Hagelslad

I've mentioned before that Jeff and I are drinking deeply from this "no treats except for Sunday" torture fountain. There are frightening penalties for disrupting the flow of one's dessert deprivation, and besides the Sabbath, we pause only for national holidays (woot woot for St. Patrick's freaking day!). Although we do it by choice, we don't often appreciate the "nobility" of our "endeavors." We have been known to sit with our eyes glued to the clock on Saturday nights, holding a box of donut holes and/or a bag of bridge mix, waiting with twinkly eyes for the stroke of midnight.  By 12:04 it's really not a pretty picture.

There is one thing that keeps us sane from Monday morning to Saturday night: "No Sugar Added" Frozen Yogurt. In a perfect world, that world where my legs are indeed quite sexy and cellulite-free, no ifs, ands, or but(t)s, I would go to the yogurt chain of choice and load up a bowl with the 99% Fat Free Peanut Butter flavor. Then I would scoop, nay, POUR brownie cubes and cheesecake bites atop that cold calcium divine. Then I would get a second bowl. This would be a most prized bowl, for it would be the treasure chest of mochi. The gelatinous poetry of the mochi balls, how they speak to my taste buds and therefore to my soul. [Snap back to reality!] It's not a perfect world, and if I eat 23,000 mochi balls and quarts of brownies and cheesecake bites, it would be impossible to differentiate between the thighs on me and the thighs on a Brontosaurus.  And so we eat "No Sugar Added" and try not to grumble about the fact that while the other flavors rotate from a seemingly bottomless list, there are only 3 flavors that come from the approved list, and one of them is coffee, aka illegal for a different reason.  

Last Friday was not a good day for me, because my hours got cut at work.  Go California!  Not to worry, I got a new job the next day.  As the Reverend Mothah says, "When the Lord closes the door, somewhea he opens a window."  But as far as I knew on Friday, the job market had handed me another reesty elbow in the rib cage.  As I shuffled through the Cherry On Top doors, Jeff lifted an extra-large bowl from the pink stack and passed it to me.  Then he informed me of a loop hole: there are no treat restrictions on days of unfortunate employment developments.  He himself insisted on abstaining, but didn't have to tell me twice about that off-the-cuff loophole.  By the time we got to the topping bar, I was feeling guilty for my gluttony and looked at his health infested bowl.  I looked down at the sprinkles in the trough before me, and said, "Jeff, if you want to get sprinkles, I don't mind.  I mean, they're not really against thr ules, because....what are they even made of anyway??  Nothing!"  The guy in front of Jeff in line seemed to think I had a good point, and anyway definitely thought I was funny, because he chuckled at/with me, and then came behind me in line to paint his own yogurt with the confectionery maggots.  

So anyway I ended up doing some research on sprinkles.  I was right, they are nearly flavorless, nearly made of undefinable specks of who knows what, nearly impossible to eat one at a time, because even the most effectively developed fine motor skills as were ever seen could not handle the pressures.  I did find, also, that they are Dutch, originally named Hagelslad, or "hail" in my mother tongue.  They are called "jimmies" in other circles, and, their "sister" decoration, Comfits, are made of ginger, fennel, coriander, anise, and caraway; all of these are decidedly plants and herbs.  Sprinkles = good for the glutton and the Jainist alike.

This was a load of ramblings and odd findings and statements.  I guess I'm just sayin', everyone should have some sprinkles, or jimmies, or comfits, or whatever they need to feel better in these touch-and-go days in the country I love.  Those sprinkles ain't gonna hurtcha none.  Things will get better soon, because good things happen to good people, and I happen to see so many of those good people all around me.