Puns and Buns: coping with (non) weight loss

Bathroom scales are like 2 AM phone calls: they are either the wrong number or very very bad news. (TM)

Don't even think of stealing this little Ben Franklin-esque nugget! I've trademarked it, see?!? I plan on plastering it on decorative tiles, coffee mugs, key rings, and other tchatchkes, so that while I may never be thin, I can at least make money to console me.

It'll be sold right next to the current popular axiom, "Friends are like bras: close to your heart and very supportive." (I happen to prefer mine.)

So, if you're wondering if my pithy little truth springs from actual experience, the answer is, yes.

I hopped on the scale this morning, feeling less bloaty and a little leaner. Damn scale put all that to a screeching halt. This is very disappointing to me, considering that I have been exercising regularly, and have improved on the calorie intake front.

The first person who jumps on down to the comment section and posts that muscle weighs more than fat will be personally macheted to death. I don't care if muscle is a lead weight. I used to have muscle AND weigh less than this, and I'm pissed about it. I have gone from forlorn to out and out mad.

At the risk of having my children removed from my home by DFS, I will post yesterday's food journal:

Breakfast: snack sized protein bar, coffee w/ skim milk

Lunch: Bratwurst, sauerkraut, diet coke, coffee w/ skim milk

Dinner: 2 bourbon and Coke Zeros, 1/2 bag of lite popcorn

Exercise: 2 mi. jog

(We went out to lunch, Osman's Midtown yum! So we weren't hungry for dinner.) Don't you think that after that day's worth of food, I should be thinner, or at least not so freaking mad?!?

Doesn't my scale understand that throwing me a little bone would go a long way in psychological terms?!? Would it hurt the little effer to just knock a half pound off the total now and then?!? Just once in a while?!?

M, if not the scale, is supportive: he'll tell me the weight has at least left my third chin, or that my upper arms are less swingy. These are the little tidbits I live for--a glimmer of hope among the Oreos and sweet tea vodkas.

Auld slang lyin'

I'm relieved that I made, and failed to keep, my new year's resolution early. It really saves me from the crowds at the gym the next couple of months. While I have exercised on and off since my kids were born, I was in a real, um, inert phase there for a while.

Now that I'm back into either walking or 'running' every day, I feel
a) entitled to eat a little bit more
b) more aware of my health in general
c) I should do other small things to be healthful

and, I don't dare tell CC about this, because someday when I'm off this kick, she'll use it to try to motivate me (curse her and her positive motivation):
d) like I kinda look forward to exercising each day.

Shh. It's totally the kind of thing I don't want to get out there.

But don't expect to see me at the gym or the health food store anytime soon.

I have one simple goal, for one simple reason:

I want to be skinny.

For vacation in March.

I finally have a deadline. I hope I have the willpower to make the goal happen. I doubt it, because let's be honest; seasonally available Oreos are both rare and delicious. Also, unless there is a global run on cheese and bacon, there is still a TON of food out there that I love.

I don't want to have abs or anything. I want to weigh 8 lbs (ideally 10) fewer than I weigh right this second. Well, not this second, but what I will weigh in a few days. (I've got the major PMS bloat, which makes me both heavy and MEAN.) This is not an unattainable goal. As long as there is somebody around to duct tape my mouth shut after a single helping of every meal. And as long as somebody invents a calorie-free way to approximate the nearing bliss of cocktails. (Let's keep it legal. Heroin would be great, of course, but the track marks would really distract from my figure in a swimsuit. No matter how much weight I lose or don't.)

Look. I'm vain. I get it. Do I care about my heart? Not really. Blood pressure's fine. Cholesterol is manageable. I visit doctors when I'm supposed to, and promptly ignore them. I don't want to run marathons or be a fitness model, or have washboard abs or be able to wear sleeveless dresses again. I just want the clothes I already own to fit better.

The journey of a 10 pounds starts with a single step. Maybe if I write everything down, I'll eat less.

I'm even drinking water right now.

Actually, that's not true. I'm drinking diet soda.

