Bridget Redux

I've been driven back to Weightwatchers by an imaginary character. Is that a bad thing?

It was Friday evening; I'd had several days of Bad Headache; the polls showed Romney and Obama in a dead heat; I was in my usual "ohmygodtheweekisoverandI'veaccomplishedNOTHING' mode. So I did what I usually do: I reached for familiar fiction. OK, yes, first I filled my wine glass. And then I pulled Bridget Jones' Diary off the shelf and settled down for some comfort reading.

Except remember how she starts each entry with--wait, what do you mean you've never read Bridget Jones' Diary? OK, click here and order your copy and go read it; get along now; scoot!--so you've read it now, right? Alrighty then, you know how she starts each entry with a log of her weight, "alcohol units," cigarettes, lottery tickets, et.al., plus commentary? e.g. "9 st. 1 lb.  [in the American edition, 127 lbs], alcohol units 2, cigarettes 0, calories 998 (excellent, v.g., perfect saint-style person)."

And you know how she's supposed to be this lovely but chubby woman?

Well, I now weigh rather more than chubby Bridget. Crisis. Back to Weightwatchers! Because while lovely but chubby Bridget does end up with Colin Firth and gets to sleep with Hugh Grant along the way,  let's face it, I probably won't.

Power Points: 2 Nutrigrain whole wheat waffles: 5 pts, 1 1/2 teaspoons low-fat peanut butter: 1 pt, coffee and skim milk: 1 pt. Gah! 2 alcohol units = 8 pts. Only 11 pts left for entire rest of day's food allotment and it's 7 am. Not perfect, saint-style person.

Ebbs and Flows

The ebbs and flows of marriage fascinate me. You'd think, after almost 22 years of married life, that we'd settle into some sort of stasis, no more ebbing and flowing, just you know, a pond that sort of sits there, quiet, with barely a ripple on the surface--except without the algae and moldy odor that that implies. Or maybe that we would sort of drift along gently like the inner tubes in those quiet water park rides, the ones that carry you softly along a well-defined path, far from the screaming of the water slides and wave pool. But no, life keeps doing its thing and so we change and the marriage changes too. To demonstrate:

As a result of my botched foot operation two Christmases ago, I can now no longer walk very far without a certain amount of pain. Sometimes walking even just a wee bit, like the distance from the bedroom to the kitchen, poses great difficulties. Foot pain, I have discovered, makes a daily aerobics workout rather tough. Running, jogging, walking, and even doing the elliptical at the Y have all become distinctly problematic. And, because the pain slices through the ball of my foot, the exact region that presses down on the pedal of a bike, bicycling does not offer much of an option. I could swim, I suppose, that is, if I could swim as opposed to doggy paddling rather ineffectually.

Anyway, the point is, while I sit with dicey foot (and sit and sit and sit and. . . .), Keith continues to pursue his somewhat fanatical "dammit I may be about to turn 60 but that doesn't mean I have to be fat" program: vigorous basketball and tennis several times a week, supplemented by running, walking, and weight-lifting. He's never been in better shape. It's great--he's thin and hard and energetic. But it's the matter of timing. We both get home around 6 or so. He then goes off to do his sporty exercisey fitnessy stuff. I, tired and starving, pour a glass of wine and pull out a box of Triscuits. A couple hours later, he returns, all sweaty and virtuous and healthy, whereas I, by that point, well, I'm slightly (or, depending on the day, totally) looped, as well as saturated with salt.

It's not a winning combination. In the ebbs and flows of married life, it's definitely on the ebb side. One does not like feeling sloshed and salty and soft. One then tends to take one's feelings of inadequacy out on one's sweaty and virtuous husband. And then one has another glass of wine, followed by something involving saturated fat and sugar in vast quantities. And thus, in the ebb and flow of marriage, one ends up not only ebbing but in fact stuck in the noisome mud of a trash-strewn bank while scaly creatures bite and tear at one's limbs and large flying insects lay their eggs in one's eyeballs.

Maybe a return to yoga is in order.

