Tom’s Mumblings

I am an all-American male. I like beef and baked potatoes and real food. What is with this sushi fad? I just dont get it. They serve you this horrible raw fish, wrapped in cold seaweed, with cold egg, all squished together. Um-um, good? I dont think so.

Thats not even real food. What is that? How do these big, burley guys come off saying, Oh, I just love to eat sushi? I dont get it. I hate raw fish. Its not enough food to fill me up. Its cold and sticks to your insides, and it tastes awful. I think the only way I could even get that stuff down would be to wash it down with Sake, and if you did that, youd be so drunk you wouldnt know what youre eating.

My brother loves sushi. Will it anytime, anywhere. He eats not just the fish stuff, but the squid and octopus stuff, which is like eating rubber. No thanks. Ill pass. And as hes washing it down, hes telling me how good it is. It doesnt look that way.

Its terrible stuff. Plus fish has mercury in it. All these people that live on lots of sushi, I wonder if theyve had their mercury content checked recently. I read that if you eat salmon sushi more than twice a year, youre risking getting cancer.

Sushi is also uncooked fish. Some of the sushi still has live worms and parasites in it because the fish is raw and not frozen. Salmon and tuna sushi are loaded with mercury and industrial chemicals (dioxins, pesticides and PCBs which have been dumped in our oceans). If you eat this, these poisons will stay in your body for decades They can reduce fertility, steadily weaken the immune system and potentially cause cancer.

An analysis of Sushi restaurants in L.A. found dangerous levels of mercury in a quarter of the samples tested. I just dont get it. Bring me some real, cooked food. Not fake designer Barbie food, full of parasites and live worms. How do people do it? They call it a fad and then pretend that they like what theyre eating. Lets have sushi! Yummy!

Boy, when you hit 50, another milestone birthday, your wife starts thinking about keeping you alive longer in your later years. She realizes that youve been eating fast-food your entire life and dessert before bed every night. When you watch the nightly news, theres at least one story of some movie star or singer having a heart attack or bypass surgery. Then you start thinking, I wonder how clean my arteries are?

My wife then decided its time to clean out my pipes, so I wont have to go under the knife later on — whether I like it or not. Gone are the nightly scoops of ice cream before bed. Gone are the mashed potatoes and gravy that Id have seconds and thirds of on Sundays.

Gone are the fried foods I loved so much. Now theyre just a memory. Shes buying baked potato chips (not oil fried); shes baking my French fries (not oil fried) and Im only allowed fried chicken (something I just refuse to give up) once every six months or so. How harmful can that be?

Her choice of cooking oil is now olive oil, which leaves a terrible smell to everything she cooks and she fries ALL your meat and vegetables in it. If youre doing the cooking, you have to do it really quick, because you dont want to get that olive oil too hot so that it burns. The smell is awful!

I now eat 1/2 cup of oatmeal for breakfast EVERY morning to keep me regular and to make sure I get enough fiber and it lowers my cholesterol. Gone are the eggs, bacon, sausages and pancakes with syrup on the weekends. Gone are the sugary cereals I loved in my youth. Now I eat the bland oatmeal. It makes the wife and my doctor happy.

We eat chicken and fish regularly with salad and baked potato. We use fat-free sour cream and salsa instead of butter. I only get a great steak and barbecue ribs (to die for) once a month, just so I dont forget what they taste like.

Its not so bad. Ive lost 30 pounds. It keeps my wife happy and off my case, and Im not making my doctor any wealthier. Notice when your wife changes HER diet, you change yours too, whether you like it or not? After all, shes the one that brings the food into the house and prepares it. So be it. Its our way of life now. Hopefully no surgeries for me. See you at the next milestone!

I was married for 19 years, divorced for 4 years. We had 4boys together, 2 with special needs. I dealt with stress by just not being home. She worked out of home and was raising all of the kids herself because I wasnt there.

I did nothing to help her. Id leave at 7:00 in the morning to go to work and Id come home at 9:00 at night. She always had dinner in the microwave waiting for me. She washed my work clothes and had them ready every morning.

The kids didnt really see me because theyd be in bed before I got home. On the weekends, Id either work or go to my friends house and hang out. I wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

We were always arguing. She was frustrated because she never got a break from the kids. She wouldnt have sex with me because she said she no longer felt close to me. I didnt feel close to her because she was always in a bad mood. So we just became these really bad roommates who ignored each other. We slept in the same bed, but faced opposite directions. We didnt like the people we had become.

We couldnt afford to divorce, but she finally said she had enough. She said if I didnt want to be part of the family anymore, I should leave. She said shes rather be alone then be alone in a marriage. I didnt see what I was doing to her then. She was a lot stronger in the marriage than I was. I dealt with stuff by leaving. She dealt with stuff by staying. She was the one there with the boys, not me.

The kids still live with her even though theyre young adults now. She is not dating or because shes waiting till the kids have moved out. I moved in with someone a year after the separation. My girlfriend is still married. We fight a lot and I realize now how bad I treated my wife. She was a good woman and a good mother to the kids. I never told her she was a good mother. I still to this day wont tell her Im sorry for the way I treated her.

My ex-wife is nice to me now. We actually talk to each other, which we didnt do before. Its hard to believe that we spent 19 years together. Im glad we are friends, and we appreciate the good parts of each other now. Because after youre divorced, the bad doesnt matter anymore. You dont have to live with each other, and thats a choice.