Yogurt is full of ‘live, active and probiotic cultures’.  It has l. acidolphilus, s. thermophilus, b. bifidus and l. casie.  Billions of ‘em!  It’s good for you!  And it tastes soooo good!  Even better with chocolate chunks, yogurt chips, caramel sauce and my favorite… gummy bears!

Be aware:  there is one measure, one test, to undeniably identify a bad-for-you food that frozen yogurt passes with flying colors:  Anything that tastes good – must be bad for you.  So you need to rethink your position (or not).

To rethink my position, I thought through and studied the opposite:  anything that tastes bad – must be good for you.  My results have been incredible.  Let me explain:

I’m pretty active.  I get my cardio in.  I do the dishes.  I let the dog out.  I park far away from my building at work so I get a walk in 2x per day (as long as it’s not raining).  I take the stairs (all three steps).

I’ll be honest, I’m not Adonis (except on my Facebook page and in chat room).  But, recently I’ve started taking some vitamins to ‘boost the body’.  That’s what Jack LaLanne did, right? And his results were  typical.

Oh wait.  I said ‘taking vitamins’.  Confusing to some of you?  How about ‘supplementing’ or ‘ingesting’ supplements?  Better?  Come on!  Be real.  I ‘do’ supplements.  I do them so I will be Herculean. 

Let me take you back to the very beginning, to my humble start on my path to ‘Adonoherculeaness’.

Yesterday, I made a protein shake for breakfast.  Chocolate.  I prefer chocolate in my frozen yogurt and my mochas.  It only made sense.  Also, it helped to know that chocolate fueled probiotics are the most potent in nature.  I learned that on some wiki somewhere and it sounded right to me.

I made my new huge-ification drink with water, just like the instructions said, shaken not stirred.  And BOY it was soooo good for me!  I knew this because I gagged on the smell, spit out the first sip and dumped the rest.  I was really on to something here.    Look out Arnold, a new kid’s coming to town!

Okay, so the flavor represented a minor setback in my plan of massive gains by noon.  To solve this, I adjusted the recipe a little.  I added milk and two scoops of vanilla yogurt, mixed not shaken.  No gag, and I even got the first sip down.  The second sip was never dared.  Dedicated to the cause, I moved on.

I adjusted the recipe a little.  I read once (on a wiki) that a banana can cover the flavor of spinach in a fruit smoothie.  Now THAT is some powerful fruit.  So, I added half a banana, sipped, then added the other half, blended not mixed.  Not palatable so I was sure it was still good for me.

I adjusted the recipe a little.  I know domestic beer is always best served ice cold, especially after mowing the lawn on a hot summer day.  I live in a townhouse now, but I decided perhaps the buff still have lawns, so I added ice and created a slushy wonder, pureed not blended… then added whipped cream on top.  Now, this was a direction that had promise!  There was just one thing missing.

I realized that since chocolate was my preference, and the banana had diluted the flavor (albeit for the better), if I really was to embrace this new healthy lifestyle, I needed to drink this shake!  And drink all of it!  Willingly!

So, I adjusted the recipe a little more.  I slipped into the fridge, made sure nobody was watching (I know you have done this) grabbed the chocolate syrup and gave it a good squeeze.  I nearly put the syrup back in place, quickly thought again (I know for sure you have done this) and squeezed in a ‘little bit’ more.  Still thinking (of what I can’t truly recall) I slipped into the pantry, made sure nobody was watching and grabbed the chocolate chip morsels.  Dark chocolate.  And well, quite honestly, then the white chocolate ones.  Two handfuls later, I had the ultimate path to physical greatness, liquefied not pureed.  And it tasted GREAT!

And now I willingly enjoy 3 shakes a day.  Sometimes I even treat myself and add ice cream.  And as you can imagine, the results have been impressive!  I’ve never been bigger!

I admit, I may have strayed a little teensy eensy wee bit from my original supplementation path, but I’m not done.  I have plans to add kale, brussel sprouts, spinach and peas to ruin the flavor.  I’ve contemplated cod liver oil and essence of kidney.  Just haven’t gotten there yet.  It’s is a long process to fundamentally change the body!  Besides, I’m still experimenting with half and half, vanilla extract, and yogurt chips.

But now here is a truth… You will, one day, go out for frozen yogurt.  You will add brownie bits and oreo crumbs, drizzle your favorite sauce on top, and load the edges with gummy bears.  You will do this and do it without a thought to ‘your diet’.  That’s cool with me.  It’s yogurt.  You are just living totally typical.

Life seems to be filled with a never ending supply of the little nasty times that no one would choose on a menu of experiences.  “Yes, I’ll take that double molar extraction will an insurance scam on top.  Then, I’ll have a piece of the bad credit rating.  To drink?  Do you have a lap burning hot coffee?  And box up a migraine to go, for my sick roommate at home.”

Don’t you so wish you were that guy?   NOT!

However, as a demented kind of consolation, life also seems to be filled with times when we get to watch others having those little nasty times.  Cathartic or just hilarious I’m not sure!  But, I know one thing for sure:  when I’m in my misery and I see others laughing at my misfortunes… it does lessen the sting.  “Cause if we can’t laugh at ourselves…”  So I figure laughing at them is definitely okay.

A few days ago, I dropped my kids off at school, as usual.  Drove down to the cul-de-sac to loop back to the main road, as usual.  And I saw a woman backing a golf cart down a steep assisted living facility driveway, toward the light morning traffic, ie ‘me’.

All was right in the world, until her last minute heavy breaking caused 1 of 2 large baskets of fruit and veggies to flip up off the back deck and land upside-down on the edge of the street.  I saw it all happen in front of me, apples and oranges rolling as I passed to make my u-turn.  No, it wasn’t in ‘slow motion’.