More Ding-Dongs

As an update to my post "Hostess" on 1/12: for all of you desperate folks, should the Hostess Company bankruptcy mean the end of Ding-Dongs, here is a recipe from BeantownBaker.com, via a loyal reader:

Homemade Ding Dongs from BeantownBaker.com
Cake
3 ounces fine-quality semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee
3 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
3/4 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 300°F. and grease pans. Line bottoms of 2 10-inch round cake pans with wax paper and grease paper. If you don't have 10-inch cake pans, you can make 2 9-inch cake pans and a dozen cupcakes.
Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.
Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon colored. Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well.
Divide batter between pans and bake in middle of oven until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Cool layers completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert layers onto racks. Carefully remove wax paper and cool layers completely. Cake layers may be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.
7-minute frosting
2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 Tbsp water
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Combine frosting ingredients with a pinch of salt in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water and beat with a handheld electric mixer at high speed until frosting is thick and fluffy, 6 to 7 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and continue to beat until slightly cooled. Use frosting the day it is made.
Ganache
1 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
12 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped into 1/2-ounce pieces
Heat the heavy cream and the butter in a 3-quart saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a boil.
Place the semisweet chocolate in a 3-quart stainless steel bowl. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth.
To assemble the Ding Dongs
Once the cake layers have cooled completely, use a small round cookie cutter to cut small circles of cake out of the layers. Enjoy the scraps or save them for cake balls.
Using the cone method, scoop out a small portion of cake from each circle. Fill with 7-minute frosting and replace top of cake.
Using a pastry brush or spoon, cover individual cakes with ganache. Allow ganache to completely set up before serving.

Yes, really. Can you imagine? Oh please, Hostess, please don't go!

Hostess

Normally I skip the Business section of the newspaper. Doesn't everyone? Except today, riffling through, there was this article: "Hostess Declares Bankruptcy." Hostess? Hostess?? Maker of Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Ding-Dongs, and Cupcakes?

I'm bereft. Bummed. Broken-hearted.

Hostess??? Damn.

I know it's all bad for you--Ding-Dongs etc--disgusting and sugary and chemically and saturated fatty and well, just the aesthetics--but it's childhood, you know? At least my childhood.

Think of a Ho-Ho. That beautiful perfect roll. You carefully peel off the shreddy, really thin tinfoil wrapping; you nibble,strip, lift the thin overlay of chocolate product substitute off the sorta kinda cake-like substance; you carefully unroll the kinda cake. You aim for a single, untorn, strip of kinda cakelike stuff. And then you lick off the white chemically sorta like frosting cream, and eat the cakelike stuff. It's glorious.

But nowhere near as good as a Hostess Cupcake. I love Hostess Cupcakes. The allover chocolate almost-fondant-at-least-if-fondant-were-plastic icing, the sweet cake, the not-quite-Cool-Whip-but-close cream filling.  .  . I know I shouldn't love it, real foodies don't love it, but I do. Totally. I remember coming home on the school bus, enduring the filth of smushed peanut butter on white bread sandwiches and stale Kit Kats and sour cream and onion potato chip crumbles and the horror of third-grade boys, thinking/dreaming/fantasing about/hoping for that Hostess cupcake that I knew was in the kitchen pantry.  But it wasn't. J.C. had eaten it. And I remember the disappointment and outrage and utter loathing for my brother. It came close to the time he ate all the crunchy cheesy layer off the lasagne.

And then there are Twinkies. I know anyone with a shred of self-respect and grown-uppedness abhors Twinkies. But why? OK, maybe the ordinary Twinkie is a tad downmarket. But the chocolate Twinkie, available in select markets for a limited time only, is truly wonderful. It shouldn't be but it is.

Being a good mom, I kept Twinkies and Ho-Hos and Cupcakes from my kids. Apparently so did all the other moms. And now Hostess is bankrupt. And our grandkids will pay the price. A childhood without Ding-Dongs. Oh, the horror.

With Potatos

After over 20 years of marriage, my husband still dumbfounds me.

