Watching Waistlines

I have fallen in love with Anthony Bourdain. He hosts a travel/food show on Discovery. It's basically just him, traveling and eating. He is a New Yorker and has that droll New York sense of humour, but is also very intelligent, cynical and world weary. The only thing I don't like about him is that in spite of the fact that he seems to drinks heavily, smoke constantly and eat enormous amounts of high-carb/high-fat food he is stick thin. I've always maintained that old adage "never trust a skinny cook" and while I probably wouldn't trust him I certainly wouldn't turn him down either. He has that bad-boy thing working for him with a razor sharp wit, and even though he is cynical he also manages to maintain respect for the country he is in and the people with whom he interacts. He seems to only make disparaging comments about his countrymen and their food/lifestyle choices. A scene from his restaurant showed him reading an order which said "no butter, extra béarnaise", he ranted "No butter? What the fuck do they thing béarnaise is made out of? Morons." A very attractive man.
Unlike Bourdain, my love of food and my passion for cooking is very well reflected by my body shape. I am perpetually on a diet, living in depravation (no, not depravity....well...) and lamenting my vast wardrobe of clothes that no-longer fit.
I've always been a fatty, to varying degrees. I was a skinny little kid that developed into a fat little kid, turned into a lean teenager then became a voluptuous but slender adult. If the roller coaster had stopped there, I would be happy. But the combination of my Honours year and a job in a bakery had me spending hours studying and eating bread and pastries. I did Weight Watchers and lost the weight. But I didn't keep up my active lifestyle and soon chubbed up again. I went back to WW and worked incredibly hard at the gym and jogged, cycled and swam for about 12 months and managed to look HOT on my wedding day. But a crap marriage and 2 miscarriages soon turned to depression which turned into blubber. After the girl was born I hit my all time record fatness (and coincidentally depression) level. This time I went to Sure Slim and low-carb/starved my way down again. The past 2 years with my new love have, unfortunately, due to the distance thing been focused on food and wine and my weight has gone up again. I tried to drop some weight for our wedding and spent a fortune on a personal trainer and tried to stick to the Sure Slim diet again. I was eventually able to row 1000m in about 4 ½ minutes, but didn't loose a gram.
I have since moving here been trying to follow either WW or SS eating and have been going to the gym at least twice a week – again, I haven't lost a gram.
So today I embark on the Tony Ferguson diet, again low carb but with protein shakes and more flexibility than SS. By mid-morning I was craving a cheese sandwich, but I have been good and have made it through the first 6 hours OK. Apparently after 48 hours I will stop being hungry and the weight will start dropping. Fingers crossed.
I have no desire to be thin, I like curves and I like softness, I just want to get rid of the double chin, beer gut, wobbly arms and thunder thighs. I don't care if I have a big bum or big boobs, I can live with that, but my goal is to get from the wrong side of size 16 to the other side of a 14 (bordering on 12), that will do nicely thank you.
So Bourdain has now become porn for me: watching an attractive man eating. Like Vogue Travel and Living magazine (of which I have many): gorgeous places I will never go and sumptuous food I will never eat. At least I get to watch. Read more!

Old cars and escapism

The girl and the dog and I ran away from home last week, temporarily. We hired a car and took off to the coast and stayed at a really nice b&b near Milton. We spent a day at Mollymook beach, which after the initial screaming episode caused by my not making sandcastles "properly", was fun. I buried the girl up to her head (was going to go further but people were watching) we splashed in the water – even the dog joined in – collected shells and made sand sculptures.
The b&b was set in lovely gardens with lush lawns so we ran around, kicked the soccer ball, played tag and hide-and-seek. After I worked out that I wasn't allowed to get possession of the ball, catch her or hide effectively it was loads of fun.
The past month or so has been very stressful for the husband and I. I've been dealing will all the stuff with my grandfather, the husbands car (and hence his independence) died and he has been getting quite a bit of grief at work and from his younger son. None of these issues involved the other except when it came to venting. Unfortunately the venting turned from healthy letting off steam to many fierce arguments and much finding fault. I needed a break, I decided the husband did too, hence my decision to bugger off for a few days. The annoying thing is, once I was gone our relationship improved immediately. I was reminded that ours is a relationship founded on distance: we spent almost two years 700km apart with only brief visits every few weeks. So over the phone we work brilliantly, face-to-face we aren't that great. But we are learning and getting better all the time.
The death of the Mercedes has spurred us into action with the Vauxhall. We bought a 1962 Vauxhall Cresta last year, it is black, has fins and is all curves and chrome and is total gothic glamour. Currently it is unregistered and needs minor work but it runs well and hopefully we will have it roadworthy and registered before too long.

