Because I'm wildly mature and a clear thinker

So. I've quit my job. Yes, in this economy where stable jobs grow on trees or fall from the sky like rainbow covered gumdrops, I said thanks, but no, I gotta go now. Holy. Fuck. Yup. Sure did. In my defense I have to say that this year has been an ass kicker and it opened my eyes to some realities I hadn't before grasped. I also have another gig and a half lined up and big plans to work on a bunch of personal flotsam and jetsam that has been piling up and making noise in my head over the last couple of years. Again, holy fuck with a huge side of YUP!

My last day of office work is August 30, although I've been doing a tiny slice of my other gig at night for the last month or so. And? That job totally did fall from the clouds with a soft thud in my lap. And? It's for a company I would have willingly sawed off my left small toe in order to obtain employment there. Only now I get to keep my toe and get a paycheck. Not too slouchy indeed!

There aren't enough veggies in the universe to fill the void within me

As I mentioned yesterday the juice fast has been going really quite well. Over the weekend there was an annual celebration, Mountain Fair, where there are crafts, jewelry, fabulous drinks and more food than one can possible dream of eating. It's what heaven would look like if I could make it so. Most years I plot which vendors I'll frequent and what drinks I'll have with them. This year I ended up buying a fabulous cashmere sweater because I spent no money on eats or drinks, and it wasn't a sacrifice to do so. Actually, the 100% truth to that last statement is that I had given the kids all my money and I talked Matt, who was perhaps or perhaps not delirious with hunger, into buying said sweater. But it's a fabulous sweater and once it gets cold again it will be amazing with a pair of leggings....

So no solid food was all good, juice was good, I had a new sweater and was shedding pounds left and right. Turns out yesterday I hit a wall. That wall was painted with the color bitch, it was still wet and I got it all over me. Yup. I was so hungry, as in HUNGRY, DAMMIT! Luckily Devon stayed the night with Matt so all I had to deal with last night was Cass and my mom. Fair enough. But no. Cassidy had been at her summer job all day, teaching swimming lessons and training to be a lifeguard for next summer and she had done a mile in laps on top of teaching three classes. Girl was hungry, too. And my mom was feeling slightly peckish from her day. So they decided to go all out. I'm talking soups with sausage in it, some sort of gourmet bread dipped in olive oil. And then, if that wasn't enough? Cass decided she wanted brownies. As they baked I thought I had died and gone to the hell I have long deserved for all my daily, hourly, caddy comments. It was a smell so divine I would have gladly sold Devon to the circus for just one bite. I informed Cass and my mom I believed them to be truly evil minions of Satan and they laughed as they informed me that the gluten in the brownies would send me to the ER. I told them it didn't matter, they were horrid, awful humans and I was planning to abandon them and go live in an ashram to find inner peace. Again they laughed. So I went to bed and fell asleep in a puddle of self-pity, which I tried to eat but it lacked flavor.

This morning I woke up hungry and shaky. I've had some juice: beets, carrots, spinach, a few grapes, apples and radishes. The scale wasn't overly kind this morning, I lost a quarter pound yesterday. Really? REALLY? For all that self-discipline all I get it a something the equivalent of McDonald burger and it doesn't even taste good? Namaste. Three more days of this and then I'm-a-gonna chew me some food.


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Below are a couple of pictures from the above mentioned fair. Devon had just finished singing on stage. He had spent the week at a singing camp and had learned such classics as "Crocodile Rock" and "Sweet Home Alabama". Precious beyond words. As far as family portraits go it's slightly awkward with Lo's hands stuffed in his pockets while he seems to be thinking, "Why is my mom doing this to me?" Whatever.

The next picture captures the true joy that is Cassidy and her BFF Ticah. The two have been thick as thieves since they were in diapers. Notice the cup of lemondae Cass is holding. I suspect after that she ate a funnel cake and then had a piece of pizza anf then perhaps a gyro. There are words for people like that....

Day 6 of the 10 day cleanse. I don't smell too bad anymore.

As mentioned above, today is number six out of ten days of the juice fast. Depending on who you ask things are going really quite well. If one were to ask me, I would point out that my tongue is no longer covered in white goo in the mornings. If you one were to ask Cass, well she might point out that right before my feeding times I might appear slightly bitchy. Whatever, she's 14 and prone to drama. Not to be trusted , her. Thus far I've shed nine pounds. That's right, count those! I now have a staggering number of maybe five pairs of pants in the rotation and a couple of dresses. My breasts aren't bursting out of my bras and I'm even back into some of my fun panties, not just the extra large Hanes, five to a pack that I get at Costco.

Despite my new found wardrobe expansion I don't intend to stick out 60 days of this madness. This ends Saturday night. At that point I'm going to make friendly with a zu-canoe and then On Sunday some more veggies that I'll actually be able to chew. Simple things for simple minds.