I need to work on the honesty of my food journal.

I guess I broke that other resolution early, too.
Shit. The whole new year's shot already.

And a partridge in a pear tree

Thank goodness, we survived. The holidays are over. The traffic, the insanity, the crazed WalMart death stare of the general citizenry is all gone.

Yah. That's right. I said it. I'm GLAD. I can say whatever I want because it's December 26th.

The best part, of course, is that I don't have to hear any godforsaken Christmas songs until next October, at worst.

I'm done with carols for the year
falalalala
I'm done with everyone else's cheer
falalalalala
I'm done with this assault on my ears
falalalalallala la la la.

Some of the worst offenders:

Silver Bells
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Up On the Rooftop
Jingle Bells
The Twelve Days of Christmas

Even Cookie Monster cowtowed to the Facebook pressure, appeared on SNL and sang freaking carols with Jeff Bridges.

The Dude does NOT abide.

Another thing, while I'm Grinching it up. What is the deal with Jewish songwriters and the nauseating yule tunes? Yes, all of these were written by your circumcised friends, and some of them were famously penned in July:

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays
I'll Be Home for Christmas
Silver Bells (again...blech)
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
The Dread (above mentioned) Rudolph
White Christmas
Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (The Christmas Song)
Winter Wonderland

I'm blaming you, Irving Berlin. Okay, to be perfectly honest, I have a special place in my Harry and Sally-loving heart for Winter Wonderland. And at least these songs had the dignity to be recorded by velvety-toned crooner stars of their day before being slaughtered by every dolphin-pitched diva of my lifetime. But that is the only slack I'm cutting.

Why? Because not one of these famed Jewish songwriters could be bothered to put pen to sheet for Hanukkah. Oh, no. They left that task to the hapless Adam Sandler, who is:
a. not funny
b. not a songwriter
c. not really terribly appropriate for children
d. set his music to a movie flop that was neither a nor c.

ADAM SANDLER?!!? Christmas gets Irving Berlin and Jews are left with a crappy series of guitar chords claiming to be a song, but really is a list of dubious celebrities with equally dubious Jewish lineage. FOR REAL?!?

When I went to the kids' school to talk about Hanukkah, and was doing my part to convince 80 six-year-olds that
a) Hanukkah is fun
b) Hanukkah is as good as Christmas
c) Jewish 6 year olds think Hanukkah is a and b and do not resent Christmas at all

I realized that I was describing families playing "games" involving a top; eating fried vegetables; lighting birthday cake-sized candles; and singing "songs."

Really, not the most convincing talk I've ever given.

But the "songs" mentioned in one of the "Hanukkah really IS cool" books, subtitled "so are Orthodontics, Calculus, and 401Ks", SUCKED!

The first Jewtune, of course, is the Dreidel Song. Which really isn't a song at all, since 87% of the lyrics are, in fact, just the word dreidel. Not a song, really, so much as something to hum until your top stops spinning.

The second song, even WORSE, is O, Hanukkah. Worse, because 93% of the lyrics are the word Hanukkah. AND because it's simply sung to the tune of O Tannenbaum. To paraphrase Seth Meyers (a third reference to SNL tonight, and the only funny one so far) REALLY?!?

• The whole of the songwriting industry talent is Jewish, yet plagiarizes a Christmas carol?
• A Christmas carol from GERMANY?
• IN GERMAN?!?

And, yet this is where the world is. The way I see it, there are 11 months between now and next Hanukkah. I propose a Festival o' Lights song writing contest. I'm not going to limit entrants to the Chosen folk--Taylor Swift, you've had a helluva year, bring your best--even Andy Samberg who suffers from the Adam Sandler A, B and C mentioned above--can contribute.

I DO want quality submissions, though. I don't want recycled carols, jokes, self-deprecating Jewish humor songs, lists of Jewish celebrities, songs about watching wooden toys spin.

I want celebratory! I want majestic! I want flames flickering! Gelt gleaming! I want Maccabees aplenty! I want to revel in it.

Neil Diamond, I'm looking at you.

