The older I get, the more I know but the less I seem to understand. I have countless examples of things that befuddle me, but I’ll start with the most frequent thing in my life.
Weight. I have grappled with my weight for the better part of thirty years now, trying all kinds of diets. Not eating works…but that’s a difficult one to sustain, for obvious reasons. I’ve had a great deal of success with a ketogenic diet – over the past three years, I’ve lost twenty pounds and they’ve stayed lost.
But going the next ten pounds has been a conundrum. I can eat nothing but salad and coffee for a day and the next day my scale tells me I’ve gained a pound. So, in a fit of pique, I skulk off to do errands, buy a snack bag of potato chips, and sit in my car, eating furtively and somewhat defiantly, until every last crumb is gone.
The next day, I step balefully onto the scale and voila! I’m down a half pound.
I’m sure there is a metaphysical explanation that would explain in metabolism, calorie burn, and chemical reactions, but…still. I just don’t understand.
Another thing that puzzles me is shopping cart behavior. I assume the carts don’t typically roll themselves into strange places – unless it’s an incredibly windy day. So it seems strange to me to see grocery carts in the middle of parking spaces, in the middle of aisles, or – my favorite – right next to the shopping cart corral. Seriously? We couldn’t take it six inches further?
A couple of stores have helpfully placed large signs in front of the two rows of the cart corral – one for “small carts” and one for “large carts.” These signs even have pictures, just in case you need them. So I don’t understand when I see carts of both sizes in both rows.
I feel sorry for the employee who has to pull them out one at a time and put them in the correct order to get them back to the store so WE can use them. Doesn’t matter if it’s snowing, sleeting, raining, or hotter than blazes, they have to correct our laziness.
I don’t get it.
Here’s another thing that I don’t understand – cats. Our cat, in particular. She’s a big girl; I bet she tops the scales at 12 or 13 pounds. For all that, she can creep around the yard, catching mice, chipmunks, and even the occasional mole. She is stealth, personified.
Anyway, she can be really quiet – sneaky, even. So the other night, we were watching TV and we heard footsteps on our back porch. Thump, thump, thump. I said to my brave husband, “who’s out there?”
He – always quick to defend our castle – called loudly from the comfort of his recliner, “Who’s there? Hello?”
There was no answer. Then we heard the thumping again. Hubby finally got up from his chair and opened the back door. There the intruder was! Our cat – jumping up and down from the railing to let us know it was time for her to come in.
When we try to find her in the house to put her out, she lurks around, soundlessly, going up and down stairs and who knows where – if she doesn’t want to go out. But let us go to bed and turn out the lights – there’s a herd of elephants coming up the stairs to our bedroom. The squeaking and purring is amplified as she jumps onto the bed and prowls around, trying to find the best place to sleep. Normally it’s at the foot of our bed, but that’s only after she’s tried both of our pillows and our legs.
I’ll add it to the growing list of things I don’t understand.
That last part is especially why I do not like cats – cannot train the beggars to behave properly!
The cart thing you nailed- it is those – more than a few nowadays- who are too dang lazy to go the second mile – let alone another 6 feet — they should be careful where their last 6 feet will end up – much “lower” than THEY think!! Much ado about life – we are living in the last days – so enjoy – none of that crap will happen “upstairs”! Life is just a bowl of cherries – gotta get some pits often!!
It seems you have hit what they call your weight loss plateau. I’ve always wondered who “they” are, but not enough to care. I’ve heard you can break through that plateau by doing several things such as increasing the frequency and intensity of your exercise, getting regular and enough sleep and reducing your stress level. It seems most of those would be difficult for you since you have insomnia and a hyper-cat who can disturb your sleep and increases stress in several ways.
Not only shopping cart behavior, Sue. What about people who decide they don’t want something they have already put in their cart, but will leave it anywhere in the store! I actually saw an item of clothing, still on the hanger, laying inside the meat counter! Get real!
No. No, we will never figure out cats. They definitely are one unique animal! But, when the defender of your castle said, “Who’s there? Hello? I’m thankful you didn’t hear, “I forgot my key. Let me in. It’s me, the cat!”