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A couple of weekends ago, Matt, the kids and I went to Denver to check out Loren's soon-to-be new pad. We stayed in LoDo close to where Lo and his friend Evan will be spreading their wings and living out in the real world. It's going to break my heart when Loren leaves but I fully understand this is the natural progression of events and he needs to get out of the nest. Across from our hotel was an enormous blue bear peeking into the convention center. It made for some good fun.

This summer I've been taking every opportunity possible to capture my three children in one place at the same time. Not an easy task and one that inevitably ends up with somebody pissed off. Big deal, they can just deal with it. In about a week Loren will move to Denver to work for a semester before attending film school so these moments will be even farther and fewer between.

TMI about my cleanse. Sorry. Sort of. Not really.

Today is Day 2 of the 10 day juice fast/cleanse. All told we are two weeks into this gig and so far it's not bad at all.  The food elimination was fine, well until we had to give up dairy which means no cheese. I love cheese like I love few other substances in this world. It doesn't matter if it's Velveeta or fine brie, I want to snuggle up to it and make it mine for life. My indulgent relationship with cheese is one of the reasons I find myself currently mourning its absence.  The fast is fairly good for the most part, my energies aren't super-high but then I'm not a real go-getter under regular circumstance so an extra dose of slothdom isn't shocking.

A few things I've observed with the fast:

• Beets aren't lovely. No. Almost any way you serve them up, raw being my case, they taste like dirt. They also make your pee and solids purple which when you're an edge past 40 can make bathroom time slightly unnerving.
• Radishes are beets' sassy sisters. When juiced they have a slight kick to them, like a Catholic school girl gone naughty under the high school bleachers. I like radishes and will continue to host them in my juice.
• Detox isn't so pretty. This morning I woke up with white goo covering my tongue. Smelly white goo. Of course I quickly brushed my teeth but now I'm not sure I can ever use that toothbrush again. I'm seriously grossed out.
• I get seriously bitchy when I run out of food. This is nothing new, but when I've been downing liquid carrots and cucumbers all day and it's 4:30 and Devon wants a snack and Cass is wanting something -likely everything in her case- please leave me the fuck alone until I can inhale more juice.

Good things about the fast:

• My underwear is totally fitting again! Oh yeah, baby! No more upper thigh fat poking out of the bottom of my panties, thank you very much.
• I'm so exhausted at the end of the day that I'm actually sleeping well. Yes, I wake up in the same position in which I fell asleep, but sleep is sleep and not something I can always achieve.
• My skin is supple and soft and looks 38 rather than 49. At least that's my opinion.
• Did I mention my diminishing  size? Every morning the number on the scale is less than the night before.
• My worms are eating like kings in their worm bin!

Bad things:

• The above mentioned tongue issue. I still have the willies from that.
• Beets. Don't know if I can make that work.
• Variety. I can see how I might hate carrots after this.
• Turns out Cassidy also loves fresh juice multiple times per day. This just doubled my expense on this project.
• What if I lose all this weight and then am petrified to ever put solid food in my mouth again? How will I cozy up to cheese then?

Hot wives, race cars and holy men

I know that theoretically there is supposed to be a separation between church and state. What I didn't know is  when it comes to Nascar Jesus totally rides shotgun. This one caught me offguard this morning as I was driving to work. I love the "smoking hot wife" blessing.

A buck fitty

Back in the day I used to be a ballet dancer. Notice I didn't say ballerina, to me that means I was in a paid company and made my entire life be about dance. I was in a high school company and then a college company, I made no money and ballet was about 97% of my life. I loved it. I loved the daily ritual of warm-up at the barre, then centre work. I loved being totally in sync with my body and I looooooved being in wicked amazing shape. And although I probably could have eaten to my heart's content during those years, I didn't. Dancing eight hours a day and then skipping a couple of meals made me look all that more hot. God, I hope my 14 year-old daughter never reads that last sentence.

Fast forward to my early twenties when I got knocked up by a tall drink of cool water. Although my dancing days had tapered down to just a few classes per week, I still ate sparingly and kept in good shape. But sometime in the early part of my second trimester I got hungry. Hungry in a way that made me bitchy because I didn't know what to do. Yes, I was that out of tune with reality. I can't recall the exact sequence of events, only that Matt took me out to the Olive Garden and for the first time in my 22 years I discovered the joy of consuming food. Oh. My. Fucking. God. It was so good! It was beautiful! There were tastes. Textures. And the variety? Pastas with sauces! Breads with butter! And desert?????? It was truly a religious experience. So I kept eating. and eating. I ate in a way that had the OB team alarmed at my next visits. They thought I should maybe slow down. Could they not see I was eating for two? That food was good, dammit?

After I had Loren it took me about a year to lose most of the weight. The eating thing was still so amazing to me. Then I had Cass, nursed her and the weight came off again. Then seven years later Devon rolled on to the scene, I got post-partum depression, took Prozac and gained the equivalent of a baby. I hit the weight I was when I gave birth to Loren, 150 pounds. Then my dad died, I went on the cake and wine diet for a few months and maintained that awful number for a couple of years.

