Circus Food

Altering one's habits is a dangerous undertaking.  Like an old dog I have become set in my ways and ill-fitted to variation. Specifically I have learned that the unaccustomed frivolity of social gatherings is to be conducted with heedfulness. Still lingering in my memory this morning is the plaintive image of an overweight young woman seated in the corner of an A&W restaurant eating her hamburger and fries. She was the server who last evening took our own order, the distasteful repercussions of which arose in the middle of the night.

The ignoble fast food was a vivid contradiction of our earlier luncheon of fresh oysters, lobster bisque and Wild Pacific halibut at Pelican Seafood Grill. What triggered the evolution of disruption was that in preparation for putting on the nosebag with my sister and her husband I mistakenly abandoned my usual breakfast of steel cut oats and jumbo Thomspon raisins. This equivocation precipitated a greediness of appetite at the seafood trough which afterwards enlarged itself at the hamburger stand and donut take-out. Obviously it illustrates a lack of personal control but proves my point about the prestige of habit.

Now I have begun the expiation of my abuse. The customary morning ablutions initiated the purge, along with fresh woollen socks. It is a cool early autumn morning with airy, blue skies. Soon the cathartic effect of double espresso coffee will enhance the overall mitigation. My only agenda today is the lustral mechanism of a car wash.

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To avoid the monotony of another coffee at Van Houtte after the car wash I instead turned right upon leaving the gas station and directed myself on Hwy#417 (the Trans-Canada Highway) into the hinterland parallel the winding Ottawa River towards the (now misaligned) Antrim Truck Stop in Arnprior. The journey there through the wide open space of farms crossing Panmure Road and Kinburn Side Road under the vast azure horizon is always assured restful and invigorating. The urban relief was instantaneous.

Succumbing to the allure of the bakery shop at Antrim Truck Stop I discovered it houses more commodities than dark rye bread, No Bake Peanut Butter squares and Date squares. The gift shop cum hardware store stocks - in addition to celebratory fashions, walking sticks, picture frames, CB radios and hundreds of trucking necessities - an unexpected collection of necklaces from which to hang one's reading glasses. Until my eye surgery settles and my optometrist determines the exact prescription for my new spectacles I have relied upon inexpensive magnifiers from the pharmacy.  Draping them from the front of my shirt has on occasion proven treacherous.  Now however I have the decided elevation of a very dignified accoutrement (made in China) clinging to the specs. I feel I have in a jiffy advanced my intellectual probity by immeasurable bounds! Its success has promoted me to question the utility of spending the money to remake old frames into progressive reading glasses. Certain triumphs in life are too critical to defy! This is so even if the fortuity requires a complete readjustment of one's dramatic expression! Such is the insinuation of change and the accommodation of aging!