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I’ve been on a cereal kick. Those Kellogg variety 12-packs. They only come with 11 varieties, but you don’t always get two of the same one. Last week, it was two Special K boxes. This week, two Frosted Mini Wheats. C’mon, Kellogg, you seriously can’t come up with a 12th cereal? Who do you think you’re fooling?

Sometime in the last few years, I became one of those people who looks at the nutritional information on foodstuffs. Rarely am I looking for something specific. I think it’s just cause I like to read.

“No way! This spinach wrap has 23% of my daily sodium recommendation? That’s crazy! That’s more sodium than this two-and-a-half serving bag of Munchos… if I ate the whole bag.”

“You mean if I eat both pop tarts in this package, it’s gonna be over 400 calories? I can live with one.”

This morning, I compared all the little cereal boxes while I chowed down on my Rice Krispies, which supplied me with 40% of my daily iron needs but absolutely no fiber. If I needed fiber, the Frosted Mini Wheats or Raisin Bran would have been the way to go. And Special K must know it’s a ladies cereal, cause it’s fortified with folic acid.

This concludes your daily allowance of cereal banter.

When I woke up on Friday with a scratchy throat, I thought “now that’s odd.” I knew it was allergies, but I can’t recall being plagued by them in late August before. My dad and my executive editor both tell me ragweed is to blame.

Well, dear Ragweed, thanks to you I had a sucky weekend. Two days of not being able to breathe or enjoy sleep. Food not having the right taste. Missing out on whatever fun things happened over the weekend because I was too achey and mouth-breathy to leave the couch.

Today’s the part where I sound worse but feel a bit better. I’m sure all the reporters were grossed out by how many times I blew my nose today.

In honor of the release of season two of Veronica Mars yesterday, let me tell you a story.

Unlike Jaimie, I didn’t retain a lot of what I learned in Dr. Henrick’s art history classes. Some things really stuck with me, though, and one of those is her talking about the pieta. (Pieta means “a representation of the Virgin Mary mourning over the dead body of Christ.”)

There is, of course, more than one pieta out there, but I think the most recognizable is Michelangelo’s:

One day, while Dr. Henricks is talking about a painting by Jacques-Louis David called The Death of Marat, she looked at the slide like she was viewing the painting for the first time, made this fake little gasp and waved her hand and said “Pieta.” She was explaining that pretty much anyone who viewed the painting back then would see the parallel the artist was making: Marat as martyr, like Christ.

I think it is much in the same way that a lot of people today would look at a picture of four people striding along a crosswalk and think “Abbey Road.” They just automatically know that the photographer is referencing the Beatles album cover.

Well, just so you know Dr. Henricks, five years after being a student of yours, while watching the season premiere of Veronica Mars last fall, when I saw this scene, my immediate response was to wave my hand at the screen and deem “Pieta!”

And, because the folks over at VM are clever and into continuity, they managed to reverse the scene for the season finale:

Yesterday, I made Kris take me to El Tap for lunch because I was craving Nachos Tapatios. As we were pulling into a parking space, this car came barreling around toward us, swerving and too fast for a parking lot. It continues to speed around and join a car near us. We all get out of our cars at the same time and the other party is full of, we’ll say young teens (I am no good judge of age).

Now, if you multiply the heat by my hunger and add my age, which is apparently in the “over youthful shenanigans” category… you get my annoyance quotient. Basically, my thoughts no longer lean toward “Hey, looks like that crowd is having a good time.” No, instead, it’s more a “Geez, I hope they don’t seat us near those people.”

In the time it took Kris and I to enter the building, one of the young dudes had screamed three times. Because I guessed he was just SO TERRIBLY STOKED to be at El Tapatio on a Sunday afternoon AAAGGGHHHH I’m young, I’m lovin’ it AAAAGGGGHHHH.

Kris opened the door for me and joked “this is why I am no longer a youth pastor.”

We got in line next to an older couple and as the guy outside screamed again, I blurted out “gah, please just don’t seat me near them if he’s gonna keep SCREAMING like that.”

My nerves. They are not what they used to be. I figured the older couple could commiserate. But as soon as I complained out loud, I wondered…

Yep. Lucky me.

Older folks were waiting on the youth group. Must’ve gone ahead after church to go get a table.

As they all walked back to their table, the waitress asked how many.

“Two,” Kris said.

“And can we sit in the smoking section?” I added.

P.S. On our way out, we ran into Laura Hill. “Hey, did you go to the reunion last night?” I asked. She smiled, shook her head and said “I guess you didn’t, either.”

It’s time for me to order checks. Should I stay with the cutesy-wootsey Betty Boop or switch to the trendy-wendy Hello Kitty?