Goals for 2010.....fuck Matt Lauer

So 2009 is winding down and it's time for New Year resolutions. Can I just tell you that I hate resolutions. To me it seems like a first class one way greased slide to failure and believe me when I tell you that I need no help in this area. I recall too many December 31st's where I've resolved to quit smoking, lose weight, cut back on my funyun addiction, try to keep a cleaner house and maybe even buy curtains, and pull out the stove and refrigerator and clean underneath and aside from the curtain thing.......I've done all of these without proclaiming them in the form of a "doomed to fail" guilt driven resolution.

I saw on the Today show this morning, Matt Lauer introducing a segment where a woman had lost half her body weight.....wait for it.......without pills or surgery!!! THIS gets you a spot on the Today show! Evidently I am an anonymous part of a grass roots movement toward natural weight loss. That's right people.......there was the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines flight 253, Sean Goldmans Christmas reunion with his father after a 5 year court battle and a woman who lost weight without pills or surgery. Believe it or not kids, this is how it used to be done back in the 70's.

I am convinced that this lead story was designed to subliminally encourage people to join Jenny Craig and buy a thigh master and a Kymora body shaper and hurry up and schedule that appointment to get a good liposucking because it's time for fucking resolutions and for the diet industry to make more money off of fat people who are desperate to drop weight fast and just this once not to fail at it. My answer to all of my fellow fat girls at this time of the year is to take a deep breath......and fuck Matt Lauer. You really can do this without pills or surgery or Dr freakin' Phil. Time for my list-o-goals for 2010..... the bastard child of resolutions.

As I dangle here on the prepuce of financial ruin, my goals have undergone some slight alterations.I am dropping weight loss off the list (I think it goes without saying at this point) and am instead determined this year to achieve some degree of financial success creatively. I have bitched a lot about my talent and $1.37 getting me a coffee at Sheetz, but then I have never really been so panic ridden and motivated......not to mention being unable to spare the $1.37. This is my big goal for 2010. What follows is a list of my somewhat smaller goals:

I would like to find the strength to walk away from the "Twilight Zone" marathon for short periods of time. I don't know what it is about that cheesy freakin William Shatner fest that holds me like a stun ray emitting from a time portal in the twilight zone.

I would like the discipline to throw away one bag full of useless crap every week. I have too much debris in my life. For the record, the freeloaders don't count as debris.......except for maybe whoever is pooping in my shower.

I would like to call a truce with my remote control. You win. I conceded shortly after the cat vomited on it. Now my "guide" button doesn't work and if I weren't afraid that randomly pushing buttons would somehow bring back the country music, I would attempt to restore it. As it stands.....I can live without the guide button. Please just let me continue to live here.

I would like to spend much more time writing and painting......and less time dulling my senses and smoothing my anxiety by watching 1950's television reruns, and just for the record, Ricky never said "Lucy....you've got some 'splainin to do" ever. I'm just sayin'

I would like to cut down on the "Nancy-isms" These include pinching my finger in my cell phone, puncturing my neck with my keys while pulling my purse over my shoulder, standing in front of an automatic door only to have it pause........while it decides if I'm worthy of entering......as I stand......waiting.......before it finally opens, getting out of the shower only to realize that the towels are 2 floors down in the dryer, (see curtain reference above), perpetually forgetting where I left the car and finding out once I'm at work that I'm wearing one blue sock and one brown sock.

Thank you and goodnight

The cheese ball incident, and other short stories

I'm quite happy to announce that I managed to get through Thanksgiving and Christmas without gaining any weight. I had a few little indulgences but was able to leave it at that without the gorging and guilt and M&M's and double cheeseburgers. Of this I am quite proud, but just in case you're thinking that my holiday was without the weirdness that hounds me continually, let me clue you in........it was not and all is right with the world. The sun will continue to rise in the east and set in the west and the fabric of time and space will remain securely interwoven because I am here for the weird shit to happen to. As always, I ask myself " What can I learn from this experience?"

I learned that sump pumps have a set lifespan because mine passed quietly away during the massive snow melt. I learned that wet floors and kitty litter cause a nuclear bond when they come in to contact with the bottoms of rubber crocs that nothing short of scraping with fingernails and welders torch can remove. Mental note: try not to forget that sump pumps exist because they tend to remind you late in the evening during a historic rain event. I will call her Sally sump pump and she will be my friend........my new......overly expensive friend.

I learned that if there is a little blob of cream cheese on Hilary's kitchen floor that she stops and points out to me with her key lime cheese ball fingers ( mental note: It's not a good idea to mix cream cheese with your hands. Trust me on this one) and warns me not to step in,that a series of events have been set in to motion that will alter the space time continuum until an unalterable force exists between my shoe and the cream Cheese blob in question. From there, things quickly deteriorate in to Scotch tape throwing and me yelling "fuck the cheese ball" instead of "Merry Christmas"

I learned that as I age, I have a diminished capacity to know, understand or care that my face has a perpetually confused and dazed appearance. I expect to start swatting at imaginary flies any day now. Example: Hilary and I in Wal-Mart today with me looking for printer ink when I've forgotten the numbers I need or the make of my printer. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear Hilary's voice telling me to "let it go". I'm not ready to let it go......I need to find 15/22/21/96 HP fucking shit and I'm not ready to let it go goddamnit....why does ink have to be so expensive any way!? It's ink forchristsakes!!

It took Hilary gently prying my fingers off the cart and saying loudly "Mama...let it go!!!....that's NOT our cart!!!! before I realized I had walked away in frustration pushing a cart full of miscellaneous electronic equipment, leaving my purchases and purse parked by the ink. I am very thankful that Hilary was with me and is in a position of having to love me anyway. Her impression of me as she attempted to make me understand the cart incident caused me to laugh all my make-up off in the middle of Wal-Mart.

So knowing what you do of me.......what do you think the chances are that one of my cats will puke all over my Comcast fancy schmancy remote control? That's right!!.....100 freakin percent. What do you think the chances are that the person directly in front of me at the popcorn counter will spill their gallon jug pepsi all over my feet? Right again!!!.....100 freakin percent. What do you think the chances are that my dog will poop on a mound of snow right on the corner of someones driveway that he has to hike his ass up higher to poop on when he was fed almost 24 hours earlier and shouldn't have any poop anyway?? This is getting too easy, isn't it?

Any suggestions on how to get regurgitated seafood supper out of a remote control? Never mind......I'll Google it.

Men's Underwear

So Christmas is bearing down upon us and we here in the Northeast are getting hammered by a serious snow event that just happens to fall on the last shopping weekend before the holiday. Due to the wonders of modern meteorology we had plenty of warning of the oncoming blizzard. We knew that it would start sometime between midnight and 8:00 a.m. and would accumulate somewhere between 4 and 36 inches and be accompanied by wind gusts anywhere from 5 to 55 miles per hour. You really have to hand it to our brave little weather gnomes.........they know how to refrain from being wrong at all costs.

Aside from the fact that the dogs are running in tiny circles in my teenie weenie yard with only their heads visible, and my big toes are numb from being out shoveling freakin' snow that I'm pretty sure I'm too old to be shoveling (bring forth the young men on 4-wheelers with a plow attachment!!) I'm feeling a sense of accomplishment that at least the ambulance crew will have a clear walk to wheel me on.....and now that I'm 34 pounds lighter, will not have to cut a hole in the house to retrieve me.

So back to the shopping dilemma. With all this advanced warning, Hilary and I ventured out to try and wrap things up before the big snow. Hilary is interesting to shop with. She knows what she wants and will settle for nothing less. She hates to be rushed so be prepared to spend the necessary time for her to make her decision. Since I have no such "must have just the right item" compulsion, I have a little extra time on my hands that requires I come up with new and interesting tactics to entertain myself.

It all started when Hilary, shopping for stocking- stuffers for her fiance', announced that she needed "to look in men's underwear." I defy any of you to pass up a straight line like that! "Yes Hil.........lets go look in men's underwear", I announced loudly in the middle of Target. "It's been a long time since I've looked in men's underwear" I noticed at this point that she had extended the distance between us, requiring me to speak just a little louder. " I CAN TELL YOU WHATS IN THERE IF YOU DON'T KNOW HILARY" Fortunately for me, my daughter is unflappable after a lifetime with me as her mother.

Having arrived in the undie section we were assaulted by rows and rows of manly packages shining out at us in a variety of shapes and sizes. Everything from barely there "man panties", as Hilary called them, to Betty Boop boxers. Perusing the bulging packages quickly deteriorates in to giggling and sensory overload so time is of the essence. Sensing that we were nearing our saturation point, Hilary made a grab for the boxer-briefs-with-comfort-waist-band and we hightailed it outta there.

