The Calculus of Calories

 “DIng-ding-ding.”

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I had been holding open the refrigerator door long enough to make it antsy.

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“DING-DING-DING.”

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I could almost hear my mother’s disapproval over the icebox’s sound of alarm. “You’re letting out all the cool air. Why don’t you just make a selection already!”

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What I can’t decide is what looks good here. Leftovers? Salad? Something requiring no small amount of preparation and a much larger portion of skill?

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I selected something from a box on the shelf before I sated the chimes.

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Something prepackaged.

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My teeth bear down on a corner of a hard-pressed bar of peanut-flavored protein. I will my teeth to cut slowly hoping to preserve my teeth, which may have reached the age of ​random chipping.

I chew slowly, digesting the reality that I care more about macros than about flavor, or texture, or joy.

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Does this really qualify as food?

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Who sold us this nonsense? Some hard brick of nutrients that may or may not be a relative of candy. It’s dressed up like a candy bar and touted as sustenance.

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I peel the wrapper downward, in three neat strips, as if this excuse for sustenance were a member of some family of natural fruit.

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Somehow we’ve accepted that this package of protein is not really “food” per say, but we embrace it as a convenient “fuel.”

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As if we want to think of ourselves as precision instruments. Just cogs in a machine, needing only the barest necessities to survive.

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The dog is at my feet, staring up at me, laser-focused on my mouth as I raise the bar again and take another timid bite. It has warmed up in my hand. The mouthful I’ve taken crumbles like wet sand. A thin layer sticks to my teeth, while a similar-sized piece above the wrapper, near my pinched fingers, falls to the floor.

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The dog pounces. But misses. His nose snuffling around my chair without finding the morsel.

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Truly, had I not been trying to streamline lunch, I might have taken the beige-colored nugget now on the carpet to be a shard of forgotten dog biscuit. Or something a little more indelicate.

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I tap the floor with my foot near the drop zone, and he cleans it up with one quick slurp.

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A few minutes later, I wad up the wrapper and pitch it into the trash. I open the refrigerator and stare inside. My hunger isn’t an immediate pang as much as it feels like a distant memory of fullness I’m trying to relive.

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Each shelf offers a choice I could process by reheating or by simple assembly.

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The bells alert me to the door left ajar too long. I shut it to make the noise go away.

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Who needs the joy of food when you have the necessities of nutrition?

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I wonder if I’ve bought into the convenience of supplements as staples because I don’t value real food as much as I value saving the time it takes to prepare?

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The calculus of calories. 

Autumn in New York

 Fall is such a fleeting, magical time.

Especially for those who partake in the communal culture of running. Colors blaze as the heat subsides. We get to mix long sleeves with short pants until the snow flies. 

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The conversation had been lively among the four of us, a small contingent of a larger group that has met at 8 a.m. almost every Wednesday morning since I don't know when.

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We jokingly refer to ourselves as The Retirement Run Club, despite the fact that most of us are gainfully employed and enjoying flexible hours.

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Our greetings last most of 500 feet, the distance between where we park and where we start to run. The same jokes flow about timeliness and the generosity of those who waited for the lolligaggers.

We dispense with the most pressing news by the time my knees stop screeching at me, around about the first half mile when I imagine sheets of rust melting away.

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I try not to focus on my lack-luster pace, or the fact that my watch barely acknowledges activity, and take note of the gossip as we pass each house. None of the news would make your hair stand on end; it feels more like an accounting: births, marriages, milestones, illnesses, passages and recoveries.

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Each block offers a history lesson: Who lived where, when, and what color the house used to be before it was clad in such a pitiful vinyl. The oldest members of the group have a keen memory, relating details with precision, including how the gigantic tree they used to swing on was once a spindly seedling. Now it’s gone.

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I feel a twinge of envy. I hadn’t even noticed the old apple tree that had been cut down since the last time we ran.

My stomach growls as we round the first corner of our course, past the orchards. I recognize the familiar yellow signs affixed to each row. If I squint I can read the names: Jonigold, Honeycrisp, Macintosh, Golden Delicious, Fuji, and Snapdragon.

The knee-jerk response was one of quizzical shock; How could a person even narrow it down to one? Not with all the varieties that seem to blossom into the world and the local farm stands for the first time as the new season gets underway. It’s always a shock when they turn out to be some heritage fruit resurrected by a twee millennial farmer. A bigger shock is when the fruit turns out to be as big as my head.

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The signs pass slowly as we savor the change in conversation prompted by the question: “What’s your favorite apple?”

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Are we talking about our favorite for eating? For baking? For turning into a sauce?

