Janie Carter Day
Posted: January 25, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: artisit, Birthday, bridge, Jane Carter 3 CommentsToday is my Mother’s 75th birthday. That is a lot of birthdays. Three quarters of a century. She’s doing great. She is an exceptional artist who paints most days and continues to win juried show after juried show. When she is not painting she would like to be playing bridge. Playing bridge and having lunch with her friends, that is a perfect day for her.
For her birthday today she was supposed to playing bridge, but then the snow and bad weather happened. Not only was bridge on her birthday canceled but also so was lunch with friends.
So for my blog today I am asking anyone reading this to do me a favor. Please send my mother, Janie Carter a happy birthday e-mail. Her address is Janie@Carter.net.
If you want to look at her website and see some of her artwork go to Janecarterart.com. My mom is not one who is big on cake, but having people enjoy her paintings is something that would make her happy, almost as happy as playing bridge — Maybe not as happy as winning at bridge, but happy none-the-less.
If you have enjoyed reading my blog at all do me this favor. I am the way I am in part to the mother I have. Because of the weather and the sickness that still engulfs our house I can’t go play bridge with my mother and make her birthday all better, so you, wonderful reader are my best back-up plan.
I hope you are staying warm and safe on this cold January 25th. Enjoy a glass of wine in honor of my mother. She would like that too.
Your Number is Not Important
Posted: January 24, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: size 8 2 CommentsThe other day I was talking to a friend of mine about clothes shopping. She confessed that she never tries anything on at stores and just buys things and then brings them back if she does not like them. Whoaaaa!! I was astonished by this.
“How do you know you are buying the right size?” I asked.
“I only buy the same single digit size. I refuse to have any other number in my closet.” She said.
“But not all size X fit the same way. Wouldn’t it be easier to try them on and get the right size while you are at the store?”
“No, because there is only one right size for me and that is all I am buying.”
I have to say I have seen her in both things that are much too big and much too small so this strict adherence to a number is not a perfect system. (And no I will not tell you who this is.) I guess it is one way not to let yourself ever gain too much weight, but it does mean you may have to wear some unflattering outfits.
Unless you wear your clothes inside out all the time absolutely no one knows what size you are wearing. That is unless you have a really old pair of Levi’s with both the waist and the inseam printed on the leather tag on the back. How well your clothes fit is what people see, not the fact that you are an eight or a twelve. Clothes that are too small make you look bigger anyway.
The number on your scale is also not a good indicator of how healthy you are either. You can weigh more, but be rock hard solid muscle and be in great shape, or you can have a lower number on the scale and be a mass of quivering flab. It’s not the number that is important, but how you function, look and feel. That involves actually looking at yourself. You may decide that despite what your number is you are perfectly happy the way you are.
I just want to encourage you to actually use the mirror as your judge and not the tag when you buy clothes. The mirror is much more similar to how others see you and not the number on the tag.
68 Pounds Equals One Size
Posted: January 23, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: underpants Leave a commentOn June 6, a month into this weight loss blog I wrote a post called “The problem with underpants” chronicling how much weight a person could gain and still wear the same size underpants. The problem, I wrote, is that my underpants were not getting tight so I did not have a constant pinching feeling reminding me that I was getting fatter.
Here I am over eight months later and 68 pounds lighter and I can report that I finally had to go down one, uno, a single size in underpants. Actually my original ones still fit and are quite comfortable without being baggy. The reason I had to go down in size is that the old ones stuck out of my jeans, which have gone down five sizes.
Does that make sense? Five jean sizes are equal to one underpants size? I feel like this is a true scientific experiment since I had a hypothesis that underpants stretched much too much. I was my own control, using the same kind of underpants and measuring everyday by actually wearing them and I proved that it took a giant weight change before a smaller size fit.
The good news is that I think that I will not lose another 68 pounds so I feel fairly certain that the size panty I wear now will be my final small size. That means that I can actually invest in fancy pants without the fear of not getting to wear them for long. If only I liked or even cared about high-end undergarments. Alas, too much information for some of you readers
Dogs Not Drinks
Posted: January 22, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: dogs, drunk driving, Ireland Leave a commentIn the category, “What are politicians thinking?” I am happy to see that we Americans are not alone in this world. This morning I was listening to BBC radio and an Irish Councilman was being interviewed because his district is considering giving out permits to certain citizens to drive drunk. That’s right, people can apply to have their legal blood alcohol limit raised.
I was dumbfounded about why a government would do this and even more so when the Councilman explained their reasoning for considering this change in their law. Apparently there have been a lot of suicides among the lonely single rural Irishmen and a councilor feels like when the drunk driving laws were not so strict these lonely people would spend more time down in their local pub surrounded by friends and fellow drinkers.
The politician went on to say that only people who lived on country roads where there was not much traffic would probably be approved for these “Go on and get drunk” driving permits. I wonder if they would have to prove that they were suicidal first before they would qualify. Would killing someone else while they were drunk driving perhaps cause them to be more suicidal?
I understand that suicide is a real problem, and loneliness may be increasing in our ever more isolated society, but encouraging people to drive drunk does not seem to be the answer. In fact, encouraging depressed people to drink is probably wrong to begin with.
I file this under, “Solving one problem by creating another.” Granted suicides may be up in Ireland, but it might not just be due to the fact that people are lonelier because they are afraid to go to their local and have a pint for fear of being arrested. The economy is not so great in that part of the world. That could be adding to the stress people are feeling. Should their government raise the drunk driving level for every point the GDP goes down?
I have a different solution for the lonely and potentially suicidal Irish people. Instead of encouraging drinking which not only causes problems with driving, but with waistlines and general health, promote dog ownership. Dogs are the best companions, they love you unconditionally and give their masters a good reason to get up in the morning and stick around. Walking a dog gives you more endorphins than downing a beer and lager never loved you back like your best canine companion.
The Sleeveless Dress Nightmare The First Lady Created
Posted: January 21, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Michelle Obama, sleeveless 2 CommentsThis morning as I was watching the pre-inauguration fashion news the commentators were discussing how fabulous Michelle Obama’s arms were and how she is the first First Lady to wear sleeveless dresses. The talking heads went on to say how it has changed what women news people wear on TV and how most dresses are sleeveless these days.
Hey, this is not news to me. I do not have arms that resemble Mrs. Obama’s. I work out, I lift weights and the topside of my arms looks halfway decent… but then there is the bottom half, the chicken waddle. If I were to wave my naked arm wildly in the air I could give someone two feet behind me a black eye. I am sure that no matter how much weight I lose my arms will be the tale of two bodies; the upper, the toned and powerful and the lower, the giant chicken wing.
I am not alone. For many women of a certain age their underarm from pit to elbow is not their most flattering part. Most of us benefit greatly from a sleeve of some kind other than a cap. Please fashion people of the world, don’t design dresses just for the first lady. She can only wear so many. If you want to sell a lot of dresses make a few with some sleeves.
The evening dress category is the worst offender in the no sleeve department. I might as well just wrap a piece of chiffon around me like a towel since that is what eighty percent of the long dresses look like. Besides wanting the arm camouflage, no sleeves are cold. Of course you can wear a pashminia or wrap, but then your arms or hands have to work to keep it wrapped around you. A sleeve or two is so much easier.
So thanks Michelle, for being a good role model and working on childhood obesity, but please, start buying some dresses with some sleeves and stop just wearing cardigans with your sleeveless dresses. If you will do it I know designers will follow suit. I will keep working on my arms, but I think my insurance company still finds my naked arms a potential liability.
My Non-Workout at the Justin Bieber Concert
Posted: January 20, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Cody Simpson, Concert, Justin Bieber 1 Comment
Three Pet Peeves of mine; People who bring very young children to night events, middle aged women who dress like they are thirteen year old fast girls, and performers who make audiences wait ridiculous amounts of time. Sometimes I just have to blog off topic because something makes me crazy, so forgive me if this one does not help you lose weight.
For Carter’s fourteenth birthday she only wanted one thing, tickets to go see Justin Bieber, no party, no big celebration, just going to the concert with her mom. If was a real present from me to shell out the aftermarket price and have to go and sit in a room with 30,000 screaming girls, but so worth it because it made my child so happy.
A few things helped the situation. First Carter’s great friend Ashley and her mom also were going to Greensboro to see the Biebes so they rode with us in the car and we all enjoyed a very early dinner together before going to the coliseum for a 7:00 PM show. We had an easy drive, found our way no problem and got there early enough that traffic, parking and the purse and ticket check did not take too long.
We ended up having great seats on an aisle in the fourth row and Carter could not have been happier. Mission accomplished as good mother birthday wishes provider.
I was very hopeful that the Bieber’s people knew his audience so well because it was a 7:00 PM start time that the concert would be over by 9:30 and we could be home in bed by 11:00. We knew there was one opening act, Carly Rae Jepson of “Call me Maybe” fame, but were surprised when at 7:15 sixteen year old Australian heart throb, and Carter’s favorite singer, Cody Simpson came out and sang about five songs. That was a huge bonus. The audience loved him. Carly Rae followed fairly quickly and was a little bit of a let down, cooling the heighten temperature of the pubescent audience.
She finished around 8:15 and the lights came up. JB was next. We waited, the stagehands rearranged the set, and we waited. The college aged girls sitting in front of us were getting antsy. The many four and five year old girls seated around us were getting antsy. Small children, no matter how much they profess their love for some teenybopper have no place going to a deafeningly loud concert at night. One poor sweet toe-head girl seated two rows in front of us sat the whole evening with both her hands cupped over her ears because it was much too loud for her. Her mother was too busy screaming for Justin to notice how much discomfort her child was in.
Justin made all these screaming girls wait over an hour from the ending of the opening acts so it was well past 9:30 before he started. I know he is trying to be an adult, but his audience is not. Please don’t make all these people wait.
Carter thought it was a great show, check. The mother one row up in the next section did too because she jumped up and down so much that her size 18 peg legged cropped jeans with the giant studded pockets kept sliding over her giggling love handles and slipping down to crack level while her chest hugging tank top slid up. She was oblivious to it as she sang to every song. It certainly was a lot of exercise for that middle-aged woman. Perhaps I missed my opportunity to turn this gift to my child into a work-out for me, but I think Carter was perfectly happy to have me be the only one sitting in our section not embarrassing her by dancing to the music.
My Fifteen Minutes of Radio Fame
Posted: January 19, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: law of nature, radio, wchl Leave a comment
Yesterday with my gravely chest congested voice I was interviewed by the brilliant Kristin Hiemstra for her radio show “The Art of the Potential” on WCHL. We did a remote location taping at the Durham Branch of the Food Bank. When Kristin asked me to be a guest on her show I had no idea we were going to do a whole forty-minute show on my volunteer work with the Food Bank. I thought I might just be one of many guests.
With no script or outline for me Kristin and I talked about how I first got involved with the Food Bank, my weight loss connection, this blog and the work of the Food Bank in our community. I should have known that I would have a lot more to say about the subject than a forty-minute show could hold.
One question Kristin asked me led to talk about a phrase I first coined when I was a consultant working with ex-monopoly telephone companies that applies to everything in life, “If it’s not a law of nature it can be changed.” Working with bureaucracy I often heard things from people like, “It is a rule that customers wait three days for a new phone.” Or “Even if we were wrong it is our policy to never refund a call to a customer.”
Those kinds of words make me crazy. See those “rules” and “policies” are not gravity, which is a “law of nature.” I can’t change gravity, but lord knows I would like to in relation to a pair of my body parts, but rules and policies can be changed. When people say things like, “that is the way we have always done it,” or “It’s just the way it is,” I think it is a huge cop out.
What do you want to change? It can be things in the world, your community, your house or yourself. If it’s not a law of nature go for it.
If you want to listen to the whole show it will air tomorrow, Sunday January 20, at 2:00 PM on WCHL 97.9 FM or 1360 AM. Or you can go to this link and listen to it. http://chapelboro.com/pages/14088819.php
Sick Benefits
Posted: January 18, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cold, cough, flu, sick 3 CommentsOK I have whined all week about my child having the flu and my having a full-on respiratory take over which has turned into a post nasal drip cold and cough. Enough already. We certainly are not the only sick people on earth. But I think what ever is going on here might be something other people just might want.
What? Why would I ever think you would want my illness? Well, how’s your New Year diet going? Having a little trouble now in week three keeping off the Cheezits? My particular type of sickness is the answer. I have lost nine pounds since the first of the year and none of that was water weight, since I sucked all the water out of me months ago.
It’s not like I’m not eating. I am opposed to starvation. Even though I don’t feel like it I am putting food in me, not much, but still enough to not throw my metabolism into some kind-of Bangladesh-style famine. Still every morning I get on the scale and another pound is down. This is the karma I pray for. I’ve been good and now I feel like the stuff that comes out of the non-cute end of my dog, so some higher being is rewarding me for this suffering, Thank you Baby Jesus.
My friend Hannah reminded me of the greatest quote from The Devil Wears Prada, “I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.” Well I’m at least seven flu’s away from mine, but I’m not going to look this gift horse in the mouth. I do have the feeling that this weight loss can’t go on like this so I would just prefer to get well.
For those of you desperate enough to get your diet back on track I am thinking of leaving some used drinking glasses on my front porch. Feel free to come by and borrow one, but just excuse me if I don’t come to the door. I really don’t look my best and of course I’m already in my Lanz nightgown under the blanket and the sun is still high in the sky.
