Sweetness is my weakness

There are few tasks less agreeable to me than the attempt to fill a shopping basket with food that isn't going to kill me over the medium to long term. Normally I wouldn't bother - indeed the best I normally shoot for is to fill the basket with food that is unlikely to kill me more quickly than eating nothing whatsoever (~two months based on the Bobby Sands calculus). But on this occasion I was in preparation for a paramedical exam whose result would influence the premium on a 20-year term life insurance policy, and the thought of forking out an extra $240x on account of a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry's was too much to bear. If I could just hold off for a few days, I reasoned, then I could celebrate the medical with a banana split and a cinnamon twist or somesuch.

In any case, it's a near impossible task, unless one resolves oneself with wan joylessness to eating organic vegetables without any dressing - the cost of which, based on 2,500 calorie diet, being around $740/week. I expect.

The sum to insure oneself for is another vexed issue; certainly enough to ensure that one's nearest and dearest are not left destitute, and at the same time, not so much as to provide sufficient incentive to have oneself whacked. Not that Pookie's actively planning that, I should think, except perhaps in some unconscious oedipal manner for which he can't really be held responsible.

In any case, I find that spending time with Ethan makes me unspeakably happy for no obvious reason at all. For example, the other day I took him out to the playground in my usual cavalier fashion without the slightest bit of preparation, and within two minutes of our arrival it began to shower very heavily. We took shelter under the spiral slide and sang "Ten Green Bottles." It sounds utterly miserable but I think I have never felt more content.

Likewise there is a game which Ethan plays at night-night time, in order to put off the inevitable flight into the land of Hypnos, called "I watch a car come past." Following story time, we sit by his window and wait for the stated event, speculating on the direction it may come from and the colour it may be, noting pertinant astronomical phenomena etc. On paper it couldn't be more dull and yet it is for me often the highlight of the evening. Eventually a car comes past, at which point Ethan says, "No, Ethan and Daddy watch two cars come past" - an offer which, admittedly, I politely decline.


Ethan "helping out" with a spot of watering.










Some black comedy here: Ethan's behaviour chart from a few weeks ago - somehow the gravity of the crime is not adequately represented by the symbolic "Sad Ethan."