Fat farming

I knew from Helene that he would be taking fat from one of my legs and injecting it into the lines running from my nostrils to the ends of my mouth. The fat above the knees is the best for this, she had explained briskly. I immediately thought of my plump expanse and decided it was DOC quality. The fat they’d be taking, in a process identical to liposuction, is grand cru fat, I mused. Why can’t they take a LOT of it? The deal is, they stick a needle into the leg and siphon off the fat. Then they run it through a machine to harvest the grand cru and they throw away the rest. They process the fat to make it right, and then they inject it into my mouth from the inside.

That younger, thinner, better me

I look at the pictures of me from Fort Lee, thinner than I think of myself as being, and read my accomplishments: wife (with an absentee husband), mother of two (often the father figure as well), presiding over a large home with a live-in, a working professional at blue-chip companies, an officer of IABC, member of the Consumer Affairs Board of Fort Lee (I never did anything with that job!), in charge of publicity for the Unitarian Church (never did anything with that either), freelance writer, dedicated runner (3 miles most mornings, 10 or 15 miles per day on the weekends) and the list goes on.

What do I do now? I wait for writing assignments to dribble in. I walk my dog. I cook once a day. I walk my dog. I write email to friends. I walk my dog. I am doing NOTHING.

The future takes shape

I’m not in shape and I don’t feel good about myself, but a U.S. visit always has me running around so much that I don’t think about it much. So I often wind up losing weight in spite of myself. (Little did I know how much weight I would lose on this fateful trip).

Sizing up summer

End of summer. It was hot today, cold today, rainy and humid. A mess. Sort of like my situation. My flab hangs heavy, especially around my upper arms. They were once my pride, when I was running with weights. Now Nando says they are double what they ought to be. And that comment of Max’s in June about my legs being twice their acceptable size doesn’t improve my feeling about myself.

Pillsbury Doughboy, oh boy!

We do have a choice about the WAY we keep going. I was reminded of that when Michele, a friend of my husband's, stopped by this morning. When he saw me he said, “You aren’t jogging anymore?” Translation: “You’ve gotten fat.” Fact is, I can feel it, the softness round my stomach, the jiggling flab on my upper arms. I HATE that Pillsbury Doughboy feeling on my arms. It is the worst part of aging. This comes on top of my son Max’s comment last month:  “Mom, you need to start jogging again. Your legs are out of shape.” Translation: “They’ve gotten fat.”