Two years ago I stopped eating wheat and luckily had the summer off from work. It enabled me to go for daily swims, long bike rides and I got down to nearly my pre-Devon weight. I felt good. I bought clothes and I vowed to never again get up over a buck fifty. This year has been a bitch in a half and apparently my way of dealing with it has been to stuff all the problems in my mouth and hide them in my belly where they'll never bother a soul. I have been harboring so much stress in my stomach that I got back up to 150. Fucker. It had gotten to the point where I had stopped wearing underwear and I could only where two pairs of my pants, both drawstring style. And although I totally rocked the drawstring, I suck at laundry and two pairs of pants simply doesn't cut it for me. But nor could I bring myself to buy more big girl pants.

As luck would have it, Matt intervened and suggested a juice fast. Then, since he has this summer off from work, he combined several plans and made it into a four week long effort. We are just finishing the first phase, food elimination. It started a week ago by cutting out one major thing per day. Friday was caffeine, Saturday, alcohol, And so on. Today is the last day of that, we cut out oils and vinegar today. Then it's on to three days of raw veggies, fruits, seeds and nuts. Then follows three days of smoothies, though they won't be a tasty without vanilla ice cream in them. Then it's 10 days of fruit and veggie juices, followed by a 5 day re-entry to regular foods.

So far I'm loving this. Maybe it's because when I cut out wheat two years ago, I learned how to make a big dietary change. Maybe I'm psychologically ready for next phase of life. Or maybe my body is just so damn tired of carrying around 25 extra pounds of me. In the last week I've lost nearly three pounds and I'm up to three pairs of pants in the rotation, one of them even has snaps.

I'm pretty sure that empty spot in hell is reserved for me

I've never made any bones over the fact that I am a fair weather Catholic. I grew up with devoted Catholic parents who were, thankfully, liberal in most ways. I was baptized, sent to Cathechism, took First Communion. Short of going not through Confirmation and then marrying an ex-Mormon and  having his babies in and out of wedlock, I'm a fairly upstanding church girl. At least that's what I tell myself.

A few years ago our parish got a new priest who I, and it turns out a majority of the congregation, despise. I'm not sure what his true name is because I alternate between calling him Father Higgins and Father Ass Hat. Higgins is the name of a friend's enormously dim Labradoodle, he's a waste of dog cells, quite possible the dumbest animal I've ever met. The Ass Hat name, well that's just plain bitchiness on my part. Anyway, this priest gives sermons that reference television shows. Every week he does this. I imagine him sitting about his priest pad, watching Thursday night prime time when it hits him, kapow, he must stick some religious words together for Sunday worshipers. Suffice it to say, his presentations are shallow and with very little spriritual fiber.

For most of the winter I skipped Mass. Partly I was working two jobs, partly I would rather stay home and clean than go hear Father A.H. spew his lack of knowledge to the congregation. But this past Sunday I was feeling jaunty and pure so I decided to accompany my mom and endure the fool on the pulpit. Luck would have it, or maybe God was smiling upon us, Father Higgins was out of town and we had a guest priest who actually had some lovely words of wisdom.

So we listened, sang, kneeled and then it was time for Communion. I lined up behind my mom and approached the alter with pure heart when the realization hit me: there's gluten in them there hosts and due to a food elimination thing Matt and I had started the night before, booze was no longer on my lists of can do's. Shitter. I couldn't just turn around, I was out of the pew with three more rows lining up behind me. I couldn't walk by and snub the offerings, that would be a faux pas. Before I knew it I was up and had no choice but to extend my palms and accept the body of JC.

Now, my reaction to gluten is pretty harsh. There are the red rash/hives that appear around my neck and face. There's the swelling of my throat, not breathing is no fun. Then there's the bloat and gas, perhaps the worst of all the effects for people around me. I couldn't eat the damn thing. Couldn't give it back. Couldn't turn to the person behind me and say, "Oops, I got an extra. Fancy a body wafer?" No. So I did what I had to and pocketed it. I know that like Superman, The Holy Trinity have X-Ray vision and totally saw the glowing wafer in my pocket. I also know they gathered in a huddle and made notes next to my name in their gaint Who's Who books.

After Mass my mother asked why I went to Communion and again I choked, I confessed my sin. She was all in a bind that between us in the car a bit of Jesus was riding shot gun in my pocket. Her instinct was to turn around and tell the priest. Mine, of course, was to cover it up. I assured I'd take care of it respectfully. And I did. After careful thought I buried it the planter of my hibiscus plant. That poor thing deserves to be in the tropics of Hawaii and is instead stuck on the confines of Matt's hot, dry deck. My thinking is that the plant could use a boost o' Sweet Baby J.

The next day my mother inquired about the host, apparently she'd been fretting over it. I told her not to worry, I'd taken care of things but that it was between Jesus and me. That didn't go over so well. But deep down I feared that if I told her the actual location of the waifer, she'd sneak down in the night and dig it up and take back to the church. But then again, maybe I lack faith.