The Poptart dilemma

Britney be damned, a far more urgent scandal has broken in the Taconite household. For time immemorial, Tac has dined on his pastry of choice each morning-two slabs of lard laced cardboard compressed around a slather of sucrose infused goop. He swears by, even worships at the morning altar of the Pop Tart to the extent that the dawning sun dims greatly when he ventures to the cupboard only to find an empty box. As a side note, I have long since given up on visual inventory control and adhere to a straight static purchase model; which explains why there are 14 bags of Honeynut Cheerios in the pantry. The Tribe apparently doesn't like HNC's. But they are on the shopping list, so I buy them. I love them, but I rarely eat cereal. HNC's were the late night-post date- teen angst food of choice for my older sister and I in the days of our youth. We'd collude at the center island just past curfew to chew and chat and move past whatever the night had held. Obviously there is not enough stress in the life of The Tribe, alas no HNC moments yet. I'll take it for now, content with their post school day devouring of tutti fruttis-mere child's play. But I digress. Poptarts. I despise them. I find no nutritional value in them whatsoever. This in spite of the fact that they fueled Tac's ironman training. He swears by them, I swear at them.

Until yesterday. The moons of Venus hit an improper alignment, my hormones leaked precariously, a bag of cheerios fell from the cupboard and knocked me senseless, for whatever reason I threw a Cinnamon Roll Pop Tart into the toaster. I was headed to the Y for a much needed cardio/strength session and toast with PB just wasn't singing my tune, no I was all Pop Tart yesterday. Arriving 40 minutes later to the Y then I'd anticipated, I went straight to the treadmill with no cross trainer warmup, and I ran 45 minutes, without stopping, utilizing the final 15 minutes to incrementally increase my pace to sub 8 min miles. Damn Poptarts. Perhaps I can blame Britney, so ridiculous her trials they've torn a crease in the social fabric of the universe.

Pop tarts morning 2. After all, I need a good 2 hour spin on the trainer today. I've descended into the depths of taste less hell. What's next cheeze whiz on saltines? Cocktail wienies smothered in Kraft bar b que sauce? I need to re-retro back to the future.

And I was on my way, until I went to the Big Box office store with the Tribe. We needed calenders, glue sticks and glue. (I've yet to understand how the Soapinator depleted the gallon jug of glue she purchased at the start of the school year. She doesn't seem to be the nefarious, corner locker, glue junkie type, but perhaps Elmer's has qualities unbeknownst to most adults) There, in the back of the store, along the clearance wall I found a lone symbol of my school days past. The Pee Chee All Sport Portfolio. No semester commenced without a fresh restock of the Pee Chee. I loved those heady first days of school; no grades yet recorded, no sense of urgency in mountains of unfinished work. A clean Pee Chee was a mental restart. Like the dawning of a year where you've signed up for a Great Race after passing through a forgettable season.

I bought a Pee Chee to store my training plans and calender. Well, why not borrow on the optimism of youth to train and an older and broken body to go long. 2008 dawns and there are Pop Tarts in the cupboard, life is good.