The drive home with Christmas carols blasting, knowing that very soon our world would be white and dirty grey for the remainder of winter, was a joyful thing. Until, that is, I made the mistake of trying to start over "Jingle Bells" by Frank Sinatra.......no one can sing Jingle bells like Frank........and managed to hit the mute button instead. Hilary's long and tried patience with me had reached an end.

"Mother!.........DON'T PUSH BUTTONS!!!! You muted Frank!.......No one mutes Frank when he's singing fucking Jingle bells!" Stop touching things"

Merry Christmas Ya'll

Internal fat girl

So....tis the season......for food.

It's during this time of the year that we at the Vet Clinic are deluged with goodies. Cookies and a truly amazing chocolate cherry cordial cake, and hand made candies and truffles and trifles and parfaits and snacks of all kinds are generously offered by our clients. It would not be at all uncommon for our array of treats to require an 8 foot table be set up to hold everything. Things are not quite like that anymore since the recession is requiring people to scale back on their chocolate chip and red sugar sprinkle related purchases. We still get our share.

So how to handle all this food and maintain my goddamned diet? As we all know.......sweets are not that hard for me to pass up , although a superbly made chocolate chip cookie is a thing of beauty that simply cannot be resisted for long. So far.....I have refrained from grazing to the point of bloat coma. The same could not be said for years past when a deluge of fudge and salty chips made up my entire food intake for the day. *BLAH!!*

What I want........what I really want.......is funyuns......and pretzels and cheese......and hard salami with a hunk of sharp cheddar.......and pecans roasted with butter and salt to the point of melt-in-your-mouth goodness. I want a lovely piece of rare roast beef with creamy mashed potatoes and gravy. Now I have high blood pressure and must limit these excesses as well. The plain simple truth is that indulgences for me must be strictly controlled or else my internal fat girl takes over and she is one hard-assed bitch on wheels folks.

My internal fat girl is suggesting that I postpone my goddamned diet until after Christmas. She feels that a few hundred extra cookies never killed anyone so why not just lighten up a bit and treat yourself to a 5 pound Genoa Salami to offset the sweetness of all those peanut butter cookies with the chocolate kisses in the center. She tells me that I've been so good about refraining from McDonalds double cheeseburgers that I ought to just have a few for old times sake. My internal fat girl is evil to the core. She is the Darth Vader of internal fat girls. She would like nothing more than to retreat to the failure that we know so well. Ahhhhhhhh.....failure........my old friend.......comfortable as an old pair of shoes.

So here's the thing people. My internal fat girl needs to shut the fuck up. I'm done with funyun related stupors. I'm done with food guilt. I'm done with trying to convince myself that I didn't really just eat all of that. I'm done with sore knees and hot flashes and only feeling good when I'm lying down. I have listened to her long enough. She needs to take a trip around the salad bar and get off my back.

No funyuns for you!!

Time to buy new pants

I've finally begun the process of letting go of my fat pants. I really love the feeling of loose pants for the most part. It's when the crotch begins to rub and chafe at my knees that I start to consider the possibility that they maybe, might be, possibly, may be juuuuuust a tad too large. I have reached that point. Last night I decided to try on a pair of pants that I bought about 2 years ago which turned out to be hopelessly too small then.

I picked them up to survey the basic cut and landscape of the garment. Yup......these are a lower rise which is never a good idea for me......but they do stretch which is a plus.......they don't really look like they'd be able to double as shelter in the event of a natural disaster so there's no fucking way I'll be able to fit in them. For years, my pants had to pass the "boat cover" test. If they didn't look like they'd be able to cover your average cabin cruiser.......they were a "no go". Imagine my surprise when they slid right on.

Pants buying has always been a source of great distress for me. I learned not to be too terribly alarmed at the size. What really mattered most was that they did not require me going in to a dressing room and trying them on. Seriously.......me?.....and a mirror?......and overhead lighting?? Just put me in a black bikini with white knee socks and combat boots and call 911 because I'm trying to cut my wrists with the price tag.

My plan was to find a size and type that fit....sort of... and just pick up extras as I needed them which translates to: whenever I wear friction holes in the inner thigh portion. This worked for a while, until pants that managed to pass the "boat cover" test failed to strain and creak past my thighs once I got them home. Lets talk some serious mental tap dancing to convince myself that the manufacturers were just cutting them smaller. You must know by now never to underestimate my ability to bullshit myself with a completeness that stupefies.

Over these last few months, I've gotten to the point where I'm able to say my weight out loud......to Hilary, but I can't say my pants size. The number catches in my throat like a hairball, so I've developed a new system. The good news here people is that my pants size "humpback whale" are finally too large to wear. My size "hippopotamus" are a little on the roomy side too, so I'm currently able to fit in to size "Rhinoceros". I don't think it's realistic that I'll ever be a size "gazelle" again, but I think that "zebra" might be within my reach. Isn't that just soooo much better!?!

I'm down 33 pounds....or 132 sticks of butter.

We rockin' on.

Cough Cough Sniff Cough grrrrrrrr

You would think that my giving myself an entire day to recover from my illness would suffice, but this bastard cold hangs on. When you live as close to the bone as I do, a much needed week in bed to nurse a head cold is simply not a possibility. I have spoken to Dr B about considering raising my yearly 3 days of sick leave to 6 weeks, but he's not going for it. I think the committee he discusses such things with consists of the three cats who reside at the clinic. Once they get an answer to him, I'm sure he'll forward it to me. Excuse me while I hold my breath.

Seeing as how I was up most of the night coughing, I've decided it's time to visit very young Dr Heather. I have crows feet older than her but shes wonderful and has been a great cheerleader through my Goddamned Diet ups and downs. So, back to being up last night.........I had a lot of time to watch TV which is never a good idea for me. Anything that isn't Andy Griffith or a cooking show tends to piss me off. OK......so....the cooking shows piss me off too....what's your point!!? Last night, it was the amazing Kymora Body Shaper. It will certainly explain the sharp elevation in my blood pressure to Dr Heather tomorrow.

So we have a parade of fat girls brought before us all wearing impossibly tight and clingy clothing that no self respecting fat girl who owns a fucking mirror would be caught dead in. Every bump and bulge is magnified as our poor fashion sense deficient ladies stand slump shouldered and withered like an unwatered plant, and talk about how much they hate their lumpy bumpy bodies. A quick step in to the dressing room and *Viola* all that blubber is pressed and squeezed in to a lycra body suit that has effectively "re-distributed" it. "I'm 10 inches smaller....I can buy a smaller size!!" they exclaim excitedly. "Oh my God!!....are....her earlobes larger!?" I ask Nickolai at 3:00 a.m. (He tends to ignore me during tirades.)

I have to wonder where all that re distributed fat goes? does it register as seismic activity when the body shaper is finally taken off at the end of the day? How many fat squeezing related fatalities have their been? If you were to fall down, would you bounce? What are the chances of your spleen getting pressed up in to your esophagus when seated while wearing the patented Kymora Body Shaper? I must know now.

"OK...for the before shot...look sad......awwww.....you're a sad fat girl....that's it, slouch...pull your hair down in front of your face. Now....the after shot......you're happy!!....happy squeezed fat girl standing tall!.....happy fat girl under flattering lighting......yay!!"

My favorite scene is the token skinny girl, who ever so gracefully slips on the "body shaper" and then slides in to her size 4 little black dress......an appreciative glance in the mirror and shes off to that super fabulous party. I can't help but picture the reality which includes a size 26 lady falling forward as she attempts to step in to her torture device and huffs and puffs and ruptures a rotator cuff while searching for the arm hole which is hopelessly lost somewhere in time.

Come on ladies!!!!.....Don't fall for this bullshit! Be smart, Be who you are!!...Love who you are!! We may not be size 4's but we have enough self respect to dress appropriately and strive for healthy bodies. Hating ourselves is not the answer and neither is being involved in a body shaper related bouncing accident, but if you ever are.....e-mail me okay?.....I'd love to hear about it.

Le Plateau.......again

I have been bouncing all around the scales here due to the holiday where I indulged in sinfully rich Thanksgiving goodies and lovely salty treats. Everyone is so impressed at how I turn down a luscious desert. Little do they know that me turning down desert is like a heroin addict saying "no" to an after dinner cocktail......it's just not my drug of choice people, but feel free to be impressed anyway. I'll be happy to suck it up and let you believe that I'm so terribly self disciplined. Let me just say that dipping the chunks of fresh sourdough that I was tearing up for stuffing, in to the pan of melted butter almost sent me growling to the corner like a bad dog, loaf and melty butter in hand. It would have taken a rabies catch pole to pull me away.

So let's review, shall we?

