Juicin' Juice: Day 2 of 10

Day two was a little better. I awoke still feeling achy, but not headachy--so my caffeine withdrawal symptoms are still being mellow. However, the dreams of Shoney's Breakfast Buffet had not quite left my noggin.

The wife was off again, and as we were seated in our dew soggy chairs on the deck, drinking our respective morning breakfast juices, I asked if she truly thought we were going to make it the full 10 days. I'd been very optimistic about our chances last week, when I was still eating eggs and cashews and the marginally good zucchini browned pancakes I'd made from the pulp of a massive farmer's market zucchini. Now, barely a day into it, I was thinking my resolve wasn't going to last. She said she would be on for the full 10. More to the point, we would still be on for the full 10. I shrugged and took another sip of my fruity concoction. It was good, but not bacon good.

The funny thing is, though, there's something very filling about these juices. I do think that the concentration of nutrients is what does it, because they're not really thick like shakes. (Though you can achieve that to some degree with certain fruits and veg, like melon.) One minute I'm craving breakfast buffet and a little while after I finish my juice I'm suddenly able to see such cravable foods from an objective distance. It's like I know that stuff would be awesome, but I'm also content not to rush out and eat it immediately. And in these calmer states of stomach and mind, I can envision actually making it to the end.

By lunch time, though, I was jonesing for Mexican food again. I decided to keep quiet about it, though, least I be the guy who says "fajitas" or "super burrito" in front of the wife, setting off a chain reaction of craving in her that leads us to bolt for the car, pajamas be damned, and haul ass for the border. (And, fortunately for us, there are two good Mexican places on the way to Taco Bell, so we have yet to actually make it to the Bell.) I must have looked forlorn about it, though, because she said, "Stop thinking about it."

At dinner time, after she'd barely choked down a particularly foul mix of lord knows what, the wife announced, "I could murder some salmon, this big," holding out her hands bowling ball width.

"I know," I said.

"How can it be wrong?" she said pitifully.

When it came to my dinner juice, though, I decided I needed some soup. The juicer comes with several recipes for making soup bases and I thought I'd rather try something hot and savory than another cold glass of green stuff. I mixed tomatoes, celery, spinach, kale, a sweet pepper and a wedge of lemon together, then heated it on the stove. I added salt, pepper, cumin and chili powder. It was amazing stuff! Very savory and satisfying and just what I wanted. The wife claimed from the other room that it smelled awful. Then she came into the kitchen and tried a sip and agreed it was really good. With soup at my disposal, suddenly 10 days didn't seem so much of a stretch.

We had an odd thing happen in the evening. The wife was in the kitchen, making enough juice to carry to work, I was in the living room playing Little Big Planet online with my godson, when suddenly there was a tremendous clang in the kitchen.

"Are you okay?" I called.

"Yes. But this pot just jumped off the EFFing counter at me."

I was confused as to what she meant, so I went into the kitchen to see my soup pot lying on the floor. The wife had been standing at the little counter beside the refrigerator, where the juicer lives. The pot had been resting on top of the counter along the opposite wall, behind her. Yet somehow it had come off of the counter and crashed to the floor. The wife seemed a little freaked out by this, because there was no apparent way for that to have happened. The counter the pot had been on isn't even attached to the one with the juicer on it, so vibrations shouldn't have been the cause, though I can't rule them out.

"Here's the culprit," I said, petting D.J. Kitty on the head, where he was sitting on a completely different countertop.

"No," she said. "He was right there the whole time."

Oooooeeeeeeooooooh. Maybe poltergeists are attracted to kale. Or maybe this influx of nutrition has given us telekinetic abilities, a la Brandon Routh's vegan warrior in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Oh shit.

Technically... I'm on a vegan diet.

Does this mean I have to stop making fun of them?