Laughing and literally yelling out ‘no way!”  I decided that even though the woman was working quickly, and might be soon finished, I could (this time) safely stop and offer my assistance.

Armed with a smile on her face, she re-loaded the carrots and radishes.  Joining her I grabbed a few remaining pears and grapes.  I lifted the basket back into its precarious position.  She smiled and thanked me as I wished her a good day and returned to my car.  The last thing I saw was her final wave to the fallen fruit followed by a light chuckle.  You see, she had just taken 3 steps, contemplating the walk to retrieve the apples that had rolled under the parked cars, and decided (with great wisdom) to donate them to the local squirrels.

And I wondered if the seniors were going to get bruised fruit for lunch.

Amazingly the experience made my bad cup of coffee taste pretty good!  I guess that proves a point somewhere.

Now wait a sec… what if that good feeling of helping someone doesn’t come from a place of love and the joy of giving?  What if it really comes from getting a front row seat to their suffering and embarrassment, so one can feel better by comparison?  Thoroughly uninteresting questions for sure.

…

Now here is a truth… You will, one day, be faced with the opportunity to upright an apple cart (literally or figuratively).  You will not stop, help out, get involved, right the wrong.  Yes, you will drive on laughing and yelling out “No way!”  That’s cool with me.  You are just living totally typical.

I took a road trip to Las Vegas recently. We were 10 miles from nowhere on Hwy 15, which pretty much sums up the drive. At this particular location we were also at a rest stop. A quick hop and a tinkle and we were to be on our way. Alas, before we could get away, before we could even tinkle, a well dressed man approached, frantic and desperate to borrow a cell phone.

We learned he had been looking for a new bff for a long time in order to borrow their phone. He explained that he had been stranded for over an hour waiting for a tow truck… and now his cell phone had died. His name… Bjorn.

Bjorn was as smart as my 6 year old who knows: when in trouble find a mom. We were traveling without kids (remember our destination) but one of my fellow travelers is a mom. She also happens to be cute, petite, 5’ 1” and Caucasian. So I have to feel that our friend successfully found the least threatening new friend within… say… 10 miles.

The troubling part was that, perhaps, he is not as smart as my 6 year old. He apparently failed to realize that a car phone charger will still work when you have a flat tire.

You caught it? Bjorn had a flat. This came up when after several more minutes on the borrowed phone, after yet another disconnection from the tow company. He realized he was going to be stuck here quite a while… and shared that. That was… unless one of us knew how to change a flat tire. “?”

He then admitted “I’m not mechanical”. Oh. Typical.

We were pretty should we could do that. So, two of us walked over to the car and began pulling out a donut from the trunk of his gorgeous Mercedes.

The spare tire had that ‘new tire smell’ and was still wrapped in plastic. Cloth gloves were provided for the task and had retained that ‘new glove smell’. My bud and I went to work and busted that tire change in a personal best 14.89 minutes!

Back on the road baby! Vegas here we come! Oh wait. Not yet.

Have you ever change a flat tire on a car, strutted around and did high fives feeling like a manly man (or woman) only to learn your spare is flat?

Okay, all we need is a pump. A pump, 10 miles from nowhere. Ah wait! In the face of this disastrous failure to save our new friend, I remembered that we are going to a soccer tournament! I had a ball pump! ‘Do you think that will work?’ I asked anyone who would listen. The faces around me showed significant doubt. I quickly did some math, took the odds, assessed the tire volume needed, the effort needed, ignored the faces and concluded: it was worth a try.

Ah shitake, the car was locked… the girls took the keys and figuring we would be a while, took a walk. Long uncomfortable stretches of silence began until the girls returned… which felt quite a bit like a long 3 minutes at a rest stop 10 miles from nowhere with a stranger. In retrospect this was probably because it was a long 3 minutes at a rest stop 10miles from nowhere with a stranger, but I’m still not sure. I fetched the pump and got to task.

Pump, pump, pump, pump, pump… 1000s pumps and the little tire was looking a bit better. “TAG.” My buddy took over until the pump itself was getting hot and the air was leaking past the seals. Time to stop. Bjorn was officially on his own.

A dainty ‘thanks’ but no hand-shakes were offered, as ours were covered in brake dust and grime. Our friend pulled out and we offered a weak wave. No, I didn’t wear the gloves. I couldn’t be responsible for ruining the smell.

“He’s not mechanical,” I said to no one in particular. That’s pretty typical.

So now, finally, we were going to Vegas. And now with good karma! Oh yea! And boy did we have fun.
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Fast forward four days.
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Back home. Photos destroyed. Credit card statements modified or lost. Stories told and embellished to the point of being the ‘new’ truth. I had a flat tire. “damn. flat tire” my FB informed the world.

Confident after the weekend success, I busted out my FULL SIZE spare. I grabbed the tools like a professional. I was thinking, ‘I should time how long this takes!’ I was thinking, ‘This is hilarious, wait until I tell my friends!’ I was thinking, ‘Where in the hell is the jack supposed to go?’

The Mercedes had these beautiful guides on the frame to interlock with the custom jack. My last car had little arrows stamped into the frame. This car… this car… this car required me to open the glove box and consult the owner’s manual. I wished I had a tall friend there to do it. I had trouble reaching the door handle at that point. I was feeling about 1’ tall. Har. Humor.

After some extensive research, I replace the tire in a personal best 25 minutes, did a little strut and was about to get on my way when… WTF?!? My spare tire was… dare I say it… flat. But, thankfully it was not so flat that I couldn’t drive it to a gas station, as I was less than 10 miles from somewhere, and because I had no pump, large or small.
…
Now here is a truth… You will, one day, have a flat, and you will not, today, check the air in your spare. Nor will you review the owner’s manual in the safety of your own driveway. That’s cool with me. You are just living totally typical.