More "CLEANSING" Repercussions

I know what you are thinking- no posts for 2 months and then bing, bang, boom- 2 in a row. Is it because of "the cleanse" and feeling energized because of eating really healthy fude lika dis?

(See, it isn't all beige glutinous mush). No, it is because of the cleanse and in particular the no booze- got nothing to do, so as Van Halen says-might as well jump  blog.  I'm sure he sang that.

So because of "the cleanse" I had purchased some organic virgin coconut oil to use in making some fake sugar by mixing it with cocoa and agave to make some awesome cookies found on the Chocolate Covered Katie's Website.  Katie, a young, attractive, veganista blogs about chocolate recipes that really rock- what could be bad?  Haven't yet made the cookies but this is more about the virgin stuff. So I was showing Dani my oil (ok, I was showing off my oil) - let me show you my oil:

yup that's some good looking oil, no?

So Dani says "hey you know this stuff is great for your hair- just grab a handful and mush it on, leave it on for 20 minutes, wash and rinse and your hair will be shiny and lovely.  Yes it is true, I needed more details about what a person does in the shower for 20 minutes while waiting, but she clued me into the fact that you can put it on before you got in the shower (ohhhhh....).

So Dani knows this stuff (she does have shiny, lovely hair) and who am I to look shiny, lovely hair in the mouth, so I did try it.  I wish I had worn a button shirt instead of an over the head shirt (still learning) but when I got out of the shower - well blow my lips off- my hair did feel good- silky, smooth, manageable- bouncy even. But then again it always feels better when its wet.

I dried it in my usual way- air- and went to work. BIG MISTAKE. This virgin oil gave me a rogue curl that could not, would not, be tamed. I wet it with Moroccan oil (you know hair of the dog- treat one oil with another) water, smoothing gel- nada! This is that hair-

DO YOU MIND, HAIR? It's bad enough having thick, ropey, curly, GREY hair but a hair that curls one way and then the other in one curl- that's just wrong! Product! What I need is product.

HOW MUCH CLEAN IS ENOUGH

So I am 10 days into my 21 days cleanse and I am NOT loving it. I am not eating gluten, processed sugar, animal products and not drinking alcohol. I am supposed to not have any caffeine but no can do- that would kill me- do you mind- this is tough enough. And 2 demi cups of French roast in the morning with frothed almond milk is not really cutting it so it is like giving up my morning coffee- it's certainly giving up delicious morning coffee- good enough.

I have  to blame credit Mr. Lovely for getting me into this. He had been out to Vancouver to visit his brothers and had partaken (he says once, but I bet more than once in his 3 day visit) of some Chinese food (politically incorrect  maybe - but I mean no harm - it's just that this way everyone knows what I'm talking about) and was on a mission to find some similar quality CF here in our small Ontario city. Good luck! In the past 30 years we had already tried 3 of the 5 places in town and I'm sorry to say they were not up to Mr. Lovely's standards. So here we were chomping down on yet another attempt at spring rolls, beef with snow pea pods, singapore noodles, and lemon chicken, all mostly smothered in miscellaneous goop -ok not the spring rolls but man were they greasy-yeesh. I got to thinking- hey I don't have a clue what I am eating and how smart is that? Not so! I also had spent quite a few nights having my cocktail- (a delicious Spanish wine called Garnacha Centenaria) standing at the counter and devouring about 1/2 large size bag of Miss Vickies (Jalapeno flavour mostly- though the sweet chili  and sour cream is also pretty darn good and I do like to shake it up sometimes). So I had told myself- yup tonight after work I'm not going to have a drink or any junk fude (that's the way Gary Larsen's animals spell food- cause you know they are animals so can't spell right).  But guess what- I have no will power and I was always putting that resolve off to the next day. But that Chinese food meal put me over the top. So I decided to go all out and hence the 14 day cleanse.

Here is  some of what I have been eating:

organic beet humus;

sweet potato and kale peanut soup;

the banana cream part of a banana cream pie (no pie crust cause of no gluten) made with silken tofu, bananas, crushed cashews and medjool dates (for added sweetness- not that it needed it) YUM- you can tell it's nearly gone;

no it's not chopped liver- it's a quinoa burger made with quinoa, sautéed onion and sundried tomatoes, and black beans- actually very tasty though a bit messy.

HOLY CRAP BATMAN, right? Are you so impressed? Ya me too! I have been cooking- (though the humus was from the store and the soup was c/o my buddy Kate) the rest is yours truly-that part is good- I suppose.

And although Mr. Lovely has also given up the booze and processed sugar for his "cleanse"- it is pretty darn hard to watch him chowing down on Jesse's country bread (Jesse makes his fantastic bread in his outdoor oven and it is amazing (I may miss that the most!) with  4 yr. old Balderson chedda cheese and then lace into a perfectly BBQ'd (just slightly bloody) steak.

And my friends?  Well-they are as supportive as they can be given they have lost a drinking buddy- Dani PB said "what?- this is a terrible idea!"  My book club pals called me "boring" (ok they were hooting it up not even discussing the book anymore and I wasn't drinking so I had to go- it was no fun) and LL said - 10 days- surely you will get enough benefit from that.

So I am thinking how cleansed do I want to be? Surely 12 days is clean enough!

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

So the other day I was getting dressed, (so practically in my nuticals), and because I was up high, reasonably far from the sidewalk and behind three columnar oak trees (the bay window of my bedroom is too, I don't just fly around bare assed) I had my blinds open so I could enjoy the great outdoors when something unpleasant and well downright scary happened! Two mourning doves- the cooing type of chicken flew up on the sill just outside my window and started, well walking around on their little feet and making googly eyes  at one another.

taken from inside- my actual sill

OK, I know they are not chicken chickens but to me most semi-domestic or urban birds, chicken size (or sometimes bigger) & colour are chickens, whether they are pigeons, doves or ostriches- to me are chickens and they are, quite frankly, not welcome in my world. I love the cute little birds- the chickadee dee dee dees, the nut hatches ( the red breasted kind on account of their bandito mask- so cool), the cardinals, the gold finches, the hummingbirds with their ability to fly in one spot-awesome, even the hoo hoo hooter owls-which I have seen out in the wild- magical really) oh and I 'm sure there are more but these big birds that fly around your head and want to peck your eyes out ( a la Al Hitchcock- ya he knew) well get them away from me. ( Let's not even talk about seagulls- the worst and most heinous chicken there is-  they really will peck your eyes out-  I'm not even kidding, and they eat garbage dontchaknow?)

Well these 2 chickens were sitting there, pretty as you please, and even when I walked up ( me inside of course and them outside on the sill) and shooed them away did they fly away like good little chickens- NO! do you mind chickens? this is my house and my sill! Don't you have a wire or an inner city street or something to hang out on?

I started thinking- hey are these chickens going to roost here? (surely not ), which of course led me to think of the expression "The Chickens have come home to roost" which made me wonder about how that expression every came to be. And so going to trusty Mr. Google and World Wide Words, I discovered "The older fuller form was curses are like chickens; they always come home to roost, meaning that your offensive words or actions are likely at some point to rebound on you."

AHA! I knew it- yes curses are like chickens and chickens are like curses- it all makes so much sense.