I have not revised my goal to lose eleven pounds by March 1 get because I want to see what happens when I get better. I’d hate to be all cocky like this is real fat gone and up my goal number and then find out that as soon as I am better five pounds magically reappears. I’ll keep you posted, like I have anything else to do stuck in bed.
Your Weight Has Changed Clothes Rental Service
Posted: January 17, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: gained weight, lost weight, renting clothes 1 CommentThe only downside of losing weight is that I need new clothes faster than I want to either think about them, shop for them or pay for them. I am much too cheep, you know frugal, to not wear things until they are practically see-through-thread-bare, and not because I am the other kind of cheep, but because I want to get my money’s worth from them.
If you are losing weight and you don’t wear clothes that fit it is harder for people to see how you are doing. So having the right sized pants is an encouragement to keep going. It also works the other way. If you are gaining weight you need new clothes and nothing looks worse than trying to force your too big backside into a pair of jeans meant for your formally thinner self.
These two opposite ends of the same I-don’t-have-anything-that-fits end of the clothing spectrum could be solved with the creation on one new business. Your weight has changed clothing rental service – might be called TemporClothes. Here is how it works.
No matter is you are on the way down the scale, or on the way up, or are up and are thinking about going down, wherever you are the size you are now is temporary, or so you hope. You just need a few nice things to carry you over until you get to the size you want to be.
TemporClothes would rent you nice clothes that fit perfectly and the first month is the cheapest. Each month after that it would get more expensive which would encourage you to get to the next size down faster. As you lose weight you bring the clothes back and if you trade down in size you get to go back to the cheapest price. Once you reach your goal weight you stop renting clothes and begin to invest in a permanent wardrobe.
If you have gained weight and don’t fit in your current wardrobe you could rent one size up and you are encouraged to lose so you can get back to your own clothes and not be paying rent. The worst thing you can do if you gain weight is just go ahead and buy bigger clothes because then you do not have the incentive to lose because you don’t have anything to wear, but you really should not wear things that are embarrassingly tight.
I have at least eight sizes of clothes so I probably could go ahead and start this business out of my own closet, but I can’t promise how up-to-date in fashion they all are. That is why I am throwing this idea out to the world so someone who is really interested in clothes would start it and rent me a few things that are current and the right size for me. I hate to invest good money for things I may wear a couple of months.
Our Dog as Nurse
Posted: January 16, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: dog, labradoodle 1 Comment
Getting sick stinks. There is only one possible benefit and that is loss of appetite and actual pounds. I have lost four and a half pounds since I got sick on Sunday. I am wondering what is going to happen when I feel fully better. I am still eating so I hope that this is some real fat disappearing and not just water flowing out of my system. In the good medical advice to stay fully hydrated I am drinking as much as I can. It does not seem to help my chest congestion, but I will keep at it.
My daughter is much sicker than I am. She has the full-blown flu as was confirmed by the violation of a long swab stuck way up her nose by the doctor this morning. Hopefully the Tamiflu she was prescribed will help shorten the duration of this already grueling illness.
I know there are lots of homemade remedies for flu and colds from chicken soup to menthol chest rubs. In our house the best medicine is our snuggling labradoodle Shay-Shay. Shay is a loyal companion to anyone hold up in bed and feels it is her duty to lie as close to each patient as possible.
Perhaps the cold and rainy weather is adding to Shay’s desire to be near to us, but it certainly is comforting to have her company when we feel this poorly. It seems like a visiting dog program could be added to the visiting nurse world. Shay doesn’t seem to be vulnerable to our illnesses so she is the perfect one to watch over us when we are sick.
I had a wonderful and loyal dog Beau who I got when I was in college. While Beau was still a puppy we went home to my parents house so I could have my wisdom teeth taken out. That was the most horrific procedure I have ever endured. My second night home I woke up in the middle of the night in terrible pain. I stumbled into the kitchen to get one of my pain pills and passed out before I could take it. As I went down I knocked a glass off the counter and it broke under my unconscious body.
Beau saved the day by going to my parent’s room and waking my father. He was furious that my dog was coming to him to be taken out in the middle of the night, but he certainly did not want my dog to pee in his room. When Beau led him downstairs my father found me bleeding on the floor passed out.
Today I am thankful for a devoted and dedicated dog who makes us feel a little bit better and never lets us feel alone.
Six Foot Three, 125 Pounds?
Posted: January 15, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Jenny craig 1 CommentI have a skinny mother. She was not a thin child, but she has been in good shape since she was a teenager. It is not natural, but hard work that has kept her this way. As a not very tall person she knows that she can’t carry much weight, there is just no place to hide it. All my life she has had a number on her scale that reminds her of her constant goal.
Years ago when we both lived in Washington my mother was off her weight goal by about six pounds and was not having any luck losing it on her own. After watching countless ads on TV for various weight-loss centers my mother decided that she was going to enroll in one to lose her six pounds. She called a Jenny Craig center that was just a few blocks from her house.
Here is how the conversation went:
Mom: I need to come in because I need to lose some weight.
Jenny Person: OK, how tall are you?
Mom: I am six foot three.
Jenny Person: And how much do you weigh?
Mom: I weigh exactly 125.
Jenny Person (In an exasperated voice) You are six-three and weigh 125?
Mom: Yes, and I want to lose six pounds.
Jenny Person: You are six three and 125?
Mom: (In an exasperated voice) Yes.
Jenny Person: I am very sorry you are at least thirty-five pounds underweight.
Mom: Oh no, I always weigh about 118-119 and now I am 125 and I can’t get back down.
Jenny Person: Ma’m, we can’t help you, have you considered going to an eating disorders clinic?
Mom: No, Why?
Jenny Person: At six foot three you should weigh at least 155.
Mom: Oh, I’m not six foot three, but five foot three.
Jenny Person: (Now very exasperated) Oh, we still can’t help you.
I often wonder if my mother had told them her right height at first if they would had let her come in to give them her money or if this counselor was not interested in helping a person who did not know their actual height.
My mother had the right idea. Get help with a small problem so that it would not become a big problem. Recently, I have had a number of friends who I consider to be in good shape ask me about how they can improve their eating. Just because someone is on the small side does it mean they are eating what is healthy. Eventually it all does catch up with us.
No matter how much or how little you might want to lose to get in your best shape, don’t be discouraged if the first person you ask for help turns you down. It is harder to do it alone. Keep looking, and keep trying.
Water, Water, Everywhere?
Posted: January 14, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: hunger, thirst, water Leave a commentThe other day I was talking with my friend Cliff, who has lost a significant amount of weight about what he has learned during his journey down the scale. He told me that after reading many books on dieting the one thing he learned that made the greatest difference was about hunger and thirst. He told me that the brain sensor for hunger is right next to the brain sensor for thirst and that most of the time our brains are not quite sure which sensor is firing so we confuse being thirsty with hunger.
Now anyone who has read anything on weight loss knows there is not a diet plan out there that does not tell you to drink at least 8 cups of water a day. It was not just because they want you to fill up on water, but that your body needs that water to function.
The hunger/thirst sensor confusion is the real reason you need to drink water. If your brain is getting some kind of signal that says put something in me, the first choice should always be water. If it turns out you were just getting low on liquids and not food the water will turn the sensor off after about 15 minutes. It is about the same amount of time it takes your body to register that you are full from eating. It is not the amount you eat, but rather the amount of time it took you to eat.
If you keep yourself well hydrated you will at least keep your thirst signal from going off. If you never get thirsty you can’t mistake the thirst signal as real hunger. Make it easy to drink water, by having a big glass by your self at all times. I happen to like really cold water with lots of crushed ice. I know other people who like lemon or cucumber in their water. My friend Hannah’s mom Jean likes hot water. Makes no difference, just get water in you.
I also drink a lot of iced tea, which I am told does not fully count towards my water count, but does keep my thirst sensor off. In order to meet my water requirements I only drink iced tea until 3:00 in the afternoon and then I switch to water. Half a day of tea and half a day of water keeps me full up.
Next time you think you are hungry, drink first, wait fifteen minutes then decide. You might actually be hungry, especially if you had not eaten in five or six hours, but if it was only two hours since your last meal, you are probably just thirsty.
Tight and Not The Good Kind
Posted: January 13, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: chest tightness, germs, sick, virus 2 CommentsThe sick is coming. I knew when I woke up and my chest was tight that I did not have long. Normally tight is something I can only aspire to and when it comes to my chest it is height I would rather have, but I digress.
Breathing is getting harder and I am hardly moving. It is just a matter of time. The real tale-tale sign that sickness is trying to take over my body is that I have no hunger what so ever. I never know what that saying is, starve a cold, feed a fever or vice-a-versa, but I wish I could harness the lack of desire to eat and trot it out when I actually did not feel like a whole other me was sitting on my chest.
I am normally good at staving off full-blown illness. I can have a down day and then wake up the next morning and feel fine so I am hoping that is how this is going to go. But I wouldn’t mind the lack of hunger part to stay a while. Usually for me weight I lose because I was sick is not sustaining which makes no sense to me at all.
Why if you don’t eat much for a few days when you are well and drop a pound or two you can keep it off, but when you are sick and can’t eat you still lose those same few pounds, but as soon as you are better they come right back? There is just no good in being sick.
I do have a theory that heavier people are able to recover from sickness faster than very thin people who have no reserves to carry them through that no eating time. Maybe that is how I am able to only be sick for a day. There is just too much body for a virus to have to travel trough so it gets tired and gives up. Maybe fat is a bad conduit for germs? They get sluggish trying to trudge through that goop, unlike lean muscle, which could be just like a germ super highway through a fit body.
Since I am clearly no scientist, I will have to continue to study my own path and see what other hair-brained theories I can come up with. Maybe my reduction of airflow will make me lightheaded so I can start hallucinating. That could make for some really wonderful writing.
For now, I am going to have my own concoction of ginger-lime tea and try and do battle with my tightness.
Number 250
Posted: January 12, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: 250th blog 3 Comments
Happy bicentennial and a half to Less Dana. This is my 250 blog posting in exactly 250 days. It is hard to believe that I have not missed a day of writing something, not always something brilliant, funny, profound, touching, life changing, inspiring, delicious or interesting, but something everyday. Granted there were some days during the summer when I was on a three hour delay that my posts were appearing past midnight East coast time, but in 250 days, I have made 250 posts.
Recently a friend asked if I would write something on the blog about her business. She started the request with, “I don’t know if you have your blog planned out for the next few weeks…” I got a big laugh out of that. I don’t have my blog planned out for the next day, let alone weeks in advance. Sometimes something funny will happen and I will make a note of it as a potential blog idea, but for the most part I have no idea what I am going to write about when I sit down at my computer.
So many people ask me about the mechanics of the blog so I will confess it all here, now. Usually around 3:00 in the afternoon I remember that I even write a blog and panic for a moment that I have nothing to write about. I get my computer out consider the following things:
- Did anything make me mad today? I can usually spin that into a story that I can tie to weight loss in some way.
- Did anything really funny happen today? Funny writes itself and is my first choice for every blog.
- Did something happen that reminded me of something from my childhood?
- Did I cook something good and remember to take a picture of it?
- Did anything profound happen? Jackpot, not often.
- Was there something in the news that I wanted to comment on?
If none of those things gives me a start then I just start writing. I try and not spend more than twenty minutes in front of the computer, although Russ says it sometimes takes up to an hour. Those posts are usually the ones that involve the things from my childhood because I have to carefully edit them so as not to anger every member of my family or one of my few lasting childhood friends.
I try and keep all the posts to abut 500 words since that is all I can get out in twenty minutes and all any one of you could pay attention to day-in and day-out. I spell check and still make many mistakes and without any editing by anyone else I post the mess I have written, mistakes and all. Every once in a while I reread a post and think that some school I attended might want their diploma back.
About twice a day I check the stats on the blog. On an average day about a hundred different people read something on the blog and many people read a bunch of posts at one visit. I like to see the crazy things people Google that gets them to my blog. More people are searching for information about “thin people living longer” than almost anything else. I often wonder if they are looking for information to the contrary to help assuage their guilt. I have had readers from 87 different countries. Lots of those people are interested in freedom. Those looking for freedom are probably not worried about losing weight, but about getting enough to eat. I often hope they understand sarcasm and are not offended about some of the things I write. I hate to cause more hatred of Americans, but I am not going to change my point of view just to be diplomatic. Diplomacy is not something I will ever be accused of having.
On this bicentennial and a half-blog posting I can report that I have lost sixty and a half pounds. After all that is the whole reason I am doing this. Accountability and putting myself out there keeps me mindful even if I don’t always remember that I have a blog to write. And now I will close with the bloggers prayer. Please God, let something funny or profound happen to me in the next 23 hours. I have to do this again tomorrow.
It’s All in the Jeans
Posted: January 11, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: jeans, white sneakers Leave a commentWhen I was a kid there were two new articles of clothing that every kid I knew hated; the first was new white sneakers and the second were new pairs of jeans. I can remember begging my mother to buy my new “school” tennis shoes a month before school started so that I could have time to get them appropriately dirty and “Not new looking.” This concept that white, white, white sneakers were passé was something neither of my parents understood. But new jeans were a problem for everyone.
