A few days ago, I was despairing over my realization that I would never get into a pair of Spanx. Any Spanx. Ever. I have bought four pairs, over Spanx history. One pair I naively bought in the size indicated for me on the package. I couldn't even get to the event at which I was hoping to look elegant. I very inelegantly removed them while still in the car, sitting behind the wheel, stuffed them in a plastic bag and tossed them when I got home. Couldn't breathe. Blue lips are not elegant.
Ever hopeful, I bought the remaining three pair, in ascending sizes, as my real size descended over the years. The last was three sizes larger than my dress size and too painful to even contemplate wearing. And then today, in the New York Times, I have been vindicated! The day of Spanx is over! The stock is steadily dropping. Sick of being in excruciating pain, the advent new fabrics, and the awareness that comfort is more important than fantasy slimness, not to mention the blinding revelation that everyone else out there looks like you, a new day is upon us.
I have always been ahead of the curve. It is such a relief.
This brings me to why I am wearing sweat pant shorts. Is it "pant?". As ugly as sweat pants only more so, I am wearing them because I am facing a challenge. A few days ago, my ever optimistic trainer said, "It about time to go up the mountain again." Something didn't immediately click in my brain to hear the implied "you" in that sentence. He was saying it was time for me to walk up Kennesaw Mountain again. A mile and a half, sharp forty-five degree incline. I did that almost exactly six months ago and have rested on my laurels ever since. But somehow, I thought that was a "once and done" kind of thing. I never expected to have to do it twice. Of course he walks with me, and we talk constantly, which makes it somewhat less painful, but still, what I am going to wear?
I have decided on my staple of a gray t-shirt, roomy enough for a troop of small Brownie scouts to pitch as a tent, and knee length shorts. Hence the above referenced abbreviated sweat pants.
I wore ankle length spandex last time, but the heck with that. It gets hot this time of year.
I have a couple of weeks to stew over this. And I need to get out and hike to get ready. Although I do a lot of exercising with resistance bands and weights, that doesn't prepare me emotionally to show a span of pale leg. So I am addressing that with a daily slathering of self tanning moisturizer, which should assure me of a cheery citrus tone from the knees down in a couple of weeks or less. I'll let you know.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Easter Shoes and a Wayward Muse
Its sort a twofer. BOGO. Write a piece for CCWC and publish it in my blog as well. Win win.
The assignment: to write about shoes. Usually I ignore assignments. but there was a sort of siren’s song about the topic. Granted, it is a little gender stereotypical, female-centric, but I could ignore that. S-h-o-e-s, it whispered. A biological imperative? Maybe.
After all, did Plato see shadows of Manolos on the cave wall? Did Proust flash back to a lifetime of memories upon slipping his feet into a pair of strappy heels? Interesting to contemplate, but the answer is no.
But I digress.
Its 1959. My mother and I are in Block and Kuhl’s shoe department. I stare at the high heels. (That’s what we called them them, back then) I am fourteen and it’s almost Easter. I get to buy high heels to go with my very grown-up blue tweed suit, a narrow dark blue leather belt riding just above a snappy peplum flaring over my non-existent hips.
A pair of shoes catches my eye, standing out like neon against all the rounded toes and low heels. The perfect shade of blue. Stilletto heels, maybe 3”. At least 3”. Pointed toes. And the piece de resistance: a tiny, ornamental, brass trimmed blue leather change purse right at the toe cleavage. My heart races. The smell of new shoes. The smell of fresh leather. I ask to try them on.
My mother laughs, Not in a mean way, but in surprise, or more likely shock. I am such a mousey little thing, and those are bad-girl shoes. The salesman detects my lust, and hopes for the power of a daughter who has fallen in love to loosen a mother’s purse. I slip them on. I turn my feet this way and that, gazing at them. Those shoes are so much better than I am. I want to know those feet. I want to do what those feet do.
Easter morning, I slip blue leather pumps on my slick, nylon-stockinged feet. Modest two inch heels. Self effacing rounded toes. Mousey girl shoes, confirmation of who I am, and who I am not.
More than half a century later. The world in a pair of shoes.
********
And now to current concerns. A lady whom I greatly admire does not admire herself enough. That, I think, is a common condition among seriously talented people. Much of what I will say is hypothetical, because she is also very private, and not given to confiding, which can be an admirable trait when the world is filled with those who overshare.
She is leaving our little writers cohort because she feels she has no more to offer. There are times when the gift, the muse if you will, leaves us all, or most of us, at least. It is a scary moment. The artist, and she is a real artist, fears the art will never return. It's like youth, gone forever.
I hope I can assure her, if by chance she reads this, and I am pretty sure she won't, that it doesn't work like that. A field cannot flourish if it doesn't lie fallow. True, there are some who create year after year, a prodigious outpouring without break, but who is to say they would not have profited from the nourishment a pause would give. For some, the pause is long, lasting months or years, and then one day, the muse is back, ringing the door bell, barging in with cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine and demanding to be heard. She will then keep you up late, just as she once did, and you will feel yourself racing to keep up with yourself. And, dear friend, it will happen to you.
The assignment: to write about shoes. Usually I ignore assignments. but there was a sort of siren’s song about the topic. Granted, it is a little gender stereotypical, female-centric, but I could ignore that. S-h-o-e-s, it whispered. A biological imperative? Maybe.
After all, did Plato see shadows of Manolos on the cave wall? Did Proust flash back to a lifetime of memories upon slipping his feet into a pair of strappy heels? Interesting to contemplate, but the answer is no.
But I digress.
Its 1959. My mother and I are in Block and Kuhl’s shoe department. I stare at the high heels. (That’s what we called them them, back then) I am fourteen and it’s almost Easter. I get to buy high heels to go with my very grown-up blue tweed suit, a narrow dark blue leather belt riding just above a snappy peplum flaring over my non-existent hips.
A pair of shoes catches my eye, standing out like neon against all the rounded toes and low heels. The perfect shade of blue. Stilletto heels, maybe 3”. At least 3”. Pointed toes. And the piece de resistance: a tiny, ornamental, brass trimmed blue leather change purse right at the toe cleavage. My heart races. The smell of new shoes. The smell of fresh leather. I ask to try them on.
My mother laughs, Not in a mean way, but in surprise, or more likely shock. I am such a mousey little thing, and those are bad-girl shoes. The salesman detects my lust, and hopes for the power of a daughter who has fallen in love to loosen a mother’s purse. I slip them on. I turn my feet this way and that, gazing at them. Those shoes are so much better than I am. I want to know those feet. I want to do what those feet do.
Easter morning, I slip blue leather pumps on my slick, nylon-stockinged feet. Modest two inch heels. Self effacing rounded toes. Mousey girl shoes, confirmation of who I am, and who I am not.
More than half a century later. The world in a pair of shoes.
********
And now to current concerns. A lady whom I greatly admire does not admire herself enough. That, I think, is a common condition among seriously talented people. Much of what I will say is hypothetical, because she is also very private, and not given to confiding, which can be an admirable trait when the world is filled with those who overshare.
She is leaving our little writers cohort because she feels she has no more to offer. There are times when the gift, the muse if you will, leaves us all, or most of us, at least. It is a scary moment. The artist, and she is a real artist, fears the art will never return. It's like youth, gone forever.
I hope I can assure her, if by chance she reads this, and I am pretty sure she won't, that it doesn't work like that. A field cannot flourish if it doesn't lie fallow. True, there are some who create year after year, a prodigious outpouring without break, but who is to say they would not have profited from the nourishment a pause would give. For some, the pause is long, lasting months or years, and then one day, the muse is back, ringing the door bell, barging in with cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine and demanding to be heard. She will then keep you up late, just as she once did, and you will feel yourself racing to keep up with yourself. And, dear friend, it will happen to you.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
"Noah," don't do it!
At about 8:45 this morning, I was in the produce department of the Fairway grocery, Broadway at 73rd, playing softball with Sarah Jessica Parker and talking shoes. I have very colorful dreams. I can understand the Fairway Grocery part. Next month we are going to New York and staying at the Beacon Hotel. That is right across the street from Fairway on the upper west side. And shoes make sense, too. I just wrote a little piece on shoes for an assignment for my writer's group. (It will appear here in the middle of the month. Two birds, one stone) And softball makes a kind of sense because we are going to baseball games in Peoria and Chicago this summer.
My question is, what was Darren Aronofsky (he of "Black Swan") dreaming when he not only came up with "Noah"but managed to get actors, funding, and actually put it on the screen? How did presumably bright people (that may be overreaching) go along with this, nod, and say" Oh boy, that's a great idea. " I think it was the stone angels, transformer-like quasi-Biblical digital creations, that pretty much stopped me dead in my tracks. (Not tracks, really. I was sprawled in a recliner in the den, stupified from Christmas dinner and just waiting to eat again. But, same thing.) The angels plus Russell Crowe's magically changing haircut and his "What in the hell am I doing here?" expression made up an accident I couldn't take my eyes off of, (except for a short nap,) an accident revealing careers sinking faster then the Marie Celeste.
I'm with you, Russell. This is undoubtedly the worst movie of all time. You know it it and I know it; let's not pussyfoot around. It ranks as most awful because of it's pretentiousness, its huge budget, its veering off into wildly insane territory unrelated to the story it purports to tell, and much more.
There other "worst," movies, of course, and they will pop up on any Google list. Take "Plan 9 from Outer Space." It almost always tops the list, and it is truly deserving. But it has charm. It's cheap, full of unintentional blunders and is reminiscent of kids making a movie in their back yard. You can't hate that. You can really and in good conscience hate "Noah."
If you want a couple of great movies, find "Assassination Tango " or "Ghost Dog." I'll say no more. Not everyone's taste, but great just the same. Stay away from "Noah," a plague all by itself.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
It's a Sprint with Mother Time
Today is New Years Day. Fraught with so much meaning, so many implied demands. Screw it. I am watching the Rose Bowl Parade on HGTV with the Property Brothers. The have such soporific voices, which makes the Kitsch Parade almost bearable. Like George Clooney but more nasal. The best sleep-to movie of all time is The Perfect Storm. Wind, rain, churning sea, and Clooney's unanimated voice - knocks me out cold every time.
So, as I was saying, too many roses, not enough thorns. Corporate America disguised as a chintz sofa. I bite every time.
Best winter sporting event takes place today: The Winter Classic. Hockey as it was intended to be played. Outdoors. Snow. Ice. Fans freezing in the stands. Except it's being played In Washington D.C. They should ditch the idea of playing on team turf, so to speak, although one team is Chicago and could no doubt have offered up a suitable climate. Just say its going to be played in Detroit or Calgary every year and be done with it. We have two ice sport people in our family: one plays hockey and one curls. Before you laugh, curling is not for the faint of heart, although it is played predominantly by Canadians, and the opposing teams applaud one another. Curling just proves that Canadians have a sense of humor, previously unsuspected. For instance, they have a big curling get together where everyone plays in pajamas. I can relate to that.
So, how do I know that the holiday season is truly over? (Please God, let it be over.) Not because it the New Year, but because the peppermint bark is finally gone. I love that stuff. But I digress, as usual. I was going to talk about my nose. Do you ever look in your car's visor mirror and see things that completely shock you? There you are, sitting in the Kroger parking lot, and you pull the mirror down to make sure you don't have anything disgusting in your teeth before you go inside, and dear God, what is that ? The clear, unforgiving afternoon light illuminates every blemish and flaw. The driver's seat of your car is the best place to pluck your eyebrows, by the way, as long as the car is not moving. But this time it was not my Sean Connery-esqe eyebrows. It was the tip of my nose. A maze, a florid street map of the greater Los Angeles area ! W.C. Fields, Rudolph. Call the Butcher of Church Street! Pronto!
