Squashing My Appetite, or, Why Mothers Are Gray

I have a sure-fire way to kick my appetite to the curb.  I invite my 26 year old son over to dinner & make his favorite, chicken cutlet parmesan with a side of spaghetti.  Then, before he sits down to eat, he makes an announcement that he’s made a decision, one we aren’t going to like, but one that is set in stone nevertheless.  

My appetite starts to recede immediately.

I poke my small cake-fork around my salad plate, pretending to eat, and ask him to enlighten us with his Big Decision.

Spill ya guts kid.

He’s decided to quit his job today after giving 5 weeks notice.

He’s decided to go to medical school to become a doctor.

He’s decided to take a 4 week intensive study-course for the MCAT exams.

And the 4 week intensive study course is located in Las Vegas Nevada.

Where his ex-girlfriend lives & works, burying nuclear waste as a contractor for the Federal government.

The job she LEFT him for, telling him to either come with her or end their 5 year *at the time* relationship. She gave him an ultimatum & he told her goodbye, moving back in with me for nearly a year while he licked his wounds. And while mom fed him and listened to him and nursed him back to fighting form, so to speak.

So now,  1 ½ years after the bitter, ugly, horrifying breakup where she threw ALL of his belongings OFF of the condo balcony……

He is moving in with HER in Las Vegas for the duration of his 4 week MCAT study course!

Really? Really?

She will give him free room & board! YAY! What a deal!

The kid is racking up a quarter million dollars in loan money to see him through medical school, but he is getting FREE room and board for a month! WHO could pass up such an offer?!

Ever get a tingling feeling that starts on the top of your scalp & travels down to the tip of your toes with lightening speed?  While your stomach drops below your knees & the 2 ounces of food you’ve managed to eat threatens to make a repeat performance in your mouth?

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

My son was flabbergasted that I had SO few words to say to him.

What on EARTH is a mother to say to a son who’s fought an endless battle with a selfish, egotistical, immature young woman who can’t see past the tip of her own nose, never mind be the kind of wife or partner he’d need while killing himself in medical school?

Meanwhile, my daughter is bringing up the rear & her head is all but spinning OFF while she tries to make 100 decisions about her future, now that she’s officially an ‘adult’ at 18. She did, after all, graduate High School LAST WEEK……


When she turned 18, the government forced me to sign over her considerable SSI account to her & now she has quite a bit of money which is burning a hole in her pocket.


Reaching 'adulthood' AND having a sizable bank account at the same time is a lethal combination.....

We’ve gone from her wanting a tongue piercing to settling for a small birdcage tattoo on her upper chest, with 2 small birds flying around on the other side.  The tattoo artist told her to come back in a week and she’d add a small red rose to the birdcage to spruce it up a bit.

The small red rose morphed into an ENORMOUS, bright red flower, more like a Venus flytrap,  that covers her entire shoulder & upper arm and dwarfs the birdcage. The pain was so intense, she almost passed out & she would have, had she not been shaking so violently from the epinephrine…..


Two days after getting the last tattoo, she went to Sally's Beauty Supply for tattoo make-up to cover it up, 'just in case'......

Then came the hair fiasco’s. FIVE times she went to Sally’s & purchased every-color-of -the-rainbow hair dye, which the consultants at Ulta would NOT sell her because they just didn’t ‘get it’. Oh, they ‘got it’ alright; they just refused to play a part in ruining the child’s hair.

The purple was Barney-like & horrifying. The ½ platinum, ½ black was like something out of a horror movie. The stop-light red was…well…..stop light red. That required an emergency trip to Walgreens, with my car, before I left for work one morning so she could do a ‘repair’ job & get it from stop light red to what she calls Chocolate Covered Cherry Red. The professional hairdresser had another word for it, Fried, and cut the vast majority of it OFF. Which led to her emergency purchase of real-hair hair extensions from Sallys, where else?

I hate Sally & I don’t even know who she IS.

When she finally corrected the color, my daughter had to bring those super-expensive genuine hair extensions from Sally’s into the salon to also be dyed to match, OF COURSE!

Yesterday was a spray tan session! Now her entire body is the color of a navel orange.

She spent the last 36 hours in the shower, trying to scrub it off with a loofah!

Did I mention the do-it-yourself-in-the-garage-because-of-the-stench acrylic nails?  Yep. Took her 5 hours to put them on, 2 hours to decorate them all differently, in Easter patterns, and then 15 minutes to yank them all OFF because they were slightly smudged!

