Oh fudge

So yeah, I know I can’t even keep this blog updated with regular posts… but I’ve started another one!

This one is for my journalism course and it’s about yoga and how to integrate it into life.

It’s called Yoga Fudge and you can find it here:

http://yogafudge.wordpress.com

Go on, go and have a read!

Just a little light reading for you

Totally off-topic (what, this blog has a topic?), I thought I’d share a few little pieces I wrote for one of my uni classes. I’m actually withdrawing from the subject, to be completed at another time. But I’m a writer (apparently) and I need an audience apart from my lecturer, so, would you like to read them?

They are little vignettes of a place and a face. Here you go:

BBQ King, Chinatown 

“You like Coke? Coca-Cola? Coca-Cola?” three waiters in red polo shirts chime in rounds to a well-dressed Asian lady. She rummages in her – possibly fake – Louis Vuitton handbag for her phone. She nods. It’s all she orders.

The waiters hover around the utilitarian front counter, and idle round the formica tables and vinyl and metal chairs. Behind the counter, a two-tier fish tank holds crouching lobsters. They are listless, as if resigned to their fate. Do they know? Or is that just what lobsters do?  

Two Aussie blokes in the window are getting busy with the Peking duck, gesticulating with chopsticks. Their conversation is punctuated by shouts of laughter. A waiter brings plate of rice with a peg inexplicably attached to it.

On the walls, the obligatory landscape of the Great Wall, a scroll of Chinese characters – what, no commemorative print of Tiananmen Square? An 80s fashion shot shows leggy pan-Asian beauties leaning up against – yes – the fish tank, its occupants long since digested.

Inner west ticket ninja

The light rail ninja conductor stands to attention before each commuter, brandishing his ticket machine.

“Yes, are you ok?” he says in a sub-Continental accent. “Yes, $4.50 please.”

He taps his machine, writes a hieroglyph on the flimsy paper, presents it with a flourish.

Slight, but slightly paunchy, he’s middle-aged, whatever that means these days. He looks like he takes his job seriously. It’s not a very busy tram, this one, only about 12 passengers, and stops go by and no-one get on – nothing to do. But when they do get on, he’s there at their side.

With a brisk but kindly air he asks again, “Yes, are you ok?”

He’s on to every passenger, alert, attentive, polite. He doesn’t even insist on payment when an elderly Asian lady gives him an expired ticket.

Doors open; doors close; no-one gets on. He sits down because why not? You can’t stand your whole shift.

We arrive at Rozelle Bay, my stop, I’m off. 

 

Try something different; surrender*

Surrender, acceptance, change.

These are difficult concepts for so many of us. Just saying the word surrender aloud makes my heart start to flutter and beat a little harder. It makes me feel like I might hyperventilate. It’s something I struggle with, constantly.

Rosemary Laing, Bulletproof Glass, image from smh.com.au

Why is that? It’s a beautiful concept – to surrender, to let go, to go with the flow. Say it to yourself and feel it. Surrender. Can you feel it? It’s like softening, letting go, dropping into something … easier and then being lifted by it (if you can just get past the hyperventilating).

This past week or so, I’ve been surrendering, I think. Or something like it.

Sometimes things just seem to come to me unbidden. A thought appears – “I might do this” I think, a thing I’ve thought before and always, always rejected. No no no no no.

Then the thought appears again and there it is – acceptance. It feels right. Just… right. I don’t need to write a for-and-against argument, or go through all the buts and what-ifs and the I-can’t-becauses.

Now, all of a sudden, I surrender to the thought. And accept it.

There’s a beautiful story in the Mahabharata, the ancient Sanskrit epic, about Draupadi, a queen. Whether you believe in God, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or nothing at all, it’s a beautiful story about how surrendering can save you.

The story goes that Draupadi was a woman famed for her beauty, virtue and generosity, as well as her strength. Her husband (well, one of them, she had five – need strength, much?), bet everything he owned, including Draupadi, in a game of dice against his enemies. He lost, of course.

To humiliate her, the men who had won her started to strip her of her sari, as a prelude to rape. As they pulled at her sari, she beseeched them to stop. She pleaded to her five husbands to help her. She begged the emperor, the prime minister and the priests who were in attendance. No-one came to her aid.

