THE BLISS CONNECTION

The Drs. aired a Special episode today with an all male audience to ask everything they always wanted to know but don’t understand about women.  One man wanted to know what it is with women and chocolate.  He thought that sometimes women would prefer chocolate to sex.  At least he thinks his woman would, so they all must be that way, right?

His ego-arrogance aside (maybe she only prefers chocolate to sex with him), it got me thinking.  What is this hold chocolate has over so many women and why does it seem to be a female- mostly addiction.

I’m not buying all that malarkey about estrogen and hormonal imbalance driving a women like a wild stallion out of control, the poor female doing her best just to keep hold of the reins. 

For instance, estrogen is supposed to be the “feel good” hormone.  There’s just one flaw in the ointment – PMS. For those who suffer it, PMS symptoms are worse when estrogen is at it’s highest. Then, they seem to be far more relaxed and calm when estrogen drops to its lowest monthly level right after ovulation.

The flaw is in the narrow parameters of the studies.  They forget to factor in that estrogen also boosts brain function.  It’s the reason why we become forgetful in menopause when estrogen starts drying up along with everything else.

Though men refuse to admit it, study after study indicates that women are more prone than men to compromise and “let things go” for the sake of harmony in a relationship. Perhaps when estrogen peaks and takes brain function and reasoning along with it, women simply can't dumb themselves down enough to keep from throwing their perfectly valid two cents (uh, sense) into the pot.

So what about the chocolate?  I have a theory on that too.  Did you doubt that I would?

When a man is courting a woman, trying to impress her, win her over with his charm and gallantry, he talks to her in sweet tones, smiles a lot, gives her gifts (little and big) compliments her regularly and generally feeds her on a feel good diet.  Powerful drug that feel good stuff is.

But it doesn’t last.  I point again to science.  Prehistoric men were hardwired to be hunters and warriors.  Fast forward and it’s still lurking in their DNA; they hunt for jobs, they compete with other employees for promotions and raises, they watch their sports teams battle it out on the field, maybe they hunt wild game . . . and they hunt and compete for a mate.  The very challenge of finding her and winning out over all the other men gets their blood up.

Once the woman is won, their brain starts dragging them off to find new conquests on the modern day hunting grounds and battlefields of jobs and sports and backyard barbeques.  The sweet tones become flat, the smiles are fleeting, and the compliments have to be dragged from the dark, cobwebby recesses of the brain cave.

“Honey, how do I look in these jeans?”

Can you believe that, handed the opening on a silver platter, some guys still don’t get it?

The Drs. said today that chocolate contains certain chemicals that mimic the feel good substances, like serotonin, in our brains.  Just so you know, so do fat and sugar.  So, after being slyly seduced and helplessly addicted to the feel good diet of our courtship, we crave the high that those sweet words of love and adoration gave us.

But the supply line has dried up, so we stuff chocolate in our mouths like a heroine addict sucks down methadone.  We prefer the dark chocolate (something else men don’t understand) because it has the greatest percentage of cacao – a better high.  But like any addict, we’ll take what we can get.  Admit it, you’ve stood with the fridge door open slurping from the can of Hershey’s Syrup.

Supposedly, long distance running produces the same feel good chemicals – the runners’ high.  Remember that movie with Julia Roberts, The Runaway Bride?  Maybe she had this figured out.

As for me, I think I have the solution to my addiction and for shedding the weight that is, literally, rolling around my midsection.  I just need somebody to dangle a chocolate bar off the back of their truck and get me to chase it for a couple of miles every day.

. . . . . . mid

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I'D RATHER LOSE MY CAR THAN MY PRIDE

I told my daughter, a stay at home mom to two of my four grandchildren, that she has to get out of the house more often. She told me that was the old mom calling the young mom stuck in a rut.

Since entering semi-retirement, I haven’t ventured far from the comforts of my country confines during these past winter months. I even managed to take all of my degree courses online this semester and the thirty-five mile trips to have lunch with a friend and do a little shopping have dwindled down to none.

Even the lure of spending less on groceries and other necessities doesn’t tempt me the way it does in summer months. But the recent warming temperatures that promise spring and hint at summer bring cabin fever. So when daughter called to say she had a childless afternoon on her hands,it was all the prodding I needed to agree to a chicks’ day out.

You know the chicks have been cooped up too long when they get lost in not one, but three shopping area parking lots.

My hubby tells me that the alarm on the key fob works like a charm for locating misplaced vehicles. Of course, that’s after he asks me why I don’t make a mental note of where I park when I get out of the car. His mistake is in assuming that I don’t. Like cheap sticky notes with inferior glue, my cerebral reminders just don’t stay put.

Besides, pressing that little button is way too close to having one of those "Help me I've fallen down and can't get up," alarms dangling around my neck.

I mentioned the car alarm trick to my daughter and she asked why I wasn’t pressing the button. What? And draw attention to my forgetfulness obviously brought on by advancing age?

She agreed that the two of us wandering around a parking lot shouting to each other from two lanes away didn’t draw attention. She gets her sarcasm from me.

“I guess you had your eyes closed when we parked.” I said.

She responded that she never pays attention to where she parks. Why would she? The vehicle her hubby and she chose to accommodate two active kids and all their trappings is so large she can spot it from a block away. I practically need a step ladder to climb into the monster and elevation nosebleeds can't be ruled out.

She can be smug now, but she only has a year left of her twenties. It won't be long before her eyesight goes the way of her size skinny jeans and she won't be able to rely on the crutch of clear vision any more.

Things change as we get older. We become more thoughtful, we develop a desire to make a difference, we hone in on the important things in life. I like to think that my preference to keep my business local is based in those maturing values.

Things have become less important to me than people. Community is like a family. I like chatting with my neighbor who works the checkout at the grocery store. I like seeing the familiar faces of the couple that owns the hardware. I like being greeted with a smile and called by name.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I could wind my way around any expressway cloverleaf, make a fast lane change to an exit or entrance ramp, and find an access road to arrive at the Mecca of a suburban shopping mall. Now, it just doesn’t seem worth the effort.

Okay, so maybe the truth is that I don’t like driving in “the big city”. But by navigating my way through the maze of traffic lanes and poorly planned parking lots of an urban shopping center, even one as tame as that in our nearest city, what can I find there that I can’t find closer to my rural home?

Obviously not my car.

. . . . . mid

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