I just got back from the vet. Well, my dogs did now me. Anyway, they have to go on a diet! HAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAA

Well, day two on my diet #234, and never mind why I’m on this particular diet, but I know myself pretty well. And if I don’t give myself a small treat of something everyday, I’ll feel deprived and then I’ll binge. So there’s this adorable little chocolate shop just down the street from me, and there’s a sign in the window “Buy 2, get 1 free truffles”

And I love supporting local businesses where the chocolate doesn’t come from Mexico, yes, you know who you are, Hershey’s. Anyway, I stride in, very confident, because, and I know you’re skeptical, but I really do intend to buy just one, and then get the other as a freebie. Maybe I’ll even share it with the Teen. (She had a name once, but I’ve forgotten it, because even though she’s my daughter, I think shipping her to Siberia would let her off too easy for the things she’s been pulling since she turned 13.)

So, in I go, and hit with the thousands of overwhelming smells of delightful confections, I feel uplifted, almost as if I could float.

“Can I help you?” chirps up the cutest little voice of the shop manager, lilting across the counter toward me.

“No, just looking.” (See how amazing my will power is?) “I’m on a diet,” I explain.

She looked at me, skeptically. “Well, I mean, I just started on a diet.”

She smiled. “Well, that’s great. So why not just buy one of our truffles on sale? Just one won’t hurt you, and you can share the other with someone you love.” OK, her perkiness was a little nauseating, but she did have a point. “Or, just treat yourself tomorrow.”

Wait, I hadn’t thought of that. But there was more.

“Why  not buy one for each day of the week. Just for a treat for being so good on your diet the rest of the time. It’ll be a great motivator.

Had the planet stopped rotating? My god, why don’t they award the Nobel to people like this. “I’ll take six of them.”

“Great, then you’ll have six free to make twelve.”

Wait, that’s weird,12 isn’t directly divisible by the 7 days of the week, so “Let’s do 14. That’s 2 for each day.” I know I said I would just eat one, but c’mon, this is America.

Then it dawns on me–What if the shop closes by the time I  get back here. I mean with the economy so bad, you never know. And they never tell you they’re gonna close. I heard about a group of brides who went in to pick up their gowns and discovered the shop was closed and their dresses had been liquidated in the bankruptcy.

And of course Ill share. I mean I’m pretty selfless when it comes to dieting. Besides, generosity will be the hallmark of my new, thin self. Besides if I just buy truffles there’s nothing to break up the monotony, so I buy a box of turtles as well.

You just have to take advantage of sales when they have them, it’s just good money sense.

If you eat chocolate covered raisins, of course they’re considered a fruit serving. I forget if cocoa is a fruit or veg, but let’s count it as a vegetable, and then you get an extra veg serving. Eat your fruits and veggies. So you can basically eat the whole bag in one day, can’t you? See,dieting isn’t so hard. (Forget the yogurt ones, they don’t taste as good).

Ok, this time I really mean it. It’s not even for vanity anymore.  I have to lose weight because as everyone knows, it’s not healthy carrying this much extra weight, especially at my age. I mean, the list of horrible things that can happen to you when you’re fat seems to grow every time you open a magazine or watch TV.

I can see the Anderson Cooper 360 report now: Health now:”An expert reveals the ages old mystery of spontaneous combustion has finally been solved and it’s due to consuming too many champagne truffles. Let’s hear from Sanjay Gupta:

“Anderson, all that was left of the corpse were the thighs and let me tell you, the cellulite alone could fill a kiddy pool.”

Diet #162 started innocently enough in the doctor’s office and if you want my opinion, medical personnel should only stick to the problem you came in for and not go off on ridiculous tangents. I went in for a funny little cough I couldn’t seem to kick. And that’s all I wanted to know about.

“You have whooping cough,” the Doc said cheerily. “So here’s a prescription for that which only has 72 side effect including death, so it’s safe. And The Centers for Disease Control will want to talk to you about that because it is unusual for adults to get whooping cough.” She glanced at the chart (tangent coming) “You’ve gained some weight, I see. You should think about taking a little bit of that off.”

The walls began to tilt.

“Excuse me?” I broke into a cold sweat.

“Oh just a few pounds.”

“Well,” I laughed, nervously. “Maybe you should be a little more specific–ten pounds?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Twenty?” I think she actually snorted. Are doctors even allowed to snort? Surely they aren’t taught that in medical school.

“More like…fifty. You know that is like carrying around five bowling balls.”

And then she left, just like that. And I was on yet another roller coaster ride of dieting.

“And, breathe in..”

I am a little bird.

“And out.”

Lighter than air.

“And, Downward Dog”

What’s next–upward kitty? Stiff Salamandar? What were these gurus on–Crack?

“You are a tiny sparrow.”

Who’s the instructor kidding? I’m a big fat albatross.

“You are a Noble Warrior, posing against your fat.“

With a butt as big as a car.

“You are a gazelle.”