Jeans were invented in the 1800’s for miners and railroad workers and people who needed clothes that could take a beating and not rip apart. They stayed that way for about a hundred years. A new pair of jeans in the sixties and early seventies was more like a weapon than an item of clothing. They were stiff, and dark and were more like cardboard than cloth.
It took many washings and wearings to get them to perfection that is if you picked the right size to begin with. Knowing your right jean size was a real crapshoot since they were fabricated out of unwashed denim, which would shrink between 5-10%. Learning to judge what 7.5% shrinkage might be was a real art.
For maximum shrinkage you would use hot water and then put the jeans in the dryer until the machine practically was on fire. The only problem is that usually you would shrink them a direction you were not looking for, like if the waist were too big you would shrink the length so you would end up with floods. Once shrunken, you could only stretch them back out so far, and making them longer almost never worked. Really talented new jean owners would start washing their jeans in cold water and gently drying them before trying them on to see if they had achieved the desired amount of shrinkage. Subsequent washings would get warmer and warmer until nirvana was reached.
The other issue with new jeans was the actual amount of indigo dye still in that sturdy fabric. You had to wash the jeans alone for the first few cycles or suffer blue underwear and socks. That dye was powerful. It may not have all stayed in the jeans, but once it migrated to my father’s underpants it was there to stay.
I am thankful that jeans makers finally figured out to prewash the fabric before making the jeans so that all that shrinking and dye removal was done already. Not only does it help us to pick the correct size out, but also we can wear our new jeans out in public the day we buy them without the fear of ridicule.
It is harder to shrink your jeans, which while I am still losing weight I would like to be able to do. I find that I need a new pair about every 12 pounds. If I had jeans of the sixties I would barely get a pair presentable and soft enough for wearing before I would need to start on a new pair. I don’t have time to develop a relationship with a favorite pair since jeans are coming and going on my but these days. I am looking forward to that long-term commitment to a final pair of jeans soon.
What Do You Wish You Knew Before…?
Posted: January 9, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy Leave a commentToday I went to Carter’s school for an information session about moving up to 9th grade. How can that be? Carter has been at her school for ten years now, which feels like both forever and no time at all. After getting a tour of the campus by a “student ambassador” we had a panel of students answer questions about what the transition is like from middle school to high school and what they wished they had known before they got there.
I love that question, “What do you wish you had known before…?” You fill in the blank. There are so many things that happen in life that we all worry about, but knowing someone who has gone before you who can answer your questions can be such a comfort.
That is the whole premise behind Weight Watcher meetings. Long before there were points, Weight Watchers worked on the notion that someone who had followed the diet and lost weight will teach you how to do it. Having that leader who could clue you in was a major reason to keep coming.
Here are a few of the things about losing weight I wish I had known before:
- Everyday public people are much nicer to thin people than fat people. This was actually a big pain in the ass the first time I lost weight and discovered that perfect strangers were much too chatty to me as a thin person than me as a fat person. Being fat is something that, contrary to the amount of space you are taking up, makes you almost invisible. You can get in and out of the Harris Teeter much faster if you don’t have to pretend to be interested in what the deli guy, bagger and fishmonger are all talking to you about.
- If you lose a good amount of weight some of it will be from your hair because your hair does getter thinner while your body does too. The good news to know is that once you have maintained your weight for a while your hair will grow back.
- You need to buy new clothes, especially bras and jeans, often. It may sound fun, but trying to find the right sizes as your body is changing is more tedious than fun.
- Losing weight does not solve all your other problems. I never thought it would, but I have had more than a handful of people say something along the line of, “If only I could lose five pounds my life would be better.” Guess what, your life will be the same; you just weigh five pounds less.
- Try and find a way of eating that you can live on everyday because if you aren’t going down, you might be going up. Maintaining at a steady weight is a huge amount of work.
- Don’t trust the “calories burned” numbers on exercise machines or the calories listed on menus. All calorie listings are estimates.
Don’t be afraid to try something new, be it jumping out of a plane, not something I can help you with, or learning Italian, can’t help you there either. But find someone who has gone before you and just ask them what they wished they knew before that started. You are more likely to set yourself out on a good path with that help.
Become Powerful
Posted: January 8, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: casino night, Empower, working out 1 CommentI really don’t love to work out. I think that I am in the majority here. If it were more fun it would not be called “working” out, but would be “playing” out. Even though I don’t love it I do it because I know I need it. In order to make sure I do it I have to pay someone to count for me and make sure I change up my exercises and tell me jokes and keep my mind off the pain. For me that person is Tom Stafford at Empower Personalized Fitness.
I have known Tom and worked out with him off and on for about eight years. I have followed him as he moved locations and changed training regimes and businesses. Recently Tom told me some news that ruined my week, his wife’s job is transferring their family to Orlando — Too far for me to travel to work out.
This could be a big excuse to stop working out this summer when Tom moves, but I know that is the wrong answer. I need to start figuring out who the right trainer is for me who can handle me and I won’t scare to death and I think I need to do it before Tom leaves so he can give them tips on working with me.
Turns out that Empower just did a big time expansion and is starting a bunch of group fitness classes. I am not one for group fitness as a whole because most instructors don’t appreciate my running commentary during the class. But I do see group fitness as a way to test out a bunch of different trainers to see if our temperaments fit together. See finding a good trainer is very similar to picking the right dog.
Thursday night is the big Empower Casino Night Launch Party with real casino games and a chance to win free training. Well, I am all about a game and also about free so you can bet I am going to this launch party to see what I can scoop up. If you want to come with me I would love to have your company and maybe your chips too. Everybody’s invited. I hear there will be food and drink, but I need to stay away from that so I can concentrate on winning.
The party starts at 7:00 Thursday at 3211 Shannon Rd. to RSVP email Launchparty@becomepowerful.com. Tell them Dana sent you, or let me know you want to come with me.
I Don’t Want to Know
Posted: January 7, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cheddar Bay biscuits, Italian, live like it's your last day 3 CommentsMy favorite feature of my car is the satellite radio because I can listen to the Broadway channel all the time. Well, not all the time, just when I am alone in the car, which really is most of the time. There is no bad news, no teen-aged angst songs or nothing that makes me feel old. In fact, it makes me feel young when I hear a song from the short lived “They’re playing our song,” from 1980 which I saw with my friend’s Paul, Jaleh and Mike during our Christmas break from college.
I love musicals, even though I myself am the most unmusical person on earth. But who knows that as I am tooling down the highway singing “I’m Jean Val Jean” at the top of my lungs.
Today I heard a song from “Once” that I had never heard before called, “Be Italian.” It was a fine song whose major message was “Live life like it’s your last day.” I got to thinking about that advice and it really started to make me mad because it’s a terrible recommendation. Maybe it’s Italian, but I’ not sure.
If I were to live everyday like it was my last I would be eating whatever I wanted. We all know that does not work out well for me. I think I would be really angry after having between 6-9 different cheeses half of them in some melted format, a loaf of spectacular bread, a caramel fudge sea salt brownie sundae, some pasta (see I’m thinking Italian now) and a few cheddar bay biscuits from Red Lobster and I woke up the next day alive. It would take me at least a month of strict arugula eating to make up for that “last day on earth” gluttony.
If I thought today was my last day I don’t think I would volunteer to help anyone run their non-profit better or bother to answer anyone’s questions. I would not do the laundry or take the trash out. I would just want to sit around with my friends and talk about how much fun we have had and cry and laugh.
Chances are it would not be my last day and then I would wake up mad that I missed the trash pick-up, had no clean underwear or missed an opportunity to make the world a better place.
I think it is counsel to say, “Live like you are going to live for another 100 years.” If that were the case I would do a better job at improving the world. My recycling would be spot on, not a toilet paper tube or old magazine would ever make it into the trash. I would be a nicer person if I thought I was going to have to spend the next 100 years with all you people. If it were my last day I might actually tell someone what a fool they are.
I am happy to not know when my last day is going to be. I hope I never do know. I think my best plan is to just keep doing what is best for me in case I’m sticking around. No wild and crazy last hurrahs, but I really would love one biscuit sometime close to the end.
User Name and Password Hell
Posted: January 6, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: password, user name 1 CommentThe beginning of January is the super bowl of dieting informatics. I must have gotten over 100 emails from different weight loss and health related companies about joining them in the last week. I am wondering if even very thin people are getting these too?
There is hardly any new information about dieting that I don’t already know from my years of intensive study. (Note here, knowing it and following it are two different things.) Every once in a while a new study or discovered product comes out and in a moment, a very fleeting moment, I am hopeful that there might be an easier way.
Late one night this past week I was tempted by a heath newsletter to sign up for their free monthly information. I started to fill out the required information when I got to the user name and password section. There was a note in ALL CAPS that read, “For your own protection, use a different user name and password for every website and change your password monthly.”
WHAT THE HEdouble hockey sticks!! I just wanted to get a newsletter. I was not supplying any financial information or personal stuff, like my weight! Why in the world did I need a user name? I was not really a user, but a reader and what was the password for to begin with?
I shook my head and like in cartoons of the sixties, little blue birds flew around the crown of my head and my eyes changed from “x’s” to regular eyeballs. I came to my senses and realized that these people were not going to have any new news for me and I did not need their stinkin’ newsletter after all.
The advice about using a different user name and changing my passwords got me thinking about all the hours I have spent trying to remember my user name or password for all the thousands of sites that require them. I can only imagine what would happen if I started changing them every month.
The answer could be that I could keep a log of them all, but not on my computer where a hacker could gain control of every newsletter and website I belong to. I could have a little black book, but my office is currently more like a black hole so that too could be a disaster.
Life was so much easier when we were all only known as the name we were given at birth or married into. No passwords were required to live. In this personalized, must be signed-up for everything world it is time that we had the retinal scanner technology as our user name and password, or voice recognition, or thumbprint id. Whatever it is it has to not involve me needing to create, remember or change any of my identification information. I’m not that old and I already have trouble keeping this all straight. It is just too bad that remembering passwords does not use more calories than forgetting them. At least then I would have an inc
January Doldrums
Posted: January 4, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Christmas Decorations, darkness 1 CommentIt had to happen and this year I am later than usual, but Christmas has to start to come down at my house. It’s a big job to dismantle the glitter, the sparkle and shine, the bows and the garland, the wreaths and the lights. I started with the house decorations, as opposed to the tree since Carter told me not to go up the ladder when no one else was home to call 911 in case I fall as I use the kitchen tongs to reach the ornaments at the fourteen-foot level.
I went to the attic this morning and began bringing down the battalion of plastic crates that make up my Christmas storage brigade. I had Russ purchase five new tubs to store my new decoration of 2012, a snow village under glass that filled my living room coffee table. It was the first thing to be packed with five old towels I assigned to the duty of protecting my fragile creations.
Taking Christmas down is depressing. There are no carols cheerily playing throughout the house like when the decorations go up. There is no anticipation of parties to come and friends to share in the splash of Christmas decorations. The house begins to look bare without boxwoods and holly covering the mantle. All the marks of the walls and scuffs on the floors show and I have that feeling like I need to redecorate and spruce things up, but just don’t have the energy to do it.
I know that the days are getting longer, Big Weather told me so this morning on the news, the sun was rising one minute earlier today. One minute more of sunlight is not enough to overcome the sadness of January 5th.
It will take me another day to get everything done and Russ and Carter will have to carry all the crates back to the attic. Russ and I will do our best to stay married as we disassemble the tree and stuff it in the seven grand piano sized bags it lives in during its off-season.
It is easy to see why people gain weight in the winter. What is there to brighten our spirits when the house is less glittery and the darkness takes over the house at 4:00? People are holed-up in their homes having been partied out by the holiday season, but this is exactly when we all need to go out and be together to keep our minds off the dullness at home.
So this afternoon I am going to stop all this packing and cleaning and am going to go watch not just the 8th grade girls basketball game, but the boys too! Why not? Being with friends and cheering on kids is the best way to stave-off post holiday blues. Sweeping up crystal snow can wait.
The Yearly Weight-Loss Allotment
Posted: January 3, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cleaning, cooking, laundry Leave a commentSo far I really like 2013. Not that I have done anything really exciting for the whole three days. I did have lunch with my friend Barbara today, that was fun, but here are the other things I have done in 2013:
Still cleaning out closets and four rooms so we can rearrange where Carter lives and Russ works in our house. That has been the majority of time. I was very thankful that the trash and recycling got picked up yesterday and I have already refilled them.
I have done six loads of laundry.
I helped Russ get his office ready for a big meeting he has today and tomorrow. I baked carrot muffins and make fruit platters. I shopped for drinks, new dishes and coffee makers. I organized the lunch they served today, met the caterers and enlisted the wonderful help of Cliff to run get the ice I forgot.
I cleaned the rugs where Shay-shay got sick.
I drove Carter to Dover Saddlery to spend her Christmas gift cards.
I cooked, cleaned, emptied the dishwasher, needle pointed, paid bills, and went to Costco.
Why the hell do I like 2013 so much? I got on the scale this morning and I was one pound below by low weight of 2012. Not only was I one pound below my low I was four pounds below my Christmas day weight. After losing 53 pounds in a little less than six months I had only lost 3 in the months of November and December combined. I really did not change my eating in those months, save three days that I gave myself to celebrate. But I just was not losing. Sad, sad.
But come a new year and I am dropping weight again. I think that maybe there is some cosmic thing that says you are only allowed to lose so much weight in any given calendar year, and it gets to be a smaller number every year. I think that my number was 56 pounds and once I lost that much I was capped.