I have learned that eating an entire bag of baked Lays is a baaaaad thing, and will cause me to gain 3 to 5 pounds overnight. Re-losing those pounds takes a little more than a week if I'm being really good, and can be re-gained after a plate of cheesy fries with the family on Saturday. Do the math kids......"aaaaaaaand, I'm up 2. Aaaaaaaannnd, I'm down 3, aaaaaaaaaaand, I'm up one, Aaaaaannnd.....oh Hell........where's that bread!?!" It's not about the baked Lays, it's about learning to control those fat-girl impulses.

I have learned that as a fat-girl, I have a pre-disposition to greet every new success or bit of good fortune with a terrible headache and "an anxiety attack to go please" This little bit of fun awareness is new to me and may be at the bottom of why I'm a fat-girl to begin with, and why all my relationships have failed, and why my life has turned out so great (note sarcasm). OK.....so, it's really not so awful, but lets face it!.....money would be nice huh!?! I discovered this quite by accident recently when I received an e-mail from my online editor, full of praise for my writing, and details for starting up my blog for The News Post. I took to my bed like Grandma did when it was time to get Christmas cards out. I could hear the little voice in my head, "this is how you respond to success!?" Not a great road map to weight loss success.

OK......so....yes it is how I respond to success. Lets change that, shall we?

I have learned that it is in fact, not necessary to eat continuously from the time I arrive home from work until I fall asleep. I just enjoy it. OK....seriously, the point I'm making here is that bad habits can be broken. Maybe not all at once. Funyuns required a three pronged approach of reduced quantity, then forced substitution, followed by complete disentanglement. It took the strategic genius of General Freakin' Patton but I'm off funyuns......and baked Lays. I'm slowly letting go of the evening crutch eating.

So as I've long suspected, losing weight is not easy and not without unwelcome little awareness es that keep cropping up out of nowhere. I am determined however, to see where this twisty turny road takes me. I am determined to succeed despite my self inflicted programming to the contrary. This is Nancy, jumping in to the deep end in her symbolic, control top, one piece, black bathing suit with the ruffles to conceal her thick thighs. Certainly no one will ever see that you are a fat-girl with ruffles??....right??.....like a hippo in a black lycra tutu.

I'm down 31 pounds.......still........thats fucking what?....124 sticks of butter?? You wanna make somethin' of it!?

Sick Day

I'm home sick today and let me just tell you that my animals have gone completely insane. To say that the dogs have been a little clingy would fail to convey the degree to which they've been all over me today. The cats have also stuck close. Resting is difficult because the animals are wedged in against me at every possible bend or crevice. Misha has draped herself over my head and will not be moved. Dimitrius wants to be draped over my neck.

For a while there I was touched at how much they really care. "Awwwwww.......they know mama's sick and want her to feel better" Then it dawned on me that my fevered body was generating some pretty irresistible warmth on this cold and rainy day........little bastards. The dogs have never liked the cats getting too close and Willie has taken it upon herself to press her fuzzy face in to whatever infinitesimal space that might be found between me and the nearest feline heat seeking missile.

Since sleep is difficult amongst all of these freeloaders, I turned on the TV. Why did nobody tell me that daytime TV is a vast wasteland of infomercials and all baby daddy DNA tests all the time!? Who is freakin' in charge here? Is there some overpaid underage whiz kid controlling the programming!?Let me just say to you whoever you are, that the day of reckoning is approaching and you will have to explain Maury Povitch to the powers that be. Take that little bit of possibility to the dermatologist with you sport. I'm just sayin'

So I'm feeling lousy. For those of you that don't know me, I am a G I A N T B A B Y when I'm not feeling well. My sister Ann is terribly stoic about her health. "Hi Ann.....how are you?" "Oh..I'm better now" "What?.... you were sick?" "Yes....just a little walking pneumonia....but I'm feeling better now.......I'm out of intensive care" Alrighty then. I have a sniffle and people start screening my fucking calls. "Oh my God!!...it's Nancy again!......would somebody please take her some soup so she'll shut up!!!" Yes......this is my life. Hilary will call.."I'm so sorry you're sick mama....would you like me to bring you some soup?" *sniff* *cough cough* "yes please". "Well I can't because I'm working right now" Alrighty then.

Such is my life.....and I'm feeling puny......and....and......and I'm annoying even me right now.

Santa Baby

We have officially kicked off the holiday season. That means that I begin listening to Christmas music in the car during my extended 2 and one half minute commute to work. I am more than just a little ashamed to admit that I love Christmas music. Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" with all of that 1940's angst, always makes me cry. I smile at Dean Martin working hard to ply his date with alcohol and kisses as she repeatedly says "no" to spending what I'm sure would be a chaste night with him in front of the fire in "Baby it's Cold Outside" Yeah......that song would never fly today.

I sing along with them all.....really badly. To say that I can't sing is an understatement too vast to be easily grasped by the human mind. It would be equal to saying that the great San Francisco earthquake was reeeeeaaally inconvenient. I mean that I seriously can't sing. I discovered to my great amusement this year that my singing "Santa Baby" will cause the dogs to break in to a wrestling match complete with snarling and neck biting. "Santa baby....slip a sable under the tree.....for me"......grrrrrrrr.....snort snort....grrrrr......jingle jingle go the dog tags...."hurry down the chimney tonight" the dogs suddenly rush off for an impromptu lap or two around my tiny townhouse. Sad but true. I am convinced that if I were to actually finish the entire song, the dogs would explode in to a great mushroom cloud of fur.

The music is one of the last great enjoyments I have of the holiday season. I don't put up trees anymore. I discovered that cats are designed by the Gods to remove any and all ornaments and lights in the bottom two thirds of a Christmas tree. My ordinarily stunning tree decorated with a collection of ornaments symbolic of our little family history was reduced to a giant, really sad looking cat toy. Worse......they would climb underneath and pee on the festive Santa tree skirt. I now go to Hilary's house if I need a tree fix. She is the keeper of the ornaments not destroyed or otherwise peed upon by the Godless heathen four-legged freeloaders who occupy my home. Yeah....you know who you are........you there.....sleeping in the sunny spot looking cute and all......bastard animals.

So aside from my ability to induce seizure activity with my lilting and dulcet tones, I do enjoy my Christmas music. For me.......the fun is now...the music.....the lights.......family and friends.....coffee with Vicki......cinnamon rolls with Hilary.....shopping.....pretty paper and bows.....all "It's a Wonderful Life" all the time. The actual event is a bit anticlimactic really. OK.....I know what you're thinking. "Does she buy presents for the freeloaders?" The answer is "No" I figure that as long as I can't deduct them on my tax returns, they're lucky to get freakin' fed. Do I really need to buy a gift for Nickolai who systematically removed the stuffing from all my bed pillows? or Misha who pooped in the bathtub? or Quatro, who stalked, hunted, and then killed an entire 5 pound bag of potatoes? I don't think so.

"Santa baby.....a '54 convertible too, light blue.......I'll wait up for you dear....Santa baby....hurry down the chimney tonight"

Well......that's one way to empty the sunny spot. Nap time!

Black Friday

OK...so Nancy's Goddamned Diet has taken a short holiday siesta to allow for your usual holiday fare and family-like traditions. For me, these include a tremendous amount of forgetting, some cooking, and at least one panic attack because I'm so fucking broke. The forgetting seems to occur mostly at the grocery store at which I spend a freakin' massive amount of my time because I can never remember to get everything at once. Managing to get it all at the store is only half the equation because the rest involves getting it to wherever I'm going. This means at least two trips back to the house........and it's getting worse as I age! As for the panic attacks.....I'm an equal opportunity attacker......I can have them at any time but seem to prefer festive holiday occasions.

This Thanksgiving included my first foray in to the "Black Friday" morass of......what?.....humanity maybe? Hilary talked me into going with her. We headed out to the stores at the un-godly hour of 8:30 a.m. Do real people get up this early on a day off??!....really??? Some obviously mutant forms of human beings actually head out at midnight!!!!All for the acquisition of that must-have holiday item. I have to admit that I actually got in on a doorbuster that was more my speed.....one that lasted from 9:00 a.m. til 1:00 p.m. It required that I walk past the display, read the sign and pay for my purchase at the sales counter. Done and done. Thank-you and goodnight.

Our drive in was about as usual. Hilary fussing at me to stop pressing buttons. "Mother, what are you trying to do!?...would you please stop touching things!" "I was just trying to turn off the radio" "Well, you need to stop because you are just fucking up the bass" "Well how do you turn off the radio!?" "You ask ME to turn it off!" "Mother!! what are you doing now!" "I'm trying to turn the heat down" "You just turned on my freakin' four-way flashers!....ok...ok......STOP!!" We have a great relationship Hilary and I. No really......we do.

