Wednesday, April 20, 2011  Part 11: How the movie ALIEN saved my
life.  I was a fat kid.  Sorry, there is no kind way to put it. 
I had been called all sorts of "cute" names throughout my
childhood referring to my weight: Pudgy, Fat Christmas Goose,
Buster Boy (ok, the last one doesn't seem to be related to my
weight, but TRUST ME...if you had heard my father say it, you'd
respond, "Oh, I get it.  You're the fat kid."  Wearing your belt
high, only makes things worse...I loved my dog, though.  It
wasn't just an awkward age, much of it had to do with heredity,
but a lot of it had to do with conditioning.  It is no secret
that there was not a parent in the house interested in cooking. 
We were far from a traditional household anyway, but cooking
became a chore for one of them to do and it was treated with the
same level of contempt.   On weekends, my father would cook huge
pots of stuff like stew (with the cheapest, stringiest, hunks of
gray meat floating around in it) and then would freeze it for
use later in t