Cookies

Things got out of control last evening.  We were watching the Super Bowl football game on television (along with what I am certain were millions of others worldwide including for example Australia and New Zealand where we have friends).  I am not a sport fan but from the little I know of the game it was a superb event. The score was neck and neck until the end. Importantly from my novice vantage the teams were smaller and less physically abusive to one another, more athletic almost artistic in their application to the game. Throughout the game we munched on a wide variety of foods; namely, cheese and crackers, raw vegetables, sliced beef and sweets for dessert. Because the game went into overtime, so did we prolong ourselves and our consumption while wallowing in the drawing room in front of the big screen television. It was nearing midnight before we retired.

I didn’t have a good night’s rest. When we awoke this morning it was a cloudy day, drizzling on and off.  We chose Watusi to break the fast. Afterwards we toured about the island, visiting Cross Island Boat Landing, Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks, Gumtree Road, Castnet Drive, Singleton Beach and Palmetto Dunes. Before returning home we punctuated our aimless ambition by visiting Staples and Publix to buy bubble wrap, a few groceries and incidentals.

Then followed the cookies. The term cookies is of mixed meaning:

  1. North American English a small sweet cake, typically round and flat and having a crisp or chewy texture: freshly baked cookies;
  2. informal a person of a specified kind: a tough cookie with one eye on her bank account;
  3. Computing a packet of data sent by a web server to a browser, which is returned by the browser each time it subsequently accesses the same server, used to identify the user or track their access to the server;
  4. PHRASES that’s the way the cookie crumbles informal that’s how things turn out (often used of an undesirable but unalterable situation): “It’s so unfair.” “That’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
  5. ORIGIN early 18th century: from Dutch koekje little cake, diminutive of koek.

For me today the meaning of cookie was predominantly the first; namely, crisp and chewy cake. Like football matches, cookies of this description are not normally a preoccupation of mine.  But today – as I did yesterday – I succumbed to the novelty of experience.  And as usual in my uncontrolled manner I exceeded the boundaires of restraint. What followed was sudden sleepiness.  I collapsed upon the bed and slept a deep sleep for the next several hours.

Now begins the recovery of stewardship, temperance and dominion. The endeavour is illustrative of my swings of behaviour. Though I mockingly proclaimed my abandon of cookies it is of course no more likely than the alteration of any other future conduct.  It is too late to reconfigure this old mechanism. But for the time being at least I shall try to preserve a flavour of subtlety. Admittedly it is only the rebound; and the greater the reticence the more probable the forwardness.  Nonetheless I have the advantage of having endured the clouds before the now forecast sunshine. It may not constitute an enviable diet but it paints a picture of some depth and texture, both physical and psychical.

The dripping sound of rain penetrates the room through the open balcony door. The cleanse is in motion. Tomorrow is forecast high winds and sunshine, 17°C.  Already I am planning my athletic purge.