11.29.10 — Jelly Bean Roulette

Um... yeah, right.

I watched someone get the Puke, Canned Dog Food and Rotten Egg flavors. Even if I was eating everything under the Sun I'd be passing on this one.

11.24.10 — Status Snacks

Our team has been working hard lately and today was the drop dead deadline for getting a ton of stuff out the door before Thanksgiving. The account team manager brought in some breakfast goodies for our morning status meeting to get the morning started on a good note.

The OJ did appeal. Orange juice is my favorite juice. In fact, I really have a hard time with any other kind of juice. I love to eat apples, but can't handle apple juice. Same thing with grapes, cranberries, etc. For me, its orange juice or nothing. Even mixed orange juice options like these ones are okay.

On the other hand, that's a lot of empty calories. Its been a long time since I had any... and it will be a long time before I have any. Yesterday I ate the pizza, today I'm back to normal.

11.23.10 — Full Disclosure

So a couple inches of snow shut down Seattle on Monday night and only a skeleton crew made it into the agency on Tuesday. Our owner decided to reward those of us who managed to meet the minimum requirements for our jobs - showing up - by buying pizza for lunch.

Of all the foods I've given up over the last few months as I've pushed to reach my weight loss goals, two have been the hardest: french fries and pizza. Unfortunately, these two items seem to make regularly scheduled appearances in our office, especially pizza.

Here I was again, facing the imminent arrival of one of my favorite foods and, knowing how we order things in Costco-level quantities, a lot of it. I made sure to eat my lunch ahead of time, just so I wasn't hungry when the pizza appeared. The snow slowed down the delivery, so it ended up being more of an afternoon snack than lunch for everyone.

I was a little peckish, but not starving when it finally arrived. I was prepared to do my thing, go in for a couple iPhone shots and then head back to my desk like usual. But then I got to thinking. I'm an adult. I know the consequences. I'm not desperate or hungry or breaking down. I didn't feel like I deserved a treat or a cheat. I simply decided to have some pizza.

I think if I had been starving, or desperate for something other than salad, or feeling like I had done something to deserve a food reward that I would have stopped myself. As weird as it sounds, I felt like making the decision to have the pizza from a calm, logical mindset made it okay. I don't think I was coming up with any justifications, I just decided to have some, enjoy it and take whatever consequences come. I also decided that by doing this, I will have to make sure I don't make the same kind of decision again any time soon.

That's the hard part about moderation, isn't it. Do it once, maybe once in awhile, but it can't become a pattern or a frequent occurrence because then it's not moderation. So, here's my test. I had some pizza. It was good. And now I have to be even more diligent and disciplined than before.

11.19.10 — Morning Lumps, Boobies then Pie

It's been awhile. I was beginning to think my coworkers had thrown in the towel. But no, as this platter of Specialties cookies n' lumps proves.

While I know deep down that eating one of those gigantic cookies would taste good (although not orgasmically good — Specialties tends to be a little greasy), I'm pretty sure just one of those bad boys would come close to wiping out my calorie budget for the day.

I don't think anything can taste so good that it's worth blowing a whole day's worth of calories.



And then they hit me with the boobie cake. It was a coworker's 40th birthday, so his team got him this boobie cake. There were jokes, some motorboating and incriminating photos. The boobies were solid marzipan and about as real feeling as, well, big fake boobs.



And if you have boobies, you need to have a slice of pie...

Our building had a "tenant appreciation" pumpkin pie giveaway. Odd, yes, but apparently one of the servers was a total fox so everyone went down for a piece. Ahem.

I did not. I figured as long as it was down in the lobby, it didn't concern me. But then, a couple hours later, the leftover pies show up in our kitchen. Seriously? Are we now the unhealthy food dumping ground for our entire building? What the hell?

11.9.10 — Sigh (and Candy)

Top Pot. Again. For like the billionth time.

Is this what waterboarding feels like? A constant, steady, unrelenting drip, drip, drip until you can't take it anymore and just give over your will to your torturer? You find yourself so helpless against the quiet barrage that you don't have a choice any longer and let the inevitable happen?

Sigh.

I chew my gum. I eat my apple. I mix my granola into my greek yogurt and take a few more drips on the forehead. The inevitable does not happen today.



More Halloween leftovers appeared in our row this afternoon. Eh. Not really even a little tempted.

11.8.10 — Costco's Finest

Here we have a collection of the finest European cookies with Belgian chocolate... from Costco.

Don't get me wrong, The Woman and I swear by the big box from Kirkland. Their fresh produce and meat selection is surprisingly good. We make a pilgrimage there at least once a month.

