Take Me Home
Sifu Salad
© 1990 By Timothy Emil Birch
There is something to be said about a nice crisp salad, all those
healthy vegetables chopped on a plate with a rich creamy dressing
poured over it. Something; but as I watch Mary enjoy her thick
sirloin tips and think about it, I realize the things I might say
about my salad are not really things to share in polite company.
Now don't get me wrong, I like the bite of a good radish, a juicy
cherry tomato exploding in my mouth, even the cool homeyness of the
lettuce, and I like it even more when there is the thick, pungent
tang of a rich blue cheese dressing. I enjoy all of these things, but
somehow, while I look at a lush 12 ounce steak done to perfection, I
can't help but have second thoughts about eating the meek fare of a
herbivore. What am I, a man or a rabbit? Well, perhaps for the moment
the rabbits are winning.
I know that many people in this world are vegetarians, but somehow I
just don't seem to be cut out for that style of life. Oh, I've tried
to adjust, but it just isn't me. And why? Man was not born with the
teeth and stomach of a plant eater, we were born to feast on hot,
juicy slabs of carefully grilled beef! At least, I certainly was.
What reason is there for such a torture as this? The worst of it is
the fact that I do it to myself each year, it's a tradition, and as
everyone knows, traditions don't need to make sense, they just are!
Well, that's what I tell myself. Still, would it be so bad if I had
just a little bit of gravy on my greens?
It might not be so hard if I could just sit at home and enjoy a nice
meal of vegetarian stir-fry with a side salad and maybe some carrot
sticks, but Mary likes to get out and she isn't interested in the
only vegetarian restaurant around, she likes steak, lots of it, so
here we sit in a fancy steakhouse, for her a 12 ounce sirloin tip
with all the trimmings and me with the salad bar. And they don't even
have a very large selection either. Why should they, who in their
right mind would go to a steakhouse and order the salad bar?
Now you might wonder what this is all about, why the rabbit food?
Those of you who know me are aware that I like burgers and ribs and
chicken and steak, but I shouldn't think of such things right now.
Ah, but I remember that barbecue, back when we first were being
visited by the Lords ... when the Yak Lord made his famous
rum-marinated delight! No turnip eater he! Just fine meat, lovely ...
but let's talk about something else. So the question is, why do I sit
here eating greens and dreaming reds? Well, it's spring and every
spring for as long as I can remember I go through this ritual of
readying myself for summer by spending two weeks on the training diet
my teacher had used back when I was still a student of Kung-Fu. I
don't think I really need it, but it's tradition, and traditions
don't need a reason, they just are. So it is that I returned from a
lovely fishing trip and plunged directly into my spring training.
I used to give myself this great pep talk about all the good I was
doing by spending a couple weeks on a strict vegetarian diet, but if
it was really true, then wouldn't it be better if I did it 52 weeks a
year? Never mind I said that! Besides, it doesn't really seem to have
that much effect on me, well, not true, better I should say that it
doesn't really seem to improve my health ... certainly not my mental
health, let me tell you! But you don't want to hear this, so let's
move on ... oh, will you look at that steak, have you ever seen one
cooked better than that? Just a matter of interest in cooking you
understand, I'll have to talk to the chef and find out his secret for
the next time I'm cooking.
My highly honed combat senses warn me of approaching danger and I
ready myself for battle, but in spite of all my training the man now
standing beside me delivers a devastating blow. "Would you like
a cup of coffee sir?"
Would I like a cup of coffee? Me? The man who drinks 30 cups a day?
You bet I would! "No thanks, do you have an herbal tea? One with
no caffeine in it?" Cut to the quick by an evil enemy disguised
as a waiter, the training diet doesn't allow caffeine either. How
much can a man endure?
Having survived the ordeal of dinner through the strength of will
power, I calmly lift the bill and take a glance; then a second look
followed by a third! I went over it in my mind, I had had a small
plate of greens and a cup of Lemon Zinger tea, how much could that
cost? Sure, there was Mary's meal as well, but even so ... No! I will
not be broken. I take a twenty out of my pocket followed by a second,
and in an act of supreme defiance I add a 20% tip on top of the bill.
Never show an enemy any weakness! I even smiled at the waiter as he
took my money and when Mary and I got up to leave, I was making
pleasant after dinner talk as if nothing was wrong.
Out the door, escape at last! I could feel a giddy relief at the
knowledge that there were no steaks or cups of coffee around me now.
We got into my car and I started the engine. I had almost made it out
of the parking lot and was feeling victorious when the final blow was
landed. Mary smiled at me as if to hide the coming attack, "Thank
you, that was a wonderful meal and the steak was just great."
