Argh, what a day.

I had a student come in all freaked out at me because another faculty member was not where he was supposed to be. Because I apparently have sufficient mind-control powers to (a) know where all my colleagues are at all times and (b) can make them show up when they're not here.

Then I had a colleague (my newest colleague, new this fall, so she gets a pass) come with the issue of a student who had been enrolled in a class after the official add deadline. Except, whoops, the person (not in our department) who enrolled her didn't enroll her in lab, too. What to do? I tried the on-computer override but it wouldn't let me, being after the add period, so (with TWO MINUTES before my class) I took her down to the office and helped her get the stuff she needed to go beg tell the registrar to let her in. (And went running into class a minute late, out of breath, and distracted).

THEN I took the AAUW yearbook over to be copied. Got the LAST parking space anywhere on central campus, but had to wedge myself between two cars that were on the line of their respective spaces (luckily, no one came out and "doored" me while I was in the copy shop). THEN I dropped the cover of the booklet. And, mirabile dictu, even though there had been NO breeze up to that moment, a puff of wind came, grabbed it, and started carrying it across the parking lot. So, to the amusement of the construction workers behind me, and saying some rather unladylike words, I chased it down (without stepping on it to secure it; I didn't want to explain to the ladies why there was a size 7 1/2 footprint on the cover of their yearbook) and took it in to copy it.

And THEN I realized as I was eating lunch that if I wanted to have a prayer of getting a 50th anniversary card to my parents in time for their anniversary, I better send it today. Unfortunately, the card shop is on the street where they are now doing construction. But at least I got a card and it's on its way now.

Finally, on my way back to campus, I managed to secure a spot close to the campus health service (I'm supposed to get an allergy shot today). "Please please please," I prayed, in direct contravention to my You Should Not Pray For Piddly Stuff dictum, "please let the campus nurse not be at lunch, or let her be back from lunch. You know how much easier this would make my life."

Nope. I missed her by "just five minutes." So I get to try going back at 3:30, when sports practice has started, and there's no spot within 300 yards of the health service. (And it's really miserably sticky and humid here; the kind of day where I begin to wonder if my physical fitness is in retrograde because I get winded walking up a small hill.)

So, argh. I'm still cranky. And I caught myself measuring the sugar I ate at lunch because of that stupid AHA guideline I heard about. I had a total of 7 grams in the peanut butter sandwich (2 each from each slice of bread; at least the bread I use claims to be HFCS free, and 3 from the peanut butter). One teaspoon (um, four grams, I think?) in my tea (Dammit, I am NOT giving that up. Sorry. So I won't live to be 95.) None in the pickled baby corn, but they contain Demon Salt, not Demon Sugar. An apple - I have no idea how many but I'm not counting it because surely they don't want us to eliminate fruit from our diets? (But I'm bound for another Nutritional Purgatory there; it was an out-of-season apple which means it's trucked in from God knows where. And it wasn't that good, anyway. I miss "real" apples, like the new crop that comes in the fall)

And, um, yeah. A couple pieces of toffee. Probably another 2-3 teaspoons there. But I had to make a Semi-Scary Phone Call, and I felt like I needed it.

I don't know. Maybe if I actually did sit down and measure I'd find I actually do better than most people. I don't drink pop (Well, ALMOST NEVER drink pop - I might have a ginger ale once or twice a month). I generally eat fairly plain food. I tend to avoid much processed stuff. But yeah, I like a spoon of sugar in chai tea, and I like a piece of candy or a cookie now and then.

And I don't know. I see these guidelines and stuff, and how they make it sound like we're all one slice of pizza away from keeling over and needing an XXL coffin, and I just wonder. I wonder about my grandmother, who ate PIE for breakfast. And who always took sugar in her coffee. And who lived to be 92. Or my great-uncle, who made it to 101 and who loved candy.

And I wonder, is it preferable to me to make myself crazy and listen to and try to follow every dang recommendation to the point where I'm eating food that tastes like nothing, because all of the typical "flavor enhancers" we've used for 1000 years or so have been taken out? Or would I rather live a shorter life but one where I'm not obsessing about everything I put in my mouth?

(And no, I'm not going to use artificial sweetener. Perhaps it's illogical of me but I do not trust it. I expect they'll find in another 10 years or so that it's about a million times worse for you than sugar is.)

I mean, heck, it's probably too late for me anyway. I will admit, as a child, that I occasionally sneaked the sugar cubes my mom kept for when friends came over for coffee (she takes her coffee black) and ate them, whole. Straight, pure, white sugar. (It's a wonder I'm not dead yet, I guess). And I ate all manner of disgusting penny candy, including Gobstoppers, which I think I only liked because I was intrigued by how they changed color. And sweet-tarts. And those rings that had a big "jewel" that was a giant lump of hard candy - artificial color AND flavor. And Bit-O-Honeys, even when they'd sat in the warm car all afternoon and I couldn't quite peel all the paper off. (And I still ate them even after my friend Trina told me a story about how one of her friends found a dead bee stuck in her Bit-O-Honey.)

Besides, I think, when I have to put up with all that I enumerated in the first part of this post, really, it's asking too much of me to worry about the fact that yes, I still do like (and occasionally eat) Bit-O-Honeys.

(And secretly, I admit it: I'm hoping someday to find a bee smashed in mine. Because that would at least be proof they're using real honey in it. And maybe if I sent it to the company, they'd send me a free one.)