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We each select a different variety: Honeycrisp is one favorite, Fuji is another, Macintosh makes it onto the list as an afterthought. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m always partial to a lunch-boxed sized Pink Lady, I don’t even care if it’s been lounging about in cold storage.

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For the next two miles we discuss the delights and disappointments we’ve all felt from having to deal with an unexpectedly mealy mouthful. I still remember when Macintosh apples were my favorite … until a friend explained why they couldn’t stand them. “You know how you bite into the apple, and its skin immediately separates from the meat of the fruit, and gets stuck in your teeth? I hate that.

It hadn’t bothered me until that moment. My friends thank me for letting it bother them, too.

I don’t think I’m ready for “Ludacrisp,” a relative newcomer on the agricultural scene that boasts a flavor resembling Juicy Fruit gum.

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Four miles in, and the variety in this running apple conversation seems endless.

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It makes the run seem as easy as pie. Mmmmm pie.

Adaptation

Do I like that I can type a string of stream-of-consciousness thoughts into my computer’s internet browser, and, after a few moments of gazing at dancing stars, a plain-language paragraph I tend to think of as a bit of straightforward, almost grandmotherly advice will appear as if from the heavens? Yes, I have to admit, I do.

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Do I have full faith in the contents of this abstract oracle or discern where it came from within the wispy web? No, I do not.

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I use it as a starting point in a quest for further explanation, as I would whenever the wisdom of our elders includes dubious or dated advice.

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Which is how I found myself staring distractedly at my phone, slowly realizing the vast vacuum of time and space becoming clearer with the appearance of some silly little character.

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The zaftig creature – perhaps a second cousin once removed from the Pillsbury Dough Boy –  is donning sweatbands around his head and wrists. I reflect not on what or why he has appeared,  and focus instead on the possibility that his this creature’s sport accessories would be able to cut off his circulation if he were flesh and bone rather than ink and animation.

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He is visiting my phone, I can tell, because whoever sent him thinks I might happily pay a small monthly fee to take his virtual fitness class whenever my schedule permits.

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Another rabbit hole I needn’t have fallen into. I click the phone so its screen goes black and try to focus on something that actually needs my undivided attention, which I manage to do for the length of time network television once devoted to commercials.

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Why am I even considering this algorithmic new friend? Not when the ghost of a Wii fitness past still haunts me.  

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Of course, now that I’m looking for him, nothing appears. I can’t remember which app brought him to me. I can’t retrace my steps.

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It certainly feels like the phone and all its inputs are gaslighting me.

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A part of me hopes this bloom of AI is just an upgrade of the search engines we have come to rely on; a streamlining of ways to search for answers that fit better into the puzzle-shaped holes in our minds.

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A part of me believes that it’s just plugging up those holes with distractions that lessen our anxiety at best but fill us with harmful falsehoods … and even if it’s not catastrophic, it will always be just a little bit worse.

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Aside from misinformation and deepfakes, AI will also deliver snowballing biases. It will rob us of our ideas and the work products we used to call art. There will be breaches and break-ins, and the taking (not simply the assuming) of human identities. It will not only take more jobs, but it will consume our creativity and leave us toiling over the chores.

Then there’s the likelihood that these data centers’ gargantuan hunger for water and energy  not only bankrupts us financially, but also costs us the Earth.

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Maybe the people behind the machine think they can inherit what’s left. Or maybe they hope only some of us will be able to adapt to our new Artificially Intelligent Overlords.

All Day Breakfast

It’s the weekend, and my husband HAS to ask his inevitable question.

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“What do you want for breakfast?”

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It doesn’t matter that three out of four members of my household will undoubtedly tell him, ‘I’ll pass.’

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It also doesn’t matter that two of the three responders are answering via text — since they happen to be waking up in dorms a couple hundred miles south (and west) of their bedrooms down the hall.

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Our tone won’t exactly be pleasant, but it’s hard to decipher inside the blue bubbles. One of the kids will likely include a demand that he produce a simple calculation: “Take the number of times you’ve asked this question over the years and subtract the number of times my answer has been a big, fat goose egg - zilch.”

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The other will send nothing but a smiley face, which is secreting tears.

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He takes it in stride. If they were here, he’ll make enough bacon for everyone to snitch. Since no matter how much they hate breakfast, there’s always room for bacon.

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“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he’ll whistle and hum, juggling the ingredients he’s pulled from the refrigerator and the pots and pans he’s pulled from the cabinets.

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No matter who you consult, this could be a problem … maybe even THE problem with the grizzly bears he encounters on these otherwise glorious mornings.

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Our son has a favorite bodega order: Sausage, egg, and cheese on a bagel. Side of energy drink … SEVENTEEN BUCKS.