As soon as the year turned it has started coming off again. Hooray for a new year. Even if my new number is five pounds less than last year I am fine because I don’t want to lose that much weight this year because I would still actually like to be alive.
I am setting a new public goal of losing eleven pounds by Spring Break, the second week of March. I do much better if I do something publically and declarative. So there it is. My trainer Tom told me I better do a ton of cardio to reach that goal. Good thing I have at least 68 trips to the attic planned for the next three days. I am thinking of taking up wood chopping just for the exercise. I hope that 2013 continues on this positive, or in my case, negative path.
New and Improved?
Posted: January 2, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: dough proofing box, salt, yogurt maker Leave a commentI hate to be the one that breaks this to you, but all the new stuff you got for Christmas, some of which you have not even used yet, is passé and out of date. That is according to the horde of catalogs that came in the mail the last two days. Marketers have learned that in order to sell more stuff they need to entice us with “new & improved,” or even better, “new and exclusive” stuff.
January is officially the month of improvement. No one makes a New Year resolution to make something just the same or worse, where’s the resolution in that? Everybody starts January out trying to do something or everything better. Consequently, January is the best month to come out with the upgraded and refined versions of things. If you can tie those new things to another way someone can improve them selves then January is the month you hit the jackpot for selling stuff.
For instance, Williams-Sonoma sent me a “Fresh Start 2013” catalog that featured a “New and Exclusive “ Cuisinart electric yogurt maker in it for the bargain price of $129.00. January is the best time to push these machines because most people think that making their own yogurt is a great idea when they are thinking about losing weight. That is until they try and make it from fat free milk and discover they hate the taste of the yogurt they make them selves and go back to buying it at the store. The yogurt maker goes to the appliance dungeon with the juicer, tabletop fryer and chocolate fountain. (Not all bad appliance decisions were healthy ones.) If you really want to try and make your own yogurt you only need a saucepan, a thermometer and some other yogurt as a starter.
The King Arthur Flour catalog today had an item that is a best seller at $147.95 which I find amazing; a collapsible bread proofing box which can also be used not only for dough, but wait for it… yogurt too. I just put my bread dough in a bowl covered with a tea towel and put it in the microwave that is off. Amazingly that box of a microwave has no trouble remaining a constant temperature and dough rises perfectly. I just saved myself $147.95. I guess it being collapsible is a bonus when moving it to the appliance graveyard so it takes up less space.
My favorite tread in the new and improved category is the explosion of salts. I am not talking bath salts or Morton’s salt, but the “Rare Gourmet Sea Salts” advertised in the Chefs tool catalog. The most expensive is Murray River, which is described as “delicate flaky texture, which melts quickly and evenly, the perfect finishing salt.” At over $5.33 cents an ounce I would like it to stick around for a while. In case you are unfamiliar with how much regular salt costs, an ounce of Morton’s salt is 5 cents. Murray river is 10,660% more per ounce before shipping and I have to tell you that salt is fairly similar.
Sometimes new and improved just isn’t. Take High Protein Special K, which has been my breakfast of choice for at least seven years. Without increasing the amount of protein per serving those pesky people at Kellogg’s changed the taste and it in no way resembles the old cereal and tastes much worse. Why improve something without actually making it better?
My suggestion is that if you want to improve something in January try your attitude, outlook or temperament, they are all free and never have to be moved to the graveyard.
The Best Free Workout Ever
Posted: January 1, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cleaning out, moving stuff 1 CommentWe have lived in our house for almost nineteen years. We first bought our little three level house when Russ was in business school and we only had a dog and three cats. I knew after about four weeks of moving to Durham that I wanted to stay here so I told Russ that I did not care what he did for a living, but let’s find a way to stay settled and not do the corporate moving around thing.
After Russ graduated we decided we really liked not only our house, but also our yard and our neighborhood. So in the planning-for-the-future-way-we-are we decided we needed a bigger house for the children we were yet to have. We added two more levels, not up, just out, with two more bedrooms a bath and a playroom onto the house. It was like adding a piggly wiggly house onto our piggly wiggly house.
Eventually Carter came along and we put her in the bedroom right across the hall from ours. We waited a while and no other children appeared. Not for a lack of trying, but then we got to that point where we realized that Carter was a fairly good kid and we knew the odds of matching her quality were not in our favor. We also knew that we were too old to have three or four children so we could not average out the good kids with the more difficult ones. So we settled on an only child family.
The new bedroom section of the house, lacking children, had become known as the lair. It was the place Russ would go when he could not sleep or had to get up at four in the morning to catch a flight. He also had a really nice office down in the lair, which was more important before he got his big offices downtown. Eventually all three of the giant lair closets filled up with stuff we thought was too important to go to the attic, but not important enough to actually use, things like the G scale train set that gets put up around the Christmas tree about every third year, or Russ’ old custom made suits with pleated pants that have waists that are four inches too big for him now. But the lair is in a part of our house most people do not even know exists so that sort of clutter mattered little.
Carter turned fourteen before Christmas and finally asked us if she could move down to the lair so she could have a bathroom en-suite and a separate study room from her sleeping room. So that is what she got for Christmas. Russ was losing his lair and I was the one who had to make it all happen.
This is where the free workout happens. I have spent everyday since Christmas cleaning out closets and rearranging half our house and it is barley one third done and not a stick of furniture has been moved yet. It started with the coat closet in the lair entry that was full of old toys, work files, boxes, light bulbs and vases, those things naturally go together don’t they? Then I had to clean out a giant cabinet in the garage. What does the garage have to do with it you wonder? I had to make a place to be my new gift-wrapping station that had previously been in Russ’ office closet. Moving the gift-wrapping stuff meant things had to be carried up a level through the kitchen and down a level to the garage.
Once that was settled I was able to clean out the closet in Carter’s new sleeping room by moving Russ’ old suits to the coat closet in the hall and the large collection of old quilts, feather beds and pillows into three giant chests I bought at Target and put in the attic. That move entailed going up three levels and around half the house.
Carter finally got in the act moving all her clothes from her old bedroom down three levels across the whole house and into her new closet. I began to tackle the large collections of books in both the lair bedroom and the office and realized that they needed to go to the shelves in the playroom which were currently full of a college tuition’s worth of American Girl Dolls, their horses, sleighs, carriages, beds, dressers, tables, chairs and trunks and trunks of clothes.
Carter was quick to say she did not need those accessible anymore, so more trunks from Target later and a three level change move our attic now has a full American Girl store displayed in one corner. At last the books could be moved up two levels.
I also moved all of Carter’s childhood books up to the attic along with her horse figures and swim trophies. While in the attic I found old lamp shades to bring down with me to throw away and half a life time’s worth of Gourmet Magazines which have been identified for movement somewhere out of the house.
I estimate that I am about one third through this reorganization of just three rooms in our house and it has involved carrying over 134 loads of stuff up and or down at least two stairways and about 25% of it carried up the attic ladder-steps. Over 23,000 steps have been taken carrying at least twenty pounds. This does not include the steps used on trips to Target and the ballet of maneuvering coffin-sized plastic trunks through the aisles on a busy shopping day.
All this is being done in a house where you cannot look without seeing a full on Saks Fifth Avenue Christmas window amount of decoration that needs to be taken down and put away before Martin Luther King’s birthday.
So if you don’t see me for a while, stop by the house and make sure that I have not been crushed by the stacks of old clothes Carter has determined are ready to move on or the Betsy McCall fashion designing light up desk that needs to be e-bayed. I am undaunted by this project because it all counts as more exercise than I could get in a week at a boot-camp type spa and when it get’s done I will feel like I’ve got a new house.
Set a Crazy Goal
Posted: December 31, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: $50, 000, goal 1 CommentI don’t usually like New Year resolutions, probably, because I don’t like New Years. I am not one who ever loved staying up late and the thought of a holiday being centered around midnight has no attraction to me. New Years day is really just another day that is a little anti-climactic and for some, a day of recovery from too much drowning their sorrows or celebrating their successes the night before.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like goals. I just don’t think you need to just set them on January 1. But since tomorrow is the big day when lots of people are feeling the pressure to improve something it is just as good a day as any to make a commitment.
I am here to encourage you to set a crazy goal. That is what I did on May 8th when I decided to lose weight and raise money for the Food Bank at the same time. I predicted I could lose 50 pounds and I lost 53. I wanted to raise $50,000. That was a much harder goal. I asked, pleaded, begged and embarrassed myself into getting people to pledge money for every pound I could strip off.
Things were going fine on the dieting part, but the fund raising side was not as promising. At the end of my campaign on November 1 I had commitments for about $38,000 and that was because I had lost three more pounds than I predicted. I tried to get Ellen DeGeneres to mention the blog and the Food Bank on her show, to no avail. $50,000 was just a crazy goal.
But crazy things do happen and as of today I have passed the $50,000 line with 202 gifts to the Food Bank. I still have about 25 more pledges that I know will pay sometime so I am passing that goal big time. I have to say, without that goal I don’t think I would have done it.
So what do you want to do this year? Really dream big. Don’t pick lots of little things or even lots of big things. One or two life changing goals are enough. Write them down, share them with everyone you know, make a plan, revisit the plan often, take small steps everyday to reach your goal, show up and don’t quit.
And even if I don’t like it as a holiday I want to wish you a happy New Year. May 2013 be your best year yet.
Stand Up For Yourself
Posted: December 30, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cottilion, Debutante, posture 1 CommentLast night Carter, Russ and I attended the big time social event of the holiday season, the Debutante Cotillion and Christmas Ball. It was a beautiful occasion where 38 young women were presented to society. When I was young it was called “coming out,” but that now has a much different connotation so now it is just considered making your debut.
That’s a funny word, debut, as if these girls have been kept in hiding all the eighteen years of their lives and are only now being reveled for the world to see. Despite the old fashioned idea of being a Deb it is really a nice family affair where the girls are each individually introduced dressed in their long white gowns with full length white gloves as their father’s escort them down the center of the ball room with all the guests seated in a horseshoe watching their every move. Following the introductions the girls and their fathers and then Marshalls perform four highly choreographed dances, then the party begins.
I am happy to report that not one girl tripped, or even stumbled as they each had 700 eyes on them making the long walk around the ballroom on their father’s arm. Each girl looked beautiful, but some more than others. The most graceful girls were not necessarily the prettiest, nor had the most stunning dress, hair or make-up, no. The one thing that really set some girls apart from others was their posture. Those who stood with shoulders back and head held high were far more radiant. This held true for the Father’s and Marshalls too. Men who shuffled, slouched or hung their head as they walked were far less attractive.
Not only was great posture the thing that made a girl standout, it also was an instant diet, making everyone with it look ten pounds thinner. Good posture is the fastest diet out there or consequently, slumping is the least delicious way to gain ten pounds. If I am going to put on weight I want to at least have some cake to show for it.
So stand tall, throw your shoulders back, lift your chin, put one foot in front of the other and come on out. You don’t have to be a Deb to be graceful.
Congress is Too Well Fed
Posted: December 29, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: comgress people, Congress, fiscal cliff, senators 1 CommentI am an optimist, but even with my normally cheery outlook I am not hopeful that any of our elected Federal officials are doing their jobs, any of them. I can’t believe that not more than one or two Senators or Congress people have not stood up and said to the country that no matter which party you are in everyone needs to get in a room and compromise on this Fiscal Cliff SH%T.
The fiscal cliff was created by congress on a deal years ago so that they would be force to make compromises years later. And guess what, they could not, or would not do it. And so, the American economy is being held hostage by this group of over paid, over fed, under accountable politicians.
Well, I have a solution. Put both houses in their respective chambers and hold them there without food, just water, until they come up with a deal, vote on it and pass it. I promise you that people would stop being so unyielding if they got hungry enough.
Let the congress see what it feels like for so many Americans who are food insecure every month. Like those guys who stand at busy intersections with signs that read, “Will work for food,” let’s make our politicians work for food.
Shame on all you people in Washington for not standing up to your own parties and saying, “Non-action is unacceptable.” Shame on the people who signed the pledge to never raise taxes. Why would you ever pledge to never do anything? Shame on all of us citizens for letting political parties get so powerful that they think they can set the agenda and never waiver from a narrow set of “ideals” even when it is not in anyone’s best interest.
Congress, face reality and everyone give in a little. Don’t make the American people treat you like naughty children and send you to bed without your dinner. You deserve a punishment so much worse.
The Pain of Re-breaking the Sugar Addiction
Posted: December 27, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: sugar, white flour 1 CommentI’m an addict. There, I have said it. Taken what is supposed to be the hardest step in over coming addiction and admitted that I have a problem and I am powerless to it. Granted I am a recovering sugar addict, but an addict none-the-less. I know that I have a weakness in the areas of sugar and white flour, this is not news, and so I have done my best to avoid them since I started my weight loss challenge on May 8th.
Getting off sugar and white flour was hard at first, but once I had not eaten them for about two weeks I lost my cravings. Though my brain still whispered sweet temptations every once in a while, I was able to withstand the devil and not succumb to the smell of a chocolate chip cookie, or the crust of a pizza.
November first was the end of my money raising challenge and if there was ever a day I might have rewarded myself something forbidden that was the day, but I did not do it. I knew that it is a slippery slope when you fall off the no sugar wagon. But after almost eight months I decided that for Christmas Eve I would give myself the gift of getting to eat whatever I wanted for just one day.
