby, chops and ribs.

The good news is that I can not become vegetarian or hated granola-chomping vegan either, because beans and lentils and their ilk are amongst the very worst offenders, but eggs - sainted eggs - eggs are allowed. And this being summertime in California, praise be, it is possible and even desirable to avail oneself of a very good Caveman Diet, comprising nuts and berries - cherries in particular - hunted and gathered from nearby pretentious Pavilions. If only we had a Gelson's closeby... but whatevs, we make do.

I do not expect to lose weight. I tried that many, many years ago under doctor's orders - you know, regulating calory intake, all that - but the doctor quickly determined that dieting for weight loss was useless. "Some people, Mr Bearded," he said, "Some people are just built big, and that's the way they are."

Good job too. In anticipation of the upcoming holiday - a slagfest here in the Xenoverse in which our manliness and heritage is challenged every year by the colonial contingent - in anticipation of said event my wife has just bought me a huge feching barbie for the back yard, to replace the other that has lately crumbled away. I still have to cook the good stuff for them. All because I bought her a new kitchen, a new floor, new furniture, and a new puppy. We are told that, rather like the war, it'll all be over by christmas.

All of which I'll be writing about soon... once I've found my feet again, and caught-up with a week's worth of work.

In any event: we are not yet at all sure what new window shall shortly present itself to us. We must remain vigilant. We remain convinced, however, that there is no such thing as a "Tofu" window, but we are keeping our eyes peeled for anything else...