It rained all day here yesterday, which I gather is a rare thing in October in Southern California. Um, so yeah, all you Californians who laughed that our 5.6 earthquake in Virginia last month was barely enough shaking for a martini? We don’t call it a “weather event” when it rains. We just call it rain. We don’t like it. We avoid going for walks. But we keep calm and carry an umbrella.

Anyway, my vacation goal to plan each day around the equation of eating less plus moving more, which is supposed to equal less fat on my ass, was set back a wee bit because it was too wet to walk toward the ocean (more irony, I guess.) So I ended up walking on the fitness center treadmill. I really hate treadmills because it makes walking a chore.

I ended up trying to calculate how many miles I had to walk to earn a pineapple martini. I decided it was two miles. I am not going to show my work.

Anyway, my husband decided to skip dinner with his colleagues at the Cheesecake Factory (I know, right? WTF? We’re in California and they want to go to the shitty Cheesecake Factory?) and we went to a place down the street, Killer Shrimp.

And I had a “killer” margarita (it was sublime) and a bowl of lobster mac and cheese. If my calculations were correct, to walk that bowl of creamy sin away I owed that treadmill 26 more miles. Uphill. At marathon pace.

So I only ate about a third of it. It was maybe one of the finest tasting dishes I have ever had, but it was so rich, that a third was plenty.

I am not going to mention that Phil and I figured out if you combined lobster mac and cheese with french fries, you get the most wonderful thing on the planet. Patent pending.

Much better view than CNN on a treadmill television.

All has returned to normal here in L.A. this sunny morning, so I walked about two miles around Marina del Rey. Much more pleasant than a shitty treadmill.  When Phil is done with his meeting, we plan to hit the Getty Center and Old Town Pasadena before dinner with his family. Since I am uber self-conscious about eating in front of his relatives, I am hoping for a calorie deficit for the day.

Moving more. Eating less. Is this really me?

Since this means I won’t eat dinner or I will eat it very late, I brought along a nectarine and this Special K protein meal bar (chocolatey chip!) to eat before I head to the fitness center.

The hag  counselor at Weight Watchers said I should probably add more protein to my diet, you know, so my fat ass would maybe drop a pound instead of gain a pound. Just pointing me in the right direction.

So I bought these protein bars today.

Did you ever make a mud pie when you were a kid? And it looked just like chocolate and, since you were a kid with a vivid imagination, you sampled your mud pie, only to find it doesn’t taste anything at all like chocolate, just gritty dirt sprinkled with tiny rocks?

Then you know what this protein bar tastes like.

Congratulations, Kellogg. You managed to make something chocolate thoroughly unappealing to me.  I am in my 40s and I didn’t think that was possible.

Well, at least I still had the nectarine.

Yesterday, we got one.

Two ovens, the bigger one convection, five burners including a bridge burner perfect for grill pans.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

In kind of an ironic turn of events, the stove was delivered on my daughter’s birthday and we already had plans to go out to dinner. So, no cooking last night. I woke up this morning and made my grocery list so I could bring home all kinds of wonderful food to cook…and I have a terrible stomach ache. Can’t leave the house long enough to go shop for food, nothing sounds good anyway.

{{{SHAKES FIST AT THE CRUEL BITCH THAT IS FATE}}}

So I just scarfed down a couple of Pepto Bismol tablets and plan to hit the store as soon as they solve whatever is wrong in my gut.

I plan to make a dish tonight that will require using as many burners and ovens as possible: A deconstructed lasagna made with penne pasta, roasted veggies, a little seasoned meat and baked with Italian cheeses. Not only is this little macaroni bake da bomb, it will let me fire up the stove and at least one oven.

Then maybe I will bake some cookies or a cake in the convection oven JUST BECAUSE I CAN!

Bwhahahaha!

When I take a good long look at myself from an outsider’s perspective, I can honestly say that I am what is commonly known as a hot mess.

Besides being morbidly obese, like the kind of fat that makes vapid Marie Claire hacks cringe, I have a litany of medical complaints. Arthritis.  Migraines. Anxiety and depression. High blood pressure.

Although I love to look at fashion, I don’t have the body to pull it off. Trendy cute clothes are made for taller, thinner women. So I dress like a frumpy old lady most day: mom jeans, pullover V-neck tops in solid colors, Crocs, Clarks or Keens, flip-flops almost all summer. Stacey London and Clinton Kelly would throw away the entire content of my closet.

In it’s natural state, my hair is a thick, curly mop. I stopped wearing make-up years ago except on special occasions because that whole “lipstick on a pig” cliche seems like a money-saving reality check to me.