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“That is one FANCY bodega,” his sister responds in all caps. “My favorite bagel joint charges sixty cents less. I’ll swap the energy drink for a tea and the bill comes to $16.25.”

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I love that the two of them will argue for a scrolling distance of about four phone screen lengths before they ascertain which of them is a better tipper; but I am flabbergasted that neither of my kids has ordered a breakfast sandwich that costs fewer than twenty dollars.

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The lowly breakfast sandwich … the staple of college students everywhere … has become a dinner option.

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I’m not sure why that surprised me. Back in my college days, when groceries cost significantly less, I used to freeze my yogurt cups, then skim off inches at a time so that they would last longer.

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But I could get an omelette, hash browns, and a side of rye toast for $3.50 any time of day, but especially at 4 a.m. after the bars closed, which turned out to be a popular time to eat breakfast.

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Neither of my kids will divulge any late-night dining practices that would tend to make their parents nervous. But, then again, times have changed as my son is happy to share.

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“I was today years old when I learned there’s an economic indicator index for everything that goes into the cost of a breakfast sandwich and coffee … The price of eggs is down, but the cost of coffee is through the roof … and with energy and healthcare rising, I will probably never be getting change for that sawbuck. But then again, it’s not like we’re even going to have coins in the future, since they cost more to make than they are worth in spending power.”

I do not want to speak to your manager ​

I fully intended to stay calm. This was the kind of low-stakes errand that didn’t have to set my emotions aflame.  

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I was committed to returning a set of Amazon purchases that did not pass muster … and despite having a price point so low that I would normally absorb the cost as not worth the effort and gasoline required to drive to the Smiley-Arrow returns collection site.

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Of course … I was in Staples during the penultimate week of back-to-school shopping, and it was dawning on me that management had only supplied one associate to operate the till.

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And the register in question was not the one handling regular shipping, where a clerk who had just disengaged with a sale informed me it was not the register dedicated to Amazon returns, which the till employee had to toggle between, and where I needed to stand and wait.

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Potentially until Hell froze over.

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“Smile,” I told myself. “Breathe. It’s been a pleasant day. You have time to spare. Look at all the nice people who are ahead of you, and who look as if they are also committed to staying calm no matter what happens.”

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But then the clerk from the regular shipping department – which I could see from my vantage point beside the growing line of people pushing carts piled high with fresh school supplies, ensuring that the clerk would not be toggling our way any time soon – meandered over, stopped just feet away from our empty lane, and meandered back.

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I didn’t snap … exactly.

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But I did suck in my breath, say a silent “Hell No,” and left my place in line to march the 40 yards toward the shipping department where I asked the startled clerk if anyone would be available to accept the Amazon return items in the foreseeable future.

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“Someone will be coming. But they’re not ready yet.”

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I’m not sure what happened next … My head felt swimmy. I saw sparks, or strange specks of light, as the room closed in on me.

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“Can’t you work that register?” I managed to say, hopefully without malice seeping into my voice.

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Truly … I have no idea what employment protocols are in place in the big box office supply stores of this great nation. Maybe there is limited cross-training. Maybe the clerk was off the clock and at lunch. Maybe there is a dedicated hand-held computer for this purpose that only THAT PERSON has access to? There are infinite possibilities that I should have considered.

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I just didn’t want to leave if the line wasn’t going to last until closing time.

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The clerk said nothing, but began to walk toward the Amazon line, now several people deep.

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I followed, resolved to accept my new location at the back of the line.

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When we got there, the employee we had been waiting for met us at the till, so the clerk I had badgered turned around and silently retreated, but not before meeting my tight smile with another tight smile.

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The line would go quickly … so long as we all had our return codes ready.

The shape of a mile

 “Everybody wondered where you were,” my husband mused as he moved around the kitchen. Taking laps from the stove to the refrigerator and then to the sink. It was nearly the lunch hour on a recent Saturday, and I had just walked in the door.

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It took me a moment to register what he was getting at. I hadn’t eaten yet, and the sizzle of bacon was a welcome but distracting sound. As my stomach growled and saliva rushed to my mouth, I remembered that our normal weekend routine had been altered by divergent plans.

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“Really?” I replied quizzically, scanning my memory for the identities of whom “everyone” might encompass.  My husband had joined the walking contingent of the Saturday morning running club, so I just started naming names.

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“I don’t know. Everybody. …

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“I mentioned you were doing the Hudson Mile, but they just wondered why. They all said, ‘she’ll blow out her quads if she does that race’.”