And so I did. Nothing too crazy, but bread was consumed at two meals and dessert at another. I think I also ate a snack that day and not a healthy one. It was great. Like all addicts all the wonderful happy feeling of being high came rushing back. Oh how I missed those tastes. I knew it had to be a one-day thing. I tried.
Christmas day I went back to eating my normal cereal for breakfast, no kringle or stolen for me. At my parents I had just veal and spinach for lunch, no pasta, rolls or cake. I was feeling a little triumphant. But when we got home late at night I ate a piece of toast with my dinner. I was so close to being back on track, but somehow slipped off at the very last moment.
Yesterday, Carter and I went to see Les Miserables at noon, which was a big mistake because half way through the movie I realized how hungry I was and reached into the popcorn bucket and had a few greasy handfuls of movie popcorn. Later that night I ate a Christmas caramel.
There is the slope; I am sliding down it headlong. I got on the scales and sure enough I was up a few pounds. There is no way I had eaten 7,000 extra calories to really gain two pounds, but once my body got a taste of the sugar and carbs it had missed so much, it said, hold on, we are keeping these calories around for a while.
Before any more damage can be done I must re-brake my addiction. I was successful today at eating my regimented allotment of veggies, fruits and protein. But I know that it will take another week of fighting the cravings again to get myself back to loosing real weight.
Unlike an alcoholic or a drug addict who can stay away from their substances all together, a food addict has to eat something. All I can say is fighting this addiction is a life’s work.
Calling All Bingo Players
Posted: December 26, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: games 1 CommentThis is more of an ad than a blog. Tomorrow night at 7:00 I am calling Bingo at The Lukes’ frozen yogurt store Graffiti at 751 and 54 in Durham. Cards will be for sale and the pot will become the prizes for the winners. It is the perfect thing to do with young and old family members. For the ones who are driving you crazy you can sit them at a different table. Cards will be $3 for the whole evening, unless you get there really late and we discount the cards so you can get in the game. No promises, I will be calling the numbers, not selling the cards.
If it were up to me I would play games all day. I think now with I-phones and I-pads I practically am playing all the time. But playing games with real live people is so much more fun. I think that loving to play games is a gene you either have or you don’t. My husband can’t stand to play games, which is really interesting because he has such an analytical mind.
My father also hates games, but his brother who is two years younger loves them. As a child I loved when we went to Pawley’s Island with my Uncle and his family because I was always needed to play games with the adults who wanted to play. At the end of a long session of Risk, My Uncle Wilson, Cousin Brooks and I were usually the only ones left having annihilate all other relatives long before.
Neither of my sisters liked playing games with me much because I was enough older that I beat them a lot. I wonder if I dampened their potential game loving gene or if they never actually had it? I got my gene from my maternal grandmother who passed it on to my mother and then me.
I can remember visiting my Mima in Knoxville, Tennessee when I was five and playing gin rummy with her. Being competitive, even with her first grandchild, was the way my Mima would play. She would beat me almost every time and then would sternly hold her pointer finger straight up in the air and say, “No crying.” I would stifle my tears and re-deal the cards, trying my best to win. Her domination in Gin rummy did not dampen my love of games and she made me a better player and not a sore sport.
My mother would like to play bridge everyday and almost does. I am glad she kept after me to learn because I love playing it, although I don’t do it as often as I used to. Mah Jongg is my game addiction. I could play it everyday and never tire, except if I were playing with tiring people. Even a losing day of Mah Jongg is better than doing almost anything else.
So bring out the inner child in yourself and play Bingo tomorrow, Thursday December 27th in Durham, NC. If you are too far away call up some friends and play at your house. Unless you are in Canada you might be able to hear me calling the numbers, I-27, G-45, O-60. You know I am my own backup PA system.
The Burst into Tears Gift
Posted: December 25, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Chicago, Hotel Allegro, Kimpton Hotels 1 Comment
My husband travels for work a lot. For anyone who does not travel for work I am here to tell you it does not matter where you go, it is not glamorous or all that fun. Work is work and being away from home, no matter how nice the hotel is not always fun.
I was just glad that Russ made it home from Chicago in time for Christmas after a long work of week and tough weather travel. When he put his suitcase down in our bedroom our sweet labradoodle Shay-shay stuck her nose in the corner and tried to retrieve something from inside. Russ stopped her and pulled four nicely wrapped packages from the suitcase.
“My Kimpton hotel in Chicago gave me these gifts, one for each of us as well as Shay-Shay,” he told me. At first I thought they were the kind of gift a business might give each of their customers, but then Russ continued. “They had them in my room as I checked in. The note read, ‘Welcome back Mr. Lange. We hope you are having a holly jolly holiday season! We know it must be rough traveling around the holidays. So we wanted to do a little something special from our family to yours to say, “thank you” for your loyalty. We did a little sleuthing and hope we found something for everyone. We look forward to seeing you in 2013! Sincerely, Erica, Katie and the Hotel Allegro Team.’”
“Should we open them now?” Russ asks. “No, let’s just put them under the tree.” So this morning as we were opening our family gifts, Russ gives Shay-shay her gift from the Hotel Allegro. Inside a small box were a number of fancy dog treats and Christmas rawhides which Shay found irresistible. “That was awfully sweet,” I said.
Carter then opened her present from the hotel, a picture frame with a picture of Shay in it that they must have found on one of our Facebook pages. “Wow, that is impressive,” I said. “Russ, not only do they know you have a wife, daughter and dog, they really went to a lot of trouble to get things that have something to do with us.”
My curiosity was up so I opened my little box, which had two pieces of paper and a handful of tiny Italian candies in it. I opened the first paper that read, “Dear Dana, We saw how much this means to you…Please let us know if we can ever help out! Love, Katie, Erica & Gavin (&Santa) Hotel Allegro Chicago” I unfolded the second piece of paper, a donation acknowledgement from the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina for $20.00.
I burst into tears. Three people I had never met, whose job it is to make sure their customers love them, had gone to the trouble to learn about me and find the perfect gift. And that it was. I can’t explain why I had such a strong and immediate reaction, but I did.
So tonight when my cousin Mark asked me what my favorite gift this year was I told him it was this one. It was a gift from some strangers to help feed some other people I will never meet, but to me it was the gift of the year.
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
Posted: December 24, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Christmas, duck 3 Comments
“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Mama was stirring, Chocolate Espresso tort mousse;
The table was set with the finest of care,
In hopes that good friends soon would be there;
The puppy sat ready to eat scraps of duck,
But none would go to her; she was just out of luck;
With Russ at his desk, last minute Christmas to do,
Carter wrapped presents, a favor for her mother it’s true;
As I stood at the stove sautéing duck liver,
The thought of the calories gave me a shiver;
But it’s Christmas but once in three sixty five,
So tonight we will eat not to just stay alive;
After pâté and soup, shrimp and grits will consume,
Then on to the ducks where the fat really looms;
The apples and onions sautéed in the port,
Will sweeten the birds of a holiday sort;
Corn pudding and rolls made by the Mama’s hand,
Are a treat that are the best in the whole big land;
Asparagus looms as a dish on the side,
For one guiltless item to help keep our pride;
And after the tort with butter cream thick,
There’s coconut cake if that doesn’t do the trick;
For tonight we will eat like we don’t own a scale,
One meal of celebration will not make a whale;
So to you and yours I send Christmas wishes,
I hope you enjoy all your Holiday dishes.
Don’t Hold Christmas Too Tightly
Posted: December 23, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Big Wheel, Pigs in a blanket 1 CommentYesterday I took a break from preparing my own Christmas cooking to help out a friend whose caterer had to be hospitalized the day of her Christmas party. As a retired caterer myself this is a nightmare I used to have, but never actually had to live through. As a hostess, I have never had a situation of not having someone come through with the food that I was planning on.
After making 75 of my “Pigs in a Blanket’s on Steroids” I delivered them to my friend’s house and returned home to care for my very sick child. It seems that the best theme to have for Christmas is flexibility for often the best-laid plans will need some adjusting.
I think back to Carter’s first Christmas. Russ was working in Washington, DC and after staying home for two weeks in early December waiting for the very late Carter to be born he just had to get back to work before the holiday. Unfortunately on the Eve of Christmas Eve, exactly 14 years ago today a huge blizzard hit the Mid-Atlantic region and I-85 was closed to traffic because hundreds of trees were down across the highway. It took Russ 24 hours to find a path home just in time for Santa to come.
It is still one of the best presents I have ever gotten. Back in the days before he had a cell phone, my waiting at the very snowy window with an infant child wondering if her father was safe or that he might miss Christmas.
Go with the flow was the theme of a Christmas even further back when I was about twelve. Long after I had gone to bed on Christmas Eve my father, having had too much egg nog came and woke me up because he needed me to assemble the Big Wheel my three year old sister Janet was getting.
He sat in a chair by the fire as I dumped the 68 pieces on the floor and began to study the step-by-step instructions. I will never forget the very first step, “Take part 1, the back axel and place part 2, the noise making clicker thing on the axel.” As I did that my father, having heard many a Big Wheel in his day said, “Make sure you leave that annoying noise maker off that thing.”
In the interest of finishing this job quickly and going back to bed so Christmas could come, I threw the noise making plastic part in the box and when I was finished with the assembly only an hour and a half later, put the box and the instructions in the trash so Janet would think the man in the red suit had put it together for her.
First thing Christmas morning, with great glee, Janet, or Junior Johnson as she was appropriately nick named for being a speed demon, jumped on that Big Wheel she had been dreaming of and peddled down the side of the big living room. Before she reached the end of the room she stopped and let lose a big wail, “It’s broken,” she said. “It does not make the right noise.”
After much crying my father looked at her and said, “Don’t worry, Dana can fix it.” And so I did. It only took digging through the trash to find both the piece and the instructions and almost three hours later the offending, but much desired sound was coming from the beloved Big Wheel. Flexibility.
So I hope that everything runs smoothly at your holiday location wherever you might be. And if it doesn’t it will make for a memory you will never forget. I can’t always remember the times that went off without a hitch, but those Christmases with a disaster or two will be the ones you will talk about year after year.
If Only Talking Were Real Exercise
Posted: December 21, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: moving an ice house, pushng a plane, talking Leave a commentAfter almost two years with braces Carter finally had all the railroad tracks removed and graduated to both an upper and lower retainers. Much to her parents chagrin she chose Duke Blue for the plastic part, which we were told would not show, but when she opens her mouth I still have flash backs of my Cousin Mary’s Chow dog whose mouth and tongue were black on the inside.
Today while I was driving Carter to the mall for her post exams shopping and movie time I heard this clicking coming from her mouth. I turned and looked at her and she said, “What, you can hear that?” as only a fourteen year old can say when a parents even cocks a head their way.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m just exercising my tongue mussel,” she replied. “If that were an effective exercise I would be the thinnest person you know,” I tell her. “You are right about that,” she agrees in a voice that says you are not such a bad Mom.
I got to wondering how many calories you burn up by talking. For a baseline you need to know that watching an hour of TV burns up about 70 calories unless it is incredibly funny and you get a few good bellyaches in.
According to the folks at Calorie Count talking for an hour burns an additional 50% from just watching TV. So your burn rate is 105 calories an hour. Just as I suspected…not that much to make a dent in my caloric intake. For me the talking hour is my baseline number since that is what my body is accustomed to.
As I was reading the activity browser looking for the “talking number” I came across a number of interesting activities that are listed such as “Cooking Indian Bread on an Outside stove” for 210 calories an hour. What kind of Indian bread are they talking about, American Indian, like fry bread or Nan like from India, and who has an outside stove? Would you burn more or less calories on an inside stove? What about making loaf bread, doesn’t hand kneading burn a huge number of calories? What if you were talking while kneading is that more calories than watching TV while baking?
“Maple Syruping” comes in at 350 calories an hour. That is a big jump from talking but unfortunately I don’t live in a place cold enough to do Maple Syruping. I wonder if the temperature you are doing it in makes a difference to the number of calories you burn.
Pushing a plane in and out of hanger is also listed and burns a whopping 420 calories an hour. Really? How big a plane are we talking about? I don’t think I have ever seen a human push a plane. Do you do this alone or is it a partner activity? Do you think the calorie counting experts had a real person pushing a plane for a whole hour or is it a shorter activity they just adjusted for the hour time to compare apples to apples.
In case you live in a cold place, but don’t have a plane, you can burn the same number of calories by moving an icehouse. I reckon you must have to push this house alone, by hand, way out in the middle of a frozen lake to burn 420 calories an hour.
I just want to know how many calories the people at Calorie Counter burn up thinking up the craziest activities to list in their activity browser?
The Civilized Way To Go
Posted: December 20, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: end of the world, high tea, Mayans Leave a commentThank goodness I am not British or incredibly wealthy because I just don’t need an extra meal during the day. What meal am I talking about? High tea of course. If I had an impressively fabulous metabolism I would vote High Tea as my favorite meal of the day, but alas it is a treat I should only partake in on the day before the end of the world doomsday, tomorrow according to the oh-so-right Mayan calendar.
Carter and I are at Fearington being pampered and enjoying the least healthy snack of the day before I go to Russ’ company Christmas party without him. Somehow it is wrong on so many fronts that I not only had some afternoon snacks of crab salad and scones, but that Russ is stuck in Chicago working while his own Christmas party goes on without him.