And I am a major klutz. I have all the grace and coordination of a club-footed drunk in a dizzy bat competition.

If all this sounds like I’m being a Debby Downer or that I am fishing for a compliment, it’s really not. I just think it’s good to be honest and well aware of my personal shortcomings. Keeps me humble.

And in case I ever forget any of these things, my mother-in-law will be here day after tomorrow to remind me in that adorable, passive aggressive, drunken way of hers that just makes the season bright.

But here I am, just days before Christmas and with yet another year about to fade into history, and I am trying to assess what I can do to make things better in 2011.  Last night I told my husband I was going to give up caffeine, sugar, chocolate and alcohol at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.

He laughed the kind of laugh that drips with disbelief — he knows me — but seasoned with a dash of fear. His fear would be that I might actually attempt all of those things — he knows me. He’s loves me, but he wouldn’t want any part of that nonsense.

But when I pointed out that I needed to take extreme measures because my joints are aching, especially in the extreme cold, he dropped the “F” bomb on me.

Perhaps, he said in a tender voice, when we retire, just so I won’t have such a hard time with aches and pains, we will have to move to Florida.

Oh. Hell. No. I only thought he knew me.

Do not get me wrong. I love Florida. Hell, I was born there in some unwed mothers home where they give little bastard babies like me away. I have vacationed there half a dozen time. The Poynter Institute, mecca for journalists, is there. And I would not mind being a young person living in Florida.

But I just cannot accept the idea that I could be one of those gray-haired biddies that spends her silver years in that very red state, also known as Heaven’s waiting room.

I cannot. Just. No.

I want to spend my last years on this earth in my hometown, Indianapolis. Or  a beloved city like Nashville. Or Portland (Oregon, to be clear.)

Not Fort Meyers. Or Naples. Or Boca Raton.

Inadvertently, my husband may have given me the best motivation to live a healthier lifestyle in 2011.

After 6 p.m. I tweeted that the only sustenance I’d had all day was two cups of coffee and two slices of cake.

I know, not nutritionally sound. If you are looking for prose about good eating habits, just skip this post because it only gets worse from here.

So, shortly after I announced to Twitter that I was on a waning sugar buzz I declared that I was gonna find me a cheeseburger and make it my bitch. Husband replied to that tweet that he would like one, too, please. Being a good wife, of course I was willing to clog my beloved’s arteries along with my own.

So on my way home, I pull into Wendy’s drive-thru. If you haven’t visited Wendy’s lately, let me tell you that those new french fries it’s been advertising? The russet, skin-on potatoes with a kiss of sea salt? Totally ROCK! Crispy, golden, not-too-salty. It’s like the Fried Potato Fairy sprinkled magic dust all over each box. Seriously, you must try them.

Anyway, I go through the drive-thru and order my husband a cheeseburger — no mayo, no tomato, just the way he likes it –and order myself some honey barbecue chicken nuggets (I told you this was NOT going to be a good nutrition post.) Of course I got two large orders of these magnificent fries because, hello, Fried-Potato-Fairy-dusted-heaven and I haven’t had anything to eat all day.

I pay for my and my husband’s dinner — out of my own pocket, mind you — and proceed to drive the two miles home with the hot, delectable fries in the bag. So I did what any STARVING person would do and I reached in the bag for a little taste of magic.

Before I knew it, I was home. And one of the fry boxes? Was totally empty.

So I had to break it to my husband that his fries were accidentally consumed by a STARVING person in my car on the way home. And I was really sincerely sorry for his loss. Clearly, the purloined potatoes were HIS because they were situated in the bag on top the burger. My pristine potatoes were still warm, sitting clearly on top of my little chicken nuggets box.

I explained all of this to him. And do you know what he did? This man who swears he loves me? He too MY fries!

I mean, HIS fries were ACCIDENTALLY eaten. No one, least of all his loving wife, INTENTIONALLY robbed him of his fries. It was just one of those freak things that happens when goods are transported. Sometimes there is inventory shrinkage. It’s no one’s FAULT!

But he didn’t see it my way. He did, however, find it in his heart to toss me a few tender taters from MY OWN ORDER. Mighty damn magnanimous of him, huh?

I remained haunted by the image of my beloved, cholesterol-clogging pomme frites being savored just out of my reach.

It was probably our fault. We feathered the nest so comfortably that she had no reason to leave it. But she met a nice guy and now she’s moved in with him and she took her anti-social cat with her and now Hoylier and I have the house to ourselves and we are doing the happy dance for her and for ourselves.

But the bedroom she left behind? It was not fit for human habitation.