We're joining a group of friends for dinner tomorrow. We're bringing homemade pizza. Translation: Keith is making pizza. We both went to the grocery store after work today without notifying the other; hence, we have a surfeit of red and green peppers and asparagus. So it will be a peppers and asparagus pizza. We also have an over-abundance of bananas, but one draws the line. Or so I thought.

Til Keith came out and announced that he's doing a peppers and asparagus and potato pizza, so what kind of cheese did I recommend?

Um. Excuse me. Potato? On pizza?

Yes, yes, trust me, it will be fine, so what cheese, says he.

Potato? On pizza?

I have no recommendation for the cheese. I can't get beyond the potato. Marriage. Always an adventure. Even with potatos.

Unacceptable

Five days into my resumption of white wine drinking, I have to admit, I think maybe perhaps it could be it does kinda look like there's a chance I was sleeping better and less headachey while I was teetotalling it.

Bloody hell.

Cravings

Day 9 of my Month Without Wine.

A friend said, "And don't you feel so much better?"

Well. No.

I'm actually a better person after a glass of wine; it files down some of the sharp bits, slows the pace inside my head, makes me easier and gentler. And besides that, my body just consistently rejects healthiness. I try to eat right and exercise regularly not because it makes me feel better--it never has--but because it makes me look better. I went for a couple years without chocolate (a long, sad, complicated story, centering on my vulva--you don't want to know more) and at some point in there, my sister-in-law exclaimed, "Don't you just look at chocolate now, and think, blecchh?" I could only stare at her in wonder. No, no, I looked at chocolate and thought, "I want you, I need you, I long for you." And when I was pregnant, one of the many manuals I read advised, "Listen to your body. Heed your cravings. They will tell you what you and your baby need." Hmm. Had I followed that advice, I'd have consumed nothing but hazelnut coffee and brownies--the only foods I consistently craved, the only foods that never made me sick--for nine months.

My spirit is low-fat and vitamin-enriched but my flesh craves cake. And Sauvignon Blanc with a citrus finish.

Being Virtuous

I'm nearing the end of Day 5 of One Month Without Alcoholic Beverages. I'm feeling virtuous. And I'm feeling like a glass of nice white wine. But no, no, I'll stick with my hot cup of Bambu coffee substitute (when I'm virtuous, I'm really virtuous).

I used to be virtuous all the time. Then I got married. (It's really quite handy having a spouse to blame for things.) Most days Keith and I come home from work at the same time and we talk about our day over a glass of wine. Then over dinner, often another. And you know, sometimes after dinner you're watching a movie and you think, ooh, a little wine would be nice. . . and suddenly you're filling out that form in the doctor's office and you have to say how many "units" you drink each week and you look at the number and you think, good lord, who is this lush?

So who knows where this will lead. Maybe the month will become six months, or a year, or a lifetime. Maybe I'll become one of those "my body is a temple" purists who practices colonic irrigation, eats only raw foods, and drinks those wheatgrass juices that look like sludge from the bottom of the bayou. Or maybe I'll start being serious about the "omm" in yoga class, give up hair color and pedicures, and dress only in undyed organic cotton. Virtue is a slippery slope.

Return to Heloiseland

I've posted before about my favorite newspaper column, "Hints from Heloise." I do love Heloiseland in all its order and enthusiasm and problem-solving spirit. This week, however, was truly a highpoint for Heloise lovers.

First came Cindy H. from Baytown, Texas. Cindy, weighed down with those "older bottles of spray perfume that [she] no longer liked or that, with age, had become too strong," has found a creative solution. "I now give a few squirts of spray to the inside of my cardboard toilet-paper rolls so that, with each use, a nice scent is released."

And just like that, we enter the threshold of an alternative universe: Heloiseland, where so little goes awry that its inhabitants have time and energy to fret over excess perfume spray bottles and where now, thanks to Cindy H. of Baytown, Heloiselanders can enjoy the fragrance of old perfume with every wipe.

But it got better.

Betty Hill, of Grove City, Iowa, wrote in to tell us, "After washing and drying sweaters, blue jeans, hooded sweats, etc., remove lint from the inside of all pockets by turning wrong-side out and rubbing briskly with an emery board. This works like a charm."