Our first stop was Kohls. This was also our first mistake. Kohls is where all the large herds of crazy women go to stampede. The earth rumbles as they scurry past pushing undersized carts full of coffee makers and blenders and bread machines. Their eyes are glazed over as they defy the laws of gravity by balancing 8 feet of towering crapola in their little 2 foot carts. They are on a mission....they are clearly possessed by the dark lord.......and they have the unlimited credit that's only reserved for the wives of short, slope-shouldered, balding men who's only refuge is their work......God bless-em! Purchases secured, they head for the check out. I could actually see cob webs beginning to form on some of the people trapped in a line that wrapped around the store more than once.

What I did not see was a weak-link member of the herd. You know...the one little, sorta scrawny looking lady standing in line with one pair of isotoner gloves. I think the others would have smelled her weakness and devoured her on the spot. She was smart and stayed well hidden. The lines were made up entirely of booty laden herds- women. While Hilary was off checking out the great prices, my job was to take a number and wait at the jewelry counter. I mistakenly took two numbers. This is me we're talking about here after all. Little did I know the pandemonium soon to ensue.

Once our number was called, Hilary went off to look at her choices and I made the rookie mistake of offering my "gunna-be-called-next" number to whomsoever wanted it. Lets just say I was happy to have my hand back because for a split second there, it was touch and go. The lunge for my laughably inexperienced hand caused a ripple effect that could be seen around the store like a tidal surge.......all I could hear was the sound of rushing feet and somewhere off in the distance, a coffee maker falling from a great height. The rest is a blur.

The Food Junkie Channel

I have to admit that I am completely captivated by the Thanksgiving cooking shows on the Food Network. I will watch anyone cook a turkey. Sad but True. I'll even watch the annoying hosts cook a Thanksgiving meal, like Giada, who has a smile that makes me want to bitch slap her in the mouth. Must she be so happy all the time? Then theres down home with The Neeleys. Those two seriously need to get a room or something. His "he he he"-ing and her "ting-a-ling-a-ling" ing just drive me to distraction......but they're cooking holiday dishes and I must watch.

I've loved cooking shows for as long as I can remember. One of my early memories was watching Julia Child completely destroy a holiday yule log. By the time she was finished with it, it looked like a brown pile of what used to be cake with little meringue mushrooms stuffed in to it. Even as a child, I remember laughing my ass off at the vastness of her failure. It wasn't funny watching her struggling with this horrible mess of a dessert. It was funny during the parting shot where an obviously different yule log was sitting pristinely on it's bed of spun sugar. Poor Julia.....we love her so. She kept reminding us that it's a log and should look messy. We all knew the truth.

My favorite is "The Barefoot Contessa" I could watch her cook in her gazillion dollar kitchen at her little cottage in The Hamptons til the cows come home. Yes......she has a laugh that can bring on seizures.....and yes, real people don't have sparkly tables with little silver bowls of caper buds and plates of fresh figs. It's glimpse in to the good life that near as I can figure, is populated entirely by middle aged women and gay men,who all have copious amounts of free time at their disposal. I can only imagine real people helping themselves to a pre-dinner caper bud......or actually picking up one of those fresh figs to nosh. I can only smile as Ina encourages me to buy the best lobster meat I can afford. Oh Ina......you wouldn't last a day in my world.

So for those of us who can't eat butter and heavy cream, and who can't whip up a festive holiday flan, and wouldn't know where in the fuck to find a caper bud if our life depended upon it, there are our little TV friends in their perfect little TV worlds. I have to admit that I'm waiting for the moment when Rachel Ray unceremoniously drops her unholy arm load of ingredients. A girl can dream can't she?

OK.......what was I saying?

Since I have discovered the key to my several week long yo-yo trauma with the 3 pounds from hell, my body has responded by letting go of what seems like an unholy volume of liquid. Who would have known that baked Lays could illicit that kind of fluid retention. Certainly not me........my brain has been misplaced somewhere. I'm not kidding.......I'm brain-less right now. I think that in and amongst all this peeing, I'm losing a few brain cells. They are floating away like so much flotsam to the sea.

To give you an example, I have taken to having conversations with my niece Ellen without the benefit, or in fact, the necessity, of her actual, what?..... presence?. Riding home from the movies today, discussing the basic plot points and emotional punctuations, I leaned back and asked Ellen if she cried when Edward left. The only problem with this little pow-wow was that Ellen was driving home with her husband, traveling at high speed, in the opposite direction. I had said goodbye to her 15 minutes earlier. Somewhere between the restaurant and movie theater, my brain clearly fell... the.... fuck.... out.

OK....what was I saying?

Oh yes......the movies, and my general state of brainlessness. As frightened as I am of losing whats left of my fucking marbles, I am more frightened by the generations coming up behind me, and the vast majority of the public at large who are convinced that looking to the left is simply not necessary when making a right hand turn. At least I have a few brain cells left to lose, I wasn't born without them, and more often than not LOOK IN MY FUCKING REAR VIEW MIRROR when backing up. I'm just sayin' people. You know who you are.

OK....what was I saying?

Oh yes....the movies. So I'm sitting there in the dark. The movie theater is quite full, and despite numerous requests to turn off cell phones and refrain from texting, the theater is full of painfully thin 15 year old girls who periodically light up like clear blue beacons in the night sky. There they are....the whole theater aware of them as they're bathed in blue glow, madly working their thumbs. Now I ask you. These young girls paid to watch this movie just like I did. You know they aren't receiving an emergency text from home saying grandpa had a stroke......they are OMG-ing and WTF-ing and C U L8R-ing their way through the movie they drove to,and paid to see. I fear for this generation, and hopefully I will remember just enough to fling my bedpan at them when I'm in the home and these girls are the food service technicians and custodial staff.

I'm home now, and the doors are locked effectively keeping the world out there and not in here. I need to breathe and center and call the restaurant to see if anyone found a brain in the ladies room where I was madly waving my hands in front of the paper towel sensor before realizing there was a fucking button to press. Bastard paper towel dispenser manufacturer bastards. Why must they confound me at every turn. Do they not realize that I'm brain-less and in need of dry hands and not inspired to break in to an impromptu interpretive dance in front of a paper towel dispenser with a misleading red laser eye like button on the front.

OK.....what was I saying?

Oh yes.........the ladies room. I gotta pee.

Are you kidding me??!!

OK...so I've been struggling with unexplained weight gain. The interesting thing about mystery weight gain is that if you sneak a little peek at it when it thinks you're not lookin'..........you'll find that it's quite easily explained. For the last few weeks I've been losing and re gaining the same goddamned three pounds. "What the hell is going on here!!??" To say I've been a little frustrated is a vast understatement. My poor digital scale is suffering the effects of me repeatedly stepping on and off it and damning it to Hell because "that can't be right!"It has, in fact, developed self-esteem issues and will screw with me by throwing out a random "10 pounds heavier than I was a nanosecond ago" number. If it could spell out "fuck you" on it's LCD screen, it most certainly would. As it stands......my dearest digital gets her point across.

I've had a nagging suspicion that it has something to do with the baked potato chips that have replaced my Funyun addiction. I will be the first to stand up and say that I am a complete crunchy salty junkie. To give up real chips and Funyuns and gain weight off of baked fucking Lays has been a concept too horrible to face. In what kind of a just and loving universe is this allowed to take place!? How can I possibly be bundled up in my woolies, huddled under my blankie because the heat is set at 60 degrees, watching "Andy Griffith" episodes (don't judge......I'm also addicted to Barney Fife who never fails to make me laugh) snacking away on my beloved salty crunchy chippeys and gain weight? Reeeeeaaaally easy.

I went out to lunch with Hilary today. We had the salad bar even though I wanted to get chinese. Mmmmmmm chinese......so salty.....so high fat!! After finishing our salads we slipped over to the grocery store so I could pick up some shake-n-bake, and I mentioned my little problem to Hilary. She zeroed in on a bag of baked Lays and said "120 calories" "See!!" I said, then she continued, "for 9 chips" "WHAAAAAT.......are you kidding me??" "On what fucking planet do beings exist that can eat only 9 bloody chips at a time!!??!!" "MOM.........you have to read the labels" My attempt to read the labels did not go well. The ones that I could manage to see even with my bifocals required translation from Hilary. The rest were simply too small to see.

So I've learned valuable lessons today. Number 1: It sucks to get old. Number 2: take Hilary for clarification purposes to the grocery store whenever possible. Number 3: I WILL NOT substitute crunchy carrots for my evening fix......carrots will be consumed only by the guinea pigs. Number 4: The episodes where Barney sings are the best ever. Number 5: I guess I'll switch to pretzels...I can easily only eat 9 of them.

