There's Nothing Like a Little Self-Medicating

I woke up this morning in the worst mood. The most frustrating thing about days like this is that I usually can't even tell you why I feel the way I do. I seem to lack that insight into my own personality that tells you these things. Consequently, I am left with those close to me asking, "what's wrong?" all day long, and the only response I can give them is, "I don't know."

Was it the comment from my coworker yesterday afternoon? "Geez, Laura, even your hard hat is black!" Or the one from my other coworker this morning? "What are you WEARING?" (Incidentally, coworker #1 is consistently rude and annoying and I pretty much always want to give him a sharp poke in the eye. If he didn't program the thermostats to go down to sub-zero temperatures all day long, I wouldn't have to wear the over sized, librarian-type, black sweater every day that prompted the comment from coworker #2.)

Anyway, I felt completely repulsive by the end of the day. My bad mood seemed to grow bigger and bigger until it consumed everything I did. Even as I was picking a fight with my completely innocent and perfectly sweet husband, I could hear my inner voice in the back of my head yelling "stop!" Only I couldn't stop!

After work, I decided that there was only one thing that was going to make me feel better. I took myself to the mall. Not just one mall, but TWO. And I bought myself three pairs of the exact same pants, only in three different colors. Plus, three of the exact same pique polo shirt in three different colors.

But you know what? Not one of those colors was black.

Miracle Fruit

My cousin has been really into fruit trees for about the past year or so. He and his friends have been riding their bikes around Atlanta, trying to see what types of wild fruits and berries they can collect. They have tried all kinds of wild grapes, figs, blueberries, raspberries, etc. They collected so many apples and varieties of apples that they had a cider party in the fall.

Anyway, he's been talking about this plant that heard about for a month. It's called Miracle Fruit. Apparently, when you eat the berries from the tree, it temporarily causes anything sour you eat to taste sweet.

It took him a long time to find one. He finally bought a plant from Florida and it has just now grown to the point where it has produced berries. He brought one over to my Aunt's house yesterday. He cut it in half, and he and his girlfriend each ate half of it. Then we all watched while they ate a lemon, a lime, and a grapefruit with no problem at all. They said it tasted like it was coated in sugar! They even drank vinegar straight from the bottle. It was the wierdest thing. I looked it up online, and it says that they use this plant in Japan as a sweetner. The food apparently tastes horrible until you give people these berries to eat before they try it. Pretty cool.