She cried out in fear, and nothing happened. She cried out in desperate need, and nothing happened.

Finally she let go of the sari that was covering her and raised her arms and eyes to heaven. She let go. She surrendered. And then her sari became endless, an endless piece of cloth wrapped around her body. The men pulled at the sari, and Draupadi kept spinning, round and round as they pulled, but remaining covered.

She let go of being in control. She surrendered unconditionally.

This story always makes me cry, because surrendering is so, so hard.

You can fight, and hold on, and be rigid, and cling to your old way of doing things. And sometimes that works. But sometimes you need to give up all that, and just let go. Surrender.

Oh yes, it’s hard.

This week I downloaded a song that wasn’t in my collection, because for some reason it jumped into my head and I thought, must download that. I’ve secretly loved this song for ages. I only ever knew one version, and since I don’t generally listen to commercial radio I don’t hear it very often. It’s “Landslide” by the Dixie Chicks. I love it. I just never knew it was actually a Fleetwood Mac song. Don’t judge me!

But it’s occurred to me that it’s kind of an apt song for right now. I’m not thinking about love and a relationship, but it’s about change…

“Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well, I’ve been afraid of changing…”

To change you’ve got to surrender something, let something go.

Coincidence? Well, who knows?

(Late edit – Honorable mention needs to go to Ben Lee too for this song about surrender, called…Surrender)

*That’s a line from Rumi.

If at first you don’t succeed

Try, and try again.

Then give up and don’t look back.

I have been meaning to revisit the IVF story for some time, since that was this blog’s main theme, back in the day. But as you know, I am a bit slack on the old blog posts these days.

It’s been just over 12 months since my last attempt at IVF. More than 12 months since I last stuck a needle in myself. 12 months since I lay, legs splayed, with a doctor inserting fertilised embryos – that were half made of me and half of a stranger – into my uterus. Squirted hormone cream up my lady bits, wondered what every twinge in my belly and boobs was, and agonisingly waited in the limbo that is the two-week wait.

So how does it feel to get to the other side of three rounds of IVF without the prize at the end?

It feels ok. I feel ok. Most of the time (oh, except for now, when I start to write a blog post about it). Sometimes I’m grateful it didn’t succeed. Sometimes not.

Does it seem ungrateful to feel grateful I didn’t succeed? Something I put so much emotion, time, heart ache, longing into? So much wishing and hoping and thinking and praying. Planning and dreaming (thanks Dusty). Not to mention money.

But sometimes I do feel grateful, and perhaps that’s some kind of survival instinct, or self-preservation instinct, or that it just gets exhausting after a while to feel sad. I’m generally a half-glass-full kinda gal.

It helps to think of all the hardships success would have brought. Doing it all by myself. Being really, really poor for quite a while. Being housebound. Being exhausted, all the time. Being lonely. It might have been really hard on my body, given my age (have I mentioned I hate that word?). And it would have wrecked my boobs, which I’m quite fond of, despite the major cyst/minor cancer scare incident.

But then, I missed out on so much as well. Of course. Being pregnant, which would have been amazing. Birth, which would have been, probably really fucking awful actually, but incredible for it. Being a mother.

I went to a friend’s annual Christmas gathering in December. The place was over-run with small children. There were, as far as I could tell, four childless women there – me, two lesbians and another friend.

I have to admit that sometimes I shuddered at all those children, and thought – phew. Lucky escape. And there was that part of me who couldn’t be bothered moving out of the circle of childless lesbians to talk to the others gathered there, because what did I have in common with them?

I couldn’t be bothered with the expectation from strangers that my child would be somewhere in that garden, playing with the others. Then me having to say, oh no, no child. And them looking quizzically at me, wondering.

Sometimes it’s difficult, and sometimes I’m sad.

But generally I’m ok with it.

The pic is of some butterflies that fluttered around my head for ages a while back, on the pathway just down the road from my house. Such a magical thing to happen. We’ve got to be  grateful for what we’re given, don’t we?

