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.

Stuffing Stockings and Pounding Wieners

I give up. I am officially throwing the towel in. I simply cannot eat this much any longer. Something may give out, perhaps I will bust a gut or something of that nature. Every day, it's brunch this, dinner that, or someone, somewhere, has made a desserty-sweet thing that makes its way into my life and I finish it off to keep it from "going bad." I mean, what is a person supposed to do when an entire batch of sugar cookie dough is prepared and then left in the refrigerator, cleverly wrapped in an innocuous-looking bundle of waxed paper, right there beside the butter, gazing up at you, blinking, pleading.... It's awful. And delightful. I even caved at an "authentic" Moravian Tavern at Historic Old Salem in Winston Salem on Tuesday, where the waiter casually offered to stuff my stocking. Blushing, I declined. I tried his wiener schnitzel instead--quite nice, really, all buttery and capery. Actually it was pork, but when he said it was pounded, pounded thin, I once again found myself powerless to the intoxicating world of overindulgence. And then he wiped his hands on his hand-woven knickers and disappeared to fetch me another cold Spaten.

I guess I didn't eat when I lived in Hawaii. My memories of food tend to be of me standing in my little kitchen, hovering over the sink in a bikini, attempting to use neither plate nor utensil, throwing just enough food down my gullet to keep me going until the next transition to either ocean or yoga or work or hike or lovely sweet blessed sleep. Occasionally I would prepare a meal in the evening and sit in candlelight and eat, but then too I would finish in a frightfully short period of time. It's just no fun to eat alone, especially with no tv. The framed picture of a fish over my kitchen sink provided good company, I guess, the whole 2 minutes it took to swallow and rinse my fingers.

But this mainland holiday stuff is out of hand. I used to read all those (what I thought were) dumb articles about How To Keep The Holiday Pounds Off, or Eating For Success Over Christmas, and thought, what the hell? Just don't eat so much at all your office parties and family meals. But now I know better. It is a biologic impossibility to gain anything less than 7.3 pounds from the last Thursday in November until at least December 28th. It is cruel and barbaric and absolutely undeniable.

I know what some of you are thinking: ha ha. And maybe you are right, it's high time I understood what it's llike to feel powerless in the stark, cold light beaming out of the refrigerator when your sister and niece have fallen into a slumber and you feel the need to get out of bed and check to see if the cookie dough needs to be re-wrapped to prevent those crusty little edges from forming (it just ruins the texture).
Who cares, really? I will soon enough be dancing like a freak for two nights of Panic shows in Denver and then hurling myself down snowy slopes I can barely walk down. It's all about acceptance, right? I think the ghost of Christmas has been moaning, Give in...give in....

And stockings really are the best part of Christmas.