Ha! I haven’t been a gazelle since the 7th grade.

“You are the wind.”

Well, if I twist my rib cage anymore, I might break wind.

“You are a stream of light.”

OK, concentrate.

“A soft river, laughing over rocks.”

I could swear I smell…hey wait a minute, who brought MCDONALD’s french fries to the guided yoga/meditation  class for the perpetually fat?

“And now you are Peaceful Mountain.”

Brenda. That bitch. Right there in her gym bag. And she only had to lose a thimble of fat to begin with.

“And breathe in…”

If I just lunge a little to my right, I can…almost…reach..

“What are you doing?” Brenda screeches like a hawk on steroids.

I’m suddenly aware that everyone’s staring. ‘I mmmmfm a fofoftus?” I say meekly.

I’m saying “I am a lotus” but my mouth is already stuffed with a handful of fries the size of  Montana.

Then they all turn on, not me, but Brenda, kicking, pulling her hair, knocking her down. The last thing I see as I hurl myself out the door is the instructor herself, sitting on Brenda’s chest and slapping her hysterically while she yells, “Where you hiding the the Big Mac?”

And now I am a cloud drifting quietly out the gym door…

– Karen Goldman

If only some of these had worked:

I wonder what the ingredients really do?

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.

Richard Bach
I’d always loved this quote until I started really thinking about this little bit of philosophy.

What if your mission in life is something stupid? You know we can’t all be heroes. What if your mission in life isn’t to save starving children or create a brilliant work of art that generations will admire?  And somebody created the duckbill platypus so you know s/he has a sense of humor.

So what if your mission in life is to bake two pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving and some trouble maker in the family has convinced everyone in the family to go “gluten free” that year. So you come up with a recipe for pumpkin pie that you know will taste like the lint caught in your dryer’s hose, but hey, it’s for family, so of course you have to agree. While baking, you curse the entire the gluten-free industry for introducing yet another confusing dictate about food.

On arrival at the party which could fill an entire football field, you place your pie on the table.   You start scrounging around for something that actually has calories in it, when you hear oooh’s and ahhh’s coming from the general area of the table where you’d placed your pie.  You go back through the crowd and everyone is raving about your pie. (Which is not too much of a surprise because the only other dessert on the table was a gluten-free fruit cake someone decided to take home and use as a doorstop).

You’re a hero, a holiday hit. And in seconds, your pie is gone.

BAM! Your heart stops and you end up face-down in a mountain of mashed potatoes.

End of life’s mission.

Food for though.

It’s off to the tanning salon, because here’s the logic: Most of us on the more robust side avoid the beach like it was crawling with sharks that had evolved legs because we think we look terrible in a bathing suit. (Or a cabana for that matter.) So most of the people on the beach are thin. Ergo, most thin people are tan. Therefore, if I got a tan I would  automatically look thinner!

Now, for those of you who have never stepped into a tanning salon because you’ve hear RUMORS, about UV rays (which stands for ultra violent) I am here to tell you, they are only rumors.  Tanning is perfectly safe.  After all, if it weren’t, the FDA would have sent out more than the 6,500,001 warnings they have to date, mentioning you shouldn’t get within 1,000 feet of a tanning salon.

So, it’s just silly to be afraid of tanning. But just in case you are still a little nervous about the whole thing, I’d like to gently walk you through the whole experience so you feel no anxiety and can thoroughly enjoy your tanning experience.

You will be met by the receptionist, and if there’s more than one, they’ll all be called Mizty, even the men.  They are all gorgeously tanned of course, and speak in charming childlike voices that make you want to run streaming into a busy street.

But if you just get past all that, you’ll be fine.

Next you need to choose your tan from the tanning menu, which I first thought included food, but all youcan get are sugarless wheat grass smoothies that taste like…grass. And don’t worry about the  cost for getting a great tan.  Tanning services are always on sale, sometimes up to 75% off. And with that kind of heavy discount, you’ll be able to leave there for just under the price of a Ferrari (yellow, not red).

Once you get into the tanning room, you can go in the buff, which is recommended, so you don’t get tan lines. Don’t be shy, no one’s there to watch you. And if they were watching by close circuit, the walls are too thick for you to hear them laughing anyway.

Another tip: don’t use sunblock.  It’s like buying a cobra and then de-fanging it.

You’ll be given goggles that look like ping pong balls cut on the bias. Don’t take these off to avoid any sort of  tan lines because if you do, you’ll burn your corneas and only be able to look through a slot the size of a poker chip on its side for the rest of your life.

Then, it’s onto the comfy bed which feels like being in a plastic coffin someone got over the internet.  They close the lid over you and now you’re all set. Of course at my size they have to use a suspension bridge to keep it closed.

Then they zap you with enough volts (BTU’s) to remove Poughkeepsie from the planet.

But you are tan, lovely and automatically appear thinner.

(If you smell bacon frying, don’t worry, that’s perfectly normal).

That’s all you need to know for now.  I’ll post more later.