The Scale: A Poem and a Giveaway

In honor of us menopausal types, my poem, “The Scale”:

Do you cringe

When you deliver

The bad news to me,

Or is smirking

More your style?

Someday, Scale,

I hope you’ll speak

Kindly, firmly, fondly

With words since 

Your numbers fail me.

Are you a scale girl?

A waistband girl?

So lucky you don’t need to measure your weight in any way at all?

Or so carefree, it’s not a concern?

Giveaway:  Speaking of weight and weight issues, Mika Brzezinski chronicles her eating troubles as well as her friend Diane’s and much of America’s in OBSESSED: America’s Food Addiction – And My Own.

Get the inside scoop on the eating habits of Gayle King, Charles Barkley, Jennifer Hudson, Padma Lakshmi, and others.  Best of all, read Kathleen Turner’s comments on appearing naked, at 46, as Mrs. Robinson in the stage version of  The Graduate.

For a chance to win a copy, simply enter a comment by May 25 saying you’d like to be the winner.

Cookie Dough: Will She Resist? An Internet Tell All

On the docket:  The baking of  snickerdoodles!

I was determined NOT to eat any of the cookie dough, although if you ask me, cookie dough is ambrosia sent straight to earth.

I happily dumped the butter into the bowl.

You can do it, Barbara!  This is going to be  a No Dough for You Baking Session.

In go the sugar and eggs!

Next comes some cream of tartar. Despite its awkward name, cream of tartar is light and airy and mysterious like some women.  These light, airy, mysterious women don’t woolf down cookie dough.

Vivian, my mother-in-law and a fine baker, told me once that she never ate the dough.

I dumped in the flour using her old scoop. Inspire me, Vivian!

Besides, I need all this dough. The snickerdoodles are for the after-church social hour on the lawn. I’m in charge. Weather is looking good. I want to have enough cookies.

And since I’m baking them for church, I’m baking them for God, so to speak. God probably isn’t popping dough into his/her mouth right now. God is doing more important things and thinking more dignified thoughts.

I’ve made it this far; the cookies are lining  themselves up in the the pan. Don’t break down now, Barbara.  Fight!  Resist those churchly little devils.

This is where the writer betrays her readers.

This is where the photographer misses the action shot.

This is where the blogger disappoints her loyal following.

I’ve blogged about periods, droopy breasts, pelvic floor prolapse, and June Cleaver Envy.

But it’s my little secret if I broke down and ate a few good ole chunks of that delicious snickerdoodle dough.

I will give you one hint, one parting thought.

La vie est courte.

Life is short.

Calories: A Mystery Unclothed

I knew it!  I knew it!  I knew it!

I’ve never believed in calories.  How could something so small and compact as a square of fudge cause you to gain weight?  It makes complete sense to me that calories don’t come from food at all.  And we all know that bad stuff lurks in closets:  moths, the boogeyman, silverfish, dust bunnies.

How do we rid our closets of these evil stitching calories?  How do we protect our clothes from the terrors of shrinking?

Cliff and I haven’t had an easy time eliminating moths from the closets of this old house.  (We don’t like to use insecticides, and moth balls are only about 85% effective.)

At least you can see a moth. I have never SEEN a calorie.  Have you?  And dust bunnies, once captured, don’t put up much of a fight.  These tiny calorie creatures have got to be feisty.  They even attacked my sainted wedding dress.

Can I coax them out with trickery?   “Calories, follow me.  I’ll take you to the mall and let you stitch some really fancy clothes.  Better yet, we’ll fly to NYC, and I’ll release you in the store where they film Say Yes to the Dress.“

Can I blast them to smithereens by playing “It’s a Small World” twenty-four seven?

Can I choke them out with bad smells?  The kitty litter pan or burned popcorn?

Can I bore them to pieces by reading aloud my master’s thesis (although my mom, the only person to read it besides the professor, thought it was wonderful).

Find a natural predator?  An anteater, maybe, or those bright green lizards that skitter across my porch?

I’ll come up with a plan, and then my clothes will stop shrinking.  Cowabunga!

Of course, I’ll be glad to share it on Friend for the Ride!

Graphic:  Thanks to That’s What That Means for announcing this important discovery.  Science continues to amaze me as we uncover the complexities of the universe.

Fudge: Pondering Good and Evil

Good and evil.  Often, it’s easy to know the difference.  To decide.  To choose.  ”Always do what’s right,” was one of my father’s trademark lines.

But then, there are the in-between cases, the not-so-sure situations, the maybe yes or maybe no’s of morality.

As I grow older, I’m seeing the line more blurred, the answers not always so simple.   Hence my Fudge Prayer, posted especially in honor of  upcoming Valentine’s Day.  (As an aside,  some women and men find this holiday almost holy; others see it as the work of the underworld.)

Anyway, back to moral quandaries and fudge.  Let us pray:

Dear God,

I can’t decide if fudge,

Is good or evil.

Cocoa beans, sugar, rich butter,

Confection of good delight

Or calories of evil to the body temple.

The fudge is gone,

Swallowed,

Not unlike the cat and canary.

And now I offer this

Grateful Prayer of Thanksgiving

Or this humble Prayer of Repentance.

Amen and Amen.

What about you?  Is chocolate a gift from above or an enticement of the devil?  What other cases of good and evil do you debate with yourself and among family and friends?

Photo:  It’s your decision, of course, but here’s the recipe for the fudge in the picture.  If you decide to cook up a batch, just announce, “The Good Saint Valentine made me do it”

Be an angel and post a comment by clicking “comments” below.