What did she mean by that? Did she think I would be fooled? This
final assault was just too much and I broke, "Glad you liked
it." I said to disarm her, and just then I saw a hole appear in
the traffic and my foot hit the floor as I spun the wheel and
squealed into the flow of cars with a good half inch safety margin
between me and the one ahead. A nice thing about driving a small car,
any standard-sized car wouldn't have fit in the opening I pulled
into. The meek and quiet man who Mary thought she was with had been
transformed into some wild beast as something in me snapped under the
pressure of the experience. Now it was that maniac who sat at the
controls of my car and I was a just an observer.
Now before you start judging me, I suggest you try sitting and
watching someone else eating the food you want to eat while you are
not allowed to and see what you think of, then too, if you aren't a
coffee drinker you won't be able to understand what it is to get cut
off. I wasn't myself anymore, I was a crazed beast who was starving
and suffering from coffee withdrawal. I may be a strong person, but
there are limits.
The drive home was something of a blur but as I recall, by the time
Mary found her voice I had already made eight lane changes and had
passed 57 cars and some idiot on roller skates. I was in second gear
and the tranie was screaming when Mary spoke, "Sh-sh-shoul
shouldn't you shift gears?" I guess it was the only thought she
could put together at the time. I glared at her with a glazed, manic
look and managed to nurse an extra bit of speed before shifting to
third and then fourth just in time for another lane change that put
me in front of the traffic. At that point the light up ahead turned
red. With a feral growl from somewhere deep inside I applied brakes
and shifted to neutral and then straight into first, then tried to
put the trunk in front of the engine, but it wasn't quite ready for a
VW conversion just yet. How I stopped is anybody's guess, but there
we were at the intersection and I stomped down on the clutch and
dropped back into neutral. There was a twang and the clutch pedal
fell to the floor and stayed there.
I should mention that I drive an Epic Envoy, an older car built by
Vauxall, and it uses a cable clutch; a cable that had chosen that
moment to expire on me. I had no clutch, and worst was the fact that
there was no synchromesh on first gear, which meant that you couldn't
shift into first without the clutch unless you turned the motor off.
I put the gas to the floor in hopes that I could keep a good charge
on the battery. Just as the light was about to change I turned the
car off and slipped into first. Mary was looking calmer, which was a
mistake on her part. The light went green and I turned the key. The
car lurched forward, dragged by the starter motor. It caught and the
engine began to run by the time we had crossed the intersection.
Someone behind me blew their horn. Another mistake.
With eyes that burned like embers I gritted my teeth, if any of the
real me had been left before, it was gone now. Like a madman I worked
the gears, my foot to the floor the whole time. At 60 mph, Mary was
biting her lip. At 75 she looked at me and said, "I think you
may be going a bit too fast." I laughed. At 100 mph I saw a
light ahead turn yellow, a spin of the wheel and we turned onto a
side street to avoid the light. Two wheels left the ground and my
laughter became maniacal. Just then we hit a large soapy puddle where
someone was washing their car. I think we spun three times on two
wheels before we dropped to four wheels again. Unfortunately, we were
facing the wrong way, still going 100 mph in one direction with the
wheels spinning madly at 100 mph the other direction.
Smoke was pouring from my wheels as the car came to a halt and then
shot back the way I had come. Undaunted by events, I reached the
street I had just turned off and turned back on, two wheels flying in
the wind again, and by the time I had hit the traffic light it was
again green and the car had all four wheels on the ground just as if
I had planned it all that way.
By the time I pulled up in front of our house, Mary was no longer
saying anything and I was feeling much better. I walked in the front
door and sat down on the floor by the TV.
I thought the footsteps I heard were Mary's, but then I realized they
were coming from the wrong location. Turning to see who it was I saw
one of the Lords had just entered from the Gate in the living room.
The body standing there was female, but all that told me was that
this Lord was female. She smiled at me and asked, "So, how was
your day? Anything interesting happen?"
I smiled, "Oh, nothing much, just an average day. What about you?"
"Nothing much happening with me either." she said, "I
was thinking of watching some TV, I see that there is a movie about a
guy who gets turned into some sort of plant-thing out in the swamps,
sounds good to me." She smiled at me, I knew that smile well,
inside that body was Danu. Sometimes I have talked for hours with a
Lord before finding out who they are and it feels odd to start a
conversation with, 'Excuse me, but who are you?'
So I spent the evening with a powerful Celtic Lord watching a B-grade
movie based on a comic book, fairly dull night, it seems like nothing
interesting ever happens to me. Still, it was a good B-grade movie,
and Danu loved it!
Later I was feeling good, the events of the day were behind me and
Danu and I were having a great time. After you have discussed a movie
with a Lord, you will never see it quite in the same light again. I
have never had a person discuss this sort of a movie quite as
seriously before, just as if it was a dramatization of real life. I
guess each person has their own view of life and what is normal.
I was starting to feel tired about 9:00, early for me, but it had
been a busy day, or so it seemed to me. I decided that I'd take a nap
for an hour or two and see if that helped.
