I’m trying to avoid sugar these days. Not going paleo or low-carb, I’m eating fruit and occasional yogurt and, OK, dessert if someone sticks a piece of cake under my nose. But I’m trying to hold the line on the winter pudge that inevitably piles up this time of year, and it seemed the easiest way.
I had to stop working out as often as I had been when I blew out my knee, and the good news is? Haven’t gained back any of the 15 I lost over the summer. Yay, me. Twenty to go.
However: GOD, SUGAR IS WONDERFUL AND I MISS IT SO. I come from a long line of Germans, and we love our pastry and whipped cream and pie and ice cream and yes, even cheap-ass cookies like Oreos and the ones made by Keebler elves and especially those sold by Girl Scouts. I bought some Meyer lemons the other day. Normal people do that and think about cocktails and salad dressings. I thought of a Meyer lemon cake in one of my Chez Panisse cookbooks, and it took all my willpower not to make one.
Although I might this weekend.
How do people not get a sweet tooth? And once they have one, how do they let it go? I’ve heard people say it takes anywhere from a couple-three days to six weeks to stop craving sugar at the end of every meal, but all I can say is, it ain’t easy. I pour myself a big glass of water for dessert. I drink a cup of coffee. I leave the kitchen. And if I wait long enough, the protein of the meal works its way into my bloodstream and I stop thinking two little squares of dark chocolate would really hit the spot. But it takes a while.
Some people say, “I don’t crave sweets, but I just love bacon.” I love that, too. Bacon is sugar-cured, you know, most of it, anyway. Even if it weren’t, I reject the either-or nature of being either a fat or a sweets person. The two complement one another — whipped cream is sweetened fat, cake is sweetened fat, and sugar alone is sort of gross. As the kids say, it’s all love.
Don’t give me that crap about flour being sugar, too. It’s a carbohydrate, but unless it has raspberry jam slathered on it, it doesn’t hit the spot.
I’m not sorry. I’m just bereft.
It’s winter, hibernation season. All I want to do is eat a big piece of pie — maybe two — and crawl into bed with a couple good books. There to read and doze and let visions of sugarplums dance in my head.
So. A few words about sugar at midweek.
A little bloggage?
Guess who’s going to be in Chrysler’s Super Bowl ad? Bob Dylan.
Speaking of sugar, it’s the Uncle Sugar bounce!
And now I’m done. Good Thursday, all.
Dexter said on January 30, 2014 at 1:08 am
Best wishes to all who cut sugar out of their diet. My younger brother did that many years ago. He never eats pie, cake, candy in any form, has no bag of sugar in his home, zilch zippo nada. I, of course, eat sugar all the time, syrup, candy bars if I feel like having one, all the goodies like pie and cake at times. For Christmas dinner, as an option for the turkey, we had a Honey Baked Ham, the brand name ham. My God are they ever expensive these days, and covered in brown sugar, so good.
Nineteen years ago I cut out sugar and lost fifty pounds in three months, got a bad craving, and caved. That’s life, at least for me. Currently I find myself jonesin’ for Butterfinger candy bars, and I bought one of those dollar-packs of six mini-candy bars when I bought the sausage last night. But I am not a hog, meaning I have not touched them yet. 🙂 I have not had Oreos for months, but I bought some knock-off brand name creme sandwich cookies that look like Oreos last night, and I did get into them…and maybe the spirits of goodness are after me to knock off the sugar: the damn cookies , in a third of the package, had no white creme filling in them at all. Just the black chocolate cookies. How weird is that?
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coozledad said on January 30, 2014 at 2:49 am
These are very good, one of the better chocolates I’ve had. After you try these, bars sweetened with sucrose have a heavy, slick mouth feel.
The only calories in them are from cocoa, and that’s good for you.
https://cocopolo.com/
A Republican will never alienate the base by beating up a woman, or threatening to take on a smaller adult male, or knocking “jungle music” or sexually harassing a workplace subordinate, or blathering about bombing some country, or recommending a poultice of Jesus on the genitals for the clap, or global warming haw haw s’cold.
Their base knows they’re criminals, and they respect them for it. Lord of the Flies might as well be their instruction manual.
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Deborah said on January 30, 2014 at 4:05 am
Oh please, please, please let the Huckster be the Republican nominee in 2016. Hilary will just wipe the floor with him.