It's Friday in my ridiculous life, and I'm sitting here typing instead of crunching. I've walked the dogs who were more unruly tonight than I would have liked,and my digital clock says "8"....not 8:00 a.m. or 8:00 p.m.........just "8" It started saying "8" sometime yesterday and I've pressed every fucking button repeatedly. Why is everything digital in the house turning against me? My technology karma remains intact and unchanged.

8........really??

What the fuck?!

Pee pee feet

Can I just tell you that there are times in my life where I'd just prefer to be one of those stern looking middle aged women with perfectly clean houses. I'd be involved in church activities and I'd make cakes and cookies and I'd have doilies on the furniture. Instead I'm a veterinary surgical assistant and I have a house full of animals who are mostly assholes. Lovable assholes, but assholes nonetheless. I love what I do for the most part,but I've had my feet peed on twice so far this week and it's only Tuesday. It makes me pause and reflect upon my career choices if not my choice of foot apparel. Crocs are wonderfully comfortable for a busy girl on the go,but do little to deflect spontaneous urination.

I have been on a mission to get my life and my health and my....what?.......finances??....I guess....under something that seems like,if not actually akin to,something possibly resembling control....maybe. It's days like these where I'm dealing with a 3 pound weight GAIN after a weekend that included 2 lunches out,that I seriously wonder what the fuck I'm doing here. Can I just interject that being peed on is only one small part of being bled on and lactated on and managing to catch a forcefully ejected beagle placenta with one ungloved hand.........and it's only Tuesday. So I had an extra half a goddamned cheeseburger!!! did I really need a 3 pound smack upside my head for that!? Can the Gods not cut me a little slack here!!!

Oh.....I'm sorry......do I sound ungrateful?? Just because I was not blessed with all the qualities that I'm sure you're all sick and tired of hearing about, but have been blessed with a terribly high tolerance for grossness of all shapes, varieties and enticing aromas!??. I'm feeling sorry for myself, and discouraged, and I want some Funyuns, but I must be strong and re dedicate myself to my goddamned diet. Let me just tell you that it's not easy tonight. Did I not eat salad!? Did I not pass up the chocolate peanut butter brownies!?! Did I not even touch the sugar cookies!? Do I not have pee pee feet today!?!Did Nickolai not jump in my car after stepping in his own poop!?! Can I have a little amen here people?!?

OK.... breathe Nancy. Tomorrow is another day, and who knows what wonders may be in store if I hold firm and keep a smile on my face. Maybe at the end of my life there will be a bonus for all my good work. Maybe God will look at me and bless me for lending aid and comfort to countless sweet and soulful animals and for making a difference in their little lives. Oh Hell!....who am I kidding!....this is me we're talking about here. He'll probably say "beauty catch on that placenta Nance"

Thanks......'preciate it.

Q-tip Madness

It's a sad time when I can't walk the dogs because it's raining. It's not that I mind not exercising, but the dogs go slightly stir crazy. We have been house bound for 3 days now and the natives are getting restless. Let me just say for the record that my weight held at 31 pounds lost (or 124 sticks of butter) this week. This is what I get for not stepping up to tackle the dreaded two-headed, fire breathing, leslie Sansone monster. I've been coming home after dark and.......since I have no working mini blinds, have been reluctant to scare the neighbors with a stage lit view of me trying to walk in place.

With that said........and accepting full responsibility for failure to exercise my dogs for 3 straight days......there is no excuse for Nickolai's behavior. Lets just start with the Q-tips shall we? I bought a large box of Q tips for regular ear maintenance on my freakin' zoo animals and set it on the dining room table, where it was left for the night. I found them the next morning scattered all over the living room floor. Nickolai loves to open things and it's not like I don't know that about him. I cleaned up the mess and put them up high. I came home from work that evening and he had gotten to the Q-tips again. "Seriously Nickolai?!" I'm wondering how he managed. I clean up the mess again and stuff the box up on the bookshelf.

So by now you're wondering why I don't just put them in the bathroom cabinet like normal people. I like to keep them handy in the event of a successful kitty ear cleaning hijack mission. Those of you with cats will get my reasoning here. So the Q-tips are on the bookshelf and I find them scattered again on the floor. OK.....this is starting to scare me a little. He has clearly recruited the cats for his evil master plan. So, this morning I stuff them in a large glass vase on the table.......and again.....I came home tonight to scattered Q-tips. I think there may be 10 left in the box. The remaining 8 gazillion are mangled and wet and in the trash. So much for keeping them conveniently located. Nickolai's search and destroy tactics have seen to that.

Tomorrow is Saturday which means off-lead romping at the ponds. Thank God!!! My poor dogs are sorely in need. Last night I saw Nickolai waltzing in to the living room with a 2 quart glass casserole dish in his mouth. I had just finished the last of it and he decided it needed a pre-wash. What can I say?? the boy is multi talented!

My commute

As commutes go, mine is not too terrible. Those of you who know me well, know I'm being annoyingly sarcastic because I work about 2 1/2 minutes from my house. To those of you who have a real drive to work in the morning, try to refrain from throwing something at my head the next time you see me. Your restraint, as always, is greatly appreciated. Even though my drive is ridiculously short, the universe always manages to show me a potpourri of humanity's hairy under belly. This morning was no exception.

It's raw this morning. The wind is cold and blowing at a brisk pace and the rain is driving. Even a fat girl like me who is new to the chilly sensation, found herself failing to breathe between the front door and car. "cold cold cold cold cold.........DAMN!!!...cold cold cold cold." OK....I'm in the car now and take a moment to revel in my temporary shelter from the elements. I'm pulling out of my neighborhood and see a man on his back deck......poised against the driving wind and rain, hoodie tied tight around his chin and..........wait for it........smoking a cigarette. Yeah.....that's right....smoking a cigarette. How he kept it lit or even remotely dry defies explanation.

I found myself laughing at him not out of a sense of superiority, but a sense of empathy. That was me. I smoked for way more years than I am ready to confess to. As addictions go, mine was fairly mild. I gave it up a few years ago without having to bury my pack in the back yard to be freakin' dug up if I really needed a smoke, or having to plaster myself in nicotine patches. I never chewed nicotine gum. (Ive always felt gum chewing is a filthy habit.) I certainly spent my share of time suffering from exposure while puffing away on a cigarette. The only down side to quitting was that I gained 5 or 10 or 80 pounds. I've had to satisfy myself that it's better to be on a goddamned diet and healthy, than it is to be thinner and wheeling an oxygen tank around. Now theres a sexy look for you.

I stop at Sheetz for a coffee. Theres my girl Linda working her magic with the coffee pots. 100% arabica, special dark roast, breakfast blend, decaf of all kinds, Linda keeps those pots in motion in and among all of us blue collar types and veterinary surgical assistants staggering in half asleep. She pauses a moment to chat with me and tells me that she really has nothing to say but just needs to take a momentary breather from her duties. I laugh. Linda always makes me laugh. I tell her how amazing I think she is. She tells me that she has discovered the secret to happiness on the job......"walk fast and look worried" she says. I almost fall over laughing because shes right!!!....that is the answer!!!.......and I'm not ashamed to say it works!!!!

I pull in to work and it looks like a little country cottage in the early morning glow. I left the house 7 minutes ago and managed to have 2 really satisfying laughs. Our busy little veterinary clinic will soon be awash in animals in varying degrees of need. I'll get several kisses and cuddles from our furry patients and if all goes well, won't be in the path of explosive diarrhea today. We save that particular bit of fun for Dr Brooke. We love you Dr Brooke.

Life at the zoo

I think it's time for an update on my psycho pets. As you all know well by now, my house is a depository for animals with issues. Reasonable people have reasonable pets....they have a cat or a dog or two. They do not have a house full of slightly disturbed felines or dogs with behavioral issues. Using this logic, I have come to understand, if not accept, that I am not at all reasonable or even slightly normal. You might say that Nancy is a person with a large and giving heart and you might be correct. The truth is closer to the large neon "sucker" that flashes across my forehead. I am a pushover of the highest order.

Usually I can maintain a certain degree of denial about the cats because they never congregate all in one place. The exception to the rule is the dreaded feline chain reaction event that always involves blood being drawn and glass breaking. Let me give you an example of this horror. Please be advised that you may find the description graphic in nature.

It starts with a completely innocent event like the unloading of the dishwasher. Quatro somehow manages to knock the box containing 32 cans of friskies to the floor whereupon in hits the dogs water bowl sending a spray of water across the room landing on Jenna who screams loudly and beats a hasty retreat. Unfortunately Jenna's scream has spooked Jet Black who has a talent for breakage, and he has leaped up on to the counter sending clean glasses clanking and breaking in to the empty sink, which has frightened Diego who has thrown himself off the counter knocking a 2 liter bottle of diet sprite to the floor where it lands with a force that blows the cap off and sends a geyser of carbonated fizz skyward, which sprays Dimitrius who is on top of the fridge, who launches himself off the refrigerator using my head as a launching pad to propel himself to a safe place thereby drawing the necessary blood. All I am immediately aware of is the scurry of kitty toenails and Dimi on my head. When the dust settles........the kitchen is empty and soda is dripping from the ceiling. A nanosecond has elapsed.

