By way of a public service announcement

I tend to over share. You may have noticed. I sometimes think my life is one giant melodious screw up… if it’s not one thing, it’s another.

And then sometimes I seem to go out of my way to make it a mess. Take for example, my recent fun-filled joy ride with yogurt.

Before I tell this story, I will apologize. It will be thinly veiled references to my lady parts. If you can’t handle that much intimacy, please stop reading now. Which should leave my sister, a few lovely cousins and my girl, DG.

I believe in the power of a good diet. I eat lots of soft ripe fruits and veg. I drink lots of water and I chew gum like there is no tomorrow. Each has their own benefits in my mental inventory of good vs. bad in the body wars.

One shining star is yogurt. Good bacteria, tastes good, nice bump of sugar without all the negatives. And sometimes, when I feel less than fancy, I use yogurt for other purposes.

Recently, I had a not-so-fancy feeling so I decided to apply the yogurt method. I will insert a personal note here: Has worked in the past to ward off further un-fancy problems! This is not untested ground.

But I digress.

Here is where my problems began. I did not have plain, but rather strawberry yogurt. I was in a hurry. I made a snap decision.

Oh. Good. God.

Turns out the extra sugar will actually GROW other bacteria at a quicker rate. Less-than-fancy as suddenly turned into itching-inappropriate-places-while-in-public.

So I turned to the patented, USDA-approved, over-the-counter helpmates.

Further aggravation ensues.

Finally I turn to my last resort, Dr. Stirrups.

Now my doc has a great sense of humor. He also has a loud voice and likes to laugh at me. I told him my little home remedy problems and he … well, he howled, he laughed so hard.

Then he took a peek, and solemnly looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry, but you have actually have the most advanced case of herpes I’ve ever seen.”

To which I replied, WHAT THE FUUU…!”

He laughed, slapped my knee and said, “I’m just kidding ya.”

I tried to kick him, but Dr. Stirrups is sly and uses a nice little toe strap. He has obviously been kicked before.

With prescription in hand and a stern lecture on the values of the pill form for Lactobacillus acidophilus, I turned to leave the office, I looked back and said, “Surely this isn’t the strangest thing you’ve heard in all your years.”

With a straight face, he replied. “No, it’s not. But I’ll never be able to eat strawberry yogurt again without thinking of you.”

Great.

Taste sensation

I admit, I'm somewhat of a hippie under cover. I cruise the aisles of the health food store. I worry about green issues and insist the hubby leave his grass clippings lie. I've been known to buy local fruits, veggies and honey. I've started and abandoned several gardens and I've thought seriously about composting.

But that's where it ends. I still like high-heels with leather uppers and I insist on chemically treating my hair and my face in a desperate attempt to fight advancing age -- or at least trick unsuspecting younger men into thinking I too am unsuspecting and young. I am neither.

So this week, it's not suprising to find me visiting the local health food in search of more supplements to bolster my immune system.

Food in the health food store is not good. Let's just get that on the table now. It smells -- and often tastes -- much the same as rabbit food. And yes, I've tasted those weird grass pellets fed to rabbits. I know of which I surmise. They are selling grass shaped like energy bars.

But for some reason, I'm an idiot. There was a juice. I like juice but I am very particular. No weird sugars or high fructose corn syrup allowed. Of course, this was all natural, filling, cleansing, invigorating and tastes like ambrosia. Well, I had to try a sample.

If you were to mix broccoli juice, a cauliflower fart and urine with the faint tinge of asparagus, you might, might have an idea of what this shit tasted like.

And now it was in my mouth.

I was faced with the age-old dilemma that has plagued women since the beginning of time -- Spit or Swallow.

I opted to hold with precedent and gagged it down. What I couldn't control was the faces and noises I made afterward. Hacking, gagging, blah, blah, blah with the tongue. It wasn't pretty.

After I choked and sputtered for a while, my eyes streaming with the effort to control the heaving. I look over to see the ball of fire staring me down. I smile and say most sweetly, "Son, do you want to try a drink?"

His eyes widened a bit.

I held out the small plastic cup, sloshing the contents temptingly.

He walked over and tipped the rim toward his nose, took a big sniff.

"No way, man. It smells like Toby barf up."

I took a big whiff. Damn, he was right. If I had bothered to smell it before I drank it, I would have never tried it either.

"Sure you don't want to try it anyway?"

"Nope. I'm going to go stand by the car."

Chicken shit.

Beans, beans, the musical fruit

I’m finishing up my research for my green perspective article. I still struggle with how to package the information. Green individual? Given. Green business? More difficult. Green living? Possible. Will green save the Earth? Who the hell knows. That data seems to be missing. Or I’m not performing the correct Yahoo searches.

So I try again. I type “green” in the search bar. Before I even finish the word, Yahoo is already listing possible matches. The top three: Green Day (nice!), Green Bay Packers (puke) and Green Bean Casserole. What the hell?

Now I have new questions. Are green bean casseroles that thoroughly researched? Who wants to know? And why?

Did you know that a green bean casserole is the ultimate holiday side dish? It’s one of the most requested family favorites for Thanksgiving.

In 2005, this savory dish – sometimes served with crispy onions atop – celebrated 50 years of gracing the dinner table.

The two most important ingredients: green beans, cream of mushroom soup. Some of the most common additional ingredients: rice, chicken and cheese.

One serving of green bean casserole (a mere 1/2 cup) has 7 grams of fat, 4 grams of sugar, 130 calories and 730 mg of sodium. The average casserole serves 12, but most people eat three to five servings without realizing it.

To burn the calories from one small serving of green bean casserole, you could walk for 36 minutes, jog for 15, swim for 11 minutes or ride a stationary bike for 20 minutes.

In seven minutes of yahoo searches, I have learned more about green bean casserole than a whole morning of searching for stats on how environmental measures impact the health of the planet.

In fact, the closest thing I found was a game, hosted by Starbucks ironically, that features environmental choices and how your decisions impact a fictional planet.

Our planet – on the other hand – is apparently not as important as our love for green bean casserole. Thankfully Thanksgiving is not in any danger!