Carter and I got to go to the spa before Tea and afterwards she announces how much she dislikes being pampered. “If I tell the girl with the sing-songy voice that I don’t want any cucumber water or a magazine five minutes before, I have not already changed my mind five minutes later,” Carter complains. I am with her there. Some over attentiveness is annoying.
But really the thing that is wrong is eating lunch, having Tea and then going to a dinner party. I need to spread these activities out over a month. Oh yeah, we are having breakfast here too. The apocalypse can’t come fast enough.
There is no way to justify all this excess. If only I could say it is one last hurrah before the world ended. But really, if the Mayans were so smart they would not have been wiped out in the ninth century. Y2k was much more plausible, but that was no excuse to eat either.
So like the band playing as the Titanic went down, I enjoyed High Tea just in case the world does end tomorrow. So to all my friends who will go out of this world with me, it’s been a great ride. I hope you have no regrets, especially that goodie you ate today because no one is going to see us at our funerals. If we all go together we won’t have to worry that people will say, “I’ve seen her look better,” as the look at us in our coffins.
The Holiday Self-Esteem Punch In The Gut
Posted: December 19, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: relatives Leave a commentWhile talking about what my friends were doing for the holidays one friend lamented the trip to visit her perennially over-bearing mother. My friend, who I shall not name here in fear that her mother might one day discover this blog, has a mother infamous for saying exactly the worst thing at the worst time. The good news is that her siblings, husband and children all know it and gather like a fortress to protect each other from the certain barbs her mother will throw at them.
Case in point is that my friend wanted to lose a couple of pounds, but her astute and supportive husband told her, “Don’t bother until after you have visited your Mother because your self esteem doesn’t need take that beating.” The role of whipping post is well known to my friend and she graciously takes it from her clueless mother.
What is it about getting together with family at the holidays that makes us fall into the roles we play in our families as children? Is there some big script that is already written that says if you are the youngest you will forever be the baby and therefore will never know as much as your older sibling just because they entered the world a few years before you?
Being older does not mean you are smarter, more worldly, better traveled or always right except if you are nine and your sister is five. But somehow at fifty-nine and fifty-five you assume the same posture.
One unproductive way to deal with the inevitable family drama is to eat. I think that is why so many people bake such ridiculous amounts of Christmas cookies and candy, just so they have some self-esteem healing sugar to buoy them up. But we all know that the sugar high you get from biting the heads off the gingerbread men is short lived and is just going to pile the bad feelings on to the already bruised egos from the snide comments that a family member made about your child.
So this Christmas step away from the desserts. Chocolate is the not answer. Probably punching your Aunt Ruth when she says, “Aren’t you a little old for that skirt?” would go a whole lot farther to restoring your equilibrium, but please don’t. So don’t eat or hit something, but instead run outside and scream your head off, then pick up the phone and call a friend and complain about your relatives. I am sure they have something to complain about too.
All this being said, I am looking forward to seeing my family. I have no complaints today, and I don’t have an Aunt Ruth.
You Don’t Have to be a Scout to Be Prepared
Posted: December 18, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Christmas eve, standing rib roast Leave a commentChristmas is a week away, AAARRHH! Are you ready? I am not talking about the presents you still need to find and wrap, but what about the meals you need to make? There are the big ones, Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning and Christmas night. Like Thanksgiving we all have some sort of traditional foods people in the family will be expecting.
I am doing Christmas Eve at my house with some friends so I have been pouring over cookbooks and looking at websites trying to come up with an interesting menu that is different from the traditional. One of my guests does not eat seafood, so no feast of the seven fishes and my husband said he did not want a giant hunk of meat, so no standing rib roast, I just cooked a pork loin for a Christmas luncheon so no crown roast.
I am considering duck since the inside of my oven is so dirty already. But it is not the main meal that I am concerned with. The big question is are you prepared for all the other meals everyone will actually need to eat?
Now is the time to make up a few soups, stews, casseroles, and pasta sauces etc. to put in the freezer to have available when the family who are normally at school, work or a few states away look at you and say, “What can I eat?’ Sometimes after making a giant occasion meal I want to say to people, “Didn’t I just feed you yesterday?”
This also means I need to have some healthy food prepared for me so I am not tempted by the leftover cheesy dish in the fridge or the fudge some enemy dropped by. For me the best defense is to have some roasted pears, pan sautéed boneless skinless chicken thighs and caramelized onions. I can make a myriad of dishes from those premade staples.
For me I can stick to my diet during the giant meals when there are a lot of people around to watch me eat. It is the more quiet down time meals when I let my guard down if I have not pre-planned and prepared, prepared, prepared.
I am really only limited by the amount of space in my freezer and refrigerator. With all the holiday inflatables available you would think that someone would invent an inflatable freezer that you could just blow-up and use around the holidays when the number of mouths you feed multiplies by 5.
So heed my warning and check your pantry now. You always need more eggs or milk than you think you do. Stock-up and cook ahead of time so you can actually enjoy the holiday.
Innovations in Eating
Posted: December 17, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: tiny utensiles, willy Wonka 1 CommentIf you are someone who has read this blog more than ten times you should know by now that dieting is about your brain, not your stomach. The old saying mind over matter is true in the case of trying to eat more healthy food and less in general.
There are many tried and true tricks to help trick you mind into thinking you have had more food, like using a smaller plate and filling it full. You brain thinks, “Wow, am I ever getting a lot of food.” Another suggested trick is to use chops sticks to slow your eating down. That only works if you are not a master chop sticker. Unfortunately for me I learned long ago how to really shovel the food in with chop sticks so I have to skip that trick. Another idea is to try and eat with your wrong hand. On a good day, with my dominant hand I usually spill something on my shirt right at boob level so in the interest of not drawing attention to my stained wardrobe I am going to keep using my right hand.
All these ideas are old and tired to me, but while putting away some silver flat ware in my silver chest I stumbled upon a tiny demitasse spoon and an itty-bitty pickle fork no longer than my middle finger. Now here is a real slower-downer in the eating dinner department. Using these doll-sized utensils would ensure that I never finish a meal. I am sure that at mouse bite speed I would eventually give up eating before I cleaned my plate or fall asleep trying.
I am sure that I also would actually never even taste the food because the drop of soup the spoon could hold would not be big enough to have any flavor. This could really free me up from cooking since it would not matter what was on the mini plate I prepared.
I will start testing these utensils tonight. If it works I am going into the tiny fork manufacturing business. Tiny spoons, like the tasting ones at ice cream stores have been around forever, but tiny forks are a wide open market. I think that this might also work for the over weight Asian community. Two toothpicks could make the perfect tiny chop stick pair. Think how long it would take you to eat fried rice using them.
Any other hints are welcome. Remember to think outside the box like Willy Wonka did with the flavored wallpaper and the whole meal in a stick of gum.
Exam Anxiety and Chocolate
Posted: December 16, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: chocolate, exams 1 CommentAs an over half century old person it has been a long, I mean more than half my life long time since I had to take a mid term or final exam. The only exam I take now is my annual GYN exam and that is fraught with it’s own peril, but I digress.
I don’t remember having exams in junior high school, as middle school was called back in the olden days. I must have started in high school. So for those four years and the four of college, I took exams. It was probably more like three and a half in college because I am certain second semester senior year I did not take anything that required a test, let alone an exam. So for seven and a half years of my 51 and a half I took exams. That is only about 15% of my life and it happened over 30 years ago.
Now that we have explored the numbers I pose a question. Why does my 8th grade daughter studying for mid-term exams bring up a strong anxiety in me, which requires chocolate to placate, based on past experiences?
I am not taking any exams. My child is not terribly worried about the exams. She has not requested chocolate. I have successfully avoided all chocolate for the last eight months except for the tiny amount sprinkled on my every other week skinny latte at Starbucks.
What is it about certain feelings that we associate with food? You know, movies and popcorn is the easiest one to identify, but there is baseball and hotdogs, Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie, birthdays and cake and ice cream.
Back in the day I remember when the only time we ever had cake and ice cream was at a birthday party. Once when Carter was about three I told her we were having a party. She looked around the kitchen and asked, “Where is the cake?” I said, “Cake? We aren’t having any cake.” She cocked her head and replied, “You said we were having a party.”
I guess that my few years of studying for exams were enough to ingrain in me the feeling that I needed chocolate to survive. Now logically I know I will be OK, but I really don’t need to have this added desire for a sweet on top of all the Christmas food around. I walked into a Christmas party this afternoon at the home of a great local chef. There was a platter of the best looking sweet treats that almost brought me to my knees. I hugged the host and hostess and made a beeline for the door.
Back at exam central things are not much better. As soon as I post this blog I am going to get right to needle pointing, something that keeps my hands too busy to reach for something to eat. Two and a half days and this exam period will be history.
The Need for a New Green Vegetable
Posted: December 12, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: broccoli, vegetable 1 CommentWhen I was a kid my mother told us we always had to have a green vegetable with every dinner or else we would not be able to poop. Obviously the threat of constipation was a good one because my sisters and I believed that story for a very long time. In my case it was not until I was in college and went three days without a green vegetable that it dawned on me that the green vegetable story was related to Santa Clause and the threat of blindness from sitting too close to the TV.
I should have caught on earlier because I had a cousin who as a child ate only roast beef and carrots and I never heard her complain once, in fact she grew up to be an actual rocket scientist so the lack of green vegetables did not hold her back in any way. I have since learned that fiber, not the color green is what is important, but that rule about needing to have at least one green vegetable a day was fairly well ingrained in me.
Today, between getting ready to host a party tomorrow, playing Mah Jongg, and doing some much needed Christmas shopping it dawned on me that I still had to find something for my family for dinner. I stopped at the Whole Foods to get a bottle of milk, and a green vegetable. Finding a vegetable that both my child and my husband will eat while keeping it healthy is a difficult task. Russ hates broccoli and Carter only wants to eat green beans that are over-cooked. Zucchini can work, but I grew so much of it this summer that we all are taking a break from it. Asparagus is fine, but it is a little tough this time of year. I am the only big fan of Brussels spouts and I just could not bring myself to make spinach again.
I looked at what was available and decided to go with broccoli and hope Russ would not bring up my mother’s myth since he might be forced to eat a vegetable of another color. The crowns of the green trees looked beautiful all stacked together, florets out, in a giant display; in the way only a high priced market might display them. I approached the tower and gingerly lifted one tree of broccoli from the pile and along with the dark green crown came a stalk the size of a baseball bat and it was three times as heavy as I thought it should be. The trunk to branch ratio was so out of proportion that I only imagine some Monsanto Food Engineers invented a hybrid plant that grew extra heavy broccoli so that store could earn more selling it.
Despite knowing it was heavy I took the monster-stalked plant to the check out and only after the clerk rang it up for $13.59 did I come to my senses and decline to purchase it. I think somewhere my husband’s food angel was standing on the scale so he would not have to even smell broccoli at home.
I left the store with only my milk in tow and right before school pick-up I ran into the Harris Teeter to see what they had. While looking at their broccoli crowns with no stalk, but fairly brown ends I ran into my friend Michelle who was on the same hunt for a green vegetable that I was on. She settled on zucchini and I unhappily on frozen broccoli.
That was when it dawned on me that we need some more green vegetable choices. Somebody invented broccolini in 1994, which is a cross between broccoli and the Kai-lan cabbage so I know it is possible to create new vegetables. So scientist of the world, lets get on it. Michelle and I can’t be the only ones who are wandering the produce sections like zombies in search of inspiration. There is money to be made on a new green vegetable or two or three.
Spectator Calorie Burning Calculator
Posted: December 11, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: girls basketball 3 CommentsAt this point in my life of dieting I feel like I know the calorie count, the fat content and the recommended serving size of every food on earth. Just off the top of my head I know that goat cheese has about 75 calories and 6 grams of fat for a one ounce serving while Gruyere cheese has 115 calories and 9 grams of fat for that same size.
I also consider myself quite an expert on how many calories different activities burn up and I mean really burn not, not those inflated numbers that workout machines like treadmills and stair climbers reports you are burning up while you are working out. For instance, if you walk the dog for an hour, with all the stops the average peeing and sniffing dog makes you might burn up about 200 calories. It sounds good until you consider that you would use up 70 calories just sitting in front of the TV doing nothing. Just having the blood pump through your veins requires some calories.
For the last two afternoons I have participated in an activity that certainly feels like it is burning up a lot of calories, but for which I can find no information on the internet about what the count might be. What is this undocumented high calorie burning activity you ask? It is one of mother/spectator of middle school girl’s basketball game.
Based on my wide base of calorie knowledge I place watching one of these games somewhere in the range between curling at 280 calories per hour and fencing at 420. There are factors, which can raise or lower the number of calories burned and I have devised a little chart to help you determine if this is an activity you want to participate in.
First let’s start with a baseline for sitting in the bleachers, just having the blood course through your veins — 90 calories burned
If your child is a starter – add 25 calories
If your team is playing a very competitive team—add 35 calories
If the Refs are blind- add between 50- 70 calories depending on the number of missed calls.
For every really great or really horrible play – add 5 calories
If there are any trash talking opponent parents in the stands – add 50 calories
If there are opponent cheerleaders – add 10 calories
If the opponent cheerleader’s moms’ are sitting near you – add 20 calories
If the opponent cheerleader’s moms’ attack you –add 150 calories.