The Butcher, as you may recall, is my dermatologist. I have him on speed dial. A chirpy female voice answers his office phone. He's not in, won't be for another month. Business has apparently been good, and he is in the Caribbean tanning his bald pate. I have always wondered why the guy who preaches the "no suntan" mantra ways has that golden glow.
Anyway, I called my go-to font of information, Kay.
"Not to worry. It's broken blood vessels. You are just falling apart with age," Kay said reassuringly. "Slap some make-up on it."
Wait, this is a trend. A couple of weeks ago my trainer gazed into my eyes as I was sweating through a set of flies and said, "Your left eye is filling up with blood.
Bad news in anybody's book. By the time I got to my eye doctor a week later ( I was busy. It was the holidays) the flaming red of my eyeball was gone.
"Don't worry," he said. "Broken blood vessels aren't uncommon at your age. Don't even have to exert yourself much. "
So there is a theme here. One day you are dandy and the next, ppffft! Body parts start falling off, you start leaking various things. This is not good. I hit the wall of 70 a couple of weeks ago, and let's just say, I suspect it's downhill from here. Of course I am still going to the gym several times a week, and I watch every morsel that passes my lips (watching is the operative word here. I watch it, but I still eat it) It's a sprint with Mother Time. I need new Adidas! Shoe shopping cures almost anything, even if its for gym shoes.
So, as I was saying, too many roses, not enough thorns. Corporate America disguised as a chintz sofa. I bite every time.
Best winter sporting event takes place today: The Winter Classic. Hockey as it was intended to be played. Outdoors. Snow. Ice. Fans freezing in the stands. Except it's being played In Washington D.C. They should ditch the idea of playing on team turf, so to speak, although one team is Chicago and could no doubt have offered up a suitable climate. Just say its going to be played in Detroit or Calgary every year and be done with it. We have two ice sport people in our family: one plays hockey and one curls. Before you laugh, curling is not for the faint of heart, although it is played predominantly by Canadians, and the opposing teams applaud one another. Curling just proves that Canadians have a sense of humor, previously unsuspected. For instance, they have a big curling get together where everyone plays in pajamas. I can relate to that.
So, how do I know that the holiday season is truly over? (Please God, let it be over.) Not because it the New Year, but because the peppermint bark is finally gone. I love that stuff. But I digress, as usual. I was going to talk about my nose. Do you ever look in your car's visor mirror and see things that completely shock you? There you are, sitting in the Kroger parking lot, and you pull the mirror down to make sure you don't have anything disgusting in your teeth before you go inside, and dear God, what is that ? The clear, unforgiving afternoon light illuminates every blemish and flaw. The driver's seat of your car is the best place to pluck your eyebrows, by the way, as long as the car is not moving. But this time it was not my Sean Connery-esqe eyebrows. It was the tip of my nose. A maze, a florid street map of the greater Los Angeles area ! W.C. Fields, Rudolph. Call the Butcher of Church Street! Pronto!
The Butcher, as you may recall, is my dermatologist. I have him on speed dial. A chirpy female voice answers his office phone. He's not in, won't be for another month. Business has apparently been good, and he is in the Caribbean tanning his bald pate. I have always wondered why the guy who preaches the "no suntan" mantra ways has that golden glow.
Anyway, I called my go-to font of information, Kay.
"Not to worry. It's broken blood vessels. You are just falling apart with age," Kay said reassuringly. "Slap some make-up on it."
Wait, this is a trend. A couple of weeks ago my trainer gazed into my eyes as I was sweating through a set of flies and said, "Your left eye is filling up with blood.
Bad news in anybody's book. By the time I got to my eye doctor a week later ( I was busy. It was the holidays) the flaming red of my eyeball was gone.
"Don't worry," he said. "Broken blood vessels aren't uncommon at your age. Don't even have to exert yourself much. "
So there is a theme here. One day you are dandy and the next, ppffft! Body parts start falling off, you start leaking various things. This is not good. I hit the wall of 70 a couple of weeks ago, and let's just say, I suspect it's downhill from here. Of course I am still going to the gym several times a week, and I watch every morsel that passes my lips (watching is the operative word here. I watch it, but I still eat it) It's a sprint with Mother Time. I need new Adidas! Shoe shopping cures almost anything, even if its for gym shoes.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Normcore. You heard it here first (probably.)
Recently I was weeding out my closet when I came across a like-new pair of black suede Birkinstocks. They must have been 10 years old, although I would like to think that they haven't been lurking on my closet floor that long. I put them on an sighed with the pleasure of the familiar. For many years I wore only Birks, summer and winter.(with other suitable coverage, of course.) I have difficult feet and there is something so-out-they-are- in about Birks. In recent years I have migrated to Tom's, but the siren song of a good, ugly pair of Birks began trilling to me on that closet floor, and in no time, I was wearing them to the grocery store, Home Depot and all my usual high-life spots.
My daughter commented, "Nice shoes. Very normcore of you."
What?
Yes, boys and girls. I am a trendsetter. If you don't believe me, just read the Style section of today's New York Times.
Now there seems to be little or no agreement about what this word means, but if you are trending, as I obviously am, you'll know it when you see it. One view says it is pragmatism wedded to feminism. Another refers to it as a suburban sensibility(not any suburb I know around Atlanta. Must be a NY suburb.) It includes: no makeup - I mean intentionally; a return to the 90's. (What were the 90's like anyway? I don't remember.) Sort of a cut-to -the-chase attitude, as I read it.
That's me all over the place! I have this trend covered, and I didn't even know it. As long as "no make-up" doesn't cover Burt's Bees Lip Balm, without which the sun will not rise tomorrow.
I am headed to NY soon for a little ballet immersion therapy and I am thinking of wearing my Birks. Due to the general filthyness of the city, I'll pair them with some clever sox, such as leopard print, one-fish-two-fish-red-fish-blue-fish patterned, and so forth. I expect to be the darling of the fashion world in no time. Of course everything else I plan to wear is black, to be assured of not being mistaken for a tourist. I'll let you know how it goes.
My daughter commented, "Nice shoes. Very normcore of you."
What?
Yes, boys and girls. I am a trendsetter. If you don't believe me, just read the Style section of today's New York Times.
Now there seems to be little or no agreement about what this word means, but if you are trending, as I obviously am, you'll know it when you see it. One view says it is pragmatism wedded to feminism. Another refers to it as a suburban sensibility(not any suburb I know around Atlanta. Must be a NY suburb.) It includes: no makeup - I mean intentionally; a return to the 90's. (What were the 90's like anyway? I don't remember.) Sort of a cut-to -the-chase attitude, as I read it.
That's me all over the place! I have this trend covered, and I didn't even know it. As long as "no make-up" doesn't cover Burt's Bees Lip Balm, without which the sun will not rise tomorrow.
I am headed to NY soon for a little ballet immersion therapy and I am thinking of wearing my Birks. Due to the general filthyness of the city, I'll pair them with some clever sox, such as leopard print, one-fish-two-fish-red-fish-blue-fish patterned, and so forth. I expect to be the darling of the fashion world in no time. Of course everything else I plan to wear is black, to be assured of not being mistaken for a tourist. I'll let you know how it goes.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Ignominious ends... sent my balance wheel tumbling into unachored eternity....and other stuff
I have spent my morning cleaning the space at the end of the hallway to nowhere. Well, not really nowhere. It leads to two bedrooms and then ends abruptly with nowhere else to go. I think of it as an ignominious end, one of my favorite descriptives of Victorian literature, as in, "she (or he) came to an ignominious end." There old suitcases go to die, when they seem too tattered to travel again, and certainly too shabby to give away, and yet.... oh, the places they have seen (with thanks to Patrick Dennis and his Auntie Mame.) But today, everybody out! I discovered a wonderful box of charcoals, a long sleeved t-shirt I could have used this awful winter, boxes that I could definitely use to mail things, if, indeed, I had anything to mail, and a lovely scented sachet which accounts for the faint, ghostly perfume emanating from that unlovely heap, among other things. Very satisfying.
Speaking of ignominious ends, and I realize that that snarky comments are inappropriate when speaking of the dead, two long ago loves of mine passed away recently, within a few days of one another, and sent my balance wheel tumbling into unanchored eternity. The first was Jack, whom I have written of before. Jack was a love of the mind, a soul mate, someone who was there every day until he was not, and I didn't know how much I missed him until I did.
I found Jack again not long ago, when grief and illness had transformed him into a man who didn't want to be found, who isolated himself even from the breezes outside his back door, and who stayed huddled under blankets in the beautiful library he designed. He looked old though he was younger than I, and he leaned heavily on a walker when he made it to the front door to greet me. I think the smile of greeting on his face was put on for the occasion, not really felt, as I wanted it to be.
A friend sent me his obituary not long ago. So four months after we sat in the library and talked through lunch time, which he had forgotten and my stomach hadn't, he slipped away, without regret, I think, to join his late wife, presumably in that place which is architecturally perfect and would meet with his approval.
The other recently deceased friend from long ago was quite another story. I met him when I was seventeen, and thought he was - let's just say, wonderful. He most certainly was not, at least to anyone who was not teenage-blind. Handsome and rich, yadda yadda, and fun. Lots of fun. All the time. Endless conversation. Dancing the twist at The Peppermint Lounge across the river and, later, to the Beatles at frat parties in the desert. He was no stranger to alcohol, but he was to drugs. Just not for long. Our relationship ended with him grabbing my hair at a party and banging my face into a jagged stone wall. Before that black eye, eleven years had elapsed. I'm a slow learner. No love like teenage love, I guess.
He had the money to indulge his vices, which he did with a vengeance. Trips to jet set social scenes across the world, a couple of totaled Rolls Royce convertibles, a string of lovers male and female, and looking like Dorian Grey himself, his life ended in a nursing home specializing in dementia a few months after his sixty-ninth birthday. He was given everything and he took everything. No thank you's to life. He had a favorite line. When someone departing said, "Take care," he would always reply "I take it any way I can get it." Funny how we so often write out own epitaphs.
So after those two exits, I couldn't write for a while. I had to put the people, or at least a couple of them, in some order that made sense, and take the time to be sad for the right reasons. And to find the heart to be funny again, which is quite a lot more work than you might think. And, I had to wait for some of the cold to go away because my office is unheated! and to work out there, even with a space heater, can be misery. I work in a sweet, little sun room, windows on three sides and with no registers for the furnace or air conditioning vents. It houses the only computer I can compose on, a desk top that seems ungainly now but was quite the hot stuff in its day. Otherwise I use my smart phone for everything.
I read somewhere that most books today are written on smart phones. How? I want to know.
Speaking of ignominious ends, and I realize that that snarky comments are inappropriate when speaking of the dead, two long ago loves of mine passed away recently, within a few days of one another, and sent my balance wheel tumbling into unanchored eternity. The first was Jack, whom I have written of before. Jack was a love of the mind, a soul mate, someone who was there every day until he was not, and I didn't know how much I missed him until I did.
I found Jack again not long ago, when grief and illness had transformed him into a man who didn't want to be found, who isolated himself even from the breezes outside his back door, and who stayed huddled under blankets in the beautiful library he designed. He looked old though he was younger than I, and he leaned heavily on a walker when he made it to the front door to greet me. I think the smile of greeting on his face was put on for the occasion, not really felt, as I wanted it to be.
A friend sent me his obituary not long ago. So four months after we sat in the library and talked through lunch time, which he had forgotten and my stomach hadn't, he slipped away, without regret, I think, to join his late wife, presumably in that place which is architecturally perfect and would meet with his approval.
The other recently deceased friend from long ago was quite another story. I met him when I was seventeen, and thought he was - let's just say, wonderful. He most certainly was not, at least to anyone who was not teenage-blind. Handsome and rich, yadda yadda, and fun. Lots of fun. All the time. Endless conversation. Dancing the twist at The Peppermint Lounge across the river and, later, to the Beatles at frat parties in the desert. He was no stranger to alcohol, but he was to drugs. Just not for long. Our relationship ended with him grabbing my hair at a party and banging my face into a jagged stone wall. Before that black eye, eleven years had elapsed. I'm a slow learner. No love like teenage love, I guess.
