Baaaaaad Goat Cheese and the 50-Chick

(Note: That American flag there is not attached to the cheese in my hands. It is in no way connected to the cheese. It is sitting on my desk because I am now a Webelos Den Leader in the cub scouts and that's our little den flag. Yeah I know. Quite a juxtaposition, isn't it? Me and the cub scouts? No it's all right. Laugh. Get it out of your system.)

As I near my half-century mark (EEEEP!! WHA? ACK!), I am trying to be healthier (30 didn't bother me. 40 felt validating. 50 feels . . . EEEEP!! WHA? etc.) I have to. My body is slooooowwwwwwing down. That which I used to be able to eat without so much as a backward glance slips right down to my belly, takes a left turn at my hips, and jiggles freakishly just above the left thigh. For, like, ever, apparently. I run. I lift weights (read: I hate running. And I am resigned to lifting weights), I park very far away from entrances when I am out on errands thereby requiring a hefty walk into the store. To no avail. There are unidentifiable globules all over my nearly half-century body. And they have set up shop.

It's okay, though. My daughter has informed me that when I look in the mirror I need to learn to look at me, not at me. Got it. Which sort of reminds me of that line from How to Train Your Dragon: "It's not what's on the outside he doesn't like; it's what's on the inside he can't stand." Except the other way around. And in a really awesome Craig Ferguson Scottish accent. Which does nothing for the globules.

All of which brings me to goat cheese. 

The other day I decided absolutely, once and for all, to achieve excellence in fitness by eating right. I was exercising. Now it was time to manage the food. It was my 38th stab at my New Year's Resolution toward that end, but this time I was going to succeed.

So I went to the local Eat-Treebark-and-Lick-a-River store and bought myself a salad. All natural. Pre-made. I was tired after trudging from the farthest reaches of the parking lot. I wasn't gonna exhaust myself further by spending the afternoon standing over my sink peeling alfalfa. Pre-made, baby, that's what I was after.

It was a gorgeous salad: California Turkey, from some raw-food guru. It was bodacious and buxom; full of turkey breast meat, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, onions and sundry veggies, plus agave-swirled walnuts. The whole thing was topped off with a lovely honey-mustard dressing and a little patty of pure white . . . um. No idea. It was definitely a patty of some sort. And purely white. Looked creamy. Cheese maybe? Cream cheese? Ooh! I love me my cream cheese.

So, I swished everything together, broke up the strange little organic white patty-thing, dowsed it all in dressing and dug in. Ohhh my. Ohhhh delish. Ohhhhhhhh (click below for sudden sound effect that occurred right at that moment:)

Sweet Mary Francis on organic spelt crackers with a dash of vegemite! What just crawled all over my taste buds and died?

Hark. Goat cheese. Two words in the English language that should never–EVER–be put together in the same sentence. Nor even, peradventure, on the same planet.

A goat is nature's narsty little garbage disposal. A creature with no discerning palate what.so.ever. An animal possessed of such inexplicably horrifying eating habits that Bill Grogan tied his to a railroad track and left it to die (It's a song. What? You've never heard it? What are you talking about? It's "Bill Grogan's Goat." I totally grew up on it. I . . . oh. I see. I'm almost 50. FINE. Here. I'll sing it for you. Well, I won't. This adorable old man who I randomly found on YouTube and think should go viral and become famous will sing it for you.) (I'm serious. Listen to this guy's musical ear. It is dead on. And he's got fabulous style. As well as that whole story-telling-grandpa-thing. Check it:)

Okay. Where was I. I get lost when cute grandpas suddenly show up on my blog. I mean, how ADORABLE is this man?

Anyway.

We can be agreed that most goats are ornery. And they eat things like tires and old pizza and shoes and railroad tracks and 3 red shirts. WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO EAT ANYTHING THAT CAME DOWN THROUGH THE DIGESTIVE TRACT OF AN ANIMAL THAT CONSUMES THAT KIND OF STUFF?

More to the point, why would anyone stick the goat-tract-traveled-cheesy-byproduct on a perfectly good pre-made organic salad belonging to a woman of a certain age who is trying to get rid of errant globules? Something that tastes like sweaty gym socks rolled in fritos dipped in rubber cement wrapped in sour cream and aged in a goat. WHY?

Well I don't appreciate it. Not only is goat cheese clearly a mockery perpetrated against us by the French, but it is an insult to me and an insult to cows, from whence all real cheese comes. (Let me clarify that it is from cows and cows alone, not me, from whence all real cheese comes. I knew you knew that. Just making sure.) And it seriously puts me off salad. 

Now I am traumatized. I no longer trust health food. Or dairy. Or turning almost 50 in 2 years. So, I am done. No more running from the steppes of outer Mongolia to get into the store. No more strangling myself on my earphones as they get caught on the treadmill and I skid off and die. And above all, no more goat. freaking. cheese.

I'm going to embrace the globules, and embrace the 50.

It just ain't worth the (shudders).