Quality Time with My BFF

With a husband and kids and a mortgage to pay, it's hard to find time for myself much less time to have good, healthy relationships with my girlfriends.  I suck at phone conversations, and I'm not very good at making the occasional G.N.O. a priority.  My friendships are primarily formed and maintained by proximity.  If they are in my face, they are on my mind and in my loop.

Before my friends get too fired up, "Whoa, Nelly!"  I do have some of the absolute BEST friends in the whole, wide world.  God has blessed me with some amazing friendships.  In every phase of my life, there were some incredible friendships involved with my fondest memories.  Friendship and girl-bonding are very important to me.

When I'm down in the dumps, my girls keep me from drinking the poisoned Kool-Aid.  When I need to borrow a dollar for my morning Coke Zero on a day when I ran out of the house without my caffeine, I know I have a friend to hook me up.  When I dye my hair pineapple yellow on the day before school starts, my girlfriends are on the 4-1-1.  Seriously...my Besties are the best!

I have to tell you, though.  My best friend, Harriett, and I have a very weird relationship.  We don't talk on the phone because texting is far less time-consuming.  We don't "do lunch" except when we happen to have the same lunch schedule at work.  I probably saw her less than a handful of times over our summer break.  We don't spend time together because our schedules just don't allow it.  Yet, our bond is pretty tight.  We have one very strange interest that keeps us thick as thieves.

We diet together.  Swear.  That's what we do.  That's what we talk about. She gives me tips on what to do at the gym.  Her husband is the master slave driver who orchestrates the whole thing, but she and I keep each other accountable.  I know that if I'm about to hit the Dairy Queen, she can text me down.  Her having to keep me straight (because I'm the one who's always looking for a loophole and chocolate) helps keep her straight.  It's a win-win. 

We are both consumed with our weight -- how much we've gained, how much we've lost, how far away we are from our college fighting weight.  Some weight loss "techniques" we've pondered?  Wiring our jaws shut, getting deathly ill, using meth until reaching our ideal weight then have our families call in a professional interventionist, using Alli with Depends (for those uncontrollably explosive bowels), anorexia, bulimia, in-home liposuction machines from eBay...the list goes on and on.  Literally.

Don't worry; we aren't doing any of it.  It makes for good conversation and lots of laughter, though.  I'm pretty sure if we didn't diet together, we'd still be friends.  The dieting is the "hook," but the laughter is what keeps us BFFs.

Oh, I need to text her now.  I think I lost 3 lbs. this week on the chicken and asparagus diet!  She'll be proud...or she'll want to stab my eyeballs out.  

The Misadventures of a JC Junkie

I never, ever blog more than once in a day.  I typically don't have time.  Today, though, is going to be an exception.  This is too good; and with my Alzheimer's and all, I'd forget by tomorrow.

As we've already established, I am a NUT JOB!  In fact, I am darn near certifiable (though some would argue that I'm full-blown).  As is typical of me, I took a seemingly boring day and turned it into an adventure.  Well, really, a misadventure!

As you all know, I am on the JC diet plan.  Every week I head down to my not-so-local consultant in Memphis for a weigh-in and my JC fix for the week.  I had an appointment at 9:45 am.  With the weather, though, my girl, Jess, said I could just come at any time before 1 pm.  This was at around 10 am.

Hmmm...  I need to get to down to Park Avenue before 1 pm.  It's 10 am now.  Piece of cake!  In his usual pessimistic manner, my husband hit the roof.  "You won't make it, dammit!  Can't you just wait until Monday?  Don't we have something here you can eat?"

Yea, if I were a a toothpick like you and could eat whatever I want without gaining an ounce or getting a pimple!  Needless to say, his negativity just fueled my determination.  I got dressed in warm clothes and grabbed the keys to his truck.  I figured nothing could be too bad for 4-wheel drive.  Right?!?

As I backed down our driveway, I looked at the mess around me.  Wow!  I didn't realize how bad we'd been hit with the ice and snow!  Our road looked much like that pretty, glistening ice skating rink in Central Park.  God, I love that place!  I wish I could take the kids to NYC to ice skate in Central Park.  Sorry...another ADD moment.  Where was I?  Oh, yea...so the road was basically a sheet of ice.

I was determined, though.  I'm still thinking that I can get to JC before closing.  If I drive really slow and don't hit the brakes too hard, I can make it.

After driving for nearly 40 minutes to the main thoroughfare that is less than a mile from my house, I thought I was finally in the clear.  I was sure that our one street sweeper would have cleaned off Rosemark Road.  After all, that's probably one of the busiest roads in the county.  It leads to the mall, for crying out loud!  No one cares if the kids go to school, but God forbid that commerce be hindered!

As is always my luck, things were not as I'd planned.  The main road was just an extension of the ice rink on my street.  Oh, crap!  I get my friend, L, on the 411 to tell her about the pickle my ridiculous pride put me into.  She told me to just turn around and go to Kroger.  She told me not to call my husband, but rather, tell him when I return that I just didn't "feel" like driving all that way.

I won't listen to the father of my children, the man I trust with my life, but now L is making sense.  So I turn around and start back towards our local Kroger.  I've already wasted a good hour on this little trip, but Kroger was a more logical choice.  No, it's not my usual cuisine but it will do.  Fine then!  I'm not happy about it, but what's a girl to do???

Just as I pull out of the gas station back onto the main road, a car coming from the opposite direction starts to swerve just a bit.  I hit the brakes.  Big mistake.  The other car corrected and drove on while I spun into a ditch!!!  OMG!  I was only going 5 freakin' miles an hour!!!  WTH happened? 

I tried to back out, but got stuck.  I tried to pull forward, but got stuck.  Luckily, a cop pulled up next to me and hit his lights.  Next a very nice man pulled over with some ropes to help pull me out.  Unfortunately, neither the ropes nor his truck were strong enough.  Another man pulls up with some official tow ropes, but that didn't work either.  I was freakin' stuck!

Then, in the distance, shining like the Aurora Borealis, I saw a tow truck!  Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  The policemen flagged him down and worked out a deal.  Twenty bucks!  Can't beat that, now can I???  Uh oh, but wait...  I don't have $20 on me.  I'm a plastic girl!  I don't carry!  I'm a quick draw on the swiper, but I'm not even sure what a twenty-dollar bill even looks like!

If I weren't married and didn't have an aversion to kissing strange people, I would have kissed Timmy Kinney's Tow Service dude right there on the side of that damn road!  He pulled me out and handed me his card!  I offered to let him follow me home, but he told me to just forget about it!  I promised I'd mail him the money.  I've already written the check and put it in an envelope.

All the while, my husband was blowing up my phone with the "I told you so!  Damn it!" and some much stronger expletives I prefer not to mention.  Even after all that, I still went to Kroger and didn't get home until 3 pm.

Was I freakin' crazy??  Well, uh, yea.  We know that.  But what was I thinking??  I felt like some junkie going out in a blizzard to find my next fix.  I lost all marbles and risked my life for some high dollar, low cal cuisine.  Which, by the way, reminds me...  I know now why I never lost weight eating Lean Cuisines.  Have you ever read the labels on those things??  Those things have a lot of calories!  It took reading every label in the store to find a few things that were in the same calorie and fat range as JC food.

If I can one freakin' ounce while being snowed in, I'm blaming it on my husband!!!!