Aside from attacking my ass if it brushes the shower curtain, Dimitrius has another talent which I discovered quite by accident. I have learned that it is never safe to allow Dimi in to the bathroom ever. While leaning my head over the tub to wrap my wet hair in a towel, Dimi decided to jump on to my warm, naked back. OK.......now what.....I'm naked....I'm bent over...and Dimi is perched purring on my back.......oh shit. I elephant man over to the sink to encourage him to hop off....he's not having it. He purrs and kneads and holds on tighter....ouch!!!....ouch......OUCH!!!!! OK, this is getting serious. If I have to call someone to take this freakin' cat off my bent over naked ass I'm gonna need some kind of intervention or therapy or something to deal with it. So time is passing and I've decided to reason with Dimi, "honey....mama needs you to get off baby.........Dimi......honey........." Now I'm wondering what the success rate might be for a sudden, quick and forceful upright motion. I'm building up my courage and taking a few cleansing breaths when Dimi decides that my naked ass is no longer warm enough to warrant perching. He hops off and goes in search of a sunny spot. Catastrophe averted. Mental note: always check for Dimi before showering.

This is my life.......honestly..........is it any wonder I sought escape at the bottom of a bag of Funyuns? I think not. Is it any wonder that I medicate occasionally now that I can't eat myself in to a beached whale stupor? I think not. Am I the only one in the world this shit happens to??...oh I think I am.

Lessons learned

So Ive been at this goddamned diet for 5 months now. That's just about 5 months longer than any weight loss program I've managed so far. I've never been much of a dieter but more a proponent of accepting yourself just the way you are, as long as you're very careful never to look closely at who you really are. Did I forget to mention that last part? If it makes you feel any better, I never mentioned it to myself either. I was way too busy fabricating large sand castles of denial and eating Funyuns.

I'm 5 months in and have learned one hell of a lot about myself and the truly idiotic plethora of supposed weight loss and exercise programs and support systems that litter our airwaves. My plan is to blame it all on Valerie Bertinelli.....and her bikini. I am here for all you real ladies out there struggling with your individual weight issues, not for those TV bunnies who write a book because somehow their personal chef staff and nutritionists dropped the ball and allowed them to climb to a size 8 which in TV land makes you a heifer of the highest order. Fortunately, Jenny Craig comes to the rescue with pre packaged, overpriced food for all you size 8's who need to be size 2's in a goddamned hurry. We can't have all you young girls out there thinking that women fill out or get fat as they age.....heavens no!! We need you to crash and burn at 40 so you'll spend tons of money trying to achieve that photoshopped look that we find so appealing.

......but I am not here to rant, as much as I enjoy it. I am here to help, so I'd like to point out a few things that I've learned in these last 5 months. If I am able to help even one of you, my work is well directed and infinitely worth it so here goes:

1) Avoid diet macaroni and cheese at all costs. It is made of a substance that is not of this earth and may even have one of those disclaimers that say "may cause greasy and uncontrolled stool" if you look closely enough. Do yourself a favor and allow the occasional mac and cheese.

2) Exercise is essential. Sorry girls. I can't even tell you how much I regret having to say this. You will simply never lose that fat ass if you don't move that fat ass. The best you can do is find an activity that doesn't completely suck wind in a major way. For me, it's dog walking although right now........that Nickolai just puked up some sort of body part, I'm thinking treadmill. Rotten little bastard.

3) Leslie Sansone is a minion of the dark lord, as are all of those ladies who dance/kick box their way to fitness and operate under the assumption that fat girls are coordinated and enjoy getting their sexy on while exercising. These programs are for size 2's who need to tone that teeny tiny little booty......and those women capable of walking in place which, as we all know too well, I suck at.

4) As my sister Ann has long suspected, farts, in fact, weigh nothing so don't even bother getting the scale out to check. I've tried. Even though your pants suddenly fit better....the numbers go nowhere. Life can be so unfair.

5)After a certain amount of dietary success, you will experience a strange and slightly uncomfortable bodily sensation. After consulting with numerous medical professionals and many Google searches I have come to discover that this sensation is called being "cold" Yeah!!!!.....I know!!...Who would have ever thought it possible. No wonder people complain in the winter and close their windows! Mystery solved......you're welcome.

6)Even though the makers of Funyuns and the entire dairy industry call and beg you to abandon your goddamned diet because their financial hierarchy is crumbling...hold firm ladies. I have a sneaking suspicion that they do not have your best interests at heart. Moving the Funyun display into the produce aisle was just un called for gentleman! You know who you are.

As of this entry, I have lost 31 pounds or 124 sticks of butter. I feel one hell of a lot better and can now trim my own toenails without losing consciousness. I'm thinking this is probably a good thing. To all my fellow fat girls.........you know I love you. Stay strong......and let me know what the plan is to dispose of Valerie.

Affluenza

My house is where all second hand furniture goes to die.....kinda like the elephant graveyard without the heartstrings or poetry. It's not like furniture has ever been terribly important to me but just once in my life I'd like a taste of the finer things. I'm talking about those obnoxious twelve year old pop star rappers or skateboard drivers who show up on MTV giving us a tour of their indoor mountain climbing simulator and 3 million dollar jewel encrusted G-string. I just can't watch them pull open their refrigerator to reveal 60 bottles of Dom Perignon and 4 cases of Kabbalah water and a jar of grape jelly. It's just too painful.

I don't begrudge them the spoils of their massive success. I'd just like them to write me a fucking check so I can press my nose to the glass for a few moments. It's not that I need or want an in home movie theater complete with ticket window, I'd just like the occasional new couch or new carpeting or even shower curtain or mini blinds or a new goddamned stove please, but as I said......my house is where all trappings of comfort or affluence go to breathe their last. I have animals....and work in the veterinary industry. That just about sums it up.

I have often said to anyone unfortunate enough to listen, that as I'm breathing my last and preparing to leave this world, I will most likely not be thinking "man...I loved that couch" I will be remembering family, friends, and my beloved psychotic, poo poo impaired pets.....and litters of infant kittens and sweet soulful canine eyes that reach out to you for help and all of those wonderful things that keep me from having cars and cocktail rings and hundred dollar moisturizing creme for my crows feet (I don't do birds). I have to remind myself that I've made my choices and they don't include affluence. They include effluence...and flatulence...and snot rockets. Such is the ridiculous life of my own choosing.

So as I sit here at my second hand computer (thank you Ted) at my second hand computer desk (thank you Jen) the dogs are huddled together with 3 cats on the only space that my body ever occupies on my second hand king size bed. Why do they do that!! I have to remind myself that life is important, and health is important, and everything else is just stuff, and even though the under wire just snapped on my last intact bray-zeir and my tires are balding and the credit card company lowered my limit because I just suck.........tomorrow is another day in my full time, mini blind less, one wobbly burner on the stove, new hole in the second hand couch, cat peed on the laundry encrusted life.

.......and maybe one day, the gods will take pity on my sixteen feet below the poverty level, lower middle class only in my dreams kinda life and grant me a little windfall.....even just for a little while. I can dream right? because the reality includes yet another animal in need and the hope that there are a few people left in the world that will actually still take my phone calls. So come look in my refrigerator little MTV skateboard fella........I'll show you diet sprite and 3 petrified peaches and a jar of pickles that I think may have been left by the previous owner. Come look in my romantic get away bathroom with a cat in the sink and vinyl shower curtain liner that doubles as a shower curtain which is in shreds because Dimitrius attacks my ass when it dares to makes contact. Come visit my parking space since I don't have a garage for my classic car collection and while your at it...I'll make you a nice lunch of lean cuisine lasagna if you promise to let the dogs lick the plastic tray before we put it in the recycle bin.

You'll love it.....really

Halloween update

Can I just tell you that I'm freakin freezing here. I can't tell you how long it's been since I've really been cold. As we all know, fat girls do need to be refrigerated and I'm right there baby. I definitely still qualify in that area even after a 29 pound or 116 sticks of butter loss. My heat stays at 60 degrees and I'm usually quite comfortable. I almost never even need a coat until January. It's November and I'm cranky and frozen. What the hell do you skinny bitches do in the winter??? electric undies??glove warmers in your bra?? what???I have resorted to hot showers in the evening......my skin is drying up like a large hunk of cream cheese left uncovered in the fridge. I can hear it now: "Man, Nancy looks great after losing all that weight but shes gotten so old!

