i’m not the sort of vegetarian who likes to say she’s a vegetarian. mainly because i think it sounds stupid.  here in West Texas, let me assure  you – it sounds stupid. Beef is a big deal, and there are bumper stickers to prove it. “Eat Beef!”  If we all need to be reminded to eat more beef , well, the backsides of the local cars and trucks have that service covered.

i’m not the sort who thinks that animals shouldn’t be eaten. I’m married to a hunter. no problem. I’ll even cook it for everyone else. I don’t like it when the dead things drip trails of dead fluids through the house, but that hardly happens anymore. (but when it did, it was quite memorable) And definitely, i’m not a ‘stick a dead head of something on the wall’ sort. That’s why Mike’s office is not in our home. The dead heads go there. And the clients. Who are not dead heads of any kind, but i’m not very good with people either, so it’s best if they all just go to the office.

i wasn’t trying to lose weight. which is good, because i gained 10 pounds and kept it on, thankyousomuch carbohydrates.

it’s an accidental vegetarianism. the accident started 18 months ago when mike gave me a diet book. Ooooh, yes he did, even though he didn’t think I needed to lose weight. Yes, ladies,  he’s sorry. VERY sorry that he ever did that. forgiving…. forgiving….  okay….. forgiven. again.  He meant it in a nice ‘be healthy!’  way.  I read it while VERY sick one day and it graphically described how the body does NOT digest meat.

Nevermind that that’s kinda ridiculous.

I am impressionable.

I was sick.

It was graphic.

And that was the end of my relationship with meat. I didn’t think it’d last. I didn’t WANT to be a vegetarian. (does that HAVE to sound so stupid? And if it doesn’t sound stupid to you, let me just remind you that you are not in West Texas. It’s why I always just say, “i don’t eat meat,” and only if I pretty much have to.  because it sounds like THAT. Here.)  Anyway. I thought I’d get over it and go back. But that book was eerily effective.

However.  Since the whole ‘oh my gosh i had NO IDEA how important knees were’ reality check that has comprised the last 5 months, and watching any muscle tone just poof! vanish into depressing squish and  flab, i’ve grown a bit concerned.  A former trainer of mine (Workout Barbie) really drilled it into my head about protein being the building blocks of muscles and blah. blah. blah.

Combine that with Physical Therapy Guy saying something offhand like, “your glutes are weakening.” Which I of course correctly (and silently, and perhaps dramatically) translated to mean, “Your butt is having a serious monumental crisis and is increasing in flab and squish at an alarming rate and you should probably just order jeans in the next 5 larger sizes immediately because there’s a massive problem here, and i do mean massive,  and by the way all hope is lost.”

Sigh.

I can overreact, in silent yet still dramatic ways.

I ate meat.

Not just any meat.

Disgusting nasty meat product that I cannot even describe in further detail without gagging. But there was a drive thru involved and the word ‘Taco’ was in the name of the place and isn’t that bad enough? Oh! No! No, it’s not because I forgot the worst part! When I got home Mom told me that place had been listed in the paper as having numerous sanitation citations from the health department.

I’m thinking this did NOT help butt flab.  Neither did the intolerance for any food of any kind that followed.  I have no idea why I thought it might help, actually. Why…? Oh yes. Protein = building blocks of muscle. Protein needed for Serious Butt Issue.

The meaty lunch tasted bad. Of COURSE it tasted bad. It probably usually does, but to a plant-eater, it was really bad.  A few hours later I was miserable, faceplanted across the bed, holding my stomach.

Mike came in and asked what was wrong.

I groaned and said, “I made a foray into cannibalism.”

Mike stepped back and put his hands in his pockets.

My mother laughed and said, “No! Wrong ‘c’ word!”

As if it mattered.  When it’s been 18 months since you’ve eaten meat, and you start in that particular, really dumb,  way – carnivore-ism does not really seem that much different than cannibalism. (although that’s what I meant to say)

Today it’s back to ‘i don’t eat meat.’  It’s more like, ‘I don’t eat ANYTHING thanks to yesterday.’

Need to go get the kids from school.

Today..? I’m ignoring the bumper stickers.

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