He had the money to indulge his vices, which he did with a vengeance. Trips to jet set social scenes across the world, a couple of totaled Rolls Royce convertibles, a string of lovers male and female, and looking like Dorian Grey himself, his life ended in a nursing home specializing in dementia a few months after his sixty-ninth birthday. He was given everything and he took everything. No thank you's to life. He had a favorite line. When someone departing said, "Take care," he would always reply "I take it any way I can get it." Funny how we so often write out own epitaphs.
So after those two exits, I couldn't write for a while. I had to put the people, or at least a couple of them, in some order that made sense, and take the time to be sad for the right reasons. And to find the heart to be funny again, which is quite a lot more work than you might think. And, I had to wait for some of the cold to go away because my office is unheated! and to work out there, even with a space heater, can be misery. I work in a sweet, little sun room, windows on three sides and with no registers for the furnace or air conditioning vents. It houses the only computer I can compose on, a desk top that seems ungainly now but was quite the hot stuff in its day. Otherwise I use my smart phone for everything.
I read somewhere that most books today are written on smart phones. How? I want to know.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Kay said, " I just love the little [cream cheese] carrot on top."
I met my old friend Kay for lunch today at her favorite deli. Redolent of brisket and pastrami, it is a cardiologists dream or nightmare, and so conveniently located near several major hospitals. In fact, I suspect it is the loss leader of a certain LLC, providing a steady revenue flow in otherwise lean times.
Kay came through the front door, panting a little, and sat down opposite me. I had arrived a bit early, almost early enough to get started on a cup of coffee, served by, if that is the correct term, the most casual of wait persons.
"How's the cardio therapy?" I asked.
"Had to get off the bike," she panted. "Blood pressure spiked. Off the chart. Wouldn't go down."
This sums up her most recent problem: runaway blood pressure.
She looked at me. "When are you going to get a face lift? It'd take off fifteen - no, twenty - years. Get rid of the jowly look, the wattles."
Funny. I was feeling pretty chipper when I started, but now, I don't know, I was feeling all jowly and wattily.
"Dr. Fassbinder could do wonders for you. Just the jaw line, maybe the neck. Not the eyes. Leave the eyes alone."
Good. I am glad that there is some part of my face that is passable.
Kay scribbled The Fass's (that's what I call him) name and location on a scrap of paper from her hand bag.
"He'll give you a free estimate," she said
Hmmm. Just like a Chevy or a Toyota that needs a few dents pounded out.
"If I looked twenty years younger, what about my gray hair" I asked? "Am I supposed to be prematurely gray? Or would forty-nine not be premature. Would I have to go blonde? Maybe blue. Not little-old-lady purple or blue, but a nice clear cerulean, or robin's egg. I dreamed I had blue hair once. And would people think I married a much older man? What would he think of that? I don't think he is the trophy-wife kind of guy or he would have made his move a long time ago."
The waitress, taking a break in her busy day, dropped by our table to take our order. Kay, keeping with her heart healthy regimen, ordered chopped liver on an egg bagel and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
"I just love the cute little carrot on top ."
"Perfect!" I said. "That's what I'll put on your tombstone. By the way, do you have to be somewhere?" I noticed Kay kept checking her watch.
"Nope, just checking my blood pressure. " Right, she did have two fingers on her pulse. "Could you pass the salt please?"
I showed Kay the calorie checker app on my phone. This little wonder not only gives the calories in just about anything you can think of, - restaurant food, grocery brands, your own cooking - Calorie King it's called and it's free- but it breaks food down to values of carbs, protein, fats, sugars etc.
Kay was fascinated. "Look, I've eaten my full load of calories for today, and it isn't even 1 PM! I guess there is nothing to do but go home and go to bed."
Oops, I just got a message on my phone. As you could have predicted from my previous blog entry, I bought the fast-becoming ubiquitous FitBit and I just met my daily walking goal.( And while sitting at the computer, no less!) I have purposely set the goal low so I can feel cheered by little rewards once in a while. If I set it at 10,000 steps, the amount these programming clowns recommend, I would never hear from my FitBit at all, unless it is programmed to snicker derisively.
So, I am going to take my wattles and jowls to the stove and heat up some very low cal. minestrone soup, and wish you warmth and a good bowl of soup on this ridiculously cold night.
Kay came through the front door, panting a little, and sat down opposite me. I had arrived a bit early, almost early enough to get started on a cup of coffee, served by, if that is the correct term, the most casual of wait persons.
"How's the cardio therapy?" I asked.
"Had to get off the bike," she panted. "Blood pressure spiked. Off the chart. Wouldn't go down."
This sums up her most recent problem: runaway blood pressure.
She looked at me. "When are you going to get a face lift? It'd take off fifteen - no, twenty - years. Get rid of the jowly look, the wattles."
Funny. I was feeling pretty chipper when I started, but now, I don't know, I was feeling all jowly and wattily.
"Dr. Fassbinder could do wonders for you. Just the jaw line, maybe the neck. Not the eyes. Leave the eyes alone."
Good. I am glad that there is some part of my face that is passable.
Kay scribbled The Fass's (that's what I call him) name and location on a scrap of paper from her hand bag.
"He'll give you a free estimate," she said
Hmmm. Just like a Chevy or a Toyota that needs a few dents pounded out.
"If I looked twenty years younger, what about my gray hair" I asked? "Am I supposed to be prematurely gray? Or would forty-nine not be premature. Would I have to go blonde? Maybe blue. Not little-old-lady purple or blue, but a nice clear cerulean, or robin's egg. I dreamed I had blue hair once. And would people think I married a much older man? What would he think of that? I don't think he is the trophy-wife kind of guy or he would have made his move a long time ago."
The waitress, taking a break in her busy day, dropped by our table to take our order. Kay, keeping with her heart healthy regimen, ordered chopped liver on an egg bagel and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
"I just love the cute little carrot on top ."
"Perfect!" I said. "That's what I'll put on your tombstone. By the way, do you have to be somewhere?" I noticed Kay kept checking her watch.
"Nope, just checking my blood pressure. " Right, she did have two fingers on her pulse. "Could you pass the salt please?"
I showed Kay the calorie checker app on my phone. This little wonder not only gives the calories in just about anything you can think of, - restaurant food, grocery brands, your own cooking - Calorie King it's called and it's free- but it breaks food down to values of carbs, protein, fats, sugars etc.
Kay was fascinated. "Look, I've eaten my full load of calories for today, and it isn't even 1 PM! I guess there is nothing to do but go home and go to bed."
Oops, I just got a message on my phone. As you could have predicted from my previous blog entry, I bought the fast-becoming ubiquitous FitBit and I just met my daily walking goal.( And while sitting at the computer, no less!) I have purposely set the goal low so I can feel cheered by little rewards once in a while. If I set it at 10,000 steps, the amount these programming clowns recommend, I would never hear from my FitBit at all, unless it is programmed to snicker derisively.
So, I am going to take my wattles and jowls to the stove and heat up some very low cal. minestrone soup, and wish you warmth and a good bowl of soup on this ridiculously cold night.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Werewolves and FitBits
In this past year, I have been able to pretty much conquor some of my vices, like white sugar and carbonated drinks, but there is one I will not give up. For time wasting, it can't be beat. I am talking about the SciFi channel.
Monday nights, a t.v. wasteland in my opinion, has been rescued by Bitten, a SciFi Channel series that has captured my heart, which is just what the main characters want, not to mention other body parts. Bitten is the story of a hot, young career wolf in the city, trying to resolve a human fiancee, lunch dates with the girls, her shrink, also a w.w., and the "boys," her kinky wolf family upstate living in a glam but creepy hunting (get it?) lodge.
High production values, soap opera issues, much like another favorite of mine, Nashville, but with fur and teeth. Well, maybe that, too, but less howling. No wait, that too. Well, it is a lot like Nashville.
One thing that struck me right off the first time I saw Bitten, was how werewolves used to transform into wolves with bad wardrobes - plaid flannel shirts, raggy jeans and so forth. But when this chick transforms, she sheds her fetchingly color coordinated bra and panties, although it is chilly out and pretty damp and misty looking, and leaves them neatly folded so she can get to them later. You have to give her points for neatness and good lingerie.
There is also an African-American werewolf, the shrink, whom she calls her cousin, so without more episodes, I don't know whether he is either or both. Anyway, it probably doesn't matter. High time, I say, for a little werewolf diversity. And please don't tell me Jacob is Native American and that equals diversity. Teenager outsider types who ride motorbikes don't count. Also, he had bad clothes, what clothes he actually had, and this shrink/cousin is impeccably turned out.
And while we are speaking, loosely, of innards and entrails and that sort of thing, I am wondering whether I should get a FitBit or its equivalent, as my trainer suggests. I know a guy who has one, and he is obsessed by how many steps he takes a day. Somebody, somewhere decided we should all take 1,000, steps a day. At least I think that's the number. Maybe it's 10,000. Doesn't matter, it's a heck of a lot of walking around whatever it is is. Anyway, the FitBit counts your steps for you rather than have you mumbling in the grocery store "a pound of sliced turkey, nine hundred fifty," which could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. It also keeps track of your heart rate, which is the real reason he wants me to get it. I need more aerobic exercise.
Now I have a very slow heart rate. Just this side of zombie. That can make a person lethargic, which I don't really see as a downside. Lethargy gets a bad rap, in my opinion. Anyway, the FitBit supposedly leads to greater self-awareness which in turns leads to jogging up the stairs with a basket of laundry, or something like that.
The guy I know who wears a FitBit is entirely too self aware, as far as I am concerned. One of it's advertied pluses is that it will wake you up (presumbly for your morning meditation and triathalon)
by quietly vibrating on your wrist, so as not to wake up your sleeping partner. I'll bet my friend's wife loves that one. If she's smart, she'll move into a bedroom of her own and leave him and his FitBit to whatever it is they have together.
So the FitBit is on hold for now, until I am convinced to buy yet another tiny adorable electronic device, which I am a sucker for every time. I am at least that self aware. And if I can get it with one touch on Amazon with no shipping charges, so much the better. I'm sticking to werewolves, for now, and a good deal of sitting lethargically in front of the t.v. on Monday nights.
Monday nights, a t.v. wasteland in my opinion, has been rescued by Bitten, a SciFi Channel series that has captured my heart, which is just what the main characters want, not to mention other body parts. Bitten is the story of a hot, young career wolf in the city, trying to resolve a human fiancee, lunch dates with the girls, her shrink, also a w.w., and the "boys," her kinky wolf family upstate living in a glam but creepy hunting (get it?) lodge.
High production values, soap opera issues, much like another favorite of mine, Nashville, but with fur and teeth. Well, maybe that, too, but less howling. No wait, that too. Well, it is a lot like Nashville.
One thing that struck me right off the first time I saw Bitten, was how werewolves used to transform into wolves with bad wardrobes - plaid flannel shirts, raggy jeans and so forth. But when this chick transforms, she sheds her fetchingly color coordinated bra and panties, although it is chilly out and pretty damp and misty looking, and leaves them neatly folded so she can get to them later. You have to give her points for neatness and good lingerie.
There is also an African-American werewolf, the shrink, whom she calls her cousin, so without more episodes, I don't know whether he is either or both. Anyway, it probably doesn't matter. High time, I say, for a little werewolf diversity. And please don't tell me Jacob is Native American and that equals diversity. Teenager outsider types who ride motorbikes don't count. Also, he had bad clothes, what clothes he actually had, and this shrink/cousin is impeccably turned out.