Gosh. I didn't even know about the problem of pocket lint! I will confess, that in a shocking reversion to traditional gender roles, I am the household laundress--ok, actually, I only do Keith's and my laundry; as soon as the boys entered middle school, I introduced them to the wonders of the washer & dryer, and insisted they take charge of their dirty clothes--which means that to get into bed every night, Hugh has to wade through a knee-high "clothesdrift" (it truly does resemble a snowdrift, except it's a lot more colorful and it smells much, much worse, but hey, that's his problem)--and I admit I'm a laundry "lay-about," as the British would say: the journey from dirty clothes hamper through washer/dryer onto the folding table (aka the dining room table) and into drawers and closets can take weeks, yea, even months. Occasionally, Keith will casually inquire, in his best "I'm a feminist and I am in no way implying you should be delivering clean clothes to my wardrobe" tone, "Umm, have you by any chance seen my khakis?" I ponder and then reply, "Oh right. They're in the dryer"--where they've been for six days.

All of which may help explain my reaction to Betty Hill of Grove City, Iowa.

Betty Hill, I am in awe. I mean, I'm scrambling through the dirty clothes hamper to find my no-line panty that I wore three days ago but haven't washed yet and now need because I'm going to wear my tight skirt, and you, you, oh amazing Betty Hill, you are filing--or perhaps buffing is the correct word-- the inside-out pockets of blue jeans and hooded sweats with your emery board.

Betty Hill of Grove City, Iowa: Can I come live with you? Will you buff away my pocket lint? And maybe squirt aged perfume on my toilet rolls so that when I poop, all I smell is ancient Charlie or Estee Lauder White Linen? And I know you keep Heloise's Always-Ready Basic Muffin Mix on hand, so that when unexpected guests drop in, you can quickly blend in an egg and a half-cup of milk, and voila! produce home-baked muffins in ten minutes. Betty, I could use a muffin. Please, can I come stay with you in Heloiseland?

Mac-and-Cheese

I made macaroni and cheese last night, from a new Weightwatcher's recipe. (I know, "Weightwatcher's" and "mac-and-cheese"--something of a contradiction in terms.) And I've been mired in nostalgia ever since.

Nostalgic, but not for my mom's mac-and-cheese. She never made it, weirdly enough for a 1960s Midwestern suburban housewife. And not even for college, when my roommate Marcia would eat an entire box of Kraft's Mac-and-Cheese, and say brightly, "Just 39 cents! Can you believe it?!"

No, the nostalgia focused on the small dining area of a semi-detached house on a quiet horseshoe street off the main road of a slightly gritty working-class neighborhood in Manchester. England. That's the North of England, depressed, post-industrial England, not the thatched-roof, hobbit-y, touristed South.

There, for three years in a tiny kitchen, I made macaroni and cheese from an English newspaper recipe, not out of the box, not glow-in-the-dark orange, but homemade and healthy, appealing to both adults and children. (This, of course, was before Owen, inspired by the animal rights movement, became a vegan, and before Hugh, out of deep anti-parent principles, stopped eating anything prepared by his mother or father. ) We ate together, every night.

And Keith had to leave for a meeting, every night. And the boys fought each other, every night. And I fought against--and frequently lost the battle to--depression many nights. Not exactly Andy Griffith or Leave It to Beaver.

And yet--was it the dairy? the carbs? maybe the olive oil or the whole wheat breadcrumbs?-there were these mac-and-cheese moments, just moments, yes, just little parentheses inserted in some fairly bleak paragraphs, but good moments, nonetheless, powerful parentheses, glimpses of Mayberry and Mayfield in gritty, rainy Manchester. And I miss that.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:
While home for my mom's 80th birthday extravaganza this past week, I attended a Cubs' game. You know, I'm really a simple soul. Give me a hotdog, a beer (even when the beer is Old Style and cost $7), and a sunny day in Wrigley Field, and I'm ineffably happy. The Cubs don't even have to win (good thing, or I wouldn't get to be happy very often). So, I was happy, and that was good.