I don’t crave sweets as much as I crave bread. Little Bird has never really been a sweets person, all her life, even as a kid. She’s much more into salty stuff.
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ROGirl said on January 30, 2014 at 6:17 am
I’m a sugar addict too, and it seems like I never stop craving it. At my office they celebrate birthdays by circulating a card for all to sign, and accompanying that is a giant chocolate chip cookie decorated with sugary frosting. The cookies are put out on a counter for everyone to eat. It can be really hard not to have a little piece.
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ROGirl said on January 30, 2014 at 6:22 am
Is this a sign of the apocalypse?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/fashion/Brazilian-bikini-wax-women-hair-removal.html?ref=fashion
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 30, 2014 at 6:57 am
Did we discuss “Inside Llewyn Davis” here and I missed it? Dylan makes a semi-sorta-cameo at the end, in a very “well of course” sort of way. It’s a movie whose signature song is getting royally screwed over by the Academy (no Oscars for you, says the Rule Nazi), and whose role in the movie is Coen-itically brilliant. And I’m getting a real soft spot in my heart for Justin Timberlake.
In one sense I didn’t love the movie at all, I squirmed through it, and the guy playing the lead is a nobody who may never get out of the box he just created for himself unless he has a much better agent than the one his character has . . . but the images and the dialogue and the feel of the whole 1961 setting has really stuck with me, floating back up into my thoughts pretty much every day since I saw the thing.
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linda said on January 30, 2014 at 7:37 am
Rank and file conservatives no longer care about running the country, just pissing off libs, so anybody that does this, no matter how stupidly becomes a new conservative idol. For a minute. That’s how we had the frontrunner du jour in the last Republican presidential primary.
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alex said on January 30, 2014 at 7:47 am
How do people not get a sweet tooth?
Dunno, I guess my endorphins get turned on by nicotine, ETOH, THC. Sugar, meh. Sure, I enjoy a creme brûlée or a cheesecake after a gut-busting rich meal, but have never sought out cookies or pastries as a snack. Donuts and coffee cake gross me out the door. Likewise with angel food and the crap they slather it in.
I once worked in an office where they kept Sugar in the Raw on hand and I kind of liked it in my coffee. I remember dropping 20 pounds rapidly and effortlessly when I stopped using it.
###
Happy news. My partner’s home as of last night. His home health nurse came over as soon as he got home to give instruction in intubation. My partner’s usually pretty candid with health care workers about his being gay, so I was surprised when I saw the look on his face when I sang the praises of Obamacare and lamented that my partner can’t share my employer benefits. After she left, he told me that I missed out on her introductory schpiel wherein she revealed that she’s a fundie Christian and a right-wing conservative.
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alex said on January 30, 2014 at 7:55 am
Oh, and she left a fart in her wake on her way out. Classy.
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James said on January 30, 2014 at 8:05 am
I wanted to share my talented wife’s posting at Politico, about the mess Atlanta found itself in after our 2 inch snowfall. Lastly about a lack of regional leadership.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/atlanta-snow-storm-102839.html
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James said on January 30, 2014 at 8:06 am
“Mostly” not lastly, damn autocorrect.
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BigHank53 said on January 30, 2014 at 8:40 am
Alex, glad to hear your partner’s surgery went well and he’s home resting. Sorry about the fundamentalist health aide–what is it with people ignoring that “pray in the closet” admonition? I know a couple of serious Christians who will bend your ear about their religion, if you ask them about it. Otherwise, they figure being the best person they can is enough witnessing for them. I guess dramatic public piety isn’t anything new, or else JC wouldn’t have had to bring it up.
Regarding sweets, one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen in a Target was the THREE POUND bag of gummi bears. Not the candy itself–I knew that if I actually bought the damn thing and brought it home, I’d eat three pounds of gummi bears. Probably in less than four days. Guck.
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Basset said on January 30, 2014 at 8:41 am
Nine degrees in Nashville right now, and nineteen in Anchorage. On today’s topic, I have mentioned that Mrs. B is an insulin-dependent type 1 diabetic with no pancreas and I’m borderline type 2 so we try to avoid sugar as best we can. Someone at work mentioned this week that I looked like I was dropping a few pounds, hadn’t weighed in awhile so I did and found I was down 16 lb without trying or even noticing. Don’t know what I did but I’m gonna keep doing it. Maybe it’s the five-minute artisan bread.
