Monthly Archives: October 2007

I’m off to Mexico in less than 12 hours. The house is clean. I’ve done over 10 loads of laundry so I don’t have to worry about it when coming home.

My bags are semi-packed. Armpits are waxed (ouch!), which in turn turned me off of the bikini wax. So, the lady zone has been dehaired by other, kinder, gentler methods. Legs are shaved. I’m about ready to go do my nails.

I’m doing anything I can to deter myself from thinking that in just a few hours I have to get on a plan.

Gah, I hate flying.

Oh, and the diet is already out the window. When I don’t have the day-to-day structure of a schedule (I’ve been off work for four days now), I don’t do very well. There will be no Monday weigh-in this week because I don’t want to start of my Mexican vacation on a sour note.

But, to end this all on a happy note, I leave you with this picture of my beloved last night…

The rest of the photos from last night are here.

Holy shit.

This morning was weigh-in. I was praying that I didn’t at least gain weight. I haven’t been the greatest this week. Bryan and I ate out three nights. I made smarter choices when eating out, but still… I was eating out.

And Friday we had this potluck thing at work. I ate like a hog. A freaking hog. And then I felt guilty. And then I realized that it was the first time I had eaten like a hog in six weeks.

Then yesterday we had pizza. Mine was made with fat-free cheese. But, dude, it was pizza. And then I had two beers last night when I went out with Kat.

For weeks now I get a message every Monday morning from Weight Watchers congratulating me on my weight loss, but warning me that I’ve lost over 2 pounds, so I should slow down a bit – eat all my extra points. As you can see, I took them up on it this week. Ate ‘em all…. every, last, one.

I even let up a bit on my exercise. Not to slow down my weight loss, just because I was preoccupied. I still worked out three times at the geriatric social club, but left most of the walking of the dog to Bryan except for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Those three days I must have walked about ten miles with the dog.

To re-motivate myself, I sat down yesterday and made a chart for the next 15 months based upon losing two pounds a week. There are color-coded, incremental goals on the chart every few weeks – milestones that include holidays, pounds lost and body percentage lost. Smaller, immediate goals are helpful instead of having to focus on the huge, huge task ahead of me. I started the chart at last week’s weight, 273, fully anticipating that I would be roughly that this morning at my weigh-in.

Okay, okay – hoping that I would be that this morning at my weigh-in. With all that eating out, and the pizza, and the pot luck, and the beer… well, I was just praying that I hadn’t gone up.

And damned if I don’t have to redo that whole fucking, color-coded chart now! Stepped on the scale and lost three pounds last week. Three! That brings me to a total of 27 lbs. lost-to-date!

What the fuck?

I guess it just hasn’t sunk in yet that this Weight Watchers shit works – even when I stretch it to the max.

Well, I should go now. I have a chart to fix…

Well, my world is damn near complete now that I just opened Bloglines and found the headline “Kid Rock arrested for Waffle House brawl” in my news box.

[Can't think of an appropriate segue...]

Dan’s funeral was Saturday. It was good – as good as these things can be. The Ojibwa men he had been studying with sang and drummed for him for hours. Folks from his Ojibwa family, his work family, his band families and his actual family got up and spoke. Even Patty spoke – which just floored me. She was eloquent and thoughtful and so put-together. It was all a fitting send off for a special man.

Bryan and I were supposed to have gone to a lunch with the family and friends afterwards, but got lost on the way to the restaurant, so we ended up driving around for quite a while just decompressing and listening to a CD of Dan’s music that had been passed out after the funeral. Bryan was really shaken up having heard Dan’s band members speak… he could identify with the feeling of having lost a brother. And he was sad that he had never had the chance to know Dan better.

After a while we came home and just passed out. We finally woke up late last night and watched a movie together. We didn’t go back to bed until nearly 5:00 in the morning.

This morning I got up and walked Cain for 2 1/2 miles. I keep smelling the tobacco from Dan’s funeral and hearing the whistles that were played at his funeral. It wasn’t spooky… it just felt good to process it all quietly by myself. It was a nice reminder of how lucky I was to have known him and how happy I am that his wife reconnected with me a year ago.