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg here. She has big plans for herself for college which include moving in to her own place in December, with a roommate she plans to locate on CRAIG’S LIST, because she’ll need to know what it feels like to be on her own before she takes off to study in Europe.  DUH Mom, don’t you GET IT?

Sigh. This is why Mother’s Are Gray.

Next week her father is having the Come To Jesus talk with her where he lays down the law, adult or not, and she says OK Dad or faces  his wrath & the withdrawal of all college funds set aside for her. Then I get to have the very same conversation with her the following day. The college money I’ve set aside for her does not cover bohemian European stints or tenement apartments with potential serial-killer roommates, it ONLY covers college tuition. Imagine the NERVE?

But hey, there’s some good news in all of this: My appetite has gone bye-bye! Now isn’t THAT something to celebrate? I think I’d better look for the silver lining in all of these storm clouds, or else I’ll be shackled up in a in straight jacket & babbling incoherently.

DIET Is A Four-Letter Word

Erma Bombeck once said, “With all the weight I’ve lost over the years, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.” Boy howdy, do I ever understand THAT statement.

Sigh.

I would venture to guess that 90% of the human female species has been, or will BE, on a diet at one time or another.  Males too, of course, but the percentage can’t possibly be as staggering as it is for females.

Let’s face it, we girls have been trained from a very young age to hate our bodies.  We’re trained to think we should look like walking sticks & eat like birds.  The magazines we read portray attractive women as slim……even emaciated……..and so our opinion of beauty is determined by the media. 

We’re never satisfied with how we look, apparently, so the diet industry is THE #1 money maker in this country for that very reason.

At the same time we’re hating our bodies, we’re being told it’s OK to eat McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks.  Until we watched Supersize Me.  At that point, we either forced that knowledge out of our minds & continued eating high-fat fast food, or, we changed our ways & stuck to broiled, grilled or steamed instead of fried. Until THAT got too boring & we reverted back to our old ways.

Not surprisingly, I am no stranger to diets myself.  My mother signed me up for Weight Watchers at 12, and I would yo-yo around for the next 40 years trying to manage my weight, unsuccessfully, for the most part.

I remember trying all sorts of crazy, crash diets over the years. After I failed at Weight Watchers, primarily due to the liver requirement (back in the day when the experts felt that organ meat WAS healthy), I graduated to more extreme methods of weight loss.

The grapefruit diet, the cookie diet, the hamburger diet, the cabbage soup diet, the all carb diet/the all protein diet, the Suzanne Somers diet, the Spirolina diet, the Slim-fast diet, Herbalife,  to name a few.  Then there was the gym memberships, the exercise equipment (now known as Clothing Racks), the bicycles (stationary & outdoor), the trampolines, the stair-steppers, the ellipticals, the ab machines, the Nautilus, circuit training, and water aerobics.  I can’t forget the acupuncture, although I’d very much LIKE to, where my ear was stapled with a metal clip which I was to turn when I felt hungry.  I all but pulled my ear OFF and still, the excess weight would not release itself from my thighs.

I tried a full liquid fast where all I could ‘eat’ was 3 chocolate shakes per day for a total of 270 calories.  I stayed on that nightmare diet for 6 full months & dropped 87 lbs which I managed to pick back UP as soon as the fast was over with. Fasting taught me how delicious food really tastes & how sorely I’d missed it for 6 long months of starvation.

Sigh.

I’ve lost my hair, I’ve lost my monthly cycles, I’ve lost my sanity & I’ve lost plenty of hard-earned money over the years in my quest to be slim, but somehow, I never managed to lose the WEIGHT.  All that fat was evidently quite happy living on my hips, thighs & stomach, and had NO intention of leaving.

But still I pressed forward with my endless attempts to win the battle of the bulge.  I bought diet pills, supplements, lotions, potions & brews…….I signed up with a quack diet doctor & lined up in front of his office, outside in the cold, for hours on end waiting for my 2-week-supply-of-little-pills-guaranteed-to-work, but all I took from that experience was sleeplessness.  The little pills turned out to be amphetamines masquerading as diet aids.  The doctor turned out to be a criminal & his doors were eventually closed by the Feds. But not before he caused a lot of harm to an awful lot of women who relied on him to ‘help’ them.