Halloween was this past weekend and for the first time in 25 years, I didn't hand out candy. I felt really guilty about it for about 10 minutes which is my maximum time allowed for guilt, but to all you kids who didn't get a snickers bar from me this year, here's how it goes......listen and be afraid: 1 month prior to Halloween: "I need to pick up some candy for the kids while theres still a good selection (like there is ever a crappy selection of candy) 6 bags ought to do it. 2 weeks prior to Halloween: "Hmmmmmm....3 bags of candy....I should pick up a few more bags. 1 week prior to Halloween: "Wow....I'm gonna need more than 2 bags of candy....I need to pick up some more". Halloween night: "I'll just help myself to a few pieces....it's Halloween! The day after Halloween: I need to give the rest of this candy away so I won't be tempted to eat it" Lets just pause right here for a moment and soak in all the subtle levels of denial at work in my life shall we?

My apologies kids but for the first time in 25 years, I'm not using you as an excuse to gorge myself on candy. If it makes you feel any better guys, I'm really beginning to get in touch with my inner thin person. HEY....WHO THREW THAT!!!.....ungrateful little bastards. Maybe I'll give out toothbrushes next year you little wretches.

So anyway.......I'm suddenly freezing all the time and I've had no chocolate. Do I feel good about my goddamned diet? Yes....I still do. It's better to be thinner than to be warm and although I'm not nearly as popular with the neighborhood children, I'm really enjoying being able to put on my underwear without stepping on the crotch and falling forward. I'm enjoying not spilling food on my shirt front, and I really like not always having to sit in the front seat because I'm the fattest one. I'll just suck it up and buy one of those blankie things....Snuggies or Huggies or some such fucking thing whatever it's called. I can manage.

With the passing of Halloween also comes daylight savings. That means it's too dark to walk the dogs in the evenings. OK....so that's no excuse. I'll either have to walk the dogs or do Leslie Sansones walk-fit and we all know how much I love to walk in place. Since I have made it mandatory that one or the other must be done.....I'm moving heaven and earth to get off in time to walk the dogs. I wonder if Leslie will ever fully understand the impact my hatred of her program has had on my level of fitness. I'll wait til shes on QVC and call her crying about what a difference shes made in my life. "seriously...*sniff* I hate you so much...*sniff*.....you saved me from a life of obesity *sob* anything to keep from looking at your fucking sweaty smiling face...*sob sob*

Such is my ridiculous life

Coffee with Vicki

So I'm having coffee with Vicki this morning, not just because she makes the best damned cup of coffee In the world, but because she is a kindred spirit. Although you may think we are an unlikely pair of best friends because we are different in so many ways, we are alike where it counts........we were both dropped off on this planet accidentally when our transport stopped at Sheetz for a hot dog and we somehow rolled out the ass end. She reminds me as I remind her, that we are not alone in the universe. There is little or nothing that we fail to understand in each other. It's all the rest of you that confound us.

Vicki and I are Artists. I say that not to garner a compliment or to pat myself on the back for being gifted. It is only now, waaaaaay in to my forties, that I look on it as maybe sorta uh asset. So we didn't go to business school.......we didn't have long happy marriages........we don't have a retirement nest egg. We got to learn to live the tumultuous life of a creative person. That,my friends, can be quite a fucked up little thing right there. Trust me on this one. Take whatever preconceived idea you may have of the Artist blissfully painting away on a beautiful pastoral scene and shit can it. The reality involves bags of Funyuns and a wretched piece on the easel and the firm knowledge that this whole thing would be a lot easier if you just had some fucking talent.

Vicki and I share the view. That would be the view from the psychic hospital ward, where you are in a full emotional body cast, watching the universal road crew busily filling in the giant pot hole you just fell in, so no one else can get hurt. "You guys couldn't of gotten here yesterday maybe?!?" "No Ma'am.....didn't know the hole was there till you fell in" Alrighty then. Thank you and goodnight. OK....so you get busted up a little....but you get to produce these magnificent........ok so maybe not magnificent...these deeply felt........ok, so maybe misunderstood would be more like it......these universally accepted.......uh........ok so mostly overlooked......uh.......why do we do this again?? Because it's just who we are, or were, when we fell off the goddamned spaceship anyway. Who the hell knows.

So Vicki blocks out the waves of sensory overload by medicating and I wrap myself in acres of extra fat......and medicate.She loses her appetite and I stop at the store for Funyuns and orange soda. In our own individual and unique ways, we are learning to accept who and what we are. I laugh at the many things the gods have chosen not to bestow upon me but never address what they have given me, not the least of which is the ability to bounce when falling from a great height.........and color...and the scratch of a fine brush over canvas. Not such a terrible thing as terrible things go......and we have each other to share all of that creative wonderfulness with that I'm being completely sarcastic about.

My plateau has surrendered......down 29 pounds or 116 sticks of butter. As each layer comes off, a new piece of me resurfaces. Whouda thought there would be so much emotional work to do on a goddamned diet? If I had any fucking talent I might do a painting about it.

Top Chef

I love cooking shows. I love to watch all of that food, and cream, and butter being bandied about resulting in dishes lush with fat and unctuous mouth appeal. It's not that I want to eat all of the things I see.....I just like to see food handled....and comment on it to the dogs, "see...they ruined that with the dill" I'll say to Nickolai. He tends to agree with me because his tastes tend more toward cat shit. He lays his ears back and wags his tail and continues to lick where his testicles used to be. Nickolai feels that no dish can be enhanced by the addition of squid ink and he gets downright annoyed when it's suggested that spaghetti squash is a viable alternative to pasta. He and I frequently watch cooking shows together. His pointed insight is always refreshing.


Top Chef is one of my absolute favorites because the food is so obscure. I can sit back and wonder on what planet does Mom cook Cod with Parsley sauce,Billi-Bi Croquette and Zucchini Tenderloin fer' dinner. Even on a special occasion while dining out, you will not hear "man!...I could really go for some Tuna Tartare with gooseberries and a fried quail egg" coming from me. This sort of food exists in a world that does not include people like me. It is eaten by people whose palettes revel in squid ink risotto and tripe.......not so different from Nickolai and his cat shit predilection in my humble opinion.


Let me suggest to the powers that be at Bravo TV, that they consider a brief jaunt through my world. "For your quickfire challenge today, you will need to pull the meat off of two roasted chicken breasts while simultaneously fighting off six obnoxious cats who have mounted a three pronged chicken offensive. Your time starts now!!" "What do you have for us today chef Nancy?" "Well Tom....I have a raw mushroom salad with a yuzu emulsion" "PSYCH!!!.....not really......I have shake-and-bake pork chops and rice-a-roni cooked on a stove top with one wobbly working burner and an oven that is far too depressed to rise above 350 degrees today. Please enjoy" I can see myself losing the challenge to the guy who made a pot of puh-sketti with a jar of prego and 2 pounds of frozen ground chuck. Such is life in my world.

I have no regrets in this arena. Although the Gods chose not to bless me with a successful life plan or, a sense of style, or a smokin' hot bod, or the ability to engage in normal human relationships, or financial saavy,or............do I have any lorazepam in the house?........what was I saying?...........oh yeah.........regrets.....they did bless me with the occasional sense of the idiotic and access to pharmaceuticals which I suddenly feel a need for.

Boogie on ladies

I'm minding my own business this afternoon and I stumble across a little article profiling a dance club called "Bounce" that caters to fat people. I'm sorry.....that's "heavy set" or "larger framed" individuals. "Fat" is evidently no longer politically correct. This is a club where us fat girls can wear reveling clothing and very short skirts thereby publicly exhibiting our, for the most part, truly heinous sense of style (sorry ladies....you know it's true) Let me just remind you people that I am a fat girl and you would have to get me severely liquored up to even show my chubby ankles in public. Does that make me a traitor to the cause?.....I don't think so.

Now what makes me really angry about this article is the two cents from the skinny bitch contingent who feel that it may not be the best idea for fat girls to feel too comfortable with themselves or feel too accepted by the general public because ostracizing, discrimination and humiliation are powerful motivators for a person to lose weight. Please don't take this the wrong way.......but I think it would be prudent and all together fitting if all you people, fat and thin, who agree with this statement, would please take a moment and head to your nearest expressway and check those double yellow lines reeeeeaaaally closely......kneel down and take a nice long look. Don't worry about the traffic. If you are still alive afterward, you can go home and kiss my ass.

Most of us fat girls are on our individual goddamned diets NOT because we want to wear tight and revealing clothing, NOT because we want to show off our thick thighs in short skirts, NOT because we want to shake our groove things along with the skinny girls at the dance club, but because we want to feel comfortable and healthy in our own skins. We aren't interested in your opinion or your feeble-minded judgement. I personally am highly motivated by my increasing ability to put on my shoes and breathe simultaneously. It's the small things folks. It's the small things.