Tonight I took off with Kat to see a few bands perform in Detroit. One of the bands was led by a kid she used to babysit. He’s 23 now and an awesome singer.

Good show… loud show… happy to be home now.

I’ve been so heavy-hearted all week long because of Dan’s death. None of it makes sense to me… why this happens to someone like him, to someone like his wife, Patty, to “someones” like his precious little babies. Healthy 30-somethings just don’t lay down on a couch one night and never wake up again. It’s not right.

And Dan and Patty… they were one of “those” couples – the really good ones. They complimented each other so well. He was a fierce defender of hers. She’s always spoken so highly of him. It’s so cliche, but I’m confident that they lived more in their few years together than most couples live their whole lives.

I left work early yesterday with a pounding headache. I just. feel. so. bad. Not for myself… I just feel for Patty. We’re of the age where we are supposed to be celebrating births and weddings and birthdays. We’re not supposed to be burying our husbands. I’m mad as hell that she has to do this.

I went to the first night of viewing tonight. It started off a bit shaky. I talked to Dan’s dad for a while – a big hulk of a man. In mid-sentence he broke down in tears as a CD player started to play a lullaby that Dan had recorded for his son.

But then I had a chance to sit with Patty for a while. She spoke of the many blessings she felt and how she knew that everything happened for a reason. She said she’d never know how many blessings came from Dan’s death – from the 65 people that were helped by his various organ donations, to the couples that hugged each other a little tighter that night, to the friends that hadn’t spoken to each other in years and were gathered there tonight. She even said, “This is going to bring us closer together. That’s another blessing.”

Yes… yes, it is.

I know there are many hard nights and days ahead for Patty. And I know that there is only so much that any of us can do for her, no matter how well-intentioned. But I feel somehow relieved tonight having been reminded that she’s one of the special people in this world that can find blessings in the midst of a real tragedy.

Dan was Ojibwa. His wake and funeral is being presided over by an Ojibwa elder. Tonight the elder said prayers at sunset and invited anyone who wanted to take part in smoking a pipe. I joined the women’s circle and shared a pipe with Patty, her mother-in-law and a few other women.

Also as part of Ojibwa tradition, a fire is being burned for four days after Dan’s death. (Patty didn’t have time to explain it, but from what I read, it is believed that the soul of the deceased travels westward for four days.) The fire should be burning in front of Dan’s body, but as it’s not possible, one is being burned for him up north and another in North Dakota right now.

Lastly, for tonight, I’ll leave you with this… a letter that Dan’s parents wrote to everyone tonight and handed out at the wake.

“I wanted to speak these words but the great sadness in my heart won’t let me without tears from eyes.

Our son’s spirit has moved on. So has his body started on its journey. His eyes are helping other human beings see the trees, the sky, rain drops, sunbeams… maybe for the first time. What could be used from his heart has gone to other human beings so that they may have the love of life for a little longer. His bones and bone marrow have been put to use to help others in need. Even his skin has been given to others to help protect their flesh so they can go outside and feel the wind and rain on their new skin. As we too will walk in the rain and see the new life in the spring. Dan will be there. His ashes will help give life to the trees and grass and rain forever.

We will always be reminded of Drum Spirit, as the harmony of life on earth goes on, in the soft whisper of the breeze or the howling of the wind, the crash of the thunder, the songs of birds, the soft babble of a brook, the drumming of the partridge wing, and forever in the beating of our own hearts.

May Creator’s need to call Dan home be greater than the hole left in our lives and may we be comforted in our sorrow.

It was planned to make Drum Spirit a Chief, a leader of his people, in the summer of 2008. This would have made the ninth consecutive generation of leaders in his family. As an organ donor, even after death he was able to help 65 other people.”

I cut my walk with Cain in half this morning because I wanted to come home and write all about my great weekend and my great Monday morning weigh in. So, I jumped on the computer, logged on and noticed that I had an email from a friend and the subject line was the name of a husband of a friend who lives down the street.