But, it is a little comical to be getting Kirkland Select brand of premium European cookies. Not comical enough for me to have any, of course.

I will note that the tray pictured is the second of two. The first one was wiped out before noon. Current bets have this one emptied by 2 pm.

11.5.10 — More Ezell's

This month's managers meeting meant more Ezell's fried chicken and fixins. Again, everyone was really high on the chicken and it did smell pretty good. I could only take their word for it. As for the fixins, I refuse to believe that cold mashed potatoes, runny coleslaw (urk) and coagulating gravy was "tasty" or "hearty" or any other appetizing descriptor.



The mashed potatoes was the only item that was wiped out. Maybe it was good warm.



I've already said what I will about coleslaw. This is a case where the photo speaks for itself.



And then we get to the brown pool, slowly coagulating in the back corner there. I guess it's unsurprising that it didn't look like anyone had touched it.

All in all, not appealing even if I wasn't trying to lose weight.

11.4.10 — Post Party Donuts

The Agency had a big party last night to celebrate winning An Important Award (and rightfully so - it was a radio campaign for a pro-bono client that won the top award in a competition that had never given the award to a PSA before. It really was a big deal. I'm really not being an ass by capitalizing An Important Award).

As these things tend to go with this group, most people who went to the party are in the hurt box this morning. The organizer showed up a little while ago with 5 dozen assorted Top Pot donuts as a way to help ease the rough edges (and oh are there rough edges everywhere).

Normally, as I've pointed out before, the arrival of food in our kitchen and my coworkers' response often reminds me of a pack of starving hyenas falling on a wounded wildebeest on the Serengeti. After this morning's display, I need a new analogy.

Good Christ. 2 dozen were gone in minutes. Minutes.

Maybe piranha cleaning a cow's carcass down to the bone. Or, swarming South American army ants cutting a swath through an unsuspecting village. Or I can go with accuracy - a group of seriously hungover office workers who are desperate for sugar and grease, and haven't made the trek over to McDonalds yet. Yeah, that works.

To make things worse, I was very hungry myself this morning. The smell of all that sugar, grease and quiet desperation was hard to resist.



I do love a good aftermath shot. By the end of the day, there were 4 or 5 donuts left, out of 60.



Mid-afternoon, these showed up. That's right, the leftover Cupcake Royale cupcakes from last night's party. There were close to 30. I almost gained a pound by accidentally breathing near the cloud of sugar haze hovering over the kitchen table. Between the donuts and cupcakes, the aroma was powerful enough that I could smell it back at my desk.

11.2.10 — Uh Oh and More Candy

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

An unexpected challenger enters the room.

I had been girding myself against the traditional bite- and fun-sized post-Halloween onslaught. But, like a prize heavyweight fighter who had prepared to go all rope-a-dope on his normal class of opponents and suddenly finding himself facing an goddamn ninja horde, I find myself unable to withstand the lure of these soft, chewy circles of cookie heaven.

Well, almost.

See, unbeknownst to the ninjas, that heavyweight fighter came into the arena packing an AK-47 and whole lot of fucking ammo. Result? A lot of dead ninjas.

You may not be fun-sized, you cookies, but I will eat none of you this day.



Another batch of leftover Halloween candy appeared In the late afternoon. The Poprocks don't do much for me, but everything else would have normally been on my Definitely Fly List, especially the Reese's cup. You got your chocolate on my peanut butter? You got your peanut butter in my chocolate? Sounds like a recipe for a party in my mouth. Those two flavors together is on my top ten list of favorite things, along with the Blues Brothers movie (original only, the sequel sucked ass), the words magma and waffles, and reading LOL Cats captions. I once did an experimented with Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and Coco Puffs to try and find the perfect ration to produce a reasonable chocolate peanut butter breakfast cereal. Turns out to be about 25% Captain and 75% Puffs (the Captain has a powerful flavor).

Wistful ramblings aside, the photo is here so I didn't eat any of it.

11.1.10 — The Day After

Hmmm. I was expecting a lot more. I mean everyone takes their leftover candy from Halloween night to the office the next day. I think my coworkers are getting annoyed that I'm putting everything they bring in up on this blog.

Someone asked me today how long I'm going to keep this up. I answered, "Until I start eating it." She said I needed to start eating stuff soon. She then said she didn't bring in her leftovers mainly because she didn't want to end up on this blog.

I do know that people are no longer telling me when stuff shows up in the kitchen. I've had to "discover" stuff more and more. I don't think they are hiding it from me yet, but they also aren't being so blatant about dropping off food.

That's okay. We're getting into that special season. Now that Halloween is done, it's time for Christmas with a slight detour for Thanksgiving. The last few months have been nothing.