Oh, isn’t this lovely:

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

- Mary Oliver

The post of laughter and forgetting

And crying and remembering (apologies to Milan Kundera). I’ve had a very strange week – last week an old friend popped into my head, so I decided to Google him.  Google can tell you many things and haven’t we all used it to stalk, I mean – look up – past lovers or find old friends?

Last week I learnt about the death of an old, old friend and reconnected with an old, old boyfriend. Oh my.  It’s left me feeling discombobulated and all out of sorts, a feeling I haven’t been able to shake.

Should I blog about them? It seems too personal, and this is not a “Dear Diary”, but I blogged about IVF and that’s pretty personal. So here is my story about them.

Rob

I met this boy called Rob when I was 17, he 18.  Before then though, when I was 16, I knew who he was but didn’t actually know him. He went to one of the boys’ schools and I was at one of the girls’ schools in my home town of Perth.

At 16, oh boy, did I LOVE this boy. My school friend and I used to swoon whenever we saw him. Swoon and sigh and squeal in a way only 16-year-olds can. He was always tanned, with blue, blue eyes and a cheeky grin. I remember the way he walked – shoulders pulled bank, head slightly forward, with a bit of a swagger.

When I was 17, I met him on the island just of the coast of Perth called Rottnest. “Rotto”, for those of you who don’t know, is kind of a rite of passage for West Australians at the end of the school or uni year. It’s debauched, drunken, sun-soaked, sandy and ridiculous fun.

The day I met Rob I guess must have been the happiest day of my young life, since I had been so infatuated with him, except that I was probably drunk on tequila slammers so I can’t really remember. I just know that we met, and became mates, and were mates for the next eight or nine years on and off. We kind of dated a few times in the middle of that time, but nothing serious. I left Perth to travel at 25, and never really went back there to live, so lost touch with him.

Last week, I thought of him and wondered what had become of him. I did the Google search. All I could find was a death notice.

On the weekend, I went through all my old photos, looking for a photo of Rob. I thought I would find one or two, but I found lots – at parties, at Rottnest, at my house. And I guess until I saw those pictures, I had forgotten how much he was part of my life back then. Funny how you forget. It made me so sad – that I could have loved this boy so much – even saying his full name (I always called him by his full name – first name and surname) still makes me feel like a swoony 16-year-old again. And I had forgotten a lot of it and it made me so regretful.  I wish I had kept in contact.

I’ll always remember Rob. He reminds me of summer and youth and gorgeousness.

Johnnie

And there was a man, many years ago, who I loved. And who loved me, surprisingly. Let’s call him Johnnie. Because that is, in fact, his name. Of course I won’t give you any other distinguishing features, except to say that he was so, so gorgeous, and unbelievably sexy, and the first “man” I had been with – I was 25 and he was 10 years older than me –  as opposed to the boys who were generally around at the time.

I was in awe of him, and really quite intimidated by him. I wondered what he saw in me. But there were some things between us that were breathtaking.

We didn’t really break up, but I left Perth to go travelling and to work in the UK. I don’t think I ever processed that relationship; I had no-one to talk to who knew me and him together.

He was the first person to say “I love you” to me. (And there has been a pathetically short line of men in the future to say that to me). He was the person who quoted a line to me I have never, ever, forgotten; the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. It was a line from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet that goes:

“And forget not that the earth delights in the tread of your bare feet, and the winds long to play in your hair.”

How could you not love a man who says that to you?

I stayed with him the night before I left for the UK. I got up in the middle of the night and sat on the sofa and cried. He came and found me and said, “What are you doing?” “Crying,” I said.

“Crying and sighing; sighing and crying,” he said, because he turned everything into a lyric, or a bit of poetry.

I think it was me who stopped writing, because I thought there was probably no point, and I didn’t want him to feel like he had to write to this silly girl.

I thought, probably rightly, that we would have broken up anyway had I stayed. We were so different, he was so experienced and worldly; I was so young and knew nothing. He was edgy, unconventional; I was still throwing off the vestiges of Catholic school and had a conservative side that needed to be buffed off.

When I was in London we wrote back and forth; I called him, apparently (according to a letter from him I still have). I sent him a present, probably a shirt. He sent me a tape of his songs – he was a musician and actor. But I stopped writing, because I thought he wouldn’t mind, because I didn’t really matter to him.