But it got even better. When I went to purchase said $7 beer, the woman behind the counter asked me for my ID. Obviously a joke, right? I laughed good-naturedly. But then she looked at me sternly and pointed to a sign: "ALL CUSTOMERS AGED 35 AND UNDER MUST SHOW ID TO PURCHASE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES." I laughed again. "Yeah, right. I'm almost 50. And you think I'm 35?" And she said, she said, she actually said, "No way!" Yep. That's what she said. No way. Sigh. (She probably goes home and yells, "Honey! You shoulda seen it! I made another old lady so happy today.")

The Bad:
After a year without menstruating, I got my period. Well. Spotting, really. But quantity is not the issue. (Not the issue, heh heh heh. Get it? "issue"? Old-fashioned word for menstrual blood? Oh, never mind. Historians' pun.) No, it's quality. This is not the bright red blood of a fertile, nubile, brilliant young thing. Nope, this is old blood. Rusty looking. It conjures up words like dessication. And shriveled. Dried up. Haggard. Or just plain hag.

"Hag" is bad.

The Ugly:
Hugh and I drove home together. Chicago to Baton Rouge. In a VW Beetle. But that wasn't the ugly part. We had a good time. He ate and drank constantly and so had to pee every 30 minutes or so, but frankly it was sort of nice not to play my usual role of The Person on the Trip Who Always Needs the Toilet.

The ugly came when we got home. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, Hugh transformed from witty (if urination-challenged) companion into Total Shit of a Teenaged Son. Ugly? Umm, yes. But not really, not when compared to my own instant transformation from a reasonable and somewhat good-humored, if rather tired (and desperately in need of a massage) woman into the Mother From Hell. Frustrated, short-tempered, quick to jump from tight-lipped commands to shrieking demands.

A hag, plain and simple.

A hag in need of a hot dog. And a beer. And Wrigley Field.

Life after 50

A couple of weeks ago, Baton Rouge hosted the "Life After 50" expo. The ads promised a delectable array of products and services aimed at the "50-plus set." The 50-plus set? I turn 50 and I'm in a new set? Harumph.

Needless to say, I did not attend--a decision confirmed by the photo in the local paper the next day, which featured three decidedly geriatric individuals, biting dubiously into Kalamata Tapenade Bruschetta (the Suggested Choice for Healthy After-50 Entertaining). Hmmph. No perky chirpy dietician needs to introduce me to bruschetta or tapenade or kalamata olives, thank you very much.

The next week the same local newspaper featured a big article on the Red Hat Ladies. You know, those old, spunky ladies who dress up in purple and wear gargantuan red hats and go out for lunch and act wild and crazy over spinach salad and iced tea. To my horror, I learned that a woman can be transformed into a Red Hat Lady at the ripe old age of, yes, 50.

50!! I turned the page with a contemptuous sniff. Gimme a break. 50! Hardly the start of old age.

One should never sniff contemptuously. One should never dismiss perky chirpy dieticians. One will pay. Big time.

Today I went to the podiatrist for my ridiculously sore foot. No, it's not gout as Keith predicted. It is, the extremely competent, efficient, articulate doctor who looked all of 16 years old explained, a matter of jammed bones, leading to bone spurs, leading to arthritis. Wahh.

Leading to extremely painful injection into sore toe joint this afternoon. Extreme Wahh.

Leading, most likely to surgery.

Fine. One and a half months short of my 50th birthday, and the road ahead is clear: rapid physical disintegration and decay.

Excuse me. I'm off to search out other members of my 50-plus set. And I have to shop for a really big red hat. And make up a batch of Kalamata Tapenade Bruschetta.

A Southern thang

There are many things I hate about living in the South. But there's one thing of such absolute beauty, such transcendent purity, such keen pleasure, that it almost makes up for the heat, the humidity, the gargantuan roaches, the killer mosquitoes, the stinging caterpillars, the biting ants, the race-based politics, the gobsmacking parochialism, the grass that grows sideways, the omnipresent sexism, and Katrina. . . . ok, not Katrina. . . .