And while we are speaking, loosely, of innards and entrails and that sort of thing, I am wondering whether I should get a FitBit or its equivalent, as my trainer suggests. I know a guy who has one, and he is obsessed by how many steps he takes a day. Somebody, somewhere decided we should all take 1,000, steps a day. At least I think that's the number. Maybe it's 10,000. Doesn't matter, it's a heck of a lot of walking around whatever it is is. Anyway, the FitBit counts your steps for you rather than have you mumbling in the grocery store "a pound of sliced turkey, nine hundred fifty," which could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. It also keeps track of your heart rate, which is the real reason he wants me to get it. I need more aerobic exercise.
Now I have a very slow heart rate. Just this side of zombie. That can make a person lethargic, which I don't really see as a downside. Lethargy gets a bad rap, in my opinion. Anyway, the FitBit supposedly leads to greater self-awareness which in turns leads to jogging up the stairs with a basket of laundry, or something like that.
The guy I know who wears a FitBit is entirely too self aware, as far as I am concerned. One of it's advertied pluses is that it will wake you up (presumbly for your morning meditation and triathalon)
by quietly vibrating on your wrist, so as not to wake up your sleeping partner. I'll bet my friend's wife loves that one. If she's smart, she'll move into a bedroom of her own and leave him and his FitBit to whatever it is they have together.
So the FitBit is on hold for now, until I am convinced to buy yet another tiny adorable electronic device, which I am a sucker for every time. I am at least that self aware. And if I can get it with one touch on Amazon with no shipping charges, so much the better. I'm sticking to werewolves, for now, and a good deal of sitting lethargically in front of the t.v. on Monday nights.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
A Sturdily Built Woman and a Murder of Crows
I have a murder of crows in my backyard. Better than a congress of apes, I guess, although we have learned where that leads. But nearly as noisy. (And don't you just love collective nouns? See the book of the same name, i.e. A Murder... )Five or six of the big guys (the crows, not apes) convene on my birdbath and a bowl-style feeder every morning to plan the day. Another five or six squirrels gather below in a circle for their breakfast club. It is too early in the year for my groundhog to appear, presumably still napping for another few weeks.
But, undeniably, the new year is fully underway, and resolutions, if you made them, may already have begun to slip. I am still slogging along with last year's, actually made on my personal new year, my birthday a couple of weeks before Julian's (Don't remember the Julian calender?Oh, sure you do.) Lose 100 pounds. And I have come 70 pounds of the way before bogging down in points and pounds that refused to move on along. My trainer, who always says "you have to switch it up" once the body gets too comfortable with a particular routine, pointed me to a nutritionist, and yes, boys and girls, it is a whole new world.
Now, I am not counting Weight Watcher points, which can lead you down stale nutritional paths. Now, it is old fashioned calories, carbs and protein grams, and it seems to be working. More work, more specific, but, as Mark the Nutritionist says, think of it this way: "When you are in your twenties, you can use any gas at the pump and not show the effects unless you use way too much and it spills all over the parking lot and your cell phone sparks and it catches fire and burns the whole place down in a big explosion that you can see three counties away. " Actually, he didn't say all of that. He stopped at "any gas" and I filled in the rest. But, continuing more faithfully with what Mark said, "but when you are more mature ( I interject: pretty damn old) you are more like a Ferrari that needs high test gas to run properly."
Mark did of those biometric tests where your (by that I mean I) stand on a scale and then a print out rolls out, telling you everything from your metabolism rate, bone density, fat ratio and so forth.
I won't bore you with the details, although the result was interesting to me, say the least. Just showed me how many misconceptions you can have about your own body. For one thing, I probably need to lose only 20 pounds more, because I have pretty good muscles (thank you, Trainer and heredity) which make up part of what those weight charts (thank you Army and Insurance stats.) classify as fat weight. And speaking of fat, the "fat of death," visceral fat that lurks around the organs waiting to kill you - well, mine is pretty scarce. So that gut I am working off at the gym? Blubber, sitting on top of what must be killer abs just waiting to spring forth and show themselves.
Unfortunately, blubber means three 400 calorie meals a day or a 1200 a day limit, if I want it to go anywhere reasonably soon. And I won't even get into when to eat carbs and what kind, let alone the protein story. Let's just say I have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks.
The most interesting piece of self-misinformation to me: In my childhood, let's say elementary school years, I was a fairly skinny kid. Photos of me in a tutu and ballet slippers, and knobby knees and boney arms, confirm this. "Fine boned," my mother called it, and fine boned is what I believed. That is, until my print-out gave me a body type classification : sturdily built. "Sturdily built?" Why didn't it say "good peasant stock?" Need someone to pull a plow? You got 'er! In three words, I love it. I think it is hilarious that all these years, so many after those pitiful black and white eight by tens, I saw myself as a loving mother saw me, and not with the eyes of reality.
The power of a parent, I guess.
But, undeniably, the new year is fully underway, and resolutions, if you made them, may already have begun to slip. I am still slogging along with last year's, actually made on my personal new year, my birthday a couple of weeks before Julian's (Don't remember the Julian calender?Oh, sure you do.) Lose 100 pounds. And I have come 70 pounds of the way before bogging down in points and pounds that refused to move on along. My trainer, who always says "you have to switch it up" once the body gets too comfortable with a particular routine, pointed me to a nutritionist, and yes, boys and girls, it is a whole new world.
Now, I am not counting Weight Watcher points, which can lead you down stale nutritional paths. Now, it is old fashioned calories, carbs and protein grams, and it seems to be working. More work, more specific, but, as Mark the Nutritionist says, think of it this way: "When you are in your twenties, you can use any gas at the pump and not show the effects unless you use way too much and it spills all over the parking lot and your cell phone sparks and it catches fire and burns the whole place down in a big explosion that you can see three counties away. " Actually, he didn't say all of that. He stopped at "any gas" and I filled in the rest. But, continuing more faithfully with what Mark said, "but when you are more mature ( I interject: pretty damn old) you are more like a Ferrari that needs high test gas to run properly."
Mark did of those biometric tests where your (by that I mean I) stand on a scale and then a print out rolls out, telling you everything from your metabolism rate, bone density, fat ratio and so forth.
I won't bore you with the details, although the result was interesting to me, say the least. Just showed me how many misconceptions you can have about your own body. For one thing, I probably need to lose only 20 pounds more, because I have pretty good muscles (thank you, Trainer and heredity) which make up part of what those weight charts (thank you Army and Insurance stats.) classify as fat weight. And speaking of fat, the "fat of death," visceral fat that lurks around the organs waiting to kill you - well, mine is pretty scarce. So that gut I am working off at the gym? Blubber, sitting on top of what must be killer abs just waiting to spring forth and show themselves.
Unfortunately, blubber means three 400 calorie meals a day or a 1200 a day limit, if I want it to go anywhere reasonably soon. And I won't even get into when to eat carbs and what kind, let alone the protein story. Let's just say I have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks.
The most interesting piece of self-misinformation to me: In my childhood, let's say elementary school years, I was a fairly skinny kid. Photos of me in a tutu and ballet slippers, and knobby knees and boney arms, confirm this. "Fine boned," my mother called it, and fine boned is what I believed. That is, until my print-out gave me a body type classification : sturdily built. "Sturdily built?" Why didn't it say "good peasant stock?" Need someone to pull a plow? You got 'er! In three words, I love it. I think it is hilarious that all these years, so many after those pitiful black and white eight by tens, I saw myself as a loving mother saw me, and not with the eyes of reality.
The power of a parent, I guess.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Ah, Bruce. Where are you when I need you?
In the last week, an odd form of courtesy has befallen me, and I don't like it one bit. It involves parking, a thing I am very good at.
The first incident happened to me while I was parallel parking on a street just off the Marietta Square. Parking was at a premium, and I was elated when I found a largish spot between two parked cars. Or rather, a parked car and one, just in front of me, with a driver still in the car, having just completed what he apparently felt was a spectacularly good parking job and had to pass his skills along to me.
As I maneuvered the rear of my car backward, a silver haired driver sprang from his driver's seat like St. Nick and began waving and gesticulating as if he were guiding a 707 into its berth at O'Hare. When I turned the wheel, he pantomimed the same, shouting when he thought I had turned too far or not far enough. A space I could have whisked into with no fanfare became a three act play with choreography, as I went forward and back, turn to the right, turn to the left, pause, begin again. Left alone, I would have been fine. With this parking aficionado, it took me forever to finally complete the job to his satisfaction.
The second incident, just this morning, involved the simplest of parking maneuvers, a straight back- out from a shopping center parking spot. This was not a particularly busy location, and I was unlikely to be swiped by passing cars. Once again, silver haired and full of human kindness, this gentleman who had parked next to me jumped from his car and swooped in right behind my car. Presumably he couldn't hear my expletive as I nearly knee-capped him. Waving and gesturing to indicate all was clear, he guided me back past the SUV on my other side, and got me into the stream of non-existant traffic with nary a dented fender.
What is this? What have I done to attract the attention of these unwanted helpers? Have I forgotten how to drive? Do I look befuddled? I don't think so. I don't do befuddled, and my children are still willing to ride with me without grabbing for the keys. Is it the gray hair? Misplaced Southern manners? I'm not sure, but twice in a week? Something is afoot.
I suggested to my family that maybe I should do a full McClain. No, not John McClain (think Bruce Willis.) I am talking Shirley. Flame red spikey hair, lots of scarves and jewelry, plenty of make-up.
Scare the Bejesus out of these old guys who want to help a little old lady. It's not as bad as it was in Ireland where everyone calls gray haired women "Mother." That is the definition of ego deflation. But...you old goats, if I want parking help, I'll let you know, O.K? Maybe Bruce Willis' John McClain is a better model for me after all.
The first incident happened to me while I was parallel parking on a street just off the Marietta Square. Parking was at a premium, and I was elated when I found a largish spot between two parked cars. Or rather, a parked car and one, just in front of me, with a driver still in the car, having just completed what he apparently felt was a spectacularly good parking job and had to pass his skills along to me.
As I maneuvered the rear of my car backward, a silver haired driver sprang from his driver's seat like St. Nick and began waving and gesticulating as if he were guiding a 707 into its berth at O'Hare. When I turned the wheel, he pantomimed the same, shouting when he thought I had turned too far or not far enough. A space I could have whisked into with no fanfare became a three act play with choreography, as I went forward and back, turn to the right, turn to the left, pause, begin again. Left alone, I would have been fine. With this parking aficionado, it took me forever to finally complete the job to his satisfaction.
The second incident, just this morning, involved the simplest of parking maneuvers, a straight back- out from a shopping center parking spot. This was not a particularly busy location, and I was unlikely to be swiped by passing cars. Once again, silver haired and full of human kindness, this gentleman who had parked next to me jumped from his car and swooped in right behind my car. Presumably he couldn't hear my expletive as I nearly knee-capped him. Waving and gesturing to indicate all was clear, he guided me back past the SUV on my other side, and got me into the stream of non-existant traffic with nary a dented fender.
What is this? What have I done to attract the attention of these unwanted helpers? Have I forgotten how to drive? Do I look befuddled? I don't think so. I don't do befuddled, and my children are still willing to ride with me without grabbing for the keys. Is it the gray hair? Misplaced Southern manners? I'm not sure, but twice in a week? Something is afoot.
I suggested to my family that maybe I should do a full McClain. No, not John McClain (think Bruce Willis.) I am talking Shirley. Flame red spikey hair, lots of scarves and jewelry, plenty of make-up.
Scare the Bejesus out of these old guys who want to help a little old lady. It's not as bad as it was in Ireland where everyone calls gray haired women "Mother." That is the definition of ego deflation. But...you old goats, if I want parking help, I'll let you know, O.K? Maybe Bruce Willis' John McClain is a better model for me after all.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
A little stir fry sauce in the pantry can be a very good thing.
With the nearly silent hum of the dishwasher in the background, I have a moment to look back on the last few days.
The untimely deceased dishwasher was replaced by by my husband at around 4 a.m. the morning of Christmas Eve, with only the smallest leak dripping into a bucket under the sink. By Christmas Eve, he had that conquered and we could dirty our dishes without fear.
