All You Can Eat

So I'm better. Much better. As a matter of fact, I feel like myself again, and I'm significantly less dead -- er, deaf. So my whole-hearted recommendation for all of you poor saps who are sick this winter is to take an ENTIRE day and sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep until you can't sleep anymore. I think Aerosmith wrote a song about that, didn't they? Sleep with me, Sleep for the years, Sleep through the laughter, Sleep through the tears...Dream on.

From Steven Tyler's lips to my ears. I slept until 10 a.m., and then I went back to bed at noon and snoozed until 4. When that sleep was done, I took a little nap from 4:30 until 7. Then we went out to dinner. What a satisfying day! Happy sigh!

I do have another major coup to report regarding my resolution to become healthy and fit. When we went to dinner last night, it was to an All-You-Can-Eat Chinese Buffet. What a way to break my fast, right? I went from Hurling-Girl to "pass the chopsticks, please!" But don't judge me too harshly, internet fans, because I was very restrained. I had won-ton soup and steamed rice, some lovely vegetables and grilled shrimp. For dessert, I had a light sampling of pineapple and melon. I felt supremely proud of myself. In the past, All-You-Can-Eat buffets seemed more like a challenge than an invitation, if you know what I mean. Kind of like they were testing me to see how much I really could stuff down my gullet. At the end, when the maitre'd was rolling me out the door, I would ask weakly if I'd won. Took me a few years and a couple thousand pounds of sesame chicken to understand that it wasn't a contest (you'd think they might post that somewhere, for cripe's sake).

As an aside, I like the way they've renamed some these restaurants. They're now "All-You-Care-To-Eat," meaning that you ought to stop and think about it. It's not whether you can eat everything in sight; it's whether you really want to. In the future, I'm betting the Powers That Be will revamp the whole thing entirely, and call them, "You-Could-Eat-A-Boatload-At-This-Buffet, But-Frankly, We've-Seen-Your-Thighs, And-You-Better-Stick-To-Our-Salad-Bar." Would that be too complicated to put on a neon sign?

As vengance for my day of rest, I got worked today. Hard. If I thought the horses would cut me some slack for being sick, I was sadly mistaken. They didn't call to see if I was okay. There were no flowers, no cards. But the moment I set foot in the barn, Cookie's nose was over the stall doors and the rest were huffing at me. "Good, you're here," Cookie neighed. "I could use a refill on my water, my manger's empty, and I left you a steaming pile in the far corner. Oh, yeah. Welcome back."

And you know, all my poor, bedraggled self could think was, "They've missed me." I toted water and lifted hay bales all day, and then -- just when I thought I was done -- discovered that the little beggars had downed all the water and eaten all the hay. So I did another round. Apparently, they thought they were at an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.

Did I mention that I was sick? Death's door yesterday, wasn't it?

One of my mom's students gave her a horsey calendar for Christmas, and the very first page shows a beautiful white horse running in a field of daisies. The caption is "Horses are from Heaven." I know better. If there's one thing I've learned and learned well over the past twenty or so weeks, it is this: Horses are demons from hell and they have no mercy.

Consider yourself warned.