The Most of the Worst

Been drifting in and out of consciousness during a particularly brutal bout of jet lag, and just remembered it's the 4th of July. When I was in the States, I wished I'd arranged to return to Nairobi after today, so I could possibly snag an invite to a barbecue or two.

But it's just as well. As it is, I gained at least 5 pounds during my travels, mostly because whenever I got the chance I indulged in uniquely American cuisine like in this picture. This was lunch in Atlanta at the 285 Diner, with my sister Marilyn and her husband John. When I told them I wanted some down home soul food, they knew just where to take me.

As giddy as I was about tucking into this treat, the experience was dampened somewhat during the trip to the cash register. A hugely obese woman had waddled into the restaurant just as John was parking the car, but by the time we joined the lunch line, she was sitting in a chair shouting her order to the teenage girl just in front of us.

"Get me the pork chops and the chicken, and the mac and cheese, and the collards, and a order of yams. And don't forget my cornbread." As the girl conveyed that order to the ladies dishing out the food, they kept teasing her about ordering so much. "You cain't eat all that," they said in their delightful, Georgia drawl. The shy, polite girl kept explaining that it wasn't for her, it was for her grandma.

Looking over at the woman wedged into the chair (or, to be more accurate, whom the chair was wedged into), I was probably safe in guessing that she's around my age. Decades of eating food like this had turned her into a barely mobile, obscenely obese woman who can't even stand in line long enough to order the food that will eventually kill her "dead as a doornail," as my own mother used to say.

Speaking of my mother, I had an interesting conversation with Marilyn down in Atlanta. She mentioned a visit she had with our mother at one of the nursing homes she lived in, before the dementia destroyed her memory. Mom was being weighed by a nurse, and Marilyn mentioned how much weight she had lost compared to years ago.

Marilyn said Mom gave her one of her patented glares and snapped, "You didn't have to bring THAT up." For Marilyn, it was the first time she ever considered that Mom was sensitive about her weight. The way she had gorged on food, and the way she barreled her way through life, we just figured it didn't bother her.

For most of my life, I never thought much about weight because I was always pretty thin.

It's only been within the past decade that I started noticing thickening in my hips, and budding love handles around my waist. The Gulu Diet restored my slender teenaged frame for about a year, but then I quickly rejoined the Middle-Aged Crew once a consistent food source appeared. And though I still don't obsess about my weight, I realize it could easily get out of control if I'm not careful.

So it's just as well that for the 4th of July 2010, I'm sitting upright on my couch in Nairobi for the first time at around 4 PM, having slept off an on all day, with no appetite to speak of, as opposed to being in the US slamming hot dogs and burgers and chips and ice cream all day. I love America, but the one thing I don't miss is the way we tend to eat the most of what's worst for us without giving it a second thought, just because it tastes so damned good.