My favorite day of the year had arrived, murky and cold. No, not my birthday. Not even Christmas. No. Winter Solstice. My daughter says it is because I am a Druid, but I share my love for this day with my late father-in-law, who was anything but a Druid. It is the moment that days start getting longer. Spring is stirring, the earth is turning, and it will be green again. He would noticeably brighten and his spirits would lift, just as they sank at Midsummer's Eve, when the days slowly grew shorter. The one thing, I think, that we had in common.
Our two children were with us, and happy to be here, and that, of course, makes me happier than anything else. On Christmas afternoon, we took our two dogs to an open field close to Kennesaw Mountain, where we could walk and they could run with unbridled glee. This time no deer were in evidence, no other people or dogs, and we had just the blazing blue sky, winter woods and soaring hawks for company.
And then home for Christmas dinner. This time, determined to cut down on on the work of producing our traditional replay of Thanksgiving dinner, I had the turkey cooked by Publix, and picked it up Monday. "It's fully cooked," the lady reminded me. "Just warm it in the oven. Directions are on the package."
And so, trustingly following directions, I put the bird, still in it's inner wrapper, into the roasting pan. And when the oven timer summoned me, I pulled it out of the warm oven and cut the cover only to discover... a raw turkey! Publix! How could you do this to me, I who spend an absurd amount on your wares, day after day, week after week?
After my initial panic and too shocked to cry, I sliced the raw meat, just enough for modest servings(our daughter is vegetarian and her tofurkey with wild rice stuffing was perfectly cooked and delicious - I couldn't bear to eat that turkey,) threw the meat into a deep skillet with stir fry sauce and a few other things, and produced edible, if somewhat Japanese restaurant flavored turkey. And only about an hour later than the announced dinner time.
The sides and dressing were great, made by me or Whole Foods. The beet salad, not a hit, no surprise to me, was an experiment. I happen to love beets, the "in" vegetable of the moment. They remind me of childhood holiday dinners, but without the goat cheese and chopped walnuts that graced my beets, resting picturesquely in a nest of butter lettuce and purple radichio. My son even had seconds of the stir fried turkey and is still alive this morning, so all is well.
So we come to Boxing Day. Between now and New Year's Eve, it is time to clean out the fridge, with everything but the truly current food stock cleared away for the New Year. And with a husband who is one of five "kids" who still give one another Christmas gifts, which nowadays consist of baskets filled with forbidden sweets, crackers and cheeses, wines and etc., that means a post Christmas selection that looks like the interior of Dean and DeLucca for friends who wander in had leave with chocolate covered coffee beans, brie en crout and gourmet jelly beans.
To her everlasting credit, our dear daughter took the largest, most lavish (but wine free) basket, given to her in thanks by a very large family of out of town friends whom she hosted for a couple of days last spring, and gave it, along with some kid oriented gifts, to a large family who would never see such bounty. Hers is the very definition of a good soul, and she blesses us in so many ways.
So, I go forward bravely toward the New Year, counting Weight Watcher points, never skipping the gym except for major holidays, and always keeping some stir fry sauce in the pantry, because you never know when you will need it.
The untimely deceased dishwasher was replaced by by my husband at around 4 a.m. the morning of Christmas Eve, with only the smallest leak dripping into a bucket under the sink. By Christmas Eve, he had that conquered and we could dirty our dishes without fear.
My favorite day of the year had arrived, murky and cold. No, not my birthday. Not even Christmas. No. Winter Solstice. My daughter says it is because I am a Druid, but I share my love for this day with my late father-in-law, who was anything but a Druid. It is the moment that days start getting longer. Spring is stirring, the earth is turning, and it will be green again. He would noticeably brighten and his spirits would lift, just as they sank at Midsummer's Eve, when the days slowly grew shorter. The one thing, I think, that we had in common.
Our two children were with us, and happy to be here, and that, of course, makes me happier than anything else. On Christmas afternoon, we took our two dogs to an open field close to Kennesaw Mountain, where we could walk and they could run with unbridled glee. This time no deer were in evidence, no other people or dogs, and we had just the blazing blue sky, winter woods and soaring hawks for company.
And then home for Christmas dinner. This time, determined to cut down on on the work of producing our traditional replay of Thanksgiving dinner, I had the turkey cooked by Publix, and picked it up Monday. "It's fully cooked," the lady reminded me. "Just warm it in the oven. Directions are on the package."
And so, trustingly following directions, I put the bird, still in it's inner wrapper, into the roasting pan. And when the oven timer summoned me, I pulled it out of the warm oven and cut the cover only to discover... a raw turkey! Publix! How could you do this to me, I who spend an absurd amount on your wares, day after day, week after week?
After my initial panic and too shocked to cry, I sliced the raw meat, just enough for modest servings(our daughter is vegetarian and her tofurkey with wild rice stuffing was perfectly cooked and delicious - I couldn't bear to eat that turkey,) threw the meat into a deep skillet with stir fry sauce and a few other things, and produced edible, if somewhat Japanese restaurant flavored turkey. And only about an hour later than the announced dinner time.
The sides and dressing were great, made by me or Whole Foods. The beet salad, not a hit, no surprise to me, was an experiment. I happen to love beets, the "in" vegetable of the moment. They remind me of childhood holiday dinners, but without the goat cheese and chopped walnuts that graced my beets, resting picturesquely in a nest of butter lettuce and purple radichio. My son even had seconds of the stir fried turkey and is still alive this morning, so all is well.
So we come to Boxing Day. Between now and New Year's Eve, it is time to clean out the fridge, with everything but the truly current food stock cleared away for the New Year. And with a husband who is one of five "kids" who still give one another Christmas gifts, which nowadays consist of baskets filled with forbidden sweets, crackers and cheeses, wines and etc., that means a post Christmas selection that looks like the interior of Dean and DeLucca for friends who wander in had leave with chocolate covered coffee beans, brie en crout and gourmet jelly beans.
To her everlasting credit, our dear daughter took the largest, most lavish (but wine free) basket, given to her in thanks by a very large family of out of town friends whom she hosted for a couple of days last spring, and gave it, along with some kid oriented gifts, to a large family who would never see such bounty. Hers is the very definition of a good soul, and she blesses us in so many ways.
So, I go forward bravely toward the New Year, counting Weight Watcher points, never skipping the gym except for major holidays, and always keeping some stir fry sauce in the pantry, because you never know when you will need it.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Rituals and weight loss
We have a ritual in my family. It is not limited to Christmas, just the major holidays that involve a lot of eating. A major electrical appliance crashes just before or even during the holiday, and our local Lowe's delivery man gets a call, brings a new appliance to our house, greets our dogs by name, asks to be remembered to any family members not present and then disappears until the next holiday, next appliance crash.
Last time, our refrigerator checked out the day before Thanksgiving (this was a year or two ago) while entrusted with our turkey and everything else I was planning to serve. This year, our dishwasher gave up on Thanksgiving, refusing to pump adequate water to distribute the soap. It made a brief comeback so that a repair man said it might hold up a while longer. Repair was possible for an estimate equal to the cost of a new dishwasher. It did hold up, unrepaired but with our fingers crossed, until the Sunday before Christmas. Our faithful delivery guy delivered a new dishwasher today, Dec. 23, but alas, no installer will be available until the week after Christmas.
I'm OK with washing dishes, but with four major meals in a two day period, my husband has undertaken to install the dishwasher himself. He is more than moderately handy and installed a dishwasher in another house not long ago, so you might ask why five hours after wrestling it into place (and removing the old dishwasher), and leaving a wake through the living room, den and kitchen, we are not hearing the comforting swish of dishes being washed .
One word. Instructions. No mention of how to hook it to the electricity. Internet not helpful. Suggestion of pulling it back out until an installer can come, not well received.
I'll leave this saga here, since I plan to go to bed soon, but I'll let you know how it turns out.
In other news, three days ago was my one year weight loss anniversary. My goal was 100 pounds. I succeeded in losing 75, so I have the rest to look forward to in the New Year. Since I gained a lot of muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat, the result size-wise is a somewhat slimmer me than the loss of 75 really indicates. But, anyway, it was a full time time job to work with a trainer, completely restructure my nutrition, and retrain my brain. Time well spent, in my opinion.
Last time, our refrigerator checked out the day before Thanksgiving (this was a year or two ago) while entrusted with our turkey and everything else I was planning to serve. This year, our dishwasher gave up on Thanksgiving, refusing to pump adequate water to distribute the soap. It made a brief comeback so that a repair man said it might hold up a while longer. Repair was possible for an estimate equal to the cost of a new dishwasher. It did hold up, unrepaired but with our fingers crossed, until the Sunday before Christmas. Our faithful delivery guy delivered a new dishwasher today, Dec. 23, but alas, no installer will be available until the week after Christmas.
I'm OK with washing dishes, but with four major meals in a two day period, my husband has undertaken to install the dishwasher himself. He is more than moderately handy and installed a dishwasher in another house not long ago, so you might ask why five hours after wrestling it into place (and removing the old dishwasher), and leaving a wake through the living room, den and kitchen, we are not hearing the comforting swish of dishes being washed .
One word. Instructions. No mention of how to hook it to the electricity. Internet not helpful. Suggestion of pulling it back out until an installer can come, not well received.
I'll leave this saga here, since I plan to go to bed soon, but I'll let you know how it turns out.
In other news, three days ago was my one year weight loss anniversary. My goal was 100 pounds. I succeeded in losing 75, so I have the rest to look forward to in the New Year. Since I gained a lot of muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat, the result size-wise is a somewhat slimmer me than the loss of 75 really indicates. But, anyway, it was a full time time job to work with a trainer, completely restructure my nutrition, and retrain my brain. Time well spent, in my opinion.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Never explain, never complain
Regarding the title of this post, just let me add, No one cares, any how. Let's just say it has been a long and strange autumn. And now to what I was talking about when last we met. Or close to it, any way.
About Jack. I went back to my hometown for my 50th high school reunion, which was, all in all, a good experience. I also arranged to meet and old and dear friend who was not in my h.s. class, for lunch, along with another friend of ours from the "old days." This friend, whom I am calling Jack, was a larger than life character, a prodigy, wealthy and good looking, who had just sort of dropped off the radar. It was a long and complicated process to get in touch with hime and to set up a meeting. I could give the CIA and Homeland Security a few tips for reaching those who don't want to be found, but I did reach him, which is all that counts.
I had heard that he had disappeared after his wife died a couple of years ago, that he had sold his palatial home, that he was in a wheelchair, a drunk, a drug addict. And I'll admit that in those few times I actually reached him by phone, the conversations were bizarre. He had a host of charming memories of things we had done and the people we had done them with that never happened. Ideas forgotten in mid sentence, repeated questions, confusion about dates and place. But then, we all do some of that, don't we? Don't we?
So, as he requested, I called him when I got into town to remind him of the lunch we had planned for the next day. No answer. No answer late into the night. Early next morning, the third member of our party called to say he had reached Jack and he was expecting us. Lunch. 11:30.
Jack had moved into a one story home once owned by his family. When I approached the front door, I could see through the extensive front windows, the dining room with glittering chandelier, crystal, plates and cutlery, set for at least a dozen people. Another person, a youngish man ( to me that means 40ish) answered the door. Butler? House manager? Probably not in a golf shirt and Bermuda shorts (it was warm that weekend.)
And there was Jack. Leaning heavily on a walker, blonde hair now white, body thin, features old looking. Long hair works with a tan and blond hair. With white hair, it is just sort of creepy.
We sat in the den , an impeccably decorated, cozy room he said he seldom left. He keeps it at the temperature he likes, has a fire in the fireplace whenever he wants it, and seldom goes outdoors. Read: Never. The beautiful slate terrace visible just outside overlooks a valley of hardwoods. Inviting all weather furniture is scattered about, stone sculpture punctuates expert plantings.