The stations of the trash can

I want to start off by saying I painted a flattering picture of my husband in yesterday's post. So, when if have a few harsh things to say in today's post, everybody better pipe down. I'm lookin' at you, M.

Last week was an unbelievable week: department parties, PTA meetings, last minute holiday breakfasts with friends, school parties, errands, last minute gifts...on and on. Thursday morning, I took my kids to school at 8 AM and did not come home until 9 that night.

Look, I don't want to show off the sparkly cross I'm schlepping around or anything. (Sparkly? I'm just sayin' if I have an accessory over my shoulder, it's gonna be pretty.) because I complained mightily. I moaned and groaned, and every cashier who checked me out heard me complain about my head cold and accompanying aches and pains.

But.

This week, M has contracted the Illness. Granted, it seems to be a little more severe than mine, as it involves nausea and stomach pain.

But.

This morning, at the last possible minute, I heard the trash man pull through the neighborhood. He whizzed past our house. I, in my pink polka dot night shirt (shut up) scream "TRAAAAAAAAAAAAASH" and head out the door. I'm barefoot. It's like 60 degrees out there. My street is all rough stones, not paved smooth (we live in Alabama. Roads are for Northerners.) I'm dragging the trash can behind me.

Trash man has emptied next door neighbor's can.

I'm running across the street, jammies and bedhead blowin' in the breeze. Trash can is rumbling across that uneven street, and I'm sure every one in the neighborhood can hear it.

Trash man has emptied 2 neighbors down's can.

I race up on to the curb, situate the can properly for the automated claw thing and wave at the trash man. I self consciously situate my arms across the boob region....it's cold out there!

He empties the can and gives a little toot of his horn. The neighbors who live in the house whose curb I have requisitioned pull out of their driveway in a giant Cadillac. (Everyone in my neighborhood save 2 are elderly)

I have never met them before.

And now, I am standing on THEIR yard in my Suzy Whoo pjs with my trash can. Curl up and die.

I walk back across the circle of our street, dragging the trash can. The rumble o' shame. I come back into the house. "That was not dignified," I announce to anyone who missed it. I assume M is still in bed nursing his cold.

But.

He is not. He is in the front room watching the whole thing, bed head, Suzy Whoo, boobs, all of it. "Sometimes it's nice to take the garbage can for a walk."

I kinda hope it's ebola.

Technical Difficulties (again)

Last week, my computer died. It would momentarily start, flash Japanese lettering on the screen, which presumably translated to "you are totally screwed" and then die.

Of course, several things coincided with the death of the computer.

1. My parents were here. Which meant my mother, in her eagerness to help, would say things like, "maybe the floppy disk drive is faulty" or "Could it be the printer?" While earnest, these comments were insanely frustrating.

2. I had totally failed to back up my photos on the handy dandy external hard drive M has given me. All I could envision was the loss of my photos (excessively dear to me) combined with six months of I Told You So. Dread.

M handled things well. He refrained from the expanded "I Told You So" lecture, and only delivered the highlights. He managed not to scream at any of the non-techies living in the house who were offering advice (S: "Just unplug it, Daddy. That's what I always do when it doesn't do the right thing."). He performed an autopsy as best he could, given that the compact nature of my desktop is a labyrinth of wires and screws.

At some point, he stepped back and shook his head. "I can do no more." An ER-esque scene panned out: the various tools used in the rescue attempt scattered about, the partly disassembled carcass of the computer, the distraught family members peering timidly and sadly at the wreckage.

Bad news.

Fortunately, M hopped on the Internet of his own computer and found a computer dude: Danny the Computer Guy.

Ok, don't ask me. I didn't name him, for God's sake. Even my five year old was like, "what the hell? Why didn't he call himself Dan the Computer Man? It has a good rhyme." True that, S. True that.

DTCG lives in a little house down off Dauphin Island Pkwy. He looks like some one who would know the difference between a Hobbit and an Elf. I mean, really KNOW the difference. He agreed to examine the remains for free and give us a diagnosis.

