easily amused

I traveled to Australia with one of my very best friends. We are quite similar, in that we are both petite Indian girls with a penchant for dorkery. However, we do have our differences. Mainly, she is quite health conscious while I literally start to get the shakes if I don't get my fix of high fructose corn syrup in a two hour period.

But I must admit some of her good habits rubbed off on me. We ate healthy breakfasts and had fruit and yogurt every day. We supplemented our diet regimen with fresh juices and smoothies. During one of these juice breaks, I discovered love in (literally) the least unlikely form:

Carrot.Orange.Ginger.

That's right. Fresh juice made from carrots, orange and ginger. Sound gross? Well it WASN'T. So enamored was I that upon my return I became fixated on purchasing a juicer. And not just any juicer. At some point in my television watching stupor, I stumbled upon the infomercial for ... THE JACK LALANNE POWER JUICER.


Who knows why the salesmanship of an 80+ year old ex-fitness icon worked so well on me. But that it did. So much so that I surfed E-bay, powerjuicer.com (seriously), and multiple retailers before making a wonderful discovery: Costco now stocks the Power Juicer.

Reminscent of my 10-year old self desperately in need of the latest NKOTB casette tape, I whined and whined until my parents took me to Costco and bought me a power juicer. Yes, I have officially digressed into childhood. I think the look of glee I had rivaled that of any child in Toys-R-Us.

Oh, and one other thing. It's not just Jack selling the juicer on the informercial. He brings out his wife to help him.

People, did you know that Jack LaLanne's wife's name is ... ELAINE? Her name is Elaine LaLanne. I swear. It's so sad that it's funny. Or so funny that it's sad. I can't decide. All I know is that had I been her and met Jack say in 1851 or whenever they met ... I immediately would've recognized the irony that my name was Elaine and that his last name was LaLanne. At that point I would've broken it off, or at least rallied for women's rights and kept my own last name. But who am I to judge? Maybe her maiden name was Blaine. Or Dwayne. Or Wayne. And her parents were just really mean.

Anyway, we also stocked up on enough fruit to start our own stand. I came home and spent hours with my new toy. And even though Good Housekeeping gave it two vacuums up or whatever their seal of approval is ... I feel the need to give my own praise. The thing is awesome. The orange juice I made was surprisingly good. I then got out some carrots and ginger and made my pre-destined concoction, which was also quite yummy.

And then I doubled over in pain and had to run to the restroom. Two large glasses of freshly squeezed juice ingested over the course of 10 minutes on an empty stomach ... not so good.

Anyway, I kept experimenting. Strawberry-kiwi ... pretty good, though I put in too much kiwi.

I haven't used it today. My current guess is that I just had 3 glasses of juice, each worth one easy payment of $33.33.