Holiday Weight-Loss Secret...Revealed!

I believe, as humans (or maybe as women), that we have two target weights: one is set by our bodies and one is decided upon by our brains. The former seems to hover right around 7.5 pounds over the one our pesky little overactive brains have decided upon. My friend KJ said recently that when she is at her (brain's) target weight, it usually means something is wrong with her. I say this because I had a run-in with a strep-like illness that descended upon me swiftly, mercilessly, silently, and left me fupa-free, Christmas weight be-gone! That and the fact that I have been skiing!

I have never had strep throat before, telling the nurse, "I fancy myself a non-strep kind of person," to which she smiled patronizingly, stabbed at my tonsils for a few minutes with a 17 inch Q-tip, then rushed from the room to peek at all the little cooties who were whisked away from their cocktail party in the warmdarkmoist recesses of my throat. My only symptoms were a fever, swollen glands and a situation in my throat that felt like someone had made a blood pressure cuff out of the tenderest pinkest flesh you could find, then inflated it with 4000 degree magma, rubbed it raw with a Brillo pad and inserted it into the space directly between the back of my tongue and my larynx. How many times do we swallow in a minute? Maybe twice, three times? So for 15 hours (which doesn't seem like very long, but when you're in the trenches...) every time I could feel a potential swallow looming, I would gather all my strength, force it down, wincing the whole time. It wasn't long before I was just spitting out my spit--way easier.

Enough with the gory detials, right? So it turns out (I can tell you smugly) I am NOT a strep kind of person even though she hastily added that these tests do have a 10-15% false negative return. They then gave me these options:

1. Least expensive and longest time to return to swallowing? A course of $15 antibiotics.

2. Middle expensive and longest time to return to swallowing? A shot of pencillin.

3. Most expensive and immediate return to swallowing? A shot of penicillin AND a shot of steroids.

I'm sure you can all guess which option I chose. The penicillin went in smooth and easy in my right arm. My response: That was it? The steroid went into my left "hip" and was long, torturous, searing and nausea-inducing. My response: Can I lie down for a few minutes? They left me alone in the semi-darkened room where I found myself suddenly very weepy, tears literally coursing out of my eyes. It was rather surprising and I lay there sort of wallowing in it and weakly attempting to process it (it took a hell of a lot of energy just getting myself down to the medical center) and my conclusion? I sort of just wanted a hug.

I did also have my first "small towns can suck" moment, when I was running into old friends left and right but was incapable of speaking (for fear that I had to painfully swallow or, worse, spit during our conversation). As I like to say, when you live in a small community, on your best day you know EVERYONE! And on your worst day you know everyone. Humongo difference.

Thank you Western medicine, I say, because by the time I had trudged home and had walked a mile in the snow (thanks Ali for pointing out a grandfather clause) and had worked the steroids into the muscle of my "hip" I felt immensely better. That and the fact that I can count on one hand the number of times I have taken antibiotics means they work very very quickly on me. Okay, probably enough about poor little old me and dramatic sore throat. That I had for less than 24 hours. Yeah, I know. But I really did feel like I was close to dying. Oh and guess how much my bill was? Uninsured= $472. I had to bend over TWICE.

So let's move on to the more exciting topic of skiing!! As some of you know, when I moved to Telluride in '92 (or 3?) I knew not how to ski or snowboard. I had skied once with Alex in Vermont on our spring break and did ok--took a half-day lesson every morning and then met Alex at lunch for a half day of shooshing together. Now, when I got here my goal was to access all of the mountain in a short period of time so it seemed logical to pick up the sport with the shortest learning curve=snowboarding. Which I did for almost a decade. Well, now I am ready for something new and I have to say I think skiers look cooler so I went up with a friend for a lesson on Wednesday and loved it!! I really did. I was a tad worried because I had just investe a LOT of money in ski gear and my intention in coming here for all or part of the winter was to achieve a certain level of proficiency with skiing and I was tickled with myself (not to toot my own horn too much) with how quickly I picked it up but also at how natural it felt.

It is snowing right now and I am a little bummed that I cannot (will not) go up today but I need one more day to really rest and get right before I go back up. Rats. But again, that is the beauty of living here--I have 3 more MONTHS of unfettered skiing (and the occasional snowboarding with my g-friends).

I am including photos and also a link to photos I took over the holidays, here. That top header photo was taken from my living room window of Ajax Peak at the head of the valley.

This is my new room and my new BFF Dakota, which Kelly calls a "living pillow":

Dakota's "brother" Dallas comes home from doggie training school this Sunday and is actually shown on a YouTube clip heeling and stopping and sitting with oddly porn-like background music.