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brian stouder said on January 30, 2014 at 8:52 am
Good stuff, Alex. At the very least, it sounds like your healthcare professional maintained her professionalism, and that’s becoming a rare thing amongst our dissatisfied rightwing countrymen, these days.
I’m taken aback by this newest R-meme that the president is a dictator, ruling by decree.
The charge is absurd from every angle (counter-factual, willfully ignorant, easily discredited), and yet – it spreads.
But I suppose it only spreads amongst the folks who already hate the president, and who really want to grasp at anything that (seemingly) buttresses their visceral dislike of him.
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Mindy said on January 30, 2014 at 9:18 am
My dad’s family is from the South where everything is sugar-coated sugar and served with a side of sugar. The Nilla banana pudding was part of every holiday and the sweet tea appeared with warm weather. All the men were thin as whips but the ladies had to watch every calorie. So unfair. I’m all about salt, though. As the t-shirt says, “Either you like bacon or you’re wrong.”
Here’s Budweiser’s Super Bowl ad. Puppies!
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/29/stop-everything-you-are-doing-right-now-watch-the-budweiser-super-bowl-ad-guaranteed-to-melt-your-heart/
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LAMary said on January 30, 2014 at 9:38 am
I eat sugar when I bake stuff and I don’t bake stuff all that often, My cravings are more bread, pasta and cheese. Just as bad as sugar if you eat too much. I just had a slice of a whole wheat sourdough demi miche. This is half of a huge round French type of bread. Trader Joes sells halves and I cut them in half when I get home and freeze one of the halves. No way could I eat the whole thing before it goes stale.
A thick slice of this toasted with butter is crazy good. I had two clementines and a cup of Cuban espresso with it.
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Jeff Borden said on January 30, 2014 at 10:01 am
Salt addict here. Pretzels and CheezIts are my drugs.
You do have to wonder about the Republican base, don’t you? It’s like the whole party has turned into a mean drunk.
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Minnie said on January 30, 2014 at 10:07 am
Yeah, too much fat is just as bad as too much sugar, but it got down to *6* degrees here last night and we have 9 inches of snow in the yard, not counting drifts. I’m hungry. For breakfast it’s going to be whole grain bread warmed in the oven and slathered with St. Andre cheese, grapes on the side, and a cup of strong black coffee.
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Bitter Scribe said on January 30, 2014 at 10:07 am
I think Linda @#7 nailed it. Saying asinine things to get attention seems to be the only play in their playbook.
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nancy said on January 30, 2014 at 10:12 am
James, that’s a very good analysis by your wife. Everybody go read it.
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brian stouder said on January 30, 2014 at 10:19 am
So, as we talk about comfort foods, here’s a challenge: what things might a Republican candidate for federal office (House of Reps/US Senate/Presidency) run on, that would make you take her seriously?
For me, a major area of opportunity would be to break with the bipartisan assault on public education, and an espousal of a firm commitment to public education going forward (and flat rejection of private entities slurping away funding for public education, and destroying locally elected oversight and control)
That’s a biggie biggie, for me. Aside from that, less war-war cheering, and more support for jaw-jaw in the international arena, would be big; and dropping all this culture war* horse-shit would basically be the ante due, before I could listen to much else.
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coozledad said on January 30, 2014 at 10:22 am
Jeff Borden: when you have their ‘intellectual lights’ arguing that science led to Auschwitz, you know they’re reaching back up into the ass of the inquisition for justification. That’s why they hate education. They want to obscure Christianity’s role in the architecture of human misery.
http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2014/01/not-worthy-of-our-time.html
They just painted those crosses on German planes and tanks because it made an interesting design statement? The holocaust was the culmination of a thousand years of Christian hegemony in Europe. A nasty combination of an ancient death cult and the native savagery of northern peoples.
Huckabee is a perfect fit for their puke funnel race-science mindset. A diseased Elmer Gantry who raised a dog-torturing child.
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brian stouder said on January 30, 2014 at 10:33 am
As Nancy said – Rebecca Burns’ article is absolutely MUST READ!
It isn’t very long, and it taught me LOTS! (I had no idea of the city/county tangle there)
And indeed, it reminded me of a really tremendous extended piece of historic journalism that Nancy’s husband Alan wrote for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, about when our town looked at transportation issues in the late ’40’s and early ’50’s – and promptly punted.
