Category Archives: weirdo

A Grate Zucchini

[I know this post doesn't replace a recap of the island's Great Zucchini Race, but they didn't have one this year! It's okay, we've started a grief support group.]

I have a quiz for you today!

See this zucchini? (Next time I’ll consider cleaning up for you before I take a photo, but you needed something for scale, right…?)

A friend grew it and needed to get rid of it before it ate their house offered it to me.

So, I figured I’d evict the hobbit that lived inside grate it up, freeze it and use it for baking muffins or bread or something with several cups of sugar in it…
Yes, I grated it by hand, the old-fashioned way with bloodied knuckles and nicked fingernails. It didn’t help that the skin of that beast was tough as leather. My peeler ran away screaming at the sight of it, and the grater constantly begged me to stop (in a “Don’t. Stop.” way, not a “Don’t Stop” way, so I think it meant it).
But I grated the whole thing while listening to the entire audiobook of War and Peace several podcats and felt proud of my sore pitching arm. . . right up until the Hubs came home and said –

How come you didn’t use the electric grater?

After I stabbed him, I measured out the zucchini and bagged it up just like the Hubs’ body.

My question for you is: how many cups of grated zucchini did I end up with?

The Fake Weight

Not to brag much but the other day I got on the scale and realized I had gotten down to my fake weight without leaning on the wall.

“Fake weight” — the number we put on official documents like our driver’s license applications and other “public” forms. Every woman I’ve mentioned this to knew exactly what I was talking about.

Men, however, had no clue. They apparently don’t have a fake weight! They’ll deny it but they have a fake height or fake length they tell themselves…

But, honestly, I’m here to tell you that it’s a little disconcerting if you ever see your fake weight on a real scale. I mean, with attainment of the fake weight all should be perfect in the your world, right? The fake and the real have merged and anything is possible!

We should at least expect a rousing parade or curly confetti to miraculously fall from the sky or Ed McMahon with a big check.

But no. I got none of that.

Given my up’s and down’s with life weight, I’ll likely bounce back up and the fake weight will once again become fake if these Girl Scout cookies have anything to say about it.

Or maybe it won’t, in which case I’ll be required to come up with a new fake weight. Where do our fake weights come from? Old insurance charts? Some online weight calculator? An asshole ex-boyfriend? A number from your past? The Miss Universe pageant?

The fake weight must be lower than your actual weight, but not so far removed as to cause snickering at the DMV or when your driver’s license is broadcast on a local news show after you run off with the soccer coach go missing.

I will confess that once I touched on my fake weight, it somehow managed to lose its power. It is just an artificial, externally-imposed number. Health, strength, energy, focus, these internal traits are the things that should have meaning and magic for us all through life, right?

All of which I promise to ponder deeply as I Google weight charts and calculators to generate my new fake weight.