I thought I didn’t matter.

My mother bumped into him a few years after I left – I think at a party in Margaret River, she used to go there a bit to visit friends – and said he asked after me. She told him I had recently visited from the UK. She told me afterwards he seemed upset that I hadn’t contacted him. And I thought – Oh? Why would he be? Because I thought I didn’t matter. Despite evidence to the contrary.

I emailed Johnnie last week, then he called me, which was such a surprise, and threw me just a little. We talked a bit. Over the weekend I found his letters and photos. I looked at the photos and thought, “I left this man? Was I insane??”

I’m writing this all down here because I’d kind of like to have a conversation with this man but, really, it’s been 22 years. Why would he want to know? I guess I still think I don’t matter. What do you think?

So I’ve been hit quite hard, with remembering and feeling sad, I’m kind of surprised how hard I’ve been hit, but there you go. I’m emotional.

I think I’m also grieving about the carelessness I have shown towards the people in my past. And I don’t mean, oh I just lost their number and so lost contact. I have been angry at myself for not caring. Even though I did care. It just seems careless to discard people just because they are in the past.

I’ve spent the week crying and sighing, sighing and crying over – I don’t know what exactly – obviously mourning my old friend, but I’ve been crying about – lost youth?  Missed opportunities? Lost love? Or simply that I should have been more careful, less careless, with friendships, with my own feelings, and the feelings of others.

P.S. I contacted Rob’s brother to find out what happened to him. He died in Thailand, partying till the end. He wasn’t in a good state physically – had been “self-medicating” for a long time – he loved an illicit substance did Rob. He got an infection and then his heart and lungs failed. His was in his mid-40s.

I opened a Pandora’s box of memories

Me and Rob, Rotto 1986

Silly Saturday

here’s a little song what I wrote:

Down dog and up dog and parsvakonasana
plank pose and cat pose and sweat trickling down my nose
chanting old mantras and feeling the zing
these are a few of my favourite things

When the dog (pose) bites, when the bee (breath) stings
when I’m feeling stiff
I simply remember my favourite things
and get back on to… the mat.

(Of course you knew to sing that to the tune of the song from the Sound of Music right?)

First time I’ve been back to yoga in ages. It was great. Made me come over all creative.

Silliness over. Normal programming will resume sometime in the next few days.

GI-Low

You know when someone says to you, “whatever you do, don’t think about elephants”? People say that a lot… anyway, of course, you’re going to think about elephants right?

So when my doctor said, “Only two serves of carbs a day”, all I can think about is pasta. Basmati rice. Bread. Brown rice. Gozleme (those Turkish things with dough with cheese and spinach filling). Potatoes. Raisin bread. Sourdough bread. Bread with seeds n things in it. THINGS I HARDLY EAT ANYMORE ANYWAY.

I haven’t really eaten a lot of carbs for about 18 months, mainly to keep my weight in a manageable range. Before that, carbs used to be my daily bread so to speak. And healthy carbs, so I think I was kind of kidding myself. But you know, muesli for breakfast, brown rice salad for lunch (Heathy with a capital H!). Or soba noodles, or pasta, or something Asian with rice or noodles or laksa (oh the goodness of chilli and coconut milk and rice noodles, mmm).  And then for dinner, something with basmati rice. So pretty much every meal was based around carbs.

But then a year and a half ago I stopped. Not completely, but I cut out A LOT. I had gone to see a nutritionist who worked in the gym I went to, and her mantra was “Look great naked” and she was MEAN. She weighed me, took my measurements and asked me about my diet. I was feeling particularly puffy and fat that day but I think I was kidding myself that it was “just that day” because the scales and measurements she was writing down – well, I didn’t like them. And she kept on saying “No! no, no, no” after everything I said I ate…

Anyway, cut a long story short, I lost about 5 kilos, mainly because I had to keep checking in with her and I didn’t want her tut-tutting.

But then I put it back on in the ice cream binge I went on during IVF.

