Wayne’s World ~ It’s that time of the year

Once again, it’s that time of year. My wife is hustling around the house these days and it’s not because of last week’s column or spring cleaning.

The reason she is on the move is it’s that time of the year and I am not referring to my wife starting bedding plants or our plans to start cleaning up the garden to allow early spring seeding if the mood strikes. It’s not the huge changes on the political landscape that occurred last week that are the impetus. Those changes saw Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty resign after doing a pretty good job, especially through difficult times such as the economic meltdown of 2008-09 and the years since then. To top if off, he has came close to his goal of balancing the books.

It’s not the resignation of Alison Redford – Alberta’s first female premier – that has me concerned and it certainly is not the phases of the moon or upcoming observances such as Palm Sunday, Passover and Easter. Let’s not forget how Russia stole Crimea back from Ukraine last week. Russian leader Vladimir Putin first sent his army to occupy key areas of the region and then accepted the results of a vote by pro-Russian residents to leave the perogy producers and unite with their former motherland.

The situation kind of reminds me of the Party Quebecois who want to separate from Canada. I personally think we should fully endorse those francophone desires  and send them off with their fair share of our federal debt. Then the Canadian military can invade and capture the territory in order to ensure First Nations in the region receive their treaty rights as promised by the queen. Think of all the real estate that would be up for grabs as property owners fled from advancing troops or could not pay their share of federal debt with a grossly devalued currency. I have always wanted to make real maple syrup and such conditions would provide the perfect opportunity to purchase an affordable forested area that is already set up for production.

The result of any military conquest is oppression of its subjects. However, controlling or owning individuals will not go over well with our Charter of Rights, so perhaps the Russian president could help in that department. In all likelihood any vanquished French Canadians will eventually succumb to economic oppression. It’s a terrible thought, but if a person wants to obtain a stand of maple trees or purchase prime property in old Montreal at a bargain price, something drastic has to happen. Perhaps the Mohawks (the militant ones we read about and see on television) would be interested in governing the conquered land and negotiating with die-hard separatists.

Getting back to the point of this column, it is time for some drastic changes in my household. My wife has decided it is again time to embark on our biannual cleanse. An annual dose of misery is no longer sufficient, so we are participating in a health cleanse twice a year for the purpose of internal cleaning.

The first four days are not bad since our diet will largely be vegetables, apples and water.

However, the next seven days is a little brutal as mung beans are the food of choice. In fact, they are the only thing on the menu. Of course, the cook can be wildly creative, but there are a limited number of ways to cook the beans. After a week of eating mung beans, a person’s attitude toward mung beans definitely deteriorates. Then comes three final and glorious days of eating nothing but vegetables! You can trust me when I say, “Vegetables truly taste unbelievable after eating mung beans for a week!”

Why would anyone go through such an ordeal? The cleansing process reportedly eliminates toxins from the body that are otherwise not released. I don’t know all the details, but the rigmarole  gets easier  every year. Side effects such as headaches and sore muscles that I experienced  during my first cleanse are less severe or disappear as the cleanse is repeated. There is also weight reduction, presumably from consuming fewer calories. I seem to gain the weight back by eating too much comfort (junk) food which causes accumulation of new toxins in my system, so the cycle should be repeated twice a year according to my wife.

I think cycles of abundance and famine accomplished the same thing as a cleanse in years past, so I am very grateful our cleansing is a voluntary process – voluntary as defined by the Oxford-Angela Dictionary.

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