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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.)

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.