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Connie said on January 30, 2014 at 10:44 am
Salt for me, especially with cheese. Cheetohs. Cheese Pringles. I do not buy these things or keep them in the house.
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Sue said on January 30, 2014 at 10:50 am
Such an interesting topic today. I’m reading as I have my standard coffee break of a can of Coke and a cashew-dipped-in-cashew-butter-with-a-few-bits-of-oatmeal-thrown-in granola bar. Because granola bars are HEALTHY. Cheering you all from the sidelines here, good work fighting those cravings!
I like to make my sweet tea with 1/2 sugar and 1/2 Splenda. I feel virtuous doing that. I don’t know how you actually make sweet tea, I mean real southern sweet tea, but I noticed when I started making mine that the sugar to liquid ratio was the same as Koolaid.
Forget Gummy Bears, don’t let me near Twizzlers or Red Vines.
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Little Bird said on January 30, 2014 at 10:56 am
Pretzels, potato chips, corn chips, and cheese puffs. I will happily turn down cake, cookies or candy in favor of the crunchy salty stuff! We can probably blame Deborah for that because the night before I was born she ate a very large platter of cookies by herself. I was ODed right before birth!
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Basset said on January 30, 2014 at 11:13 am
Good links today, pubes and puppies… neither of ’em look good shaved.
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Jolene said on January 30, 2014 at 11:25 am
Rebecca Burns’s article was also linked on Facebook by Connie Schultz, the former Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist, who referred to it as “jarring” and “illuminating”. Schultz has a ton of FB followers, so it will get lots of clicks, which, as Nancy and Brian point out, it deserves.
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Bitter Scribe said on January 30, 2014 at 11:39 am
Brian @23: So basically, you want them to stop acting like Republicans.
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Heather said on January 30, 2014 at 11:40 am
Sugar, I wish I could quit you. I have always had a sweet tooth. Beyond the weight issue, this is unfortunate as I suspect I am dealing with a system-wide inflammation (being diagnosed with asthma/worsened allergies/back problems flaring up/etc), and sugar is supposed to make inflammation worse. But cake and cookies are SO GOOD. I remember reading recently that some people think it’s weird to have dessert every day, and I wish I were one of those people.
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Julie Robinson said on January 30, 2014 at 11:47 am
The one place sugar is NOT appealing to me is iced tea. Everywhere else, bring it on! It gives me a bit of insight into other chemical addictions like booze and tobacco. Didn’t someone do a study that showed sugar acts on the same part of the brain as cocaine? I’ll fight it as long as I live.
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nancy said on January 30, 2014 at 11:48 am
That’s the model I’m trying to get back to — dessert once in a while. If I limit it to homemade stuff, it’ll happen. That’s why I’m no longer buying cookies or other pre-packaged sweets.
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Charlotte said on January 30, 2014 at 11:56 am
Terrific article. I haven’t been to Atlanta in 20 years, and even then it was only to get through the airport and flee up into the mountains of North Carolina (where I was briefly a raft guide), but I remember well the horrible traffic.
I don’t struggle with sugar as much as I do with cheese and bread and wine. Although I finally broke down and bought a yoga mat and some DVDs — So I’ve been re-aquainting myself with muscles I’d forgotten I had. My neck moves again tho, so that’s good.
Kitty seems to be a “Betty” — she and the dog are getting along, but no one is going outside. Nine degrees this morning with six inches of new snow. Since poor Betty lost half an ear in the last cold spell, when she was abandoned in a barn, she’s having none of it.
And now, off to have a conference call with a woman in sunny Tel Aviv. The modern world.
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Mark P. said on January 30, 2014 at 11:56 am
I love sweets, too. I tell my wife not to buy cookies or candy because if it’s in the house, I’ll eat them.
I live up the road from Atlanta. I drove from Huntsville, Al, to Rome, Ga, Tuesday afternoon. A trip that normally takes about two hours ended up taking six, plus about 120 extra miles from detouring through Chattanooga (check a map — that’s not a direct route but it avoids Lookout Mountain). The problem was not two inches of snow, it was that the two inches of snow were packed into something like glare ice that no one can drive on without chains or studded tires, neither of which southern drivers need more than once every four or five years for a day and a half. Of course, as the article points out, you can’t get anywhere in Atlanta without driving, and they’re proud of their long commutes.