Without any trouble at all being a spectator, cheering, clapping, screaming, heart racing, holding your breath, laughing, holding your tongue, turning the other cheek, being a good sportsman and congratulating the winner can really cause you to lose a lot of weight. The only drawback is I am just not sure how much of it your heart can take. So my learned advice is spectate at your own risk and always remember it’s just a middle school basketball game and no lives were on the line for it.
Post-Traumatic Cooking Disorder
Posted: December 10, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cauliflower, cheese, France, ham, Nantes 1 CommentI know the Psychiatric community is all over PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but I think I have stumbled upon a more positive disorder I call Post Traumatic Cooking Disorder. I have self-diagnosed this after years of flash backs about food and cooking.
Today while I was buying a head of cauliflower I had a vivid memory of the summer of 1980 I spent living in Nantes, France. No Nazi’s were involved is my disorder, but I did spend a lot of time that summer walking past bombed out buildings that had sat half demolished for forty years on my way to and from school.
I was living in Nantes with a French family. Marionique and Patrice were the parents of two little boys ages five and three. Why they wanted a college girl to live with them I will never know. I don’t remember much about them, probably because my French was so bad that I had a headache all the time from concentrating on trying to understand them. I certainly know they hardly ever understood me.
My cauliflower flashback was from my first weekend with them. I arrived in Nantes after spending a week in Paris with a group of 12 other American students I was going to school with. We arrived in Nantes by train and were all met at the station by our new families. Marionque picked me up and after many false starts at conversation I finally understood her to say, ‘I think we are going to have trouble.”
We arrived at her tiny house and after she showed me to my room she told me we were going to get back in the car and go to their summer place on the coast. I was a little apprehensive because I was going to miss the fun my friends and I had planned for the weekend in Nantes and I was beginning to realize that my personality was dependant on being able to communicate humor, which I could not do in a language I hardly spoke.
I was right to be fearful because the “summer place” was the French equivalent of an airstream parked on a perch overlooking a violent Atlantic ocean. The only thing I remember Marionque teaching me all summer was how to make a steamed head of cauliflower with ham slices and cheese sauce on top, but it was well worth it.
Once we arrived at their retreat Marionque and I walked into the little village to buy food. She asked me to go to the meat counter and order “quatre tranches du jambon,” which I came to learn was four slices of ham. I was certainly not used to ordering meat by the slice, but I have never forgotten that “tranche” means slice in French and I have never used it again in my life. No wonder the French are thin when they order meat by the slice rather than by the pound.
We walked home with our basket of just enough food for dinner for five people, one cauliflower, four slices of ham, a small hunk of Gruyere like cheese and a small bottle of milk. Marionque steamed the cauliflower until it was just tender and then draped the thin slices of ham over the top and poured the Mornay sauce she had prepared with the milk and cheese over the top. I carefully watched her prepare it, helping where I could.
It was probably the most silent meal I had ever eaten but so delicious. I was incredibly lonely being in the middle of nowhere with a strange family unable to communicate, but the food was so delicious and simple. Now whenever I see a whole head of cauliflower I have a little tug-of-war internally from remembering my feeling of isolation and the divine taste of dinner at the same time. I’m sure it is already a real disorder, but for now I will just all it PTCD, short for Post-Traumatic Cooking Disorder.
Did I Learn to Cook From My Mother?
Posted: December 9, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: crab. shrimp. joy of cooking, mother 1 CommentNew friends who come to my home for a meal often ask, “Did you learn to cook from your Mom?’’ Before my husband spits his food across the table I explain that food has never been my mother’s thing. Perhaps that is one big reason she has never had a weight problem.
Cooking in my family was left up to my father and me. Everyone once in a while my mother would try and jump in and try to prepare something when my parents were having one of their many dinner parties. I will never forget one particular party when she must have been feeling guilty about the amount of work my father was doing. While he was out on the tractor cutting the grass she stopped him mid-cut and asked if she could make something. He knew this was a crapshoot so he suggested she make a hors d’oeuvre knowing that it was not a lynch pin item in his menu.
This being the early 1970’s I’m sure my mother consulted her 1959 version of the joy of cooking, and found a crab and shrimp canapé she thought sounded terribly elegant. Off she went to the store to purchase the needed ingredients. Have I mentioned that not only did my Mom not like to cook she disliked spending money even more, especially on food. Once at the Village Market, our very expensive local grocery she looked at the price of crab and at the price of shrimp, be them both canned, and decided she could substitute something cheaper for one of them.
Back at home she busily opened the cans and followed the recipe to a T with the one substitution. As she was finishing my father appeared in the kitchen ready to begin the real cooking with me. Proud of her accomplishment she asked us to taste her little canapé. My father who never met a food he did not like popped the little canapé into his mouth and after a chew or two, rushed over to the sink and spit it out. “What the #$%& is that?”
“It is crab and shrimp,” my mother said. “Really?” he asked. “Oh, the shrimp was too expensive so I substituted tuna.” What was really expensive was throwing way the whole lot of the canapés. It was a while before she volunteered to cook for a party again.
I learned to cook out of necessity, but I hear from so many friends that they never learned to do what their mother’s were good at be it sewing or cooking or some other talent because their mother did it for them. I count my blessings that my mother could not cook, it made me the cook I am today. I wonder what my daughter will be good at that I am unable to do now.
A Child is Born
Posted: December 7, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: inducemnt, labor, naked 4 CommentsFourteen years ago today is a day that will live in infamy, at least at the Durham Regional Hospital, for it was the day that I gave birth to my darling daughter, Carter. But getting her into the world was not so cute.
Let me paint the picture for you, in case you were not one of the pregnant couples who were taking the labor and delivery tour that day. It was a Monday. I was two weeks over due so my OB/GYN had promised me that he would induce my labor on that day. Russ and I showed up at the hospital at five in the morning ready to meet our only child. After waiting a coon’s age for check-in I was finally allowed to waddle up to my labor room by 9:00 AM.
Making a giant pregnant woman wait four hours with nothing to eat or drink since the night before was not a good way to start the day. Once in our room a lovely nurse came in and had me change into a gown that opened in the back, but did not tie shut. As I lay down on a bed hardly any wider than I was, she attached at least six different wires, monitors or tube to me; mother heart monitor on my finger, baby heart monitor around my beach-ball belly, IV in my arm, some kind of fetal wire inside the place the baby was going to come out and a few other’s I can’t remember. I resembled a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float with tethering lines coming off all sides of me.
My Doctor came in and said good morning and told me that they were going to give me Pitocin to induce labor and if that did not work after six hours they would stop, give me dinner and try again the next morning. That was not the news I wanted to hear and you can bet I told him so. He had made me wait until two weeks overdue and this was going to be the day I had this baby.
For the first few hours it looked as if his warning about this taking more than one day was going to come true. Russ read the newspaper and I tired I looked at the television without actually watching it. It was the slowest morning of my life. Next to my bed was the monitor, which showed when I might be having a contraction. Watching it was like watching grass grow, until all of a sudden things kicked into gear and I went from no contractions to lots with not much rest in between.
Not being one to suffer needlessly I had an epidural, which not only numbed the pain, but slowed down the delivery a bunch. The monitor, which also had a satellite monitor out at the nurses station became much more important at that point since I was not feeling the contractions. While Russ and I were just hanging out alone in the room the monitor made an alarming sound, the door flew open suddenly and my Doctor rushed in telling me to roll over on my hands and knees and put my butt in the air and my head down because the baby wire that was running in the birth canal was reporting that her heart rate was going down.
On a good day, without six wires and tubes stuck to every part of me I might have been able to do this, but being this pregnant, numb from the waist down on a tiny bed it was almost impossible, but I did it. My naked butt was in the air as my entire body was exposed, hospital gown that opened in the back lying on the bed beneath me. Who cares, I just want this baby to be OK. Once I had assumed the position the monitor stopped screaming at us and my Doc told me to roll back over. Right. I needed those six balloon handlers to come in and help untangle the lines as I tried to roll over.
Another twenty minutes went by and the monitor screamed again, the door flew open again, I rolled over again, hands and knees, head down, big giant naked white ass in the air again. Baby fine. Roll on back. At this point Russ went to find the pay phone to call my mother and report what my status was. This was still back in the day when you were not allowed to use cell phones in the hospital because you might trigger a heart attack in some old guy’s pacemaker.
While Russ was gone the alarm sounded again. I was already rolling over into the undignified position as my Doctor ran in this time with three nurses, yelling we are going to do an emergency c-section, roll her out. Now you know these labor and delivery nurses don’t give a hoot about naked women with everything hanging out so no one thought about throwing a sheet over my bare body as they rolled me out into the hall at NASCAR speed to get to the operating room.
Right then, out in the public hallway, a tour of at least a half dozen pregnant woman and their baby daddy’s came walking through to see where they were considering giving birth. In my typical way I said, “Somebody, please take a picture.” I can almost guarantee that not one of those women chose Durham Regional as her birthplace.
My bed/chariot was pushed up against the operating room table and it was so much easier to roll on to it than it had been to roll in place on the first bed. Within seconds the Doctor was ready to make the incision and he looked up and asked, “Is the father here?” Russ came rushing in having missed all the excitement because he was on the phone explaining what an epidural was to my mother.
In a flash Carter was born and was perfectly healthy, those monitor sirens were nothing serious. So on this day I like to celebrate not just the birth of my child, but the happiness I feel about not knowing if I caused any heart attacks or early labor inducement to the horrified pregnant woman touring the hospital. It was Pearl Harbor day after all.
Cheney the Dog
Posted: December 6, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Cheney, dog, god, Wilson 1 CommentWell before most American’s had heard of one of the most disliked Vice President’s in modern times, Dick Cheney my very liberal and big time animal loving Uncle Wilson found a hound dog and named him Cheney. Despite this poor dog’s name he was well loved by both my Aunt and Uncle. Signs alerting visitors to the farm where my Uncle lives next to my father warn drivers to “Go slow, Pet animals around.”
Cheney and co-dog Georgia rule the farm as the leaders of the animal kingdom. Marlin, the deaf cat had passed away a little while ago and I recently noticed the sign reading, “Drive slow, deaf cat” has been removed from the tree in the bend of the road leading up to my Uncle’s house.
My Uncle Wilson is a retired Episcopalian Priest whose only religious paraphernalia at his house is a statue of St. Francis, the animal loving Saint. Wilson has never been shy about proclaiming his love of animals, which I think is almost stronger than his love of people.
This past year Uncle Wilson has had a lot of serious health problems and has been unable to walk for months. Recently he has gotten good news that his primary problem is in remission, but he has a very painful broken pelvis which must heal on it’s own.
The day after Thanksgiving Cheney, who is mostly an outdoor dog did not come and sleep at the back porch where his bed resides. Both Cheney and Georgia had been out chasing some smelly animals and they had been banned from coming in the house until the weather warmed up enough for them to be bathed to remove the stench. Uncle Wilson and Aunt Janie noticed the next day that Cheney was still gone which worried them because Cheney was not known to miss many meals. Four or five days passed and no one had seen Cheney. Will was heart broken thinking that Cheney surely had died somewhere out on the farm.
This came as quite a blow to him after his year of poor health. Although he had a great attitude about what might kill him, the thought of loosing Cheney seemed to bring him down to a place he had not gone to so far. I think that thinking about Cheney’s mortality brought Will’s into focus.
On the fifth day after Cheney’s disappearance Will got a call from his Doctor who told him there was no treatment for his broken pelvis, except for physical therapy. So while Janie was out doing an errand Will, who had not gone out of the house without a wheel chair for months, decided to get up alone and take a walk, with his walker, down the road towards my father’s house.
Georgia, one who was always up for a walk ventured part of the way down the road with him. As my Uncle got a hundred yards from his house he decided that this walk was a very bad idea. He turned to go back to his house and noticed that Georgia had only come half way with him and was standing on the side of the driveway near a culvert where a pipe that runs under the driveway exits. Uncle Wilson thought that Georgia must not have felt like a walk either.
As Will came back towards Georgia he heard a faint sound coming from the pipe under the driveway. He recognized the sound as Cheney’s voice. With his walker by his side, Will got down on the ground and looked in the pipe and could hear Cheney, but was unable to reach his arm in far enough to touch him. As he lay on the ground overwhelmed with the thought that Cheney was alive, he realized that he could not get up. Thank goodness he had his cell phone in his pocket and he hit redial calling our cousin George who miraculously was only one mile away, rather than at his house an hour and a half away. He came right over, calling my father as he drove, who called Rufus and Bill two men who work at the farm, my mother, and Aunt Janie.
All these people who are not always around came quickly and gathered by the pipe and realized that they could not get Cheney from the open end of the pipe so they began to dig the pipe out at the other end. At one point one of the men with a hatchet in hand was banging away on the cement pipe and as he lifted the hatchet high in the air to bring it down hard, my father screamed stop. Lord knows what made my father stop him, but he did and the crowd or mainly very old people, working together lifted a huge chunk of pipe and there was Cheney right where the hatchet would have hit.
That dog jumped up, ran to the house and drank water for what seemed like a day. How this very old dog had survived stuck in this pipe for five days with no water or food and freezing nighttime temperatures is something to behold. Having Cheney back is the best medicine Uncle Wilson could ever have. Neither of those old dogs is ready to give up. Perhaps Cheney was well named after all, because like Dick Cheney who has survived five heart attacks and a heart transplant operation and still keeps going, Cheney the dog is one tough ‘ole pup. But unlike the Vice President the dog brings hope and light into the world and might just be proof of some higher being.
