Day 77

At my wife's request.

I am beginning to think that this project is getting a little long in the tooth and it crossed my mind to discontinue the blog.  At the very least, I was going to curtail it to a once a week affair.  I mentioned this to my wife and she was none too happy with either idea, so for now and to maintain marital bliss I will continue my daily updates.  It isn't that I have lost interest, quite to the contrary in fact.  The truth is, this takes a fair amount of time and effort and life is becoming more complicated by the day.  It continues to evolve and I find myself using the edit button more than I think perhaps I should.  That being the case, I was thinking that if I was spending this much time writting, I might as well go offline and spend a fair amount of additional time polishing the product so to speak.  I have enjoyed the stream of conciousness route, but maybe if I am going to continue to write this it should be in more concrete terms.  I don't know, maybe I am just tired and need some rest to clear my head.

Friday was an unusual day in that my wife was home for the day.  She worked for most of it of course, but she did enjoy the opportunity to relieve me of my child transport duties.  I was to have a French lesson in the morning and my wife agreed to drop me off.  With traffic a nightmare, I bailed and made a run for it on foot.  Bad idea.  I promptly got myself lost and spent a half hour or so wandering around trying to find a street I remotely recognized.  When I finally got my bearings, I realized I had walked my way around in such a circle that I was further away from my school than when I started.  Pissed off and sweating profusely, I gave up and rang my wife or an emergency pick up.  I enjoyed the break from my usual schedule and spent the time making a few purchases to add a bit to my wardrobe that is now very limited indeed.  I have still not managed a pair of man panties, but it is next on the list.  The truth of the matter is, I have located a pair that have cupcakes on them and the humor in that damn near warrants a purchase.  Cupcakes are my favorite desert and my hope is the the underpants will appeal to my wife's sweet tooth.  Ok, that probably came out a bit racier than I intended it to, but I am going to leave it be.  In my purchasing, I did note an alarming fact and a reality that might explain the fact that there are so few folks that are overweight here.  On the sizing scale, I am an XL.  That's right, an XL.  Now perhaps my self image is out of whack, but I think of myself as generally thin and would trend toward the Medium/Large mark in the States.  So, the long and short of it is, there aren't any fat people here because they would have to be naked all the time.  Even though the beaches are topless, I think that public nudity is still frowned upon which seems to keep everyone on their diets.

I actually have a theory on the much debated "French Dichotomy".  How can a culture that eats so much cheese, bread and generally rich foods stay so thin?  Many point to the fact that they don't eat processed foods and perhaps in our processing of the food in the states, we add to its fat load.  Others argue that it has more to do with the amount of meat we consume compared to the French.  Still others simply believe we are lazy and take our cars everywhere, which is usually down to the fast food joint for a calorie fest.  I would argue that it is none of the above and I think my "XL" frame proves it.  My argument dates back to the the time of the dinosaurs and known fossil records.  It is well documented fact that when fossilized remains are located on lands that are now or were thought to at some point be an island, the creatures inhabiting that land are much smaller than those found to live upon larger landmasses.  I believe this to be true for human beings as well.  My frame is simply larger here.  American's are larger, because our wealth of land allows us to be.  Like the mighty T-Rex, we are not limited in our range and do not even have to have neighbors within eye shot if we don't want to.  The opposite is true here.  We are packed together like sardines in a can.  My "house" is quite traditional and shares a wall on either side with my neighbors.  I often comment to my wife that for a city of roughly 2 million people, it sure feels like a small town.

This is my theory and I am sticking to it as it makes me feel better when I pull on my extra-large garments to go out and face the world.  As I think I have mentioned in previous posts, do not mistake being thin for being healthy.  I wouldn't argue that the life style and stature here is necessarily a healthy way of life.  Smoking from the age of 6 and pounding expresso like it's water is not necessarily my definition of healthy.  That is my rant for the day and I hope you enjoyed it.  As for the remainder of day 77, we decided to spend it like a true Americans and took our youngters out to McDonalds to strap on the feed bag.  If I am going to be an XL, I can at least see that when I look in the mirror.  We spent the eveing eatin cheeseburgers and shoppin for bigger pants.  Actually that is not true, pants were not on the list, but what was on the list still has me disturbed.

It would seem that my eldest has noted a fair amount of moisture in his pits and in fact complained of an odor.  I am very sensitive to stinkin ass kids, so I would have been the first to notice, but he swears it to be true.  I gave him the old sniff test and sure enough, my little 8 year old baby is gettin a bit of man stink.  Again, since I am VERY offended when a kid stinks (and many of them do), we took him to the store to obtain a product to remedy the issue.  I don't remember when I started wearing deodorant, but I don't think it was this young.  I do know that I have run in to several kids not much older than this that stink enough to warrant a regular bath and a pass or two in the armpit area, so I guess we will go with it for now.  This purchase brings me to the next watershed event of the evening which will, as luck would have it, have an effect on me as much as anyone.  Since this doesn't seem to be a culture that is big on frequent bathing and deodorant, the selection is dismal and this may require a shipment from the states.  There are virtually no stick type deodorants on the shelves.  Almost all are spray on, which I didn't think anyone used anymore.  I just assumed that the Right Guard spray you see in the States was extras that they had laying around from the 80s.  In addition to the fact that the spray is all you get, none of the products do double duty as they do back home.  You are either going to get an Antipersperant or a Deodorant.  You can't have both in one product.  I found two spray deodorants that seem to have both magical properties and since I am on my last stick of deodorant from the States, we will see how the new product measures up.

So, now I find it quite late and so I bid you all a good night.  I will take myself and my fresh smelling pits to bed for a good night's sleep.  It may be one of my last, for when the spray deodorant stops working, the stench may make for a sleepless night.  One can't easily sleep when they find themselves gagging at their own funk.  Wish us luck and we will speak again tomorrow.