The unknown man who answered the door turned out to be a friend and houseguest, a world traveler, from his tales, who has been in Antarctica six times. Funny, charming. Not exotic by the standard of Jack's friends. We talked at length and Jack broke down and cried once, when his late wife was mentioned. His memory and wit seemed sharp, no signs of drink or drugs. And no signs of food, either.
After a couple of hours, someone dropped a heavy hint about lunch, which passed unnoticed.
Into the afternoon, after a house tour, a discussion of the provenance of a number of pieces of art (We found these Carnival costume designs when we were in Venice...)I excused myself, citing a later appointment with a friend (whom I prayed would feed me.)With my pending departure, Jack cast about for food, which seemed to be an very short supply. That which he had was frozen and not promising. No wonder he's thin. And repeatedly, he urged for me to stay with him, in one of the guest rooms with a bed so high and enormous it would take me a ladder to get into it. No, thank you. Can you say "all the tea in China?"
It was a little bizarre, although not the strangest get together I have ever had. I don't know whether that says more about him or me. I want to go back, maybe in the spring when I plan to pass through town, collecting an old friend for a trip to New York. And next time I'll visit armed with a fully stocked picnic basket.
About Jack. I went back to my hometown for my 50th high school reunion, which was, all in all, a good experience. I also arranged to meet and old and dear friend who was not in my h.s. class, for lunch, along with another friend of ours from the "old days." This friend, whom I am calling Jack, was a larger than life character, a prodigy, wealthy and good looking, who had just sort of dropped off the radar. It was a long and complicated process to get in touch with hime and to set up a meeting. I could give the CIA and Homeland Security a few tips for reaching those who don't want to be found, but I did reach him, which is all that counts.
I had heard that he had disappeared after his wife died a couple of years ago, that he had sold his palatial home, that he was in a wheelchair, a drunk, a drug addict. And I'll admit that in those few times I actually reached him by phone, the conversations were bizarre. He had a host of charming memories of things we had done and the people we had done them with that never happened. Ideas forgotten in mid sentence, repeated questions, confusion about dates and place. But then, we all do some of that, don't we? Don't we?
So, as he requested, I called him when I got into town to remind him of the lunch we had planned for the next day. No answer. No answer late into the night. Early next morning, the third member of our party called to say he had reached Jack and he was expecting us. Lunch. 11:30.
Jack had moved into a one story home once owned by his family. When I approached the front door, I could see through the extensive front windows, the dining room with glittering chandelier, crystal, plates and cutlery, set for at least a dozen people. Another person, a youngish man ( to me that means 40ish) answered the door. Butler? House manager? Probably not in a golf shirt and Bermuda shorts (it was warm that weekend.)
And there was Jack. Leaning heavily on a walker, blonde hair now white, body thin, features old looking. Long hair works with a tan and blond hair. With white hair, it is just sort of creepy.
We sat in the den , an impeccably decorated, cozy room he said he seldom left. He keeps it at the temperature he likes, has a fire in the fireplace whenever he wants it, and seldom goes outdoors. Read: Never. The beautiful slate terrace visible just outside overlooks a valley of hardwoods. Inviting all weather furniture is scattered about, stone sculpture punctuates expert plantings.
The unknown man who answered the door turned out to be a friend and houseguest, a world traveler, from his tales, who has been in Antarctica six times. Funny, charming. Not exotic by the standard of Jack's friends. We talked at length and Jack broke down and cried once, when his late wife was mentioned. His memory and wit seemed sharp, no signs of drink or drugs. And no signs of food, either.
After a couple of hours, someone dropped a heavy hint about lunch, which passed unnoticed.
Into the afternoon, after a house tour, a discussion of the provenance of a number of pieces of art (We found these Carnival costume designs when we were in Venice...)I excused myself, citing a later appointment with a friend (whom I prayed would feed me.)With my pending departure, Jack cast about for food, which seemed to be an very short supply. That which he had was frozen and not promising. No wonder he's thin. And repeatedly, he urged for me to stay with him, in one of the guest rooms with a bed so high and enormous it would take me a ladder to get into it. No, thank you. Can you say "all the tea in China?"
It was a little bizarre, although not the strangest get together I have ever had. I don't know whether that says more about him or me. I want to go back, maybe in the spring when I plan to pass through town, collecting an old friend for a trip to New York. And next time I'll visit armed with a fully stocked picnic basket.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Fighting sugar on the way to remaking myself.There's a mantra for that.
O.K. This is what has come into my house in the last week:
Ten excessively frosted cupcakes.
A jar of Nutella. Honestly, who does that- take a jar of Nutella to someone who is dieting?
A bag of Halloween candy as big as a three year old.
Several Godiva bars.
Vanilla ice cream.
The making of a pancake breakfast. That happens tomorrow.
This sugar excess is the star-crossed combination of Halloween and my daughter's birthday.
Oh, I forgot. Cokes. I gave up Diet Coke a few weeks ago. Not a sip since. Diet carbonated drinks are horrible for you and contribute to belly bloat. Went off them cold turkey. There is now a 6 pack in the fridge. I don't know who I have to thank for that, since no one else in the family drinks them.
On the positive side, I went back to doing Yoga, along with my thrice weekly workouts with a trainer, so now I am not only stronger and can kick some butt, I can do it calmly. I also taught my trainer to use a mantra and how to visualize the floating horizon so he can go to sleep almost instantly. No "monkey mind."
So you can see, I've been busy, with the meditating and all, and haven't blogged. And all on de-caf, too. That's necessary if I am to get to bed before ten. I can't believe this person is me, after thinking 2 a.m.was a reasonable bedtime for most of my life. Tonight I am up way too late so I can write this and watch the Cardinals lose. They were wonderful until they forgot how to play baseball, and the Red Sox probably deserved to win, but it is still a sad outcome in this house.
Next time, back to Jack, my hometown friend, enigma, stranger, wandering soul. It has taken me a long time to attempt objectivity, but who can be objective about parts of your own heart.
Ten excessively frosted cupcakes.
A jar of Nutella. Honestly, who does that- take a jar of Nutella to someone who is dieting?
A bag of Halloween candy as big as a three year old.
Several Godiva bars.
Vanilla ice cream.
The making of a pancake breakfast. That happens tomorrow.
This sugar excess is the star-crossed combination of Halloween and my daughter's birthday.
Oh, I forgot. Cokes. I gave up Diet Coke a few weeks ago. Not a sip since. Diet carbonated drinks are horrible for you and contribute to belly bloat. Went off them cold turkey. There is now a 6 pack in the fridge. I don't know who I have to thank for that, since no one else in the family drinks them.
On the positive side, I went back to doing Yoga, along with my thrice weekly workouts with a trainer, so now I am not only stronger and can kick some butt, I can do it calmly. I also taught my trainer to use a mantra and how to visualize the floating horizon so he can go to sleep almost instantly. No "monkey mind."
So you can see, I've been busy, with the meditating and all, and haven't blogged. And all on de-caf, too. That's necessary if I am to get to bed before ten. I can't believe this person is me, after thinking 2 a.m.was a reasonable bedtime for most of my life. Tonight I am up way too late so I can write this and watch the Cardinals lose. They were wonderful until they forgot how to play baseball, and the Red Sox probably deserved to win, but it is still a sad outcome in this house.
Next time, back to Jack, my hometown friend, enigma, stranger, wandering soul. It has taken me a long time to attempt objectivity, but who can be objective about parts of your own heart.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Can you say "fish fork" three times fast?
Well, I'm back from my fiftieth high school reunion, and I will have to say that all in all, it was a good experience. When yours rolls around, you should go.
For one thing, you will feel grateful to still be alive, if you have a bulletin board posted with all of your deceased classmates.
I was in a big class, and I have to admit I recognized precious few of the attendees, especially the men. We wore name tags bearing our senior photo and name, and the photos alone would not have given adequate clues, in most cases. If I had known that my senior photo would have followed me for the remainder of my days, I would have tried a lot harder, let me tell you. I was thin then, true, but I wouldn't go back to my 1963 look even now, so I guess you could say that's a good thing.
But, it was a good looking class then and now, and it was fun. And my home town, fifty years later, was, well, a little alarming. My home is gone, replaced by condos, and many more random commercial strips have sprouted, but some things I was sure would have been paved over are still there. Like the Sheridan Road Nursery where we bought plants. Close to a shopping center, but not consumed, at least not yet, and still surrounded by pretty little houses. And the unkillable Lariat Club, not a club but a burger and steakhouse, once log cabin-ish, now slicked up , but, I was assured, as greasy as ever.
And I saw Jack, the old friend I wrote about some time ago who had become unreachable after the death of his wife. I'm going to tell you about that, but in another blog. It's happy and sad and complicated, as those things usually are, and I can't put my mind there right now.
Two non-reunion things of which I am proud today: I've hammered off a little more weight and have moved the scale down to the next decade lower, so progress is happening, although slowly; and I put away my Christmas china.
Please don't visualize my plates sitting on the table these last ten months, flecked with bits of Christmas ham and plum pudding. I'm a casual house keeper, but not that casual. These were shelved months ago, but not properly housed in their little quilted bags, separated by foam pads, zipped up cozily in their litle round houses, as they are now.
No, these were lovely creamy porcelain, bordered in dark green and edged in gold given to me by my mother-in-law many years ago. In fact, I used them for the first time only a couple of years ago, being under the impression that the set, housed in our storage room, consisted of desert plates and cups and saucers.
Not so. Bowls for soup? What kind of soup? Cream?Clear? Feel like a fish course? How about shell fish? Need little bowls of ice under your shrimp cocktail? No problem. How could I have missed this? I should have known, because this is how my mother-in-law operates.
A number of years ago, when our daughter was attending a small North Eastern college, she occupied an apartment in an old house. The whole top floor. This made her perfectly suited to provide er, shall we say," housing" for a rock band visiting the campus for a performance. One of these purported rockers was the brother of my daughter's closest friend, which is how she came by the opportunity of supplying room and board, more of less, for the weekend.
My husband I thought this was hilariously funny and reported this event to her grandmother, my mother-in-law-of-the-china. She said, "Heavens!" shocked by the ad hoc nature of the arrangements. "Did she have enough place settings?"
And not long after, an enormous Neiman Marcus box arrived, containing a silver chest, with enough silver (thank God it was stainless, not sterling ) to entertain the Red Army Chorus, should they be on tour and pass her way. Fish forks, condiment and appetizer forks, luncheon sized and dinner sized forks and every other piece of silverware you have ever heard of, or haven't heard of.
Bring on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!
Monday, September 23, 2013
The thought of all that peachy, whipped creamy goodness....
Kay called about breakfast, as she usually does when we haven't had any greasy food in a while.
"Have you seen those peach pancakes on t.v.? The ones with whipped cream all over them. And peach syrup, too. Have you ever had peach syrup? I've never even heard of peach syrup, have you?"
"Food poisoning," I managed to gasp. Why oh why did I pick up the phone?
"No, I don't think so," she said. "If somebody had gotten food poisoning from them, we would have heard about it."
"No. I have food poisoning." I gasped into the phone. The thought of all that peachy whipped creamy goodness was almost too much.
"Probably all that healthy stuff you eat all the time," she said. "I told you it would make you sick. Remember when we couldn't eat spinach a while back? Contaminated or something."
"I don't want to talk about it, or food in general, for that matter. Anything else on your mind?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. Uggs."
Kay has almost as many pairs of Uggs (those notoriously clunky and delightfully comfy shearling boots) as she has color coordinated flip flops.
"Do you really think you need any more pairs?" I asked.
"Of course. They have new colors every year. I was going to ask you you to come with me, but it sounds like you don't feel like it."
That's an understatement. All that fuzziness, and in candy colors, too. I passed her offer of shoe shopping and pancakes.