So, what I’m trying to say is, I don’t really eat carbs the way I used to. And my diet has by and large been very healthy. So imagine my surprise when my doctor said I had low-level insulin resistance – a pre-cursor to Type 2 diabetes (I mentioned this in this post). Horrified. And unable to think of anything but the elephant in the room.

I know most people probably link diabetes with sugar, but I am reading more and more about the effects of carbohydrates – particularly refined carbohydrates – on creating an environment for Type-2 diabetes, the so-called “metabolic syndrome” or syndrome x, and also heart disease. I have also recently read an article where researchers are linking childhood consumption of sugar to future heart disease.

Carbohydrate consumption is also linked to high cholesterol levels – on a high-carb diet, triglyceride (bad cholesterol) levels go up and HDL levels (good cholesterol) go down.

And that is not what we’re told right?

Anyway, I thought I’d just give a quick run down on what my doc had laid down for me in terms of a low-GI diet (and Pauline, you asked!).

• LOTS of veggies
• 2 serves of carbs per day – 1 serving = 1 slice of bread or half a cup of cooked grains –  grains need to be whole and unrefined. Not much huh.
• Good quality animal or vegetable protein
• Two serves of fresh fruit (but not juice) and no bananas . Luckily it makes no mention of mangoes
• No processed foods, no additives and refined sugars
• The only acceptable sweeteners are agave and stevia (ditch the fake sweeteners – yucky chemicals). Honey has a really high GI, so that’s a no-go
• Plain, organic yoghurt
• Eat 4-6 smaller meals every day to keep blood sugar stable
• Limit caffeine and alcohol (BUGGER) (except small to moderate amounts of red wine). My definition of “moderate” may vary substantially from theirs though…

How much do you think I feel like chocolate RIGHT NOW??

The picture has nothing to do with bread, obviously. But it’s almost summer and the jacarandas are out – aren’t they gorgeous?

Thanks to my friend V over at Babbling Bandit for the coffee and chat today and the inspiration to get blogging.

I am enough

Have you ever thought that you were not beautiful enough, not smart enough, not thin enough, not … enough of anything? Or maybe I should rephrase that, because I think most of us feel that at some time in our lives, depending on the circumstances. WHEN was the last time you thought that?

I was laid off from my job: I’m not good enough at my job.

I just got dumped: I’m not pretty enough. I’m not thin enough. I’m not fun enough.

I got a crappy mark for my uni assignment: I’m not intelligent enough. I didn’t work hard enough.*

I am childless. I’m not woman enough.

I’m not cool enough to be in this hip bar.

I’m not likeable enough to talk to that stranger over there who is clearly on their own, like I am.

I’m not talkative enough. I’m not quiet enough.

I’m not rich enough to be in this shop.

I’m just not … enough.

And so you hide, or put on a facade.

I watched this talk on Ted today by Brene Brown who is a “researcher/storyteller” and it’s all about the importance – the absolute essentiality – of vulnerability. It’s such a beautiful talk – you can watch it here.

She says vulnerability is the essence of  all human connection, and that connection is what matters in life - it’s why we are here. It is THE THING.

The ability to feel connected gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

A while back – oh about 18 months ago I guess – I did a personal development-y kind of workshop that was all about removing the mental blockages that you create that stand in the way of who you want to be; the life you want to have. I think I must have a lot of mental blockages (!) but the one that came to me that day was around this very topic.

On the day of that seminar I wanted to really nail it – whatever “it” was and I wanted to get the words right so they made sense to me. You know sometimes you can think or talk about things and you know the words are not quite right, and for me anyway, if the words are not quite right, maybe I won’t get to the heart of it – anyway, that’s what I was thinking. So as I was talking to the person I was partnered with on this particular day I formulated exactly the thing that has stopped me from forming a lasting relationship in my life.

It was this: I am afraid of showing myself. When I said it, I thought, “Oh. Wow. Yep, that’s it. Boom.”

I am afraid of showing my vulnerability. Showing my not-perfectness. My ugly side. My dark side.My boring side. My un-pretty side. BUT THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT isn’t it – relationships? Any relationship, not just a romantic one. Really knowing a person, and loving them despite – or because of – their frailties. In fact I think that makes you love someone more, when you can see that they are human after all.