Where was I?

Oh yes, the Good Thing about Living in the South:

Quite simply, this glorious concoction called pimento cheese spread.

Non-Southerners will not know about pimento cheese spread. I first met it at a children's birthday party when Owen was about 4. Which means I had lived in the South for over six years--six wasted years, six years-worth of lost pimento-cheese-spread opportunities.

I will not try to describe pimento cheese spread. Suffice it to say it's kind of a fluorescent orange color with red flecks and you spread it on bread or crackers, or you dip raw vegetables into it, or (if you're me) you dip your finger straight into the container and eat it straight. It's not good for you in the physical, healthy, weight-loss sense. But it's positively great in the boy-this-tastes-great-I-feel-so-much-better-maybe-I-won't-kill-my-kids-yet sense.

It's a Southern thang, y'all. And frankly my dears, you should give it a try.

But I've never had a serving wench

In an earlier post I wrote about my weirdly sore foot. Now it's not only sore, it's puffy and it throbs. "Throbs"--I love that word. You say it, and it sounds just like what it means: thrrrOOOBBsssss: WAH wah WAH wah WAH. . .

Keith thinks I have gout.

Gout. GOUT!! Gout. How can I have gout? Eighteenth-century English squires in velvet reading jackets who consume two bottles of port every night and feast on pheasant and sheep's head and finger up their serving wenches get gout. Feminist historians who drink soy milk and eat vegan chili and have no serving wenches do not get gout.

Do they?

The Limits of HRT

So, I've been on HRT for about a month now, and I have to say, it's pretty good stuff. Not as good as the painkillers I was on after my C-section--gosh, those drugs were great--but still, it is lovely to wander thru my days and meander thru my nights without repeated, sudden, intense flashes of heat and sweat.

Sadly, however, the HRT has done nothing about my mood swings, the rapidity with which I shift from Professor Jekyll into Ms Hyde, nor (much to Keith's regret), has it aroused my somewhat dormant libido in any noticeable way.

I guess could badger my doctor for a higher dose, a bigger pill. I mean, what's a higher risk of heart disease and cancer in comparison to the promise of emotional equilibrium and a lively sex life?

Except.

The thing is, my emotional life didn't exactly resemble Lake Placid even before the onset of menopause. I have always been a tad prone to bouts of bitchiness. Expecting HRT to make me a nice, gentle, sane person reminds me of that old joke:
"Oh, but doctor, doctor, will I be able to play the violin?"
"I don't see why not."
"Wow, you're a great doctor. I've always wanted to play the violin."

And, umm, much as I hate to admit it, menopause hasn't changed my sex life all that much. I like sex, I really do. But I also like a good brownie. Or a great cup of coffee. Or watching the Doctor Who "Silence in the Library" episode for the umpteenth time. Or--hey--enjoying a good brownie with a great cup of coffee while watching the Doctor Who "Silence in the Library" episode--we're talking, like, multiple orgasms. The point being, much as I'd like to be the historian version of Samantha in Sex and the City, I'm not and never have been a voracious Sex Goddess, and I doubt that even mega-doses of HRT will change that.

But I dunno. I'd like to be a voracious Sex Goddess. And I'd like to be a placid person. I just don't think more HRT is the answer. Maybe if I eat more good brownies and drink more great cups of coffee and keep watching Doctor Who. Maybe then.

With apologies to Jane Austen

So I was reading this article about all the new cupcake shops suddenly springing up all over. Even Baton Rouge has a couple of these cupcake places. The reporter explained this phenomenon by arguing that in economic hard times, a cupcake seems a small and therefore acceptable splurge. Nonsense.

Why all the cupcakes? It's obvious. Like almost everything else, it's all down to the baby boom. Well, half of the baby boom. Half of the baby boom is entering or deep within menopause.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any middle-aged woman in possession of raging hormones must be in want of a cupcake.

Recommended

Doctor's recommendation: to manage menopausal symptoms, eliminate caffeine and alcohol from diet. Right. Just shoot me now.