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Mark P. said on January 30, 2014 at 11:58 am
I guess I should have mentioned that it hit zero at home Wednesday night. I think that’s cold for pretty much anyone. Of course we live on a mountain so a strong inversion meant we only reached 16, so, balmy!
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Jean S said on January 30, 2014 at 12:28 pm
I’m all about the salt, too. Oy. That will be the last bad habit to go.
But when I started eating an anti-inflammatory diet, it was surprisingly easy to get rid of sugar in all forms (and yes, I am counting wheat flour as one of those forms). The once-in-awhile approach makes sense, as long as I am absolutely honest with myself about what constitutes “once” and “awhile” …
Alex, I hadn’t commented before re: your partner, but I’m glad he’s home. Best to both of you.
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Jeff Borden said on January 30, 2014 at 12:43 pm
Cooz, anyone who links to the filthy, race-baiting Steve Sailer shouldn’t be trusted to write a grocery list, much less a column. Screw Dreher.
Kudos on the story about the Atlanta mess. In the spring of 1989, while my editors at the Charlotte Observer were busily greasing the skids for my departure, I was offered two jobs: TV writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution or media/hospitality reporter for Crain’s Chicago Business. There are many reasons why I chose Chicago, but the sprawl of Atlanta was most definitely a factor. So, too, were the empty streets after 5 p.m., which were quite similar to the streets of Charlotte after 5 p.m.
We have tons and tons of problems and issues in Chicago but the terrific piece by James’ wife does not make me rethink my decision. I hope this disaster prompts some serious soul-searching in the state and the metropolitan area.
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Dexter said on January 30, 2014 at 12:46 pm
Way back when I did irresponsible things like driving around with a few buddies, killing a case or two of beer, I bought a large bag of Cheetos one night. By chance, nobody in the car liked them,so slowly, as beer after beer went down, I eliminated the contents of the Cheetos bag.
This process cured me forever of any sort of Cheetos addiction. When I was dropped off at home, I took two steps and fell ill to Cheetos-beer poisoning. The mess was so hideous the next morning in the driveway, on top of a frozen snow-ice pack, I shoveled it away so nobody else would have to see it. Years later, many years, I tried a Cheetos again for the first time since…I could not even chew the damn thing. 🙁
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Julie Robinson said on January 30, 2014 at 1:10 pm
Dexter I think that’s a form of aversion therapy!
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Scout said on January 30, 2014 at 1:14 pm
For the sweet toothed amongst us, you can lose weight fast on the sugar-free Gummi Bear diet. Haribo skids, but beauty is worth it, right? The customer reviews here are tremendously funny. If you order remember to click on Nancy’s kickback lounge!
http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummy-Candy-Sugarless-5-Pound/dp/B000EVQWKC
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Mark P. said on January 30, 2014 at 1:21 pm
Jeff, I was a graduate student at Georgia Tech from 1980 to 1985. A friend took some Chinese students outside the perimeter to look at a used car one afternoon during rush hour. They wanted to go back the next day with their cameras to take pictures of the mass of cars. After I left Tech, my brother went to work at the Ga Tech Research Institute. He told me that they do the kind of work I did and I could probably get a job there. I said they couldn’t pay me enough to live in the Atlanta area. I would go insane if I had to put up with Atlanta rush hour traffic every day. In fact, I think that’s the only reason anyone would put up with it — they’re all insane.
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Scout said on January 30, 2014 at 1:22 pm
I’m willing to take the hit to my waistline for this cause…
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/30/3225571/anti-choice-boycott-girl-scouts/
The Not-War-On-Women party strikes again.
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Joe K said on January 30, 2014 at 1:26 pm
Basset wins @ 27.
Wife home yesterday and during well.
Pt starts Friday. She has been exercising since Monday night
But is ready to get to the hard stuff.
One of my running buds is her pt. so he will work her hard.
Pilot Joe
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Jeff Borden said on January 30, 2014 at 1:29 pm
Mark P.,
Great minds think alike. There’s plenty of urban sprawl in Chicago, natch, but unlike Atlanta (at least in 1989) there are scores of wonderful, livable neighborhoods well-served by buses and els. Our first apartment was in Lakeview, about a half-mile from the Red Line stop at Belmont, and our current home of (yeeesh) 21 years is just three blocks from the Western stop on the Brown Line. I read many a fine book while standing/sitting on those trains.