Connection – I guess that’s why I’m here now, blogging – and why you are reading: to connect with people, even though we may never meet face to face. As C.S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) said, or at least he did in the movie Shadowlands, “We read to know we are not alone.”

Brene follows on with the concept of “wholeheartedness”- the courage to tell the story of who you really are with your whole heart.

So this week I am going to live wholeheartedly. How are you going to live this week?

*Actually I got Distinctions for my last two assignments! I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

Share and share alike

My last post was so sleep-inducing boring I thought I had to redeem myself somewhat. So I’m sharing this recipe for raspberry ripple that I got from Sarah Wilson‘s site. 

Holy shit it’s good. And it has NO SUGAR. And healthy fat. And it’s yum and I am going to try really hard not to eat it all this afternoon.

(Even Picasso is impressed)

It’s kind of like a Cherry Ripe but with frozen raspberries… here you go…

raspberry ripple……….

One-third to half cup coconut oil

one third cup salted butter

1 tablespoon rice malt syrup (available from healthfood stores)

2 tablespoons raw cacao powder or cocoa

One-third cup shredded coconut

One-third cup frozen raspberries

(Note: quantities are approximate)

Melt the oil (if it’s solid) and butter in saucepan (the oil will take a little longer to melt so add butter a bit later), then stir in cacao and rice syrup.

Arrange coconut and raspberries on a dinner plate lined with baking paper – I squashed the raspberries between my fingers to spread them out more. Pour coconut/choc mixture all over the top, put it in the freezer to set. Try and hold yourself back from scoffing the lot once set.

This makes enough to cover a dinner plate thinly. Just add more ingredients if you want it chunkier or larger (and use a larger/deeper dish). This is my first effort – it’s pretty good as it is!

Sugar-free people! Less guilt! Enjoy.

Me again

So my commitment has already flagged a bit right? But commit I did and put fingers to keys I must. I feel right now like I don’t have much to write about but I’ll just blab – ok?

I went back to the doc to get the results of a number of tests – specifically the one that tested for a deficiency in iodine, which I hoped might explain my lumpy boobs of steel. I have read a number of reports on the interweb about the link between iodine deficiency and cysts. As I mentioned in my last post, the boob specialist said it was witchcraft but my fab new GP said iodine deficiency can lead to fibrocystic breast disease and/or ovarian cysts.

Anyway, it turns out that I have normal iodine levels. I know this sounds a bit warped, but I was kind of hoping that the tests would show I was deficient as that would explain why I have these lumpy, cysty boobs.

But the conventionally recommended levels of iodine are actually really low. There are some doctors and naturopaths etc who point to the high levels of iodine that women in Japan have in their diets through various types of seaweed and Japanese women’s low levels of cysts and breast cancer among other illnesses.

Anyway, my doctor said she was surprised too as she usually sees iodine deficiency in women with cysts. She said some naturopaths treat with high levels of iodine using something called Lugol’s solution but she doesn’t. So the upshot of this is I might investigate a naturopath and see what they say. I clearly don’t want to self-medicate as iodine can be dangerous.

Do any of my 3 readers have any experience (yourself or friends) about treating breast and/or ovarian cysts naturally? I’d be really interested to know.

Apart from that the tests also showed I have low levels of insulin resistance. That was REALLY shocking. I am a really healthy eater. I don’t drink soft drink, or even fruit juice. I love ice cream, but rarely have it. I love pastries but only have them occasionally. To be honest I have had them more “occasionally” in the past but not in a while. I eat a bit of chocolate (I am human) but generally keep it to two squares of dark chocolate. I can’t say I observe the same restraint when it comes to wine but there you go, no-one’s perfect.

So now I am restricted to two serves of carbs a day, which is really not much! One serve of carbs is one piece of bread, or half a cup of cooked grains. So bugger all. That cuts out a bowl of pasta, rice with curries, potatoes (which I rarely eat anyway), and other starchy vegetables like carrot and pumpkin, and, oh a whole lot of yummy food! Not to mention easy to prepare food, like avocado on sourdough. Bugger.

I can only hope I lose a couple of kilos.

I’m very happy cheese wasn’t banned. I might have had to kill someone.