Playing Store
Posted: December 5, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: beauty parlor, janet, margaret, restaurant, store Leave a comment
Today was my filming day for the Food Bank. First I had to appear on live TV for about 30 seconds. I did not know what I was going to be asked, but lucky for me I only had to think a moment about the answer. My second filming was for a video for the Food Bank and it was shot at the Durham Branch. It was much harder because I did not have a script but I had to talk much longer about how people can help the Food Bank. It took about 15 takes to get right.
While setting of the video shot by putting cans of food on store shelves I had a major flashback to my childhood. We lived in a fairly isolated house with no girls living nearby so my sisters and I would play together even though there was nine years difference in our ages. One of the games we loved to play was “Store.” I had a bedroom with lots of shelves and we would price everything already on the shelves, like little glass animals and piggy banks and then go and take canned food from the kitchen that already had price stickers on it and add that to the shelves.
We would spend hours making fake money some of which went into a box made into a cash register and the rest divided between the shoppers. I was usually the storekeeper because first it was my room, therefore my store, and second I could add the purchases faster than Margaret and certainly than Janet who was probably only 3 years old. The only problem with store is that the setting up was fun, but neither of my sisters ever wanted to put anything away when they got bored with shopping.
Another favorite pastime was playing restaurant. In my same bedroom I had a board that spanned one side of my room, which we used as a counter. I had a bunch of flatware that my Godmother had been giving me for birthdays and Christmases so restaurant seemed like the only game a kid could play with forks and spoons. Just like playing store the set-up was the majority of the game. We would spend hours writing menus and then we would have to find costumes to wear as the waitress or the patrons.
Store and Restaurant were the games I would choose, but Margaret liked to play beauty parlor. This was my least favorite game to play because she always got to be the beautician and she also had a short attention span. That meant that she would set a chair up at our bathroom sink and I would have to put my head backwards into the bowl and she would pour a handful for shampoo in my hair and run the water on cold for a minute and lather me up, get bored and walk away leaving me fully clothed with a big wet head full of bubbles and no way to get up without soaking myself. Sometimes it was even worse than that because she also had my hands soaking in a whole cereal bowl full of Palmolive dish soap. We had no idea what a manicure was, but we knew that Madge the manicurist told her customers “they were soaking in it” so that’s what we did. No wonder years later when Margaret was in boarding school with 5 other Margaret’s in her class she took on the nick name Madge. Was life simpler then?
Come Be on TV With Me
Posted: December 4, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: abc-11, Heart of Carolina food drive Leave a commentTomorrow is the Heart of Carolina Drive through day for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. What does that mean? It is the all day food and funds collection day for the biggest food drive of the year.
I am scheduled to make an appearance on ABC-11 at the 7:35 AM cut in of Good Morning America at the Kroger on Hillsboro Rd. in Durham. I have made these appearances for years and often say the same thing. I was thinking it might be fun to have any of my Less Dana supporters come out and be in the background of my shot this year.
So if you always wanted to be on TV some on out to the Kroger by 7:25. I can’t promise exactly how it will happen, but you know somehow I will work you in if you are there.
Please pass the word to anyone you know about donating food tomorrow and funds anytime. I know that if you are reading this you have probably already donated to the Food Bank this year, so bless you.
Hope to see you at the Heart of Carolina drive through day.
Don’t Miss the Party
Posted: December 3, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cookis, holiday parties, sweets Leave a comment‘Tis the season. Once you are past the Santa stage, or you are on the permanent naughty list the season is about a lot of celebrating, eating and imbibing. If you are someone like me who can ill afford the holiday treats you have two choices. You can skip the merriment, parties and get togethers and hide out away from the Christmas cookies, cheesy hors d’oeuvres and bubbly drinks or you can go and be merry, but make a plan before you do.
I strongly suggest you don’t miss the party. As the song says, “What good is sittin’ alone in your room?” Depriving yourself of the company could cause you to actually eat more alone than you might have eaten if you joined in the fun.
Here are my tips for holiday party enjoyment without the guilt.
- Always eat something before you go so you won’t lose all will power at the sight of ham biscuits just because you are starving.
- Try and not drink your calories. Alcohol in excess breaks down your eating defenses as well as could cause you to lose your panties. If you really want a drink try and make every other one water.
- Don’t even start on the sweets because one bite of pecan pie begets another and before you know it you have begotten yourself into a whole pie’s worth of dessert.
- At buffets take the smallest plate you can find even if that means using the teacup saucer. Fill the whole thing up with salad and top it with one bite of the bad thing you really want.
- Sit is the hardest seat to get out of so you will have trouble getting up to get seconds.
- Find the most interesting person to talk to so that you don’t need to use an excuse to go get food to get out of a boring conversation.
- Tell your friends you are trying to be good about what you are eating at parties and if they try and push food on you spit in their drink when they are not looking.
Tonight I am going to my friend Carol’s cookie swap. She is a really good friend because she offered guests the option of coming and not participating in the cookie part if the cookies are a problem. Now that is a hostess who knows that the camaraderie is more important than the sweets.
So don’t mope around and miss the fun, join in, but stick to your guns.
The Rapture Diet
Posted: December 2, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Chris Tuttle, rapture, survivialist Leave a commentI am already blowing my chance to make money on a bunch of people who can ill afford it by writing this here, but I came up with a brilliant new scheme today at church. It’s called the Rapture Diet. And the slogan is, “Is your body ready to meet Jesus?” If that sounds at all dirty to you then you clearly are not a rapturist. You know what the rapture is, that idea that Jesus is coming back and take all the living real believers back to heaven and leaving the rest of us on earth for what is known as the tribulation period. If you are a rapturist, better name than a rapper, you need to do everything possible to be ready and I am suggesting that being in heavenly shape is really important.
For the record my dear preacher Chris Tuttle is not a rapturist, based on his sermon today, “Known Unknowns and the Expectation of a Messiah.” As Chris was talking about the people who see every action on earth, both man made and natural, from hurricanes to the economic downturn as signs that the rapture is about to take place it got me thinking about how some people think so much is out of their control so why bother.
Hello people, if you don’t want to get “left behind” then you better get to work on your behind. I know that I could easily become a millionaire by selling the “salvation diet.” The ad would show a really skinny doorway with a bright white light emanating from it and the announcer would say, “Only true believers are thin enough to fit through the doorway to heaven.”
The reason I know I could make a lot of money on this is that those “true believers” don’t want to take any chances on this second coming so they are going to jump right on the rapture diet train.
Now to fully maximize the chance to make money off everyone I would create the Rapture Smatchure diet. The slogan would be, “If you don’t believe you better be in fighting good shape to survive a the world of tribulation that is coming.” I guess I don’t need to say the “is coming” part, since we have had a lot of tribulation already. Proof this could work is the amount of survivalist stuff available on Costco.com. Whole years worth of freeze dried food to go in your underground shelter. I trust Costco as a world class market researcher and if they have found this as a big market then it is time for there to be a diet for those same people.
I think that I need to get two TV shows about these two diets, but I think they both could run on Fox since both of those demographic groups probably watch Fox. Next look for my line of Jesus loves you compression wear and body armor, both diet groups will love them.
Upkeeps a Bitch
Posted: December 1, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: window washing Leave a commentOur doorbell rang at eight o’clock this morning. As I went to the door in my nightgown I remembered that I was getting our windows washed today. It should have been at the forefront of my brain because more and more dead dried leaves have been obscuring my view as they blew into the cobwebs that were woven across almost every window. Since Halloween is long past the spooky house bit was looking a little tired, time for a clearer perspective.
Quickly it became apparent that some of the 70-year-old windows in our house needed at least two people to try and pry them open. Russ looked at me and asked if we needed to add new windows to the ever-growing list of replacement needs for our house. In the past six months I got a new HVAC system, a new tank less hot water system, 15 yards of gravel for the driveway, 10 yards of compost for my vegetable garden as well as the windows washed. And if you walked in my house you would probably not notice any of it, but it had to be done. None of this includes the weekly cleaning and landscaping that has to get done.
My half-century body is the same way. I have to go to the gym, the doctor, the dentist, and the hairdresser, take daily medication, use a vat of lotion and that is just to keep my body going at the status quo. Even with all that maintenance systems still give out. My left foot had plantar fasciitis for a year; just as I got that solved I had some muscle injury below the front of my left knee, literally the day that stopped hurting I pulled some muscle behind my left knee. As Rosanna Danna would say, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
I am hoping that in the New Year I can do more than up keep and perhaps actually upgrade. We need to redo the floors in our house, that would be money spent I could see everyday. I would love to wake up one day and have no pains, maybe for a week or two. One big goal would be to make a huge dent in the giant list of house things we need to do. Some things depend on money, but one thing that has been on his list for over more years than I have fingers is for me to clean out the attic. That is a practically free upgrade except on my knees. But cleaning out the attic is like adding new gravel to the driveway. I know it is done, but I don’t really notice it, so why do it? Jeez, I hate upkeep it’s so unglamorous.
December Craziness
Posted: November 30, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Christmas, December, frosty, inflatable snowman Leave a commentSomething happens to me in December. I think of it as the month of celebrations and I really push back against doing anything non-fun related. Of course all the fun things are not non-work related. In fact I bring way to much work upon myself trying to have more fun.
I usually tr get a bunch of things like decorating the house or buying the Christmas gifts done in advance of December to free up the actual month for merriment and reverie. This year the house was done in advance, but I have done a terrible job on actual gift purchases. Perhaps it is because I have not been inspired by any new gift ideas.
My favorite thing to do in December is to entertain, which of course involves a lot of cooking. I know that this need to spend the month is the kitchen started when I was a kid. My family used to have a giant, like a 150 people giant, dinner party on Christmas Eve. My parents invited their close friends with all their kids and any grandparents, aunts or cousins who were visiting. We had a southern menu to show all our Connecticut friends the best hospitality around. Country ham from Virginia and Oyster Stew were staples every year.
Our house in Connecticut was built for big parties. It had three kitchens and multiple big rooms so that the kids and the grown-ups could have their own domains. Prepping for that party is how I learned to be a caterer since my Dad, the only other cook in the family, depended upon me to make a major amount of food. The days before Christmas were filled with party prep, which really kept the kid’s minds off the impending arrival of Santa. So now this need for Christmas parties is part of my DNA.
The other big December event is that it is also Carter’s birthday month. It is easier now that she is almost 14 and not in the need of a party for her whole class. When Carter was four we had a snow princess party that precipitated the purchase of a giant twelve-foot tall inflatable snowman, which we put in the front yard. It became an instant neighborhood landmark. Young children would beg their parents to drive them by the big Frosty. It is so tacky and horrible that we really only thought of using it for that one birthday party, but every year people ask us when the snowman is going to arrive so we have succumbed to being that house with the huge white nylon light up man acting as a beacon for potential babysitting customers for Carter. Every year Russ and Carter have to do some major surgery to the mechanics of Frosty and miraculously it has survived a decade.
So here we are on the cusp of my favorite month. Don’t ask me to come to a meeting or do any real work. I have put in double time on doing good the other eleven months. I reserve December to give parties, go to luncheons, make crafts, shop and wrap presents, cook goodies to give to my friends, decorate gingerbread houses, enjoy libations at friends’ homes, catch up with people I have not seen since last Christmas, listen to the same music I have every December for the last 50 years and hear the same bible stories I have my whole life. So here’s to the craziness of December. I’m not going to fight it, but embrace it and pack in as much fun as possible. Grown up responsibilities can start up again in January.
The right “W’ word is WORK not WAIT
Posted: November 29, 2012 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: luck, work. lottery Leave a commentA friend called me this morning lamenting her surprise loss in the Powerball lottery. She obviously did not read my post from a few days ago “Winning the lottery won’t make you any thinner” since she is already thin she must have thought it did not apply to her.
She went on to say, “Well, good things come to those who wait.” After consoling her, in my “you will think twice about asking for sympathy from me again way,” we hung up and I got to thinking about that advice about “waiting” for good things to come. I know that it is just a consolation for those who have been disappointed, but it certainly is bad advice.
I am here today to suggest we change the expression to “Good things come to those who work.” I don’t think that encouraging the passive life of waiting is going to get most people to a goal they are hoping to reach. The only way to increase your odds of winning is to work at something.
I have a number of close relatives who have been working incredibly hard and it is paying off for them. No luck or waiting around was involved, just kept their noses to their respective grindstones, to coin another cliché.
The same is true for losing weight. I have had a couple of people who don’t know me well or see me often recently run into me and ask me how in the world I lost weight. I tell them I just work at it everyday and they look at me like I am keeping some secret of national importance from them. Surely I have had an operation or am taking some experimental drug or whisper worthy, worse, I am actually sick an am not trying to lose weight.
Nothing as tragic or exciting as any of those things, just work. But work is satisfying for itself not just for reaching a goal you might have set. So my advice for today, the day you did not win the lottery, is don’t just wait for good things to happen make them happen by working at it. Not only are you a lot more likely to succeed, you will appreciate it so much more when you do. You need to stop reading my platitudes; we’ve got work to get done.
Less Dana, More Good 