07/04/2011

After a good weekend of seeing friends, and doing as little work as possible, I spent Monday taking my parents to a local Casino.  Casino trips with my parents usually ends up in something of me turning into an ATM, and both of my parents playing a game called “I win”.  Regardless of how much money they lose, they can always say “I win” because the money I feed them ends up making them flush all the time. 

It would be easier if they just took me out back beat the crap out of me, and took my wallet, and then I wouldn’t have to drive two hours on back roads to West Virginia.  I am bitching more than it actually bothers me, but I never get to feel like I win money because all my winnings go to the “Kim House”, even if I take the “Casino House”.  

Yes my 70 year old parents are degenerate gamblers. 

It was fun to spend time with them and I did ok playing 3 and 4 card poker.  The game I wanted to play was Mini-Baccarat but there were so money Asian people crowded around the tables you would have thought Lin Yu Chin was singing, or they were giving away some useless trinket which was free so all the Asian people have to get theirs’.  It was funny to see the few random non Asians at the table; they were like little specs of white in a sea of yellow.

Shady West Virginia casinos aren’t the best places to find something to eat.  After two days of eating less than perfectly, I was making an effort to make Monday the first day of being back on the reservation.  A string of good cards for me, and a few small runs for my parents on the slot machine, caused us to blow threw 5 hours without a second thought. 

The amount of time which had passed made it impossible to get out of this place without food.  You ever notice how the older your parents get the more they start becoming childish in their demands, my mother basically told me if we don’t eat she would whine the whole time, or throw up on my shoes.  Being the “good son” that I am, we went to the awesome high quality buffet which is always a staple in a local casino.

What I learned from this experience is that no matter how much you can prepare to eat well, that sometimes circumstances take precedence over my wishes, and how I respond to those circumstances is more important than the fact that they exist. 

I walked around the entire buffet twice. 

The first time I passed by like a spy plane, taking mental notes, fried shrimp, no, fried chicken, no, pasta, no thanks, ribs, maybe, bbq pork chop, eh, spinach, ok, mushrooms, better, cucumbers, ok, roast beef, yes.  My second pass I was more like a strategic bomber swooping in low to my targets and launching my smart bombs, only making contact with those items which I found edible.  Well, in this case remotely edible.

I made sure I got enough food that I wouldn’t go back for a second serving, and even when I got to the table to eat, I found myself choosing not to eat large portions of what I picked. 

As I eat higher quality foods, the cheaper versions of what I eat just don’t appeal to me anymore.  The overall physical cost isn’t worth it especially when these cheaper foods don’t give me the appropriate levels of macronutrients, and are void of any sense of rich flavors.  I would rather pay more for a smaller portion of something truly delectable than eat a whole heaping pile of cheap crap. 

When I put food in my mouth now I chew, and try to actually taste what’s going into my mouth, before I was like a turbine driven central vacuum, just inhaling whatever went past my open orifice.  At the end of the meal I was physically full, but not satiated. 

The artificially driven tastes at the buffet were palatable, the cheaper the cut of lower quality meat the more places like these try and drown them in a super sweet sauce or overly salty seasoning.

I give myself an “A” for how I handled the situation because I didn’t get testy or upset with my parents.  I easily could have and guilted them into leaving so I could go eat what I wanted to, but they would have been miserable and probably would have puked in the car just to spite me, because that’s “how we do”. 

Finding balance is not only developing a sense of equilibrium within my own personal actions but, developing enough of a sense of self-awareness to be able to temper personal desires with familial or interpersonal obligations.

Is it possible to find a middle ground, yet still drive ambitiously towards my goals?

This is a question I find myself asking, and wondering…