I have been dieting since I came here by way of the womb.
Today I had to take a link out of my watch because it was sliding around too
much. Darn it, who cares about my wrists losing weight! I didn’t give up Ben
and Jerry’s American Dream ice cream for smaller wrists. How did that happen?
Last week I shoveled snow 3-4 times a day for five days in a row and I was as so
happy, thinking all that exercise was going to result in my pants feeling too
big. Nope, it had to be my wrists that got smaller. I was so hungry last week with
all that shoveling and cold air that I told the dog to stay clear or he’d find
himself in the microwave.
Today I’m supposed to send my doctor another fatty-fatty-two-by-four
Accountability Report and this month’s email can’t be written by my Ms.
Sunshine persona. After a few ups and down I’ve plateaued with only a two pound
loss for this month. How will he react? Will he let me slide by on my laurels?
After all, over the past four months I’ve lost the extra pounds I put on in my first
nine months of widowhood which is what he wanted me to do. But will that be
enough to make him happy? Will he want to haul my butt down to his office to
admire my slimmer wrists if I mention them in my report? I could just “forget”
to send the email. He won’t miss it what with all the people coming in to his
office for stuffy noses, acid reflect and cancer.
Yesterday I went to the first of six “cooking for one” classes
that I signed up for at the senior hall. This month’s class was on making healthier
deserts. The instructor, a wee-little dietitian from the health department,
wasn’t the least bit intimidated by cooking in front of 15 women who all
probably had at least 40 years of cooking experience under their belts----that’s
600 combined years in the kitchen! No matter what questions were asked the young
dietitian had an answer and a lot of the questions went right over my head. I
didn’t know, for example that good vanilla has alcohol in it let alone where to
buy Madagascar
bourbon vanilla in town. Nor did I know that vegans don’t use honey.
Apparently we’re going to use a lot of vegan recipes in these
classes. After hearing that I decided to swing by the grocery store on the way
home and pick up a couple of Black Angus steaks before the classes start making
me feel guilty for eating things with faces. Today we got to sample vegan
chocolate pudding made with avocados and she made fruit chai chutney that we’re
suppose to use every which way except on Sundays. They both tasted great but I
can’t picture myself making something that would tempt me to eat it all in one
setting. How is that any different than having Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer?
Silly question. Thanks to the class I actually know the answer---it’s all
about the nutrient values in the calories we eat. If I’m going to live to be
100 I suppose I should start caring about stuff like that.
I started reading a book for the first time since Don passed
away. I used to read all the time, belonged to a book club and couldn’t leave
the house without a book for fear I’d have a spare moment and be caught without
something close at hand to read. I lost my concentration for reading when grief
settled in for the long haul but for some reason an old classic caught my
attention last week---Lost Horizon which
was written in 1933---and since I escaped reading it in the past I figured it was
something I needed to do. I’m not enjoying the writing style and the character
development was so slow in the first 50 pages I could have baked brownies in between descriptions of
the main character’s facial features. I’m three-quarters of the way through the
book and the only memorial thing the 200 year old High Lama of Shangri-La has
said was, “Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue.” Maybe more
enlightening dialogue will come in the next quarter of the book. I hope so.
What good is longevity if wisdom doesn’t come with it? If I had picked up this
book while Don was still alive I would have quit reading it by page fifty. But
I’m afraid if I quit the book I won’t pick up another for years and I don’t
want that to happen.
I talked to a woman from my old book club recently and she
said it took her five years to find the concentration to read again after her
husband passed away. Sad, isn’t it, that widowhood affects us in so many imperceptible
ways. Ways that are not like changes in our weight where a doctor
notices and becomes a cheerleader to set our bodies back to square one
again. No one notices lost concentration and if they did they wouldn't ask us to send an
accountability report when we’re trying to get it back. No one notices or
expects an accountability report when tingles of sadness come with signing up
for classes on cooking for one. We widows move ahead in such tiny steps---like
the character development in Lost Horizon---that
we can look like we’re standing still. But we’re not and that’s worth
celebrating with Ben and Jerry’s. Oops! You didn’t hear that. ©
