Ducky

Inspirational song: Disco Duck (Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots)

I'm not quite ready to write about the information I absorbed today. I'm gathering from multiple sources, and will soon have a nice essay about art. But tonight, I'm taking it easy. 

I learned a new coping skill, and I think I've practiced it enough lately to set it as a habit. Since I recommitted to a wheat free lifestyle, and transitioned to eating only whole, real food, finding restaurants I trust has become a nightmare, even in the foodie Mecca where I live. I have ceased being able to view chain establishments as purveyors of actual food, and I'm not always able to locate local indie restaurants of any quality near some of my haunts, like the strip mall where my favorite movie theater sits. Today, my friend and I had a movie date, and her apartment complex is a stone's throw from that very strip mall. Rather than surrender control of my lunch to a chain steakhouse, chain pub, or chain Tex-Mex shop, I suggested I bring over food, and we eat on her tiny patio, overlooking a pond. Thus I found myself having a fantastic chicken salad over super greens, instead of sending a waitress off multiple times to ask the kitchen staff whether an item was gluten free. I had years of creative blocks against cooking, and in the last year or two, I've broken through them, and am finding less and less desire to go to restaurants anymore. What's this? My food tastes better, I feel better after eating it, it's costing me less money, AND I've started to reverse a weight-gaining trend? Is there a down side here?

After our lunch al fresco, we took a quick stroll around the pond, to look at the ducks and turtles, and wonder about the veracity of the "warning: alligator--no swimming" sign. We never saw a gator, but the turtles watched us closely from the water, waiting for us to remove ourselves from their banks, so they could go back to sunning themselves. It was a beautiful day again, with hints of the approaching spring everywhere. I had to run an errand on the way home at the big box store closest to my house, and today was the first time I let myself wander close to the danger zone. I entered through the garden center, and walked around the rows of flowers, but did not yet let myself touch anything. I have a lot of prep work to do here still, and there's one last cold snap expected. But soon. The big dance is coming.