-Let It Settle

Want to know something I love? I love having milk and cookies while standing up in the kitchen, leaning over the sink or the counter top. Want to know something I really don’t like? I really don’t like it when the cookie crumbs settle at the bottom of the cup of milk. It just ruins it for me. Enjoying some delicious coconut crèmes or maybe some almond sandies, and then finishing the milk only to be greeted by a mouthful of soggy cookie mush. It’s like what backwash would taste like if you were splitting a bottle with the Cookie Monster. It’s such an unpleasant way to end the milk and cookies experience, and there is no way of avoiding it. If anyone ever figures out how to dunk a cookie without bits of it getting into the milk, please let me know. And it’s not like you can just dump the milk out, how could you ever waste such an amazing drink? Plus you can’t have a cookie without some milk; it just goes against the natural order of things. The mouse didn’t ask for cranberry juice, or a mimosa, after he was given a cookie. No, he asked for some good old fashioned moo juice. Now if there was a way to dunk a cookie in milk and have the crumbs get caught by some sort of straining device, now that would be lovely; but something tells me that much effort might diminish from the simplicity and excellence of milk and cookie time. So, maybe, sometimes you just have to put up with settling. But when you aren’t standing over the kitchen sink, it’s hard to tell what you should and shouldn’t settle for.

Having spent more then my fair share of time in the kitchen lately, whether it be for cooking, eating or cleaning up after everyone, I finally got back to running again. It has been one of those things I kept saying I was going to get back into. Like finishing the great American classics. Or trying to sit through Citizen Kane. Or remembering how to conjugate a verb in Spanish. But I felt like I was cheating myself if I didn’t actually make time to go running. I’ll admit I first had to quit smoking, which made me a complete annoyance to be around, but once that was out of my system I was free to run. It didn’t take long for my old competitiveness to kick in. Not towards the several other neighborhood runners who I usually pass, but towards myself; I am my own worse track coach. Or track Nazi as it were. I can’t seem to let myself settle for anything other then balls to the wall long distance running. I wanted to get back into it all slowly, start with an easy afternoon jog, but then my brain remembered that it solemnly swore to never jog but only to run. Needless to say, forty minutes later I was soaked in sweat so much that it looked like a photo shoot for Details magazine. When I made it back to the front door I realized how much I missed running, and how stupid I was to settle for a cigarette instead of a good long run. Having decided to never settle again when it comes to finding ways to stay at a size 30 waist, I began to think of when you can’t help but to settle.

Sometimes when it comes to relationships you can’t help but settle. I’ve learned that bi-monthly phone calls and sporadic textversations is as good as its going to get with some people in my life. I’ve come to accept that some people from my past will always be just a memory, despite my trying to include them in my present. And sometimes you have to settle to keep some people who are in your past at arms length, because it’s for the best. The best may not always be what you want it to be, but sometimes you have to settle for it. This is an odd thing to think about; settling for the best. Dating and relationships is a complete bitch when it comes to thinking about settling. I don’t mean settling down, I’m years from that kind of thing, I mean who may and may not be right for you. It’s easy to think that the prettiest, sexiest, most charming is the only thing acceptable for you, but it might not be the best thing for you. This is where you have to learn to settle for the best and the best thing for you. This, as you may have guessed, is not easy and very time consuming. Thank God there are milk and cookies to help you while you think about it.