Finally, enough time off.

Of course, I'll pay for it starting tomorrow.

I had two days off this week and three last week and actually put them to good use. Chef Boy and I went to a food show, a nightmare of fried things and processed things attended by the chefs of places like Applebee's and Chili's.

I kid you not: I saw six people so obese that they could not walk and had to use those little scooters to get around. Obesity doesn't necessarily lead to mobility problems, but the lightest of these folks was, by my estimation, somewhere north of 400 lbs. That's gonna give you problems at some point.

Apparently, this particular food show is a big draw with church groups and social groups: people buy tickets for however much, then grab a to-go box from one of the product booths and fill it with fried things.

The only booth that had fresh food had no samples available. It was torture, walking past heirloom tomatoes and bags of salad and not being able to eat anything but chicken-chili-cheese dogs (the most foul thing I've ever put in my mouth) and crawfish empenadas (a close second). There's a list of about eight things I will never eat again, even under duress, and the food show provided all but three. (The other things are Danish ammonia-and-salt licorice, anything flavored with asafoetida, and Tofu Pups.)

I also bought books, to wit:

The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo. I was not crazy at all about Because of Winn-Dixie, but this is a charming story well-told. I like the style, I like the rat Chiaroscuro, I like Miggery Sow.

Eragon, by Christopher Paolini. So far it's failing to entrance me, but I understand it gets better after the first eight chapters or so.

How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker. Because I felt like I oughta, and because I liked the interviews with Pinker that I saw on YouTube.

John M. Barry's The Great Influenza. I'm not sure I haven't read this one before, but if I did, I don't remember it and so should read it again.

The South Beach Diet. Yes. My belly measurement has reached truly worrying levels, as have my fasting blood glucose and cholesterol numbers. Two of the internal med docs I work with recommended this book, independently of one another, and they're both the biggest fitness-freak Diet Cops I've ever met, so I'm going to give it a shot. Hell, I can do anything for two weeks, especially an induction plan that includes things like broccoli and Brussels sprouts and black beans.

Lesson learned: If you don't listen to your doctor when he tells you you need to make small changes, you'll end up having to buy diet books and looking askance at potatoes. Which is probably a good thing, as I don't want to end up like Miggery Sow, cauliflower ears and all.

Dinner with Chef Boy's family, a whole bunch of laundry, and some more naps rounded out my days off. Work I'm not even going to mention; Eric over at eric135 says, rightly, that February and March are the nastiest months of the nursing year, and April isn't far behind, at least at our facility. We seem to be having a run on subarachnoid hemorrhages and glioblastomas (with six you get eggroll!) and I'm just plain tired of thinking about it.

Besides, it's nice to have something like a life now and then.