Chocolate

I love chocolate. I don't mean that in the quaint way people say, "I love kittens or warm rainy nights," or even "I love God." I mean, I LOVE chocolate.

My co-workers forbid me to eat chocolate before or during staff meetings and they keep it on their desks and give me some after lunch if I've been particularly helpful. You've seen a cat on catnip? Well, that's me on chocolate. Hyper, talking, frequent laughing. Add a couple more pieces and I'm bouncing up and down in my seat, gritting my teeth and slobbering like Cujo.

BRB. I'm going to get a chocolate doughnut.

Okay. It's amazing how much of our lives revolve around food. Baby showers, weddings, birthdays and funerals, from the cradle to the grave we celebrate and mourn with food. New baby? Eat!  Birthday? Eat! Sick or in the hospital? We'll feed your family. Eat! Married? Eat! Lost a loved one? Eat!

There are some things we don't celebrate with food and probably should. Divorce. Bankruptcy. Getting fired. Failing a grade. A spoonful of sugar and all that. I celebrated the end of each Weight Watcher's meeting with a Big Mac and super-sized fries and wondered why that particular program didn't work for me. Food celebrations are all through religious tradition. Marriages, communion, baptisms and confirmations. But no matter what I celebrate, chocolate will be on the table.Unless my nephew is there. He doesn't like chocolate, never has. Personally, I think he was dropped on his head when he was a baby. So, if he comes, we try to remember to bake two cakes. One without chocolate. He will eat tootsie rolls though, which makes me happy because I always suspected they were counterfeit chocolate anyway.