I hung up and crawled back to my bed which I had unwisely left less than an hour before. I had just closed my eyes to continue suffering alone, when I heard the front door close and the dogs go wild with glee. My daughter had arrived.
She found me cowering under the covers, hoping not to talk to anyone.
She held up a bag with a few tell-tale grease spots on the bottom. "Guess what I have? These will get you up." She opened the bag revealing pastel macaroons, and worse, releasing their icky- sweet coconutty fragrance.
After I returned from my rush trip to the uh, er, commode, she ingenuously asked, "Sick?'
I know that macaroons are now a very hip desert, but I have never actually liked them much. And now that they come is so many lovely pastel colors, I like them even less. Just imagine what havoc a pale green macaroon can wreak on a fragile digestive tract. Come to think of it, no, don't.
And so I await tomorrow when I have cancelled all plans to get over this unholy state. Perhaps, in peace and quiet. Or perhaps not, since my husband is on vacation. And he is relentlessly handy. Right now there is a saw on the hall table, a threat if I ever saw one (get it? saw...and saw. Bad, I know, but what the heck? I'm sick, I said.)
"Have you seen those peach pancakes on t.v.? The ones with whipped cream all over them. And peach syrup, too. Have you ever had peach syrup? I've never even heard of peach syrup, have you?"
"Food poisoning," I managed to gasp. Why oh why did I pick up the phone?
"No, I don't think so," she said. "If somebody had gotten food poisoning from them, we would have heard about it."
"No. I have food poisoning." I gasped into the phone. The thought of all that peachy whipped creamy goodness was almost too much.
"Probably all that healthy stuff you eat all the time," she said. "I told you it would make you sick. Remember when we couldn't eat spinach a while back? Contaminated or something."
"I don't want to talk about it, or food in general, for that matter. Anything else on your mind?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. Uggs."
Kay has almost as many pairs of Uggs (those notoriously clunky and delightfully comfy shearling boots) as she has color coordinated flip flops.
"Do you really think you need any more pairs?" I asked.
"Of course. They have new colors every year. I was going to ask you you to come with me, but it sounds like you don't feel like it."
That's an understatement. All that fuzziness, and in candy colors, too. I passed her offer of shoe shopping and pancakes.
I hung up and crawled back to my bed which I had unwisely left less than an hour before. I had just closed my eyes to continue suffering alone, when I heard the front door close and the dogs go wild with glee. My daughter had arrived.
She found me cowering under the covers, hoping not to talk to anyone.
She held up a bag with a few tell-tale grease spots on the bottom. "Guess what I have? These will get you up." She opened the bag revealing pastel macaroons, and worse, releasing their icky- sweet coconutty fragrance.
After I returned from my rush trip to the uh, er, commode, she ingenuously asked, "Sick?'
I know that macaroons are now a very hip desert, but I have never actually liked them much. And now that they come is so many lovely pastel colors, I like them even less. Just imagine what havoc a pale green macaroon can wreak on a fragile digestive tract. Come to think of it, no, don't.
And so I await tomorrow when I have cancelled all plans to get over this unholy state. Perhaps, in peace and quiet. Or perhaps not, since my husband is on vacation. And he is relentlessly handy. Right now there is a saw on the hall table, a threat if I ever saw one (get it? saw...and saw. Bad, I know, but what the heck? I'm sick, I said.)
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Woman Falls Shortt of Weight Loss Goal. Does Not Care
Well, I thought -wished, hoped- that by now I would be about thirty pounds lighter. The truth is, that was an unrealistic goal, and I knew it at the time I set it, but hey, why not go flat out. One hundred pounds lost in 9 months? Only if I were giving birth to a moose. In 12 months - that takes me up to some time in December - yeah, probably. The good news is that I am building muscle every day, gaining energy and strength and regaining balance and co-ordination, and at this point, those things are more valuable than more lost pounds. So, yeah, I feel OK with it. Good, even.
Now that Autumn is coming to Atlanta, albeit in fits and starts, walks in the woods and along creeks with the dogs have become even more beautiful and sometimes last two hours at a stretch. And, I have to admit the down side, the humiliation factor has increased at the gym.
To his everlasting credit, my trainer does not cringe or laugh, and he has plenty of reason, believe me.
Today was a prime example. A core exercise that I think is also supposed to be good for the legs (if not one's dignity) is to lie flat on a narrow, padded bench so that your legs are over one end, knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Now I have a fear of falling off almost anything, and since the bench is narrower than my rump, I have good cause to feel I will pitch over the side at any moment.
My trainer, due to his education and an ample amount of kindness toward ladies as old as his grandmother, keeps reassuring me not to worry.
"You can't fall,"he says. Yeah, right. "I'll catch you before you fall," he says.
Yeah? You and who else? I want to ask. After all, he definitely weighs less than I do and although he has muscles, they are the muscles of youth, muscles that have never really had to catch a flailing panicky woman, plunging all of 16" or so to the floor. I need a forklift, for God's sake. Maybe a fireman, trained in the shoulder carry while climbing backwards down a ladder. Out of a 6th story window. If I fell on this young man, I would squash him like a bug. Of this, I am certain.
But the worst is yet to come. We start the exercise, which means that I have to elevate my legs at ninety degrees to my body, knees straight, feet together, and then lower them slowly until my feet are once again on the floor. Just my feet. Not the rest of me.
The first couple of times I barely get my legs horizontal. On the third time I hoist them up a bit more, obviously encouraging him to think I might eventually do this. I am sweating like a longshoreman. On next try, I heave my body into it and get my legs up to about a fort-five degree angle, whereupon I feel someone (guess who) firmly grasp my calves and help me hoist my dry, flaky, and yes, somewhat hairy legs a bit further.
Do I go to the gym with unshaven legs? Shocking thought. Of course I do. So does every woman in American over the age of twenty-seven. Not simian hairy, but stubble-ish, and hairier than the stubble on his chin, that's for sure.
So, I survived this ordeal and we know each other a bit better than perhaps we want to. Let's just say my legs will be as smooth as a baby's bottom before my next workout. And he is trying to build his client list, so if you want a cute, young guy grab your calves, just let me know and I'll pass along his number.
Now that Autumn is coming to Atlanta, albeit in fits and starts, walks in the woods and along creeks with the dogs have become even more beautiful and sometimes last two hours at a stretch. And, I have to admit the down side, the humiliation factor has increased at the gym.
To his everlasting credit, my trainer does not cringe or laugh, and he has plenty of reason, believe me.
Today was a prime example. A core exercise that I think is also supposed to be good for the legs (if not one's dignity) is to lie flat on a narrow, padded bench so that your legs are over one end, knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Now I have a fear of falling off almost anything, and since the bench is narrower than my rump, I have good cause to feel I will pitch over the side at any moment.
My trainer, due to his education and an ample amount of kindness toward ladies as old as his grandmother, keeps reassuring me not to worry.
"You can't fall,"he says. Yeah, right. "I'll catch you before you fall," he says.
Yeah? You and who else? I want to ask. After all, he definitely weighs less than I do and although he has muscles, they are the muscles of youth, muscles that have never really had to catch a flailing panicky woman, plunging all of 16" or so to the floor. I need a forklift, for God's sake. Maybe a fireman, trained in the shoulder carry while climbing backwards down a ladder. Out of a 6th story window. If I fell on this young man, I would squash him like a bug. Of this, I am certain.
But the worst is yet to come. We start the exercise, which means that I have to elevate my legs at ninety degrees to my body, knees straight, feet together, and then lower them slowly until my feet are once again on the floor. Just my feet. Not the rest of me.
The first couple of times I barely get my legs horizontal. On the third time I hoist them up a bit more, obviously encouraging him to think I might eventually do this. I am sweating like a longshoreman. On next try, I heave my body into it and get my legs up to about a fort-five degree angle, whereupon I feel someone (guess who) firmly grasp my calves and help me hoist my dry, flaky, and yes, somewhat hairy legs a bit further.
Do I go to the gym with unshaven legs? Shocking thought. Of course I do. So does every woman in American over the age of twenty-seven. Not simian hairy, but stubble-ish, and hairier than the stubble on his chin, that's for sure.
So, I survived this ordeal and we know each other a bit better than perhaps we want to. Let's just say my legs will be as smooth as a baby's bottom before my next workout. And he is trying to build his client list, so if you want a cute, young guy grab your calves, just let me know and I'll pass along his number.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Where's Your Heaven ?
I received an email from a dear friend a few days ago. As I recall, it was a general note including a number of fellow writers. In it my old friend briefly described where he was, in the far NorthEastern U.S and parts of Canada, which have always been heaven to him. How nice, I thought, to know exactly where heaven is. A longitude and latitude are comforting. This writer is no simple thinker; science and philosophy are his friends. He knows that heaven is not to be taken lightly.
I remember my mother telling me where heaven was to her, without exactly calling it that. It began at that point on a long train trip from the mountains and deserts of the west, when the train windows began to reveal thick, lush woods, fields, little country streams, and tall, cool grass of the Mid-west. It was that point at which she said to herself, "I could walk home from here." That's it: the turning point for our heart's home.
I walked into my portent of heaven the other day, with two giddy leashed dogs, dancing with the excitement of their prospective walk and the chance to go leash-free and fly back into our arms when called. On a warm, blue sky morning, we drove just a few miles to a place called Price Park. Only about one hundred and twenty-five acres, very lightly trafficked and home to birds and butterflies and no doubt many feathered, furred and scaley creatures. It begins just off a busy road, with an asphalt turnoff and lot this day unoccupied by other cars.
A wide swath had been mowed , creating several adjoining pastures, making the most distance of a fairly small area. The paths are bordered this time of year with meadows full of purple, yellow and white flowering weeds (?) taller than our heads. At the far edge, all around, there are tall oaks, some with benches beneath.
Walk far enough and you will come across a small incline down to a creek, bubbling over sharp granite outcroppings and polished pebbles, home to glittering fish swimming among the stretches of mica-laced sand. There is even a narrow sandy beach where dogs and children can dabble.
Back on the trail, a field of what I think is yarrow and maybe wild mustard is filled with bumble bees, so fat they make the stems bend when they alight on their blooming tops. The sound of ciccadas and crickets competes with the bees' buzzing and the bird calls from the oaks and fruit trees.
I never thought, when I left my beautiful Mid-west, that my portal to heaven would be in the deep South, although I know well that the South is the very definition of heaven to many. But there it was, a little stretch of land near a busy road, preserved in it's pristine form, close enough to visit on an early fall morning with two eager dogs.
And to make it even more certain that it is in the territory of heaven, there is a biscuit shack on the way home where we sat on porch rockers and had wonderful, just-made, flakey biscuits and coffee. Well, no coffee for the dogs. Just bowls of cold water and warm biscuits. Heaven for them, too.
I remember my mother telling me where heaven was to her, without exactly calling it that. It began at that point on a long train trip from the mountains and deserts of the west, when the train windows began to reveal thick, lush woods, fields, little country streams, and tall, cool grass of the Mid-west. It was that point at which she said to herself, "I could walk home from here." That's it: the turning point for our heart's home.
I walked into my portent of heaven the other day, with two giddy leashed dogs, dancing with the excitement of their prospective walk and the chance to go leash-free and fly back into our arms when called. On a warm, blue sky morning, we drove just a few miles to a place called Price Park. Only about one hundred and twenty-five acres, very lightly trafficked and home to birds and butterflies and no doubt many feathered, furred and scaley creatures. It begins just off a busy road, with an asphalt turnoff and lot this day unoccupied by other cars.
A wide swath had been mowed , creating several adjoining pastures, making the most distance of a fairly small area. The paths are bordered this time of year with meadows full of purple, yellow and white flowering weeds (?) taller than our heads. At the far edge, all around, there are tall oaks, some with benches beneath.
Walk far enough and you will come across a small incline down to a creek, bubbling over sharp granite outcroppings and polished pebbles, home to glittering fish swimming among the stretches of mica-laced sand. There is even a narrow sandy beach where dogs and children can dabble.