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I cocked my head to one side, as if the sudden shift in its pitch would send some blocked memory squishing forth or at least expel the quintessential sing-song refrain (‘You’ll shoot your eye out, you’ll shoot your eye out’) from A Christmas Story.

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After all, I had assumed my friends knew what I had been training for all summer long, just as I knew the racing goals they, in turn, were hoping to meet this fall.

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That’s when I started to spiral.

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Maybe, I thought, THEY THOUGHT I had been nursing a quad injury? Or maybe they thought I was a delicate flower that shouldn’t push myself.

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It certainly wasn’t a concern that I couldn’t finish one mile… anyone can finish a mile.

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I’m not gonna lie: I worried my stomach into knots the night before … thinking about all the athletes – people wearing brightly colored singlets and teeny-tiny, short shorts – who had signed up. There were more of them than the mere mortal mother-truckers like me.

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On more than one occasion, as I tossed and turned throughout the night, I even contemplated not starting the race to avoid the probability of finishing last.

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When morning came, I pulled myself together for the sake of decorum and the seat in a carpool I’d also accepted as part of this pregame ritual.

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I was relieved to see the tiny tent where the race volunteers were busy checking in a slow trickle of participants, many of whom were already warming up by slowly circling the block, then gaining their strides uphill toward the starting line.

Spectators gathered on the sidewalks where they had a full view of the historic street, now miraculously devoid of parked cars, which encapsulated the entirety of the race’s distance.

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At the word “Go!” three waves of runners would take off. I would be among them, fighting and losing nearly every urge to go out too fast. The gradual elevation drop made my unadvisable speed feel almost effortless.  To the point where, midway through, where the course leveled off, and I felt the need to slow down, it didn’t feel catastrophic. In fact, when I had enough kick left at the finish in a true sprint, I felt confident I had met my unmentioned goal – to attain a personal record.

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I didn’t finish near the front. And I didn’t finish at the end. But I finished feeling strong. The endorphins lasted the whole day … and almost into the next when I woke up and felt the unmistakable tightness of my quads.

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“That’s what they were all saying: the downhills do a number on your quads.”

Packing and unpacking

As I rummaged through the half-dozen dust-covered boxes, I began to lose confidence in my memory.

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“I’m sure it was here,” I silently assured myself as I sorted through all manner of dissimilar things I had only a vague recollection of shoving into a pair of grocery store tote bags. Newspapers interleaving a spice rack that I didn’t recognize; a few cloth-covered books I wondered why I’d saved from the trash; and a footed, butcher block cutting board that brought me instantly into the first kitchen I had ever known - my parents’.

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Where was the skillet?

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All summer I had been talking about the cast-iron frying pan I had spirited away to save for posterity.

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I don’t know what made me think one of my children would be more interested in a pan their grandfather had seasoned and cared for … and probably inherited himself … than I had been when I dismissed the same piece of cookware and opted instead for a new forever-chemical pan from the hardware store. As I recall, the purchase set me back $20 (eight bucks more than the cast iron pan on the bottom shelf) and took me approximately three minutes to scar with a fork.

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I didn’t want to push it on my returning college students; it’s not like they have ample storage in their dorm rooms or the initiative to power through whatever coats the surfaces of a communal kitchen.

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I was surprised I had a taker.

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My son understood the sentimental value of the artifact as much as he understood the culinary benefits of a good skillet.

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At home, over the summer, long after dinner and his parents had retired for the evening (shortly after 9:30 p.m.), he had practiced until he perfected the late-night snack: a cheese-encrusted deep-dish pizza; steak tips au ju that would melt in your mouth; light and fluffy pancakes with a strawberry reduction.

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The aromas would waft upstairs and into my dreams. Each morning, the realization of my dreams would be rinsed and piled in the sink.

No leftovers.  

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Turns out, he has plans to feed his friends on days when the cafeteria fare is lackluster.

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I redouble my efforts to locate the cookware.  It has to be here. I carefully take out the contents of each box and bag, lining up each item neatly and smoothing out the 20-year-old newspaper wrappings that cradled them.  

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I was surprised how the last bag seemed heavier with each thing I removed, which is why I was relieved to find the 9-inch pan at the bottom.

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It is almost as clean and smooth as I remembered, just a tiny bit of rust on the hanger edge of the handle.

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“That’s nothing,” my son smiles as he inspects the skillet, turning it as easily as he turns a flapjack. A little steel wool and salt and that will be as good as gone.

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Honestly, it made me tear up a little. I tell him his grandfather would be delighted his old pan would be of good use.

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The boy smiles and says, “That’s good, because my dad will probably have some other kinds of thoughts when I tell him I’m also taking one of the hex-clad pans he bought at Costco.”