The room had gotten rather warm, moisture was glistening over my
body. I could feel the drops of sweat rolling down and making my skin
crawl. I reached to scratch and to my surprise there was something
there. Opening my eyes I could see what looked like fine green hair
on my body. GREEN? Looking closer, I realized that I had begun to
transform, just like the guy in the movie! I had long suspected that
there must be some reason to eat meat, and it was finally clear. By
eating all this salad greens I had finally started to turn into a
vegetable. I wondered if anyone would notice, would people take a
cabbage martial arts instructor seriously?
It seemed to me that this might make life a bit difficult, who ever
bothers to think of these complications anyway? Oh well, it could be
worse, it can always be worse though I don't know how. Looking around
I saw that the room was being transformed as well, it was turning
into a swamp. Not just any swamp, it was the swamp in the movie. Wait
a minute, how could that happen? That swamp isn't a real place, it's
just a movie location. Of course! I should have guessed, this is all
just a dream brought on by coffee withdrawal and too much greenery.
In that case I guess I might as well enjoy it.
Having concluded that my transformation was nothing but a dream, I
began to ponder just what the good points of such a situation could
be. Surely there was something positive to be said about being a
vegetable. I have always believed that there was something good to be
found in each situation, although sometimes it was more difficult to
find it.
Getting up from the couch were I was sleeping; now there's a thought,
if I'm dreaming then when I get up off the couch, do I really get up
or am I still sleeping there? I realized that such questions were not
a good direction to head if I was going to enjoy this.
So as I said, getting up off the couch were I was sleeping, I looked
around at my new surroundings. The living room had transformed itself
into a swamp, complete with all those wonderfully strange trees and
plants. There was a lovely odor of life and in the silence of the
room I could hear that lack of silence that was the swamp. Both
places seemed to be superimposed on each other. It was an exciting feeling,
one that filled me with a thrill and sense of energy. I closed my
eyes and stood quietly listening. For a moment I felt like my body
was floating, and then I had the sense of motion, like sitting up
suddenly, following which my world stabilized again. Something about
my secret dream world seemed to be fading and I didn't want to lose
it. Concentrating for a moment with my eyes shut I could feel the
reality of my dream return and I let out a loud yell of sheer joy,
like a dog baying at the moon. As I did so I opened my eyes, only to
find my dream world was missing and somehow I was sitting in my
living room with The Danu and Mary both looking at me with strange
expressions on their faces.
"What's wrong?" asked Mary at the same moment that Danu
grinned and said, "Well, that was quite an entrance!"
I looked at the two and slowly I realized that I had been asleep but
now was awake, and more than that, my joyous yell had not been
exclusive to my dream. No longer was my skin green, but I somehow
knew that my face at least was red.
"It was nothing, I just had a dream, that's all." I
explained somewhat lamely. Have you ever had one of those days?
Now mind you, I'm not trying to suggest that I'm the only one who has
these sorts of experiences, let me tell you about the time that Diana
wanted to try an intense training diet in hopes of improving her
health. Now this is a different diet from the one I have been on, it
is still a vegetarian diet but one geared to high energy levels.
I imagine that you have heard of ginseng, you might even know
something about it. Diana certainly can say a few words on the
subject, not a question of reading, you understand, but rather direct
experience. You see, the diet she was on included eight cups of
ginseng tea each day, which is three or four times the recommended
amount one would normally use. Among the many qualities of ginseng,
one which becomes apparent when you are taking that much, it is a
powerful stimulant, several times as strong as coffee. This combined
with the other foods and herbs that make up the diet has a powerful effect.
Now those of you who have met Diana will attest to the fact that she
is far from a sedate and quiet person. Most can't imagine her being
any more hyper than she is normally, but nature has powers that man
can not comprehend and herbs are able to do what might well seem
impossible. The thing is, a high energy training diet is used with
certain assumptions. First, you need to have the energy sources to
burn or you will just exhaust yourself. So the more you will be
doing, the more high energy food you need. Second, if you are
providing your body with the right amounts of food and you are
consuming that food like you are supposed to then you must have
activity to match the energy, if you don't provide it, your body will
find ways to use the energy.
So, here was Diana, she was on vacation and ready to get involved in
some real heavy physical training and taking in more than double her
normal amount of food because the herbs she was taking were causing
her body to use the food faster and thus were making her ravenous,
and the food she was eating was carefully geared toward both a
greater amount of 'instant' energy and an increased in the long term
food energy to maintain a stable state of high energy release that
should allow her to exercise like she had never dreamed of in her life.
In no time her body was building useful muscle bulk and toning up
wonderfully. She was delighted that she was putting on healthy weight
that was slim and trim and her endurance was amazing her. Then it
happened, a call from work, one of her co-workers had been in an
accident and would be in hospital for about two weeks and they needed
her to come back to work, just for a few days, because she was the
only person who was able to fill in. Naturally she said she would be
there. These things happen sometimes. What she didn't think of was
the effects of the diet.
