Chubby

All right, so here is one sad thing about my new life in Greencastle. I am getting chubby. Quite chubby, indeed.

Part of the problem is that the university serves me food constantly. Everybody serves me food constantly.

Take yesterday. There was a "pitch-in" after church, which turned out to be a very abundant potluck (I had never heard the term "pitch-in" before, so I had feared it was some kind of all-church work day where we'd go right from worship to altar-vacuuming and shrubbery-trimming, but fortunately I was mistaken). So of course I filled my plate. Then there was pizza after an afternoon film at the Prindle. The film was Born into Brothels, heartbreaking in its depiction of the lives of children born into Calcutta's red light district, but also inspirational in its depiction of the power of engagement with photography to transform these lives. And the pizza was very tasty. And then I went out for a late dinner with a speaker who gave a talk about the work of the 9/11 Commission. I carefully refrained from ordering any food myself, but ended up eating half of one person's french fries, and half of another person's onion rings, and I did order and drink two (small) glasses of Merlot. DePauw paid for it all.

This was a pretty typical day as far as my being provided food in Greencastle.

But in addition, and here I can blame nobody but myself, I discovered that just about every store here sells my favorite kind of candy, well, one of my favorites: bags of large cherry, orange, or multi-flavored gumdrops, as well as bags of my even more beloved spice drops. I bought one bag early in the week at Headley Hardware, and then another one midweek at Tractor Supply, and then a third one this weekend at Dollar General. Each bag contains ten "servings" (don't you love the idea of a serving of gumdrops?). So I hate to think how many servings I've eaten in one week alone.

This has to stop. I actually threw away the bag of spice drops still half full. I took cottage cheese and a tomato for lunch today. I am NOT going to buy any more gum drops for a long time. I really truly am not!