Even pudding–lots of it–can’t make the world entirely palatable.
In a fit of misguided foresight earlier this week I made not one 8-ounce serving per upcoming school day but, instead, the whole dang bag of instant chocolate pudding. It was Monday night–with but four packed lunches to go, my friend–and I made seven servings, plus a large cereal bowl full of the stuff. I used all of the milk M had mixed for us (skim with whole, since we like 1% or 2% but N’s supposed to have whole), for which I felt kind of bad but only until I saw that there was still plenty back.
Since then I have been faithfully imbibing the stuff. We ate the bowl on Tuesday night for desert, and every day I took one serving to school for lunch, except for Thursday, when I rode my bike to school. I ate two that day, one for lunch and one just before riding home. It gave me quite a boost.
It’s a good problem to have, mind you, in comparison to what so many other people have to deal with, which is what I learn about at lunchtime at school. That’s when I usually I grab my bread and cheese and (this week) pudding and sit down at a computer to listen to NPR’s hourly news updates, surf other news outlets, and watch Reuters news videos. It’s my junkie time.
Lately while I’m watching news, though, I’ve noticed a side effect of my increasing enamoredness with N: I find it unbearable to watch news of children harmed–and there seems to be no shortage of imperiled children, most recently in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian atrocities. In Gaza, “as many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded — about a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27, according to U.N. figures released Thursday,” says MSNBC.
The pudding appeal pales, but that’s the least of humanity’s worries.