It took my breath away.

He passed away sometime overnight. Went to sleep and just never woke up. He’s my age… a bit younger even… a devoted husband and a father to two young boys – one just barely over a month old.

I called my friend, his wife, and later stopped by her house just to let her know that I was here for her. There is nothing I can say to make it better. She went to bed last night one fourth of a happy family and woke up a 30 year old widow with two young children.

My heart aches for her so much right now.

It never fails that, during my and Cain’s nightly walk, the moment it hits me that I have to pee is precisely the moment that Cain decides he is tired and thus decides to slow down and “pretend pee” on every, single tree between wherever we are and home. It does not escape me that, as the adult, the human and the only one does not purposely lick gonads in this relationship, I should have learned by now. But here I sit, another evening, just barely having made it back to the household before pissing myself whilst Cain has laid exactly one drop of urine on every tree in the last half mile.

Some other observations from our evening walk…

There are a lot of floral fucking couches in this neighborhood. It’s trash day tomorrow and I saw at least three on the curb in our two mile jaunt tonight. Even more inside the homes. (Yes, I’m that person who stares inside your house while walking by. )

Almost every other house has a kitchen the same color as my kitchen.

One of the homes down the block has a sign made of PVC piping, foam core and vinyl lettering planted among their bushes that reads, “The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him.” Now that’s what I like to see – a good Christian message of peace and love.

Directly across the street from the sign o’ rapture is a yard decorated for Halloween which includes a six foot grim reaper pointing directly back at the sign. Spooky.

There is a house at the end of the street that has yellowed newspapers taped to the middle of the windows in their front room. The newspaper doesn’t cover the entire window – there’s a four or so inch gap around all the edges. I assume they are trying to shield the giant six foot flat screen on the wall from the sun. Of course, one would think that if you can afford a six foot flat screen, you could shell out $19.99 at the local IKEA for some fucking curtains… but what do I know? I bought the curtains first and the TV second. You know, so that assholes walking by my house couldn’t peep in and blog about what they see.

I’ll be back tonight with an update proper, but for now… another 2 pounds. Woo-hoo! That’s 22 total now.

Just a quick Monday morning check-in. I weighed in this morning… 277.6! I’m now down 20 pounds since I first started all this. I should be more excited, but I’m just too tired from staying up way too late last night to really celebrate.

I was a little tentative stepping on the scale this morning. I started my period over the weekend which normally means mucho water retention for me. However, I had noticed that leading up to and during the start of my leetle monthly “friend” I had no bloating (I even have *gasp* ankles) for the first time in years. That in itself is worth everything I’m doing.

Other things I’ve noticed this past week – a few of my dress trousers are actually too big to wear at all (as in I can pull them down to go to the bathroom without unzipping them) and two pair of pants that are normally tight fit rather well. I even wore my “skinny” jeans the day before I started my period! And lastly, shoes that haven’t fit in forever fit again. I bought a pair of strappy sandals over the weekend that weren’t wide width. Woo-hoo!

My goal for last week was, “Eat no more than 10 of my extra weekly points and increase my activity points from 19 to 20.”

Extra weekly points: I used 9.5 of my extra points last week – mostly from a trip to the bar Friday night where I drank a few too many Guinnesses. But I guess that’s why you have the extra points, right? I was also able to eat one McDonalds cheeseburger, a small fry, Starbucks (non-fat), sushi and a greek salad from Pegasus without totally blowing it. I have to give kudos to this Weight Watchers thing… I’m able to eat a lot of what I always did, just in smaller (much smaller) or healthier (much healthier) portions and still lose weight.

Activity points: I increased my activity points to 22 this week. Mainly through walking the dog extra long in the morning or at night. I did the geriatric social club three times last week, including Saturday morning following my night of Guinnesses. That was a particularly proud accomplishment as all I really wanted to do was sleep, but I knew I had to get that third work out in for the week.

Goal for this week, keep steady with the extra food points – eating no more than 10 – and increase my activity to 25 points.