Welcome to my world.

Holy crap. My knees are absolutely KILLING me, people! I don’t know how I dragged myself out of bed this morning except my tub of arthritis-strength Tylenol was in another room so I didn’t have much choice. I went back to sleep for a couple of hours afterwards but still feel pretty lousy and I’m stiff as a board. This includes my knees, elbows, shoulders, fingers, but I think that’s all because my toes don’t hurt. (My toes are technically numb due to diabetic neuropathy, but that’s a topic for another whine list.)

All of this pain is clearly related to the fact that I’ve been under the weather for the last few days, which also might explain why I haven’t been motivated to write a Howdygram post since Saturday. My symptoms include a strangely hypothermic “un-fever” under 96° with chills and body aches, a floater in my right eye, a huge lump on the knuckle of my right thumb and a craving for a lot of cheese. You know it has to be serious when you get up in the middle of the night and order a two-pound brick of imitation Velveeta from Wal-Mart. I checked with WebMD.com but apparently the medical profession doesn’t give a crap about cheese, floaters and thumb lumps. Welcome to my world.

OMG, I just fell in love with Amazon.com all over again. I’m using “one-click ordering” now and it’s so fast it could give you a freaking nosebleed. You go straight from the product page to “thank you for your order” ... NO MORE SHOPPING CART! This means I can order mountains of crap even when Sam is in the room and he’ll have no clue what I’m doing! I just purchased four 45-oz. jars of Chunky Ragu for $18.09, which Sam enjoys with his favorite Schwan’s mozzarella sticks. This will provide enough Ragu to last through Thanksgiving.

And now for an essential product review! I’m pleased to introduce you to Carb Not Beanit Butter, a peanut butter knockoff made from roasted soybeans that’s so damn good you can eat it plain with a soup spoon. I received my first jar from Netrition.com a few days ago and I’ve been blown away. It tastes exactly like peanut butter except it has NO SUGAR, ZERO CARBS and FIVE GRAMS OF FIBER per serving! I’m a deliriously happy diabetic!

If my knees hold up I want to make a batch of Emergency Beanit Butter Cookies this afternoon and eat the entire tray for dinner with half a quart of vanilla Soy Slender, a couple of Slim Jims and a nice green vegetable. My cookie recipe follows in case you’re interested.

• 1 cup Beanit Butter
• 1⅓ cups granulated Splenda with fiber
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 375°. Moosh everything together in a bowl until it comes together into a perfect soft ball. Pull off small chunks to roll into smaller balls. Flatten them in both directions with the tines of a fork dipped in Splenda and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

God bless Beanit Butter and thank you for reading this.