To each their own. I’m sure those who endure those long commutes, whether here or Atlanta or Dallas or wherever, because they like the big yards, the larger houses, etc. are happy with the choice they made. It’s just not for me.
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Jolene said on January 30, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Another high profile citation of Rebecca’s piece: Described as a “great article” on The Daily Rundown on MSNBC.
I’m beginning to feel sorry for the mayor of Atlanta, who, as Rebecca points out, is only one of many people who should have made a better call, but he is taking it in the neck on cable TV.
It’s worth emphasing Rebecca’s point that, like the fragmentation of government around Detroit, Atlanta’s traffic/congestion problems originate, at least in part, in racial fear and antipathy. Will we ever get over it?
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Dexter said on January 30, 2014 at 2:38 pm
Julie R: Just don’t Ludovico-Technique
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-To_rJMvjYfo/T0nzqLGYSNI/AAAAAAAAD5I/jgDan-ty2A8/s1600/clockwork-orange-eyes.jpg
my lips open and force-feed me a Cheeto.
Mark P: In 1986 my brother and I went to Florida to see some Spring Training games. We stopped in a motel in Lake City on the way down, and the next morning for some reason my knee had swollen so badly I could not bend it,necessitating an instant return trip home. I could not fit into any seat but the driver’s seat in the little Citation car, my bad leg stretched over the console, me driving left-footed; it was manageable. We neared Atlanta and the speed picked up. I figured since it was rush hour we should take I-285, the perimeter freeway. This was 29 years ago, and this was the fastest sustained freeway driving I ever was involved with.
I was in the slow lane, going 85, and did not feel safe. I upped it to about 92 and was able to get out in the middle of traffic OK. Why did GDOT allow this? The outside lane was full of tailgating maniacs driving as fast as their cars would go, I could tell, way over 100 mph at times. I kept expecting to see a speed trap set up with a bunch of cars in the trap…nothing. This was a nice warm, dry, sunny day in late March. I wonder if things have changed…I have been through Atlanta maybe 20 times since, but from then on, on I-75 straight through.
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Sherri said on January 30, 2014 at 3:34 pm
I agree, great article on Atlanta. I have friends who live in Atlanta, and I’ve driven in Atlanta more times than I care to; it’s the worst place I’ve driven by far. Craziest drivers.
Atlanta used to bill itself as the city to busy to hate, but just because they didn’t have Bull Connor didn’t mean that the political decisions weren’t driven by race.
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jcburns said on January 30, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Here in Atlanta, we are also the city Too Busy to Learn What Direction to Turn the Wheel When Your Car Begins Sliding on Snow.
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Mark P. said on January 30, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Dexter — The same thing happened to me, only with some horrible grape soda. It was the only thing my friends bought to drink on a camping trip. I drank it and ate something, and spent the rest of the night in the campground bathroom. The thought of the taste of artificial grape flavoring make me kind of queasy today.
Dexter — A coworker once told me that he had test driven a car on the Atlanta perimeter and got a speeding ticket. I asked him, “How?”
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Connie said on January 30, 2014 at 3:54 pm
I thought turning the wheel in the right direction only worked with rear wheel drive.
Back in my drivers ed days, yes, the days of rear wheel drive, our fathers took us to snow covered parking lots to learn how to recover from a spin. As a young driver we regular had fun spinning in those parking lots, usually church parking lots. We called it spinning looies or spinning doughnuts. No idea where the looies came from.
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Charlotte said on January 30, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Yes! Betty cat just caught the wily pantry mouse! Brought it down to show me here on my treadmill desk in the basement … Good kitty. Guess she can stay now.
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Deborah said on January 30, 2014 at 4:19 pm
Great article about Atlanta. I’ve been reading a lot lately about walkable cities. Traffic engineers have almost single handedly destroyed cities in the last 50 years or so and people are beginning to realize it. I recommend this book by Jeff Speck, http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp/0865477728/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391116674&sr=1-1
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mark said on January 30, 2014 at 4:59 pm
No, turning the wheel to the right only works if the rear of the car is skidding to the right. When the skid happens, it’s pretty much instinctual which way to turn.
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Joe K said on January 30, 2014 at 5:30 pm
Charlotte,
If it was a momma mouse there is going to be more than one.