My daughter is lazy. I love her very much, but she is the laziest human being on the face of the planet. When I was pregnant with her, my due date was March 17. When was she born? April 1. No fooling. She’s been poking along ever since.

She never cleaned her room. Ever. She did not dust. She did not sweep. She never washed her sheets. She only washed clothes when she had to and she never folded or hung anything. She just pulled it out of the laundry basket as needed. So it baffles me a bit that she took the two dressers in her bedroom with her when she left. They were practically new because she certainly never used them.

And then there was the litter box. It resided in her room so her anti-social cat wouldn’t have to run the risk of actually encountering another member of this household.

We were constantly nagging her to clean the litter box because you could smell it when you walked past her room. With the door closed. So not kidding. Wish I were.

So now that she and her cat have evacuated, my husband and I were left to detox the room and try to restore it to livable condition. It’s a nice sized room that would be great for guests, so we planned to spend this long holiday weekend cleaning it and buying a new dresser.

It took FOUR HOURS of scrubbing, dusting, carpet shampooing and deodorizing to get the air quality safe for breathing. On the hottest day of the year, no less. We were  drenched with sweat, even with the ceiling fan running, the air conditioning on and the windows open (I know, I know, all the air conditioning went right out the window, blah blah blah. The stench in that room was choking. We really wanted to break down the exterior wall to circulate air in there.)

We hauled out bags of trash and stuff to be donated, I laundered a basket full of dirty towels she left as well as all the bedding. The comforter could not be salvaged from cat hair and extreme funk.

This was some seriously hard work. I now feel qualified to clean crime scenes.

After the room was de-NASTY-fied, we went shopping for a new dresser. And we found one I love so much I want to move it to our room. And we bought a writing table, a chair, an upholstered bench, new lamps and a cotton blanket to replace the comforter for the summer.

We hauled all the furniture ourselves up the stairs, which is saying a lot because that dresser is heavy and we are the type of people to pay way too much money for delivery because it’s convenient and doesn’t risk my personal safety. Because who pulled a hamstring stepping off a curb? This girl. Who shredded all the cartilage in her right knee falling off a two-step stool? This girl.

So we saved money, sweated off a shitload of calories, redecorated the room and are proud of ourselves. And it’s an amazing feeling of accomplishment.

Happy dance!

They are old people. And they act like it. Most of the time they drive us nuts, but sometimes they are a little amusing. Which makes putting up with all the bickering and other addled behavior worth it.

Here’s the moments that made me smile during the latest visit with the family:

FIL: (discussing with my husband a problem that FIL perceived with one of his tires on the drive through West Virginia) “Where can I take the car to have that tire fixed?”

HUSBAND: “We’ll take it to Firestone.”

FIL: “What about Advance Auto?”

HUSBAND: “They can’t fix it or replace it at Advance. We’ll take it to Firestone.”

FIL: “I don’t know where Firestone is.”

HUSBAND: “I will take you there. Don’t worry about it.”

FIL: “Do you have a Tire Barn here?”

HUSBAND: (now losing all patience with this conversation) “NO! There’s no Tire Barn. There’s Firestone. We’re taking it to Firestone. That’s the only place to buy a tire. That’s it! That’s all we got here!”

FIL: (mulling over the husband’s rant) “Well, then this town would be a great place to open a tire store.”

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FIL: (about five minutes into the beginning of the movie No Country for Old Men) “Is this a movie?”

HUSBAND: “Yes.”

FIL: “On television?”

HUSBAND: “Um, yeah, Dad. We are watching TV.”

FIL: “So it’s not a television show?”

HUSBAND: “No. It’s a movie, Dad. On DVD.”

FIL: “Oh. OK. (pause) It’s not very good.”

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FIL: (After sleeping through three-quarters of No Country for Old Men) “Well, they killed Woody Harrelson! Right at the beginning of the movie!”

Husband: “Dad, the movie’s almost over.”

FIL: “Oh. OK.”

_________________________________________

FIL: (At the abrupt ending of No Country for Old Men) “Well, what was that? Is your television working right? I think it cut off the end of this movie.”

_________________________________________

FIL: (The next night, at the end of the film Revolutionary Road, during which he stayed awake through every moment of the thoroughly depressing movie) “You two sure know how to pick ‘em.”

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MIL: ( Saturday night, while we were at the hibachi grill at a god-awful Japanese steak house, discussing whether or not the Colts game would be televised here on Sunday) “Peyton Manning is busy making all those commercials. He wouldn’t have time to sleep around like Tiger Woods. Unless it’s just a quickie. Besides, I’ve heard he’s gay.”