Within 2 days DTCG had my computer back to me. The Lazarus computer, as it were. Everything was intact, we were only $99 the poorer, and amazingly, there was no D&D role playing in the Internet browser history. (Or porn, for that matter.)

DTCG saved my computer, and the short term health of my marriage as well. M brought our baby home, plugged it in, and I (begged him til he did it) backed up all the photos. Phew.

I will be happy to recommend DTCG to anyone in the area who needs PC help. But if he answers the phone speaking Elvish, you're on your own.

You don't care that they're laughing...

So, in mid-September, you may remember I wrote about the idiocy involved in fouling up my knee cap. Which, by the way, is still not 100%, but apparently I was misled by the whole 40 is the new 30 crap, so I should never expect to be 100% again.
I have decided to begin "exercising" again. Yes, I DO know how scare quotes work, but in this case, they are clearly needed. Exercising up to this point has meant going for a walk. It's a brisk walk, and 45 minutes long, but still. It's walking.

People have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. It's not a sport: no crowds fans behind ropes cheering (verrry slooooooooooowly) for their favorite walker. Jersey sales for the walker league are next to nil. Nobody wants the #8 trading card of the 2000 walking season champ. So what I'm saying is, I have resumed doing what every person in Manhattan does every day for a living.

YAY ME!

The thing is, it takes up too much of my day. Stop laughing. For real. I have important stuff to do: pick up my house, put away laundry, iron, errands, blog, drink.
That 45 minutes is a big chunk. So, I've decided what I need to do is cover the same distance, only faster. You know what they call that? Running.
Homey don't play dat.

The many, varied reasons why I do not run:
1. It hurts
2. I look like Phoebe from friends (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_0Ta_DIWuU&NR=1 ) copyright? What copyright? Thanks, NBC.
3. It hurts
4. I might fall and hurt myself
5. It makes my nose run
6. My unusual running style (see #2) means that my armpit rubs up against my sports bra and causes chafing.

BUT, I do have a treadmill, which we have had since Ethan was born. It has been used sporadically, (but during those intermittent exercise jags, I do use it regularly) which is surprising because of its readiness to use as a dry cleaning rack.

So, on my treadmill, the Phoebe style doesn't matter because there's no one to see. I can run with a soft cloth tucked into my sports bra to protect my delicate underarms, I keep a box of tissue in the cupholder, and while falling is not out of the question, the odds are reduced.

Unfortunately, I STILL cannot run. The kneecap does not abide. But I can walk a heckuvalot faster on the treadmill. So, two days ago, amidst the pouring rain, I decide to hop on that sucker. No more uneven sidewalks, rogue dogs and sprinklers for me! I'm exercising in comfort, if one can call it that.

But, it's been a while since I had my last exercise jag. The treadmill is in the playroom, so I have to unearth it. Much like a paleontological project, I can see how long it's been since my exercise regimen went extinct by the layers of crap that are on top of the treadmill:

Pool noodles (August)
S's 4K graduation certificate (May)
E's Santa hat from last year's school play (December, '09)
...it's been a while.

I put on my ipod, and press "start" and that baby hums to life. But as the belt loops around at a neck-snapping 2 miles per hour, dust flies up. Like primordial layer of actual measurable thickness kind of dust. I'm walking exceptionally slowly and sneezing. Are those FOOTPRINTS in the dust?!?

THIS is not what I had in mind.

I pause, get the dust rag out, wipe it all down and start again. I finally get the hang of it. Armpit insulators are working well, tissues staunching the snot. Everything's going just right.

In the end, I finish my 3 miles in under 40 minutes. I snap a pic of the display screen and email to CC. I know my personality, and I know that after that fiasco, I need a cheerleader.

CC promptly calls and says, all flattery and encouragement, "I can't be seeing this right! You are smokin' fast!"

I don't care that she's just being nice. I don't care that there are 100 year old tortoises who could move faster. I don't care that CC herself probably ran 8 miles in that time, in the rain, uphill both ways, that very morning. I don't care because she is my cheerleader and I need that.

Every Phoebe needs her Rachel.