Pilot Joe
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Connie said on January 30, 2014 at 5:44 pm
We had mice show up in late fall. Total was 12 trapped before it was over.
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Cathy De. said on January 30, 2014 at 6:02 pm
Bacon…wrapped in chocolate.
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David C. said on January 30, 2014 at 6:20 pm
Potatoes are my sugar. Give me a choice between a plate of mashies and a piece of cake, the cake goes in the trash.
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MichaelG said on January 30, 2014 at 6:30 pm
We used to get field mice in Auburn. Cute little brown furry things with huge eyes. My wife used to put out live traps. They were real suckers for peanut butter. When we caught them I was assigned to carry the little buggers to the property line and turn them loose. They probably beat me back to the house. The cats were useless. They seemed to be going through some kind of being one with nature phase at the time.
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MarkH said on January 30, 2014 at 7:00 pm
And, it doesn’t matter if it’s rear-wheel, front-wheel, or all-wheel drive. The rear end can swing out regardless depending on actual conditions and the doofus factor behind the wheel. If it goes to the left, steer to the left; goes to the right, steer to the right.
Fall and winter are high seasons for mice looking to get warm, so will find a way into the house. Not many at our house this year, but my wife’s cat, Zoe, is a great mouser. The only reason I will have her around (the cat, not the wife). And, yes, MichaelG, peanut butter is foolproof as trap bait.
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Deborah said on January 30, 2014 at 7:01 pm
What goes around comes around: I commented about the Jeff Speck book and just now when I checked his tweets (which I do often), he linked to Rebecca Burns article about Atlanta. Small world.
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Deborah said on January 30, 2014 at 7:03 pm
I’m squeamish about mice, would rather have snakes or spiders they don’t bother me. Why is that?
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Dexter said on January 30, 2014 at 8:50 pm
I think it was in the Auburn, Indiana paper where I read of a local man who took a “blowtorch”, yes, I am sure that’s what they called it, to rid his basement of spider webs. This was about 72 hours ago. Well guess what happened. Oh yes he did!
Burned the motherfucker down.
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Mark P. said on January 30, 2014 at 9:46 pm
Dexter — well, he could have used dynamite.
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Deborah said on January 30, 2014 at 9:49 pm
The headline “Sweetie” has reminded me of Jane Campion’s early movie by that same name, makes me want to see it again, it’s been a long time.
Is anyone else watching the third season of “Girls”?
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Dave said on January 30, 2014 at 10:59 pm
We drove around I-285 on the west side around Atlanta today. We spent yesterday in Maryville, TN, waiting out what was a standstill. We counted 65 cars stranded or in the ditch, or worse, between north and south I-75 on 285 but were certain that many more had been removed long before we got there.
Because my in-laws moved to Florida in 1978, we’ve made many trips to Florida, both by car and flight, most of the auto trips via Atlanta (a couple via Birmingham for the variety). I’ve never experienced what Dexter experienced, the scariest freeway driving experience I’ve ever had was a rush hour Boston area freeway, everyone flying, bumper to bumper, nowhere to go if anything happened, and the emergency or pull off lane, whatever one might call it, was a legal lane to drive on during certain hours.
Potato chips, I love potato chips, and try to avoid them at all times. Sometimes, I weaken. I cannot remember a time I didn’t love them.
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LAMary said on January 30, 2014 at 11:08 pm
I had a crazy coke addict neighbor who used some huge handgun to shoot a rat. She put a big hole in her refrigerator door.
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LAMary said on January 30, 2014 at 11:08 pm
I had a crazy coke addict neighbor who used some huge handgun to shoot a rat. She put a big hole in her refrigerator door.
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Mark P. said on January 30, 2014 at 11:59 pm
LAMary — a story like that is worth telling twice.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 31, 2014 at 12:14 am
So . . . no one watched “Inside Llewyn Davis”? Or no one liked it?
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LAMary said on January 31, 2014 at 12:26 am
I really liked Llewyn Davis and I think the Coens got skunked by the Oscar folks. I thought the music, with the exception of what those Irish guys in the fisherman sweaters, was terrific. The performance of Shoals of Herring was so good and so moving. I thought the Llewyn Davis character was real and flawed.
A friend of mine suggested that the Upper West Side couple, the owners of the cat, were the parents of Llewyn’s late partner. I’m not sure.
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