I tried the Depends diets also…..you know, the diets which have you drinking SO much water you need to wear a diaper? Or, the diets, like Alli,  that prevent your body from absorbing fat from the foods you eat………..and instead, release that fat through ‘anal leakage’?  Yet another terrific reason to wear Depends.  When my family doctor tried to prescribe Xenical for me, he did warn me about staying close to home for that very reason…………anal leakage is just one of many unpleasant side-effects associated with that ‘diet aid’.

Frankly, I would rather chop off my left leg for a quick 40 lb loss than put myself through one of the Diaper Diets.

But hey, at one time, I’d have sold my SOUL to be slim.

But no matter WHAT Dr. Atkins & Dr. Pritikin recommended,  I STILL wasn’t able to lose weight & keep it off for any length of time.

My husband likes to say that everyone is selling snake oil.  Hmmmmm……snake oil seems to be the ONE thing I never tried for weight loss!

Nowadays, human growth hormones, or HGH, is being touted as THE answer to weight loss.  It’s available in sub-lingual drops or injection form.  Does it matter that the dieter may grow to be a giant? At least she will be a THIN giant, right?

For those dieters who want to PREVENT themselves from being ABLE to eat, there is gastric bypass surgery available, stomach stapling, and lapband surgery.  Back in the 70’s, it was popular to have your jaw WIRED shut.  A friend of mine had that procedure……….and I found it amazing to see how many calories she could suck down through the little straw that she conveniently slipped through the wires. Chocolate milkshakes went down quite smoothly as it turned out.

Another friend of mine had the gastric bypass surgery. Now, she is ‘unable’ to eat any healthy foods like vegetables or fruit, because they’re too high in roughage…………and she’s ‘forced’ to eat only sugary foods to keep up her strength.

  She is suffering  from malnutrition thanks to her new diet plan, AND she’s gained back ½ of what she’s lost. So far. The other half is waiting in the wings to make an encore appearance.

So, 40 years after going on my first diet, what have I learned?

That there IS no magic diet out there; there IS no pill to fix what ails me, it’s pretty much ALL snake oil and no, snake oil does NOT melt fat away……………….

Sigh.

So, I hope I can save you a ton of time, a ton of headaches, a ton of money & a ton of embarrassment by letting you in on the secret to permanent weight loss FOREVER:

The secret is really quite simple, as it turns out. Put down your knife & fork & say No Thank You. Avoid the junk food aisles in the grocery store, avoid the fast food drive-thru’s, and jog over to Sunflower Market instead.  Keep your nose OUT of the magazines that tell you anorexia is desirable, and cut out ALL of the size tags on your jeans. The only place that size really DOES matter is in your bank account.

Love yourself as you are, be kind to yourself no matter WHAT, and stop falling for everything everybody tells you.

Please always remember and never forget, it’s ALL a crock of cabbage soup in the end.

In Our House, It’s My Husband Who Wears The Skirt

Even though I married my husband because he’s an Italian Stallion, he’s more in touch with his Scottish roots these days than his Italian ones.

Personally, I think he’s identifying so strongly with his Scottish heritage because he likes to play dress up & wear skirts.

The Scottish may call them Kilts, but I call them skirts.

I must say, however, that at 53 years old, he strikes a handsome pose when he’s all decked out in his tartans, complete with a felt beret topped with a bright red pom-pom & checkered ribbon cocked off to one side.  That ribbon kind of reminds me of his crooked, cocky little smile…..

In a cruel twist of fate, he’s somehow managed to rope a couple of his kids into the Scottish fanfare as well, namely, his 24 year old son who recently married his childhood sweetheart in a beautiful  outdoor ceremony in Licking, Missouri.  Father & son both dressed up in full Scottish garb, despite temperatures of 100 degrees with 95% humidity, and neither of them cared a bit that 100% wool, plaid tartans & overcoats would probably cause them heat-stroke in the stifling weather conditions.  When they posed together for photos, the wedding guests hadn’t a clue they were both wearing ice-vests underneath all that high-fashion kilt-wear….the strange  protrusions just looked like a beer-bellies.  And they say women fuss? Oh, by the way, in full Scottish tradition, nothing is worn underneath the skirts so it’s kind of like built in air-conditioning! J

At home here in Colorado, my husband pitches a huge  tent at the local Scottish festivals which take place a half-dozen times a year, in the area parks & fairgrounds.  His new passion in life is finding ‘treasures’ for his tent, which we shop for at garage sales every Saturday in season.  The vast majority of our 2-car garage is devoted to these ‘treasures’, as well as most of a kitchen cupboard.