Her body was now screaming in high gear, you can't just shut that
down instantly. Even if you stop the diet it would take a day or two
for your body to slow down, and she decided that she didn't want to
stop the diet for a couple days and then start it up again, so she
chose to continue it while she was at work.
You must understand at this point that although Diana's work may be
demanding, it doesn't involve much of a physical nature. She works at
a desk with a computer screen and a keen mind. Yet her body was
producing the sorts of energy levels you expect in a world-class
athlete. She was burning more than triple the calories she normally
did and that energy had to go SOMEWHERE.
Have you ever seen a person power-walking through an office? It's an
odd sight, the body movement says walking yet the speed of movement
says running. And that was just the start. I'm told that people
ducked reflexively every time she picked up her cup because the
movement seemed so aggressive. They had to replace two keyboards she
used because the keys were dead, the technician insisted that it
looked like the keys were being pushed through the keyboard, he even
accused her of using a hammer rather than fingers. Oh, and let's not
forget that her typing speed climbed by almost 20 WPM; disgusting,
the amount she increased is more than what I type normally!
She did three days work in that one afternoon and the boss said that
she could go back to her vacation. In fact, she decided that Diana
must be in worse need of a vacation then she had thought and so she
gave Diana an extra week of paid vacation. Some things work out for
the best.
Speaking of working out, I should also mention that when she got
home, Diana was so revved that she cleaned the house, floors, walls,
windows, ceilings, roof, rain gutters, exterior walls, driveway,
sidewalks, EVERYTHING. Didn't even need a ladder, just hopped to get
the parts that where too high. Washed all the dishes too, not just
the dirty one, she went through the cupboards and washed the CLEAN
dishes too. Same thing with the laundry. I had to fight her off
because she wanted to wash the cloths I was wearing while I was still
in them!
I don't know if I should hide this diet as a thing too dangerous for
mortals to use safely or if I should market it as a secret weapon.
Well, Diana is just fine, and we did get the house work done, even
the things that didn't need to be done. Yes, I would say that it is
impossible to get a house any cleaner than our's is right now.
I guess many things end up with results that we might not expect. Who
would think that a training diet that is intended to make me feel
more alive would turn me into a raving maniac or that a diet intended
to help a student improve their physical condition would get our
house cleaned. Maybe that's the real secret behind all great
discoveries: you never get what you want so you have to find what you
can do with what you get.
Now you might think that I have wandered from my diet, I only wish!
No, I still have to make it through another two days and I'm just
trying to get my mind off my own problems. The trouble is, anything I
start to think about turns into another diet story. I know, I should
tell you about the time that a friend of mine came up with a power
source that was going to solve all the energy problems in the world.
It seems that he had been trying to find a new way to cook stuff and
so he stuck electrodes into this steak and to his surprise he found
that he got a current... . I'm getting back into food again it seems.
Oh well, I guess it's time to move on with the day. I've made it this
far, I can make it to the end.
Let's see what's on my agenda for today. Ah! Here's something safe. I
have to get the car fixed. Ok, I can get it towed down and I'll wait
there for it. That should be just fine.
As I expected, the tow is going to cost more than the repairs, but that's ok, at least the day is passing by just fine. The mechanic, according to the tag stitched on his jacket his name is Bob, says that it will be just a little while longer.
Bob comes over and offers me a cup of coffee, that's ok I was ready for it, "No thanks, Bob, I can't have any coffee." There, that was easy. This time I wasn't in a weakened state.
Being a friendly sort, Bob just nods without any questions, "Would you like a pop then?" he asks. That sounds fine, I am thirsty and it would be a nice treat. He hands me a bottle and I take a good sized gulp. The taste is like the elixir of the gods, like the liquid of life itself, like ... COLA! A quick look at the bottle tells me that it's worse than I thought, not just any cola, it's that new stuff that is packed with extra caffeine!
This may not sound like all that big a deal, but keep in mind that my body hasn't had ANY caffeine in it for twelve days and now it's just had a hit of almost pure caffeine. Do you have any idea what that can DO to a person.
Already I can feel the rush sweep through my body and the universe is spinning. My vision is obscured with flashing star bursts of multicolored light. I can feel the sweat beading up on my forehead and my hands are clammy and starting to shake. What could I do? I looked at Bob and opened my mouth to speak, "Thanks, that was quite a pick-me-up." I said, "If you don't mind though, I think I'd like to sit down and rest a while. It was a long night." I'll have to make a note to change this tradition of mine!
Well, I survived. For a while I wasn't sure if I would but I did.
It's all over now. I don't have to worry about it for another year.
What? You thought I wasn't going to do this again? Well, you know,
it's tradition and traditions don't have to make sense, they just are.