Back on the trail, a field of what I think is yarrow and maybe wild mustard is filled with bumble bees, so fat they make the stems bend when they alight on their blooming tops. The sound of ciccadas and crickets competes with the bees' buzzing and the bird calls from the oaks and fruit trees.
I never thought, when I left my beautiful Mid-west, that my portal to heaven would be in the deep South, although I know well that the South is the very definition of heaven to many. But there it was, a little stretch of land near a busy road, preserved in it's pristine form, close enough to visit on an early fall morning with two eager dogs.
And to make it even more certain that it is in the territory of heaven, there is a biscuit shack on the way home where we sat on porch rockers and had wonderful, just-made, flakey biscuits and coffee. Well, no coffee for the dogs. Just bowls of cold water and warm biscuits. Heaven for them, too.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Don't tinker with me, colds and flu. I am armed!
I have taken this exercise thing to new heights, for me, at least. That explains why I was in Walmart buying lifting gloves. Those are what weight lifters wear to keep from tearing up their hands on barbells. "Wimps" my daughter said. I should note she has been a rower, and a pretty good one, at that. "They should just pound their hands to numb them. And if the cuts are too deep, just put in a little SuperGlue." Rowers are seldom hand models.
Listen, Sugarplum, I thought , if you knew how much I can bench press, you'd be calling me Mom Ma'am.
"Well, I sometimes have to shake as lot of hands, " I said, "and I don't want them to feel like I'm a stable hand in my free time."
"You still shake hands?" she asked in amazement? "That is so germy. Everyone I know just hugs."
And blowing your germy breath into someone's neck is more sanitary? I wondered .
And that brings me to my question. Just what do you know about Goji berry juice? Or Acai berry, for that matter. And does Airborne really work?I have been thinking a lot about contagion lately, ever since the the We Now Have Flu Vaccine sign went up at the Kroger doc-in-a-box.
I usually deal with cold and flu season by not going out much. Now that my children are grown and I don't do school related things, and I no longer work with little kids, I can have pleasant solitude for a good part of the winter, which is fine with me. This fall, however, my calendar is buzzing with unaccustomed activity, the germiest probably being airplane flights and the gym.
Call me flirting with danger, but I have never had a flu shot. Ever since my mother-in-law nearly died from her flue shot (either the shot, or she got the flu at the doctor's office, also entirely possible) I have avoided the "Elderly should be vaccinated" warnings and the AARP scare literature and have been vaccineless and flueless. But now, I think I may have pressed my luck far enough.
I toyed with wearing a mask on the plane. Not some merry Halloween interpretation of Lady GaGa, but one of those staid white medical masks like the Chinese wear in their polluted cities or that Japanese seem to wear just because they know something we don't. That could be a good way to avoid chatting with my seatmate, so it has some appeal.
Of course there will be an excessive amount of hugging and insincere air kissing at my reunion. If I had known fifty years ago that I would be expected to hug and kiss some of these people, well, let's just say, I would have used them even more cruelly as characters in my books than I already have. But it's never too late.
Anyway, on to the remedies. I posed the question of Goji berry juice to Kay and MaryBeth when we had lunch last week.
"I wouldn't know a Goji berry if it came up and bit me on the leg," Kay said, although perhaps a bit more colorfully.
"Well, an acquaintance of a friend had cancer, and he went into full remission after drinking huge amounts of Goji berry juice for several months," I said.
"So you decided to drink it, too?" Kay was unimpressed. Kay had cancer, too, and she got rid of it after chemo and a diet of eggs fried in bacon fat.
"Well, yes, sort of, " I said. "But only 3 ounces a day. It doesn't taste bad."
"Boy, are you a sucker." Kay dug into her unusually healthful lunch of sliced steak on a green salad.
"She is," MaryBeth unhelpfully added. "I can attest that she has an entire kitchen drawer full of Green Coffee Bean capsules, which Dr. Oz was peddling."
"Listen, this is not about me. What about Acai berries? Zinc? Super C? "
So, here it is: I am going to drink my Goji berry juice (a powerful antioxident, everyone agrees on that ) get a shot, take my extra C and maybe take zinc (two people I know swear by it) plus eat all the vitamin loaded good stuff I already swear by, and hope for the best. And I better not get sick.
But, my daughter put a positive spin on it. "Look at it this way. You'll just lose those stubborn last 40 pounds a little faster." Ah, the annoying cheer of youth.
Listen, Sugarplum, I thought , if you knew how much I can bench press, you'd be calling me Mom Ma'am.
"Well, I sometimes have to shake as lot of hands, " I said, "and I don't want them to feel like I'm a stable hand in my free time."
"You still shake hands?" she asked in amazement? "That is so germy. Everyone I know just hugs."
And blowing your germy breath into someone's neck is more sanitary? I wondered .
And that brings me to my question. Just what do you know about Goji berry juice? Or Acai berry, for that matter. And does Airborne really work?I have been thinking a lot about contagion lately, ever since the the We Now Have Flu Vaccine sign went up at the Kroger doc-in-a-box.
I usually deal with cold and flu season by not going out much. Now that my children are grown and I don't do school related things, and I no longer work with little kids, I can have pleasant solitude for a good part of the winter, which is fine with me. This fall, however, my calendar is buzzing with unaccustomed activity, the germiest probably being airplane flights and the gym.
Call me flirting with danger, but I have never had a flu shot. Ever since my mother-in-law nearly died from her flue shot (either the shot, or she got the flu at the doctor's office, also entirely possible) I have avoided the "Elderly should be vaccinated" warnings and the AARP scare literature and have been vaccineless and flueless. But now, I think I may have pressed my luck far enough.
I toyed with wearing a mask on the plane. Not some merry Halloween interpretation of Lady GaGa, but one of those staid white medical masks like the Chinese wear in their polluted cities or that Japanese seem to wear just because they know something we don't. That could be a good way to avoid chatting with my seatmate, so it has some appeal.
Of course there will be an excessive amount of hugging and insincere air kissing at my reunion. If I had known fifty years ago that I would be expected to hug and kiss some of these people, well, let's just say, I would have used them even more cruelly as characters in my books than I already have. But it's never too late.
Anyway, on to the remedies. I posed the question of Goji berry juice to Kay and MaryBeth when we had lunch last week.
"I wouldn't know a Goji berry if it came up and bit me on the leg," Kay said, although perhaps a bit more colorfully.
"Well, an acquaintance of a friend had cancer, and he went into full remission after drinking huge amounts of Goji berry juice for several months," I said.
"So you decided to drink it, too?" Kay was unimpressed. Kay had cancer, too, and she got rid of it after chemo and a diet of eggs fried in bacon fat.
"Well, yes, sort of, " I said. "But only 3 ounces a day. It doesn't taste bad."
"Boy, are you a sucker." Kay dug into her unusually healthful lunch of sliced steak on a green salad.
"She is," MaryBeth unhelpfully added. "I can attest that she has an entire kitchen drawer full of Green Coffee Bean capsules, which Dr. Oz was peddling."
"Listen, this is not about me. What about Acai berries? Zinc? Super C? "
So, here it is: I am going to drink my Goji berry juice (a powerful antioxident, everyone agrees on that ) get a shot, take my extra C and maybe take zinc (two people I know swear by it) plus eat all the vitamin loaded good stuff I already swear by, and hope for the best. And I better not get sick.
But, my daughter put a positive spin on it. "Look at it this way. You'll just lose those stubborn last 40 pounds a little faster." Ah, the annoying cheer of youth.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Temptation, Thy Name is Cheesecake
Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in years. In fact, I can landmark when I did it last. There was a Woolworth's Five and Ten in Ansley Mall. That's how long ago it was. And I did it this time because of my friend Kay.
Over one of our horrendous, cholesteral-laden breakfasts, I lamented that I was planning on trying on a few of last winter's clothing items, and I wished there were a way to save some favorites without expensive alterations. I was thinking particularly of a black and white tweed jacket.
"Simple," Kay said. "Just slap a belt on it. You put a black belt on that sucker, and it'll be brand new."
Hmmmm, I thought. A belt. They show this all the time in the fashion mags. It might even give it a little peplum effect around the hips. Peplums are in this fall. I was obviously not thinking clearly, since the models in the magazines are about twelve years old and as big around as my finger. Of course they can well afford that fanny ruffle. They haven't got fannies, for God sake.
So that is how I found myself standing in front of the belts at my local Target. Since I bought my last belt at Woolworth's, not a lot has changed in the belt world, as far as I can tell. They are still generally made for women with waists. Losing weight or not, a waist is not really in my future. It wasn't in my past, either, but I didn't let that deter me from making the purchase.
I picked out a black belt with many grommet options which would let me strap myself into the boxy Chanel-esque jacket so it would look a bit less like a cozy tent for a family of four. Instead it looked as if I had decided to strap closed a piece of luggage with a broken clasp that I just happened to be wearing. Not the effect I hoped for.
But I haven't returned the belt. Maybe I'll put it over that white "big shirt." It looks like a lab coat, now, with snappy pleats down the front. At least a belt, any belt, is something of a triumph. I am advancing into core exercises now. In case you aren't up on fitness lingo, "core"is pretty much the same thing as "gut."I am working on having less core, although that isn't how they put it in the fitness world. I am "toning" my "core," presumably so I can tie my sneakers without needing oxygen.
Tonight I lifted weights while I watched Masterpiece Theater. I deeply wanted a cup of coffee and a slice of cheesecake with a swirl of strawberry chocolate ganache as the label so cruelly taunts. And curses on the person who brought it to my dining table and refused to take it home, knowing full well I couldn't put its beautiful swirls down the disposal. There is a ring of hell especially mentioned by Dante for just such a sin. This Pilgrim is making progress, and I wasn't an English major for nothing.
Over one of our horrendous, cholesteral-laden breakfasts, I lamented that I was planning on trying on a few of last winter's clothing items, and I wished there were a way to save some favorites without expensive alterations. I was thinking particularly of a black and white tweed jacket.
"Simple," Kay said. "Just slap a belt on it. You put a black belt on that sucker, and it'll be brand new."
Hmmmm, I thought. A belt. They show this all the time in the fashion mags. It might even give it a little peplum effect around the hips. Peplums are in this fall. I was obviously not thinking clearly, since the models in the magazines are about twelve years old and as big around as my finger. Of course they can well afford that fanny ruffle. They haven't got fannies, for God sake.
So that is how I found myself standing in front of the belts at my local Target. Since I bought my last belt at Woolworth's, not a lot has changed in the belt world, as far as I can tell. They are still generally made for women with waists. Losing weight or not, a waist is not really in my future. It wasn't in my past, either, but I didn't let that deter me from making the purchase.
I picked out a black belt with many grommet options which would let me strap myself into the boxy Chanel-esque jacket so it would look a bit less like a cozy tent for a family of four. Instead it looked as if I had decided to strap closed a piece of luggage with a broken clasp that I just happened to be wearing. Not the effect I hoped for.
But I haven't returned the belt. Maybe I'll put it over that white "big shirt." It looks like a lab coat, now, with snappy pleats down the front. At least a belt, any belt, is something of a triumph. I am advancing into core exercises now. In case you aren't up on fitness lingo, "core"is pretty much the same thing as "gut."I am working on having less core, although that isn't how they put it in the fitness world. I am "toning" my "core," presumably so I can tie my sneakers without needing oxygen.
Tonight I lifted weights while I watched Masterpiece Theater. I deeply wanted a cup of coffee and a slice of cheesecake with a swirl of strawberry chocolate ganache as the label so cruelly taunts. And curses on the person who brought it to my dining table and refused to take it home, knowing full well I couldn't put its beautiful swirls down the disposal. There is a ring of hell especially mentioned by Dante for just such a sin. This Pilgrim is making progress, and I wasn't an English major for nothing.
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