The man does not drink alcohol & neither do I. Yet, he is obsessed with collecting different types of Scotch & glassware to offer a little nip to the visitors who come by his tent.  The everyday drinking glasses in my kitchen cabinet have now been crowded out by shot glasses.  Even though Scotch is not served in shot-glasses, my dear husband collects them anyway.

Does it matter that I can barely squeeze my car into the overcrowded, overstuffed-with-Scottish-tent paraphernalia, 2-car garage?  Soon he’s going to need a U-Haul-It trailer just to transport the enormous load of ‘treasure’ to these festivals.

Hey, maybe he can find that U-Haul-It trailer at a garage sale! Sooner or later, if it exists or has been invented, you can & will find it at a garage sale. It’s the law.

He’s managed to find everything else at the GS Boutique, that’s for sure.  And what he doesn’t find at the GS Boutique he finds at the GW Boutique.  That’s Goodwill for those who aren’t ‘in the know.’

Currently, my darling husband owns approximately 16 fancy, cut-crystal wine decanters which house the various types of Scotch he purchases.  How does a person transport 16 delicate, cut-crystal wine decanters to a festival one may wonder?

In hard-plastic Pelican cases, of course, how else?  So we also shop for special boxes to house the lovely crystal wine decanters that are a real necessity for the Clan-Douglas tent.  The 2-thousand shot glasses also require their own special, custom-made homes lest they crack or shatter en route to the festivities.  The most recent $5, custom-home purchase is a Rubbermaid Christmas ornament box, complete with cardboard separators to keep the contents safe from breakage. Of course, since the compartments are intended for large Christmas ornaments, they are way too large to house shot-glasses.  The good news is that dear hubby is planning to rig something up…….eventually.

The best laid plans of Mice & Men………

The Christmas ornament carrier is resting comfortably in the overstuffed garage along with the broken sewing box that needs repair, the vacuum that ‘just’ needs a new electrical wire, the brass lamp that ‘only’ needs a new switch, the various drapery rods that need ‘adjustment’ before they can house the various Scottish flags for display in the tent, the particle-board lumber that is to become something ‘useful’…for the tent, naturally, with the help of some of the 1,592 tools he’s collected over the years from the GS & GW Boutiques.

Sigh.

What good are all those tools if they aren’t used to fix broken things around the house?

If I didn’t love the man so much, I’d load up a U-Haul-It & drive all those ‘treasures’ to the local dump myself!

Did I tell you about his extensive collection of brooches which he displays, in the tent, on a large swatch of red & green tartan? They are all women’s brooches, but he will insist they are uni-sex…appropriate for men or women, even though I cannot recall ever seeing a man sporting a gaudy, marcasite pin with a large faux-pearl in the center….except maybe once, at a costume shop on Broadway, where a guy & his ‘significant other’ were shopping for women’s  evening dresses, sincerely hoping they’d find  some to-die-for, matching  shoes in a 13 extra-wide….

“Sell those pins at the festivals,” I tell him. “Good idea,” he tells me, flashing me his crooked little smile, and we both know full well he has NO intention whatsoever of parting with his loot.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, or so they say, it’s just too bad he buys all the other man’s trash!

I think there’s a new TV show on these days called Hoarders, isn’t there?

We have an ongoing argument over who’s pins are who’s…..mine are stored in a special drawer in the bedroom, but every time I go looking for one, it seems to ‘mysteriously’ have gone missing.

Currently, 6 coolers, in varying sizes, reside in the garage along with the rest of the tent crapola.  I still have no idea why he needs that many coolers. Yes, he’s a big man; yes, he is a thirsty man, and yes, he is a very hungry man as well. But how many water bottles, sandwiches, & bags of ice are necessary for one human being, I wonder?

I may suggest he use a few of those coolers to house his glass collection! That would kill two birds with one stone, come to think of it.  And it would free up some extra cash that would be otherwise spent on unnecessary housing units for glassware and free it up for the incredibly necessary items I enjoy purchasing at the GS Boutique………..

Jewelry, clothing, shoes, purses & lots of cute & adorable little accessories!

See…..I have an intimate understanding of what’s important in life, and, even better, I have 95% of the huge walk-in closet in our bedroom! He may be crowding me out of the garage, but I am crowding him out of the closet! But, I have given him 24 inches worth of closet-space for his various garment bags filled with Scottish clothing, which I think is very fair & even generous.

Hmmm…..now, who was it that said women can’t wear the pants in the house?