Journal Entries

I wish I liked to eat oranges more than I do. What I mean to say is, I like the flavor of oranges, but I wish I had the patience to eat them more often.

Oranges are hard to eat. They have to be peeled, and there’s no way to peel one without getting sticky orange juice on everything and everyone within a five-foot radius. I’ve tried using one of those plastic orange peelers, but they leave too much white insulation on the orange.

The reason I’ve been thinking about this is because I recently rejoined Weight Watchers; its part of my plan to lose 20 pounds so I can take some of the load off my knee and return to running marathons. So I’ve been trying to eat two to four pieces of fruit every day and I think more of those pieces would be oranges if they were easier to eat.

I seldom eat, during the middle of the day, just to eat. I usually eat while I’m reading the paper or reading a book or typing on the computer or working on some teaching project or writing in my journal. My favorite snack fruits are apples. I can eat an apple while walking around the house, or climbing the stairs at work. I can eat an apple while reading a book or the newspaper or while driving my pickup. I can even eat an apple while typing on my computer. It slows me down some, but I can still do it.

My apple of choice used to be tart, green, Granny Smith’s because they have the most dependable crunch and never get mushy. I don’t care how an apple tastes if it isn’t crisp. To me, texture trumps flavor every time. But nowadays I’d rather eat Golden Delicious apples sliced and cored with my wagon wheel-shaped stainless steel slicer.

But I was talking about oranges. I’ve tried to eat oranges while reading, but I end up with sticky pages.

I remember once during my last orange-eating binge I tried peeling an orange while driving my Ford Ranger pickup. I got it done, but it bothered my son, a brand new driver, who was in the passenger seat at the time. He got a little nervous watching me peel the orange while controlling the steering wheel with the back of my left hand. Driving a manual transmission requires both hands and both feet and Byron thought that peeling and eating an orange was beyond the realm of safe driving. He was right, of course, but what was I to do? I’m better now. Now I drive a pickup with an automatic transmission and Bryon lives in Dallas and seldom rides with me.

Today I took an orange to the office break room where I could wash my hands and clothes after peeling. I put the pieces in a bowl, and then enjoyed the tasty fruit while typing on my computer. But who has the patience for that each and every day? Not me. I don’t have time to go to the break room every time I get hungry. I want to get on with things, and oranges slow me down.

I’ve looked wistfully at the variety of fruit in the supermarket: kiwi, star fruit, pineapple, bizarre bananas, cactus leaves, mangos, grapes, grapefruit, lemons, and other exotics I wish I were adventurous enough to try. Grapes are tasty but tedious, lemons are impossible to eat, cactus leaves … well, I’m not sure God meant for us to eat everything … pineapples are too pointy, star fruit tastes good in a fruit salad but the skin is too tough to eat solo, kiwi had that brown hair, I’ve tried eating foreign bananas but it’s always been unsatisfactory. Grapefruits are promising, but the only way I know how to eat a grapefruit is to cut it in half and carefully extract each section one at a time. It’s more trouble than eating an orange.

I’ve considered eating an orange straight on, peel and all, just like an apple, but so far I haven’t been man enough to try it. The peeling is just too tart.

The bottom line is, eating an orange is mostly attitude and patience, and it frustrates me that I don’t have enough of either. I guess I’ll have another apple.