The Nightly Dance

‘Josie, it’s none of your business!’

‘Yes, it is. I have to live with you!’

‘No, you don’t! You can go live with Cassie. That’d be great!’

‘I don’t want to live with Cassie.’

‘Yeah, that’s because her mother would never let you, anyway.’

‘Yes, she would!’

‘No way! You’re such a brat; no one wants to live with you.’

‘Well, at least I don’t stink!’

‘You do, too! You smell like a pig!’

‘You should talk! You are the smelliest kid on the bus!’

‘Well, at least I don’t act like an idiot every time a boy gets on the bus!’

‘Yeah. Right. You act like an idiot every time anyone gets on the bus.’

‘Just shut up.’

‘You shut up!’

‘No, you!’

‘No, you!’

‘No, you!’

I pushed myself away from the doorjamb where I had been leaning, arms folded across my chest as I listened to this clever conversation. The sound of their raised, irritated voices had pulled me downstairs from my bedroom office on the second floor.

‘Here’s an idea, guys! Why don’t you both be quiet!’

But Josie, completely unintimidated by my presence and my suggestion, had to get the last word in.

‘No, you!’

‘Josie! I said, be quiet!’ I could see the wheels turning in that lovely head. I could see the split second the cogs meshed and she decided it wasn’t worth the risk to utter one final ‘No, you!’ Wise choice.

‘Well, tell Eli to quit telling me to shut up!’

I cocked my head to one side.

‘I believe I just heard you telling him the same thing!’

‘Yeah, Josie!’

‘You!’ I swung to face my thirteen year old. ‘You be quiet!’

‘She started it!’

‘Nuh-uh! He threw the remote at me!’

‘Yeah, after you moved it out of the chair, where I was sitting!’

‘Guys! BE QUIET!!’

‘You got out of it, Eli! You snooze, you lose!’

‘Josie! Enough!’

‘Mum! I was watching Stargate SG-1 and I got up to go to the bathroom, and Josie took my chair!’

‘You’ve been watching TV for two hours! It’s my turn to pick a show!’

‘After this show is over! You can’t just change it in the middle of a show, and you can’t take my chair just because I go to the bathroom!’

‘Well, I can’t see it from the couch!’

‘You don’t like Stargate, anyway! You don’t need to see it!’

‘I need to see MY show!’

‘You shouldn’t even be WATCHING your show!’

‘You’ve hogged the TV all day! First you played X-Box, and then you watched your stupid shows!’

‘Your show is the stupid one!’

‘No, yours is!’

‘No, yours is!’

Click.

The Camera Adds Ten Pounds!

December is typically not a good month in which to diet. The Christmas holiday season is jam-packed with social events…the ‘company’ party, the neighborhood party, the family parties, and the OTHER company party. Too, there are the shopping trips. It is practically unheard of to spend a day in town, bustling from shop to shop, without stopping for a bite to eat in a restaurant or a café or a fast food joint. Such extravagances almost always result in an over-indulgence or two. It’s impossible not to splurge on a piece of strawberry cheesecake or a dish of chocolate mousse. After all…it’s Christmas! It’s a tradition!

But you see, I have a problem. I am going to be a guest on a local television show on December 27th. Just two days after Christmas. I’m excited… psyched, even! What a great opportunity to tout my novel, Grumble Bluff! To spread the word about my newspaper column, ‘Observations from The F.A.R.M.’! And what fun!



But holy smokes! Everyone knows…the camera ADDS TEN POUNDS!

There are some people, admittedly, who can afford to look a bit heavier, a tad more fleshed out. Sure there are. Of course!

But I’M NOT ONE OF THEM!

Oh, brother…

I have NEVER been skinny. Even when I wasn’t curvaceous, I wasn’t skinny! I’ve already HAD the ten pounds added. The twenty! The…um…twenty-one!

Good heavens…

I suppose it’s a good thing that there are men hereabouts who like their women with a bit of meat on their bones. I know I would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle if every man in western Maine was only content with slender ladies who sported collarbones and had space enough between their thighs to throw a Frisbee through.

Yup. As Martha Stewart would say, ‘It’s a good thing.’

Of course, it’s important to remember that we well-rounded girls have many other attributes that make us attractive. I read a survey once that stated that Maine had one of the highest percentages of overweight women in the country. That may very well be true. After all, we have a very long, cold winter here! It’s hard to concentrate on how your bikini will look when you’re hanging wet laundry on the clothesline in -20 degree weather, or trying to peel an icicle off your tongue without drawing blood. We stay inside except to shovel snow or lug wood, and sort of semi-hibernate.

Nope, for seven months out of the year, we’re basically inactive. These months include Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Ground Hog’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, April Fool’s Day, Ash Wednesday…even FAT TUESDAY, for crying out loud! And several full moons, too!

We’re doomed!

And we have only May through September to take that winter weight back off.

Do the math. If we gain five pounds a month for seven months, work hard and manage to lose five pounds each month during the summer, we are still ten pounds overweight when winter rolls around again. In four years, we’ve gained forty pounds! In eight years...EIGHTY! That’s what an average ten-year-old child weighs. That’s sixteen bags of sugar. Three hundred and twenty sticks of butter!

Man, am I depressed!!

So, it’s possible that Maine men do prefer large women. It’s also conceivable that they have no other choice…their options are that limited. Therefore, it’s vital we ladies constantly remind them that what we lack in slenderness, we make up for in hair.



See…most men in Maine don’t have a lot of body hair. Oh... you’ll occasionally see a fellow with a tuft of hair peeking out over the top of his tee shirt, but chances are good, that same man will be as bald as an egg. It’s like the body compensates for what the head has lost...

And while men have a problem with thinning hair as they get older, it’s just the opposite for us gals. As we age, we fur out. A little moustache on the upper lip, some downy fuzz on the cheeks...the occasional black wiry hair sprouting from a mole.

It’s all part of our charm, I’ve been told.

My point is, so what if some survey conducted at a college on the coast of southern California says that Maine women are overweight? We have many other attributes that make us sexy!

Hmm. For some strange reason, I’m STILL depressed.

The bottom line is this. I’m going to be on TV. In front of a host of viewers who will be both strangers AND folks who know me… and I’ll be looking like I’ve gained ten pounds. In order to appear as I do right now, I need to lose ten pounds in the next three weeks. During the season with the biggest, most food-filled holiday of them all.

Can I do it? In an intelligent and healthy manner? Well, I’m going to try. I’ll give it my best shot.

And I think I’ll start by having a shave…