Although I choose not to dress in spandex and boogie the night away (we all know my coordination issues). I fully support a fat girl's right to do so if she chooses, in an environment where she is not laughed at or sent home on the ass end of the velvet rope because she doesn't look like Cindy Crawford. I would encourage all "larger framed" ladies to embark on a diet and weight loss program if for no other reason than the ability to rise from a kneeling position without the use of equipment that beeps when in reverse. This was a powerful motivator for me because my job requires frequent kneeling. After only 27 pounds(grrrrrrrr.......fucking plateau!) I'm amazed at all the new things I can do like breathing, rolling over in bed, putting on undergarments without falling forward, and exiting my car with one leg out and one leg in instead of having to swing both legs forward and grip the door frame. These are the things that keep me going, and amazingly enough, require no input from society at large. Hmmmmmmm.

There is a lesson here people. Lets learn it. If not, you can always check those double yellow lines. Good luck with that.

Le Plateau

So here I am, three weeks in to this plateau. My first since starting my goddamned diet. I knew eventually it would come, a brick wall of failure that I know so well. I didn't plan terribly well for it but here it is nonetheless. My body simply refuses at this time to break the 27 pound barrier. Believe me when I tell you I have checked. I have gotten on the scale at every conceivable hour of the day and night to check and see if it will bump, even momentarily, to the magic 28 pound, 112 sticks of butter mark. No such luck.

I'm convinced the neighbors can hear me at 2:00 a.m. when I'm calling out to the scale like a gambler...."come 'on babaaay...mama needs a new pair of draws'!" and the ensuing string of profanity. I'm frustrated and in danger of giving up. Not really, so calm down you manufacturers of Funyuns. I know your sales have drooped but I'm not ready to jump back on your powdery onion like pseudo substance bandwagon. I've still got a few surprises up my draws' (if you will forgive the rather disturbing inadvertent visual) I may actually pull out Leslie Sansones Walk-Fit and risk ending up in the unit for observation because no one can possibly be that uncoordinated........well.........yes..........this is me we're talking about here......they really can be.

My sister Jennifer warned me that a plateau was inevitable. She has a way of seeing the bump in the road long before I stumble head over heels into it coming to a sliding stop on the right side of my face as my ass continues it's forward momentum. It's a gift she has. I don't actually think she has the power to see her own pit falls but is excellent at warning others. Every now and again I'll find her. "What are you doing down there Jen!?"........"Oh......just sitting for a minute" "You plan on climbin' outta there?" "Yeah.......eventually"....."Alrighty then....see ya" She is an amazing advocate to have, even if she does fall down and go boom just like the rest of us.

To give you an example: Today she sent me a photo of my wide load ass that she took at my nieces wedding back in July. There is the beautiful scenic overlook and vast sky and me leaning over the railing, my giant ass gleaming in the sun like a Humpback whale surfacing to breathe. Only Jennifer would take my picture like that as a way to document the effect of funyuns and Heath bar ice cream on a person's ass. I knew what she meant by it and laughed out loud at the picture. She was saying "Don't give up.....look how far you've come" and for that I thank you Jen. I needed the push. She reminded me that sometimes you can weigh the same but actually be smaller because you're building lean muscle mass. Is there really anyone on this planet that takes any degree of comfort in that little piece of information? I don't think so. I need to see the fucking numbers people!

I've been back on track with my goddamned doggie fitness program this week after a really convenient break because it was raining. Resuming the walkies have been difficult due to my dog's recent crack addiction. This is the only explanation I have for their behavior after 4 days of enforced confinement. While I'm at work......they're home smoking crack. Nickolai has had a set back. He got in to the pantry and ate an entire value sized bag of pupperoni. When offered a carrot because that's all I fucking have for him now.....he took it gently in his mouth.....then spit it at my feet. Maybe I should call Jennifer to take a picture of his ass. Little bastard.

This could only happen to me

As I've stated many times before, where I go....weirdness follows. I had a rather embarrassing occurrence a few days ago that started me remembering some of my finer "this could only happen to me" moments. Let me just take you back a few days.

As usual, my cats and the dogs were beginning to rumble at about 2:00a.m. If I had any degree of control over my life, I would feed my animals at a convenient time like normal people do, but as it stands, after years of tending infant kittens who required feedings around the clock, I just sort of got in to the habit of feeding at 2:00 a.m. This left me a fairly decent amount of time to go back to sleep and wake up in time for work. Little did I know at the time that cats and elephants never forget. I am jumped, pawed, loved,licked, and meowed in to submission nightly.

So I'm up.....I stagger out of bed wearing my over sized tank top which is large enough to double as a boat cover, and super baggy sweats that were huge on me before I lost 27 pounds or 108 sticks of butter. My ponytail has migrated to a resting place in the vicinity of my left ear and is compositionally offset by a spray of pillow hair off to the right. I get downstairs and realize that the canned cat food is in the back of my car out in the lot. "Who's up at this unholy hour?" I ask myself and venture outside to retrieve the canned cat food for my little heathens.

Outside is a collection of police cars evidently dealing with some sort of a who haw in the neighborhood. No lights or sirens....just half a dozen of our city's finest all watching me.... strange voluminous weather balloon like creature staggering out of her dark townhouse. "No..I'm not in need of assistance.....just getting some Friskies thanks".....oh my God!....please just shoot me now....."No..I'm good...not having a heart attack.......just need to feed my .......cats" I try to straighten my hair and slink back in to the house. This could only happen to me.

I shut the door behind me and fondly recalled rushing out of my parents home many years ago shutting my over sized men's trench coat in the door. The stunned horror came rushing back to me as I remembered attempting to free my coat and realized that the keys were in my coat pocket which was firmly and irrevocably on the other side of the locked door. This could only happen to me. Evidently when God was handing out the ability to do something incredibly science-fiction stupid without witnesses.....I was in the ladies.

I could tell you stories of dogs stepping on poopy diaper adhesive tape and watching helplessly as the poop disappeared through the kitchen and around the hall. I could tell you about stumbling up the stairs when I was trying to do my best Marilyn Monroe wiggle for a guy I liked and having the fem prods in my purse scatter out like confetti.......yup.....this could only happen to me. What doesn't break me makes me stronger and one of these days, the Gods will tire of patterning my life after The Three Stooges and cut me some fucking slack here........please.

Bridal Adventure

This past weekend, my daughter Hilary and I had a mother/daughter day scheduled. We both had a Friday off and decided to spend it together. There were no hard and fast plans for what we were going to do so I was completely surprised when she called that morning and suggested rather sheepishly that we go look at wedding dresses.

Hilary was a complete disaster nervous wreck at the prospect of trying on gowns. She was fidgety and breathless which required that I perform my patented "nervous dance" which consists of me shuffling back and forth engaging all of my natural grace and rhythm into a cohesive interpretive dance. As we all remember, walking in place requires coordination that I simply do not have so you can imagine how well it was received. Threatening to chaperon one of her school dances and actually dance worked well when she was in middle school ("Oh God Mom noooooooo"), but as an adult, the most I got was a quick survey of the parking lot for witnesses.

I was pleased and proud to be the one to go with her on such an important day. You may think it would be a no-brainer, being her mother and all, but as Hilary knows all too well.....her mother was born without a sense of style. I don't know an a-line from a drop waist from a sweetheart neckline. The best I could do was sit on the cushy pink Victorian chair and try not to leave a stain or make a bad smell. Hilary's biggest concern was that she'd look like a "sausage link stuffed in a wedding dress" Not to worry....she looked stunning in everything.

As we are both on goddamned diets in an effort to look our best for her wedding, she was much less forgiving of her flaws than I was. In my eyes, she has none. In her eyes.....a different story. She said things like "double boobs" I have no idea what that means, and "back fat" and "stuffed sausage" and "face like a dinner plate". Her consultant was wonderful and pulled dresses that she thought would flatter her curvy figure."Did she just say that I need to lose 20 pounds!?" "No Hilary, she said that you could lose up to 20 pounds and you'd still be ok with that dress" "Are you sure??...I'm pretty sure she said I need to lose 20 pounds" "No...seriously Hil, she said you could lose 20 pounds". "That's what I said.....that I need to lose 20 pounds" "*sigh*.....do they have a bathroom here?"

At the end of 2 hours, she had picked out her wedding dress and vowed never to eat again. She called me this evening to tell me she had gotten up early this morning to work out. We have both re-dedicated ourselves to the goddamned diet and exercise plan and as Hilary says, we'll look "goddamned gorgeous" on her wedding day. Of this I have no doubt.

It was a perfect day aside from that unfortunate stain on the pink poofy chair..........this is me we're talking about here.