Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Holiday thoughts

The woman on the L.A. Weight Loss commercial says, “This is me at size 14, this is me at size 4!” You can almost hear the boos and hisses when she says the number 14. Do you know what happens when a size 14 tries to lose weight? Well, I know what happens. If she’s young, and she would just about have to be to be upset about a size 14, she’ll lose down to about a size 10. Her body is programed to think feast or famine and, when she stops dieting, it compensates by storing extra weight for the next famine. She’ll enjoy her size 10 for about a month and a half. After that she’ll start regaining her weight until she’s a size 16. This process can go on indefinitely. I’ve been there and I know a lot of other woman who’ve been there too. That’s just my 2 cents for now.

My house is a mess. Okay, it’s certainly not the first time and it won’t be the last. The reason I’m bringing it up now is because all three of my children are home for the holidays. I love having them, I truly do. I’ll go to the mat with any mother that believes she loves her kids more than I love mine. That said, they’re all into physical fitness. Good for them, I’m not. They each have been strapping on Ipods and cute running sets and out the door they go. My question is, isn’t house work exercise? Couldn’t they be using all that energy to clean up the messes they are making? Am I missing something here?

Sunday, December 17, 2006

I’m waiting for the smell to kick in.

I’ve read that smell invokes stronger memories than any other sense. I believe this is true and I think it’s a good thing because it’s the only sense that still works well.

Actually that’s not true, my sight is better now than when I was in my twenties. I was born with a cataract on my left eye. I never thought too much about it until it got cloudy, when I was in my early forties, and I had it removed. A small piece was left inside and a week after the first surgery, my doctor had to go back and remove the small piece. For that week I came as close to perfect vision as I’ll ever have in this life. It was wonderful; I felt like I had bionic eyes. I did some serious looking that week–maybe even some reckless eyeballing. I even heard that bionic sound effect that Steve Austin used to hear whenever he focused on anything, but that’s another blog. The second surgery left me with improved vision, but not quite as good as the first surgery. Since I’m near-sighted, I can now read small print without my glasses, which really impresses all the previous non glasses wearers who have to amplify now.

Anyway, I digress. The reason I’m talking about smell today is because we’ve put up our Christmas tree. A lot has changed over the years when it comes to holidays, but I still require a live tree. It’s about a third as large as the trees we had when the kids were young, but that’s just fine with me. In fact, it was my idea to downsize. I love the lights and ornaments and everything related to Christmas, but nothing pleases me more than the smell of fresh pine. That smell mixed with the smell of a turkey dinner baking, the faint scent of Old Spice men’s cologne, and the unique scent of a new plastic doll is the smell of Christmas for me. That combination could transport me back to age 5or 6 sitting on my daddy’s lap playing with my new doll on Christmas morning.

I can’t wait for the tree to start smelling like Christmas.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

go ahead let your hair down

I’m sure you had no way of knowing this, but I’ve been looking for a new theme song. I’ve had many theme songs over the years and, unless you had the misfortune to have been one of my roommates in the early seventies and heard me playing Roberta Flack’s Do What You’ve Gotten Do ad nauseam, you’ve probably never hear me singing one of them. Every so often the music in me will go on hiatus but I don’t notice it until months go by and that depression sets in that haunts a soul without music. If I can remember that it’s the lack of music, and not life itself, I can recover fast. I pull out a bunch of old albums and sit in the dark listening until I’m filled with happiness again. I do mean albums too, not tapes or CDs or whatever else is current and shiny.

I’m telling you all of this because I heard a song that I believe qualifies as my next theme song. It's not a jaunty as one of my earliest song, Windy, but I changed the word to Jackie. If you can remember where you were when you learned that President Kennedy had been shot, then you probably remember this song. “Who’s walkin’ down the streets of the city." Don't judge me, I was very young when the song came out! But truth be told, I wasn't one to smile at every person I met even then, that was Windy, not me.

A few nights back I saw this cute little thing being introduced on one of the late night talk shows. Normally I wouldn’t have paid any attention to her because I didn’t expect to know her music, I’m not up on current tunes. But this young woman started singing and I recognized a refrain that I’d heard recently and liked. The exact same thing happened last night on yet another show but this time I noted her name, Corinne Bailey Rae. After the show ended I looked her up online.

If the internet had been around when I was younger I would have been the palest child coming back after summer vacation. I just love that I can get immediate answers to the stuff I used to write down to investigate during my once weekly library visits. Yes, I’ve always been curious, it just wasn’t immediately satisfied in the past.

I bought the CD today. The name of the song is Put Your Records On, what could be more fitting?

I need to spend some time learning the words to my new theme song now. I’ll leave you with a few parting words that are in the lyrics...

I hope you get your dreams, just go ahead let your hair down.