In other car news I joined the old Holden car club last week and attended my first meeting. Typical boffin types, pleasant and very enthusiastic people. I will no doubt attend a few club runs and show off the EK and spend time admiring others. http://www.oldgmh.org.au/

On the drive back from Milton I passed the vintage caravan touring club. Magnificent. I have an early 60's caravan which is semi-restored. I am now inspired to complete the job so I can go touring in my gorgeous car with matching van I shall, of course, have to go in costume with a circle skirt and ponytail, Gothabilly style.
This afternoon I am going to do the veggie patch, version 2. The weather has been quite hot so I'm sure it's safe frost wise. It'll be snails next.

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Spring

My first spring in Blandberra.....so far so good. Only one crippling sinus headache and minor sneezing attacks, lets hope November is this good.Yesterday I hooked up the tandem bike for the girl onto the back of my husbands bike (my bike is temporarily out of action) and we rode to the video shop for our Wednesday movie exchange. About 6km round trip, not too bad. The girl is getting the hang of pedalling forwards, although she stills prefers to pedal backwards as she can go fast with no effort. But, to her credit, she did contribute to our momentum several times and was a small amount of help on the hills. The bad part is that I found myself yelling "pedal!!" when she was slacking and eventually realised I sounded just like my ex when we put in one of our very few attempts to share a pastime. I was very into cycling at that point in my life so he went and bought a bike. Now when I say "into cycling" I mean I rode my bike often, used it to commute, I didn't do it recreationally very often. So I wasn't into going as fast as I could or beating anybody, I just cruised. I wasn't interested in arriving at my destination puffing and sweaty and glowing red. My philosophy on hills was that down hill coasting was reward/recovery from the hard slog up the hill. My ex's philosophy was that going down hills is an opportunity to build up more speed. Our inaugural bike ride consisted of him racing ahead then doubling back to yell at me to pedal faster. When he found me coasting down a hill he was furious and screamed "pedal!!" We didn't ride together much after that. I apologised to the girl and she is keen to go again; I will endeavour to improve my behaviour.
Riding along we encountered several clouds of white fluffy stuff floating about, as if some tree or plant had suddenly dumped all of its seeds at once. No doubt it was this stuff that later caused my headache. It is actually very pretty here at the moment, the trees are blooming and sprouting new leaves, many flowers are appearing in gardens and on nature strips, the weather has been fine and sunny but not too warm. Quite lovely really, I may even become brave enough to replant my veggie patch. I am starting to appreciate more about this city; I can understand why some people enjoy living here. As long as you don't want decent live music, restaurants that are good AND cheap or any sort of alternative theatre or cinema then this place is great. I'm still keen to get back to the big city and I promise I will never take being spoilt for choice for granted again. Read more!

Coffins and Flowers

I didn't recognize the little old man in the coffin, until I looked at his hands. They were my grandfather's hands – gnarled and twisted from arthritis and covered in sun spots from years of farm work. Distinctive and instantly recognizable. Looking at his face I eventually saw similarities between my grandfather and the old man in front of me. He was so emaciated, eyes and cheeks sunken and there was no smile, none of his naughty boy cheeky sparkle. Yet it was him, and he seemed peaceful. I know it's a cliché to say "he looked peaceful", but he did. He could have been sleeping, except for the unnatural stillness.
I reached out to touch him, I wanted to stroke his forehead, hold his hand – but I couldn't. I reached out a few times only to pull back at the last minute. I couldn't bear the thought of feeling him cold, the final confirmation that he wasn't sleeping.
I distracted myself by investigating the quality of the coffin, peeking under the lining to pick at the chip board and tap on the plastic handles. I approved of my Grandmother's sensible money saving – why spend thousands on something you are going to bury? But I was also glad my mother had insisted that my Grandfather be dressed; he was wearing the suit that he had worn to my mother's first wedding instead of the pjs he died in which his wife was happy to have him buried in. She refused to put shoes on him though and I giggled at the thought of his bare feet under the satin shroud. My Dad and I debated the correct etiquette for coffin apparel – does one wear shoes or not? I thought since he was in a suit then he should also have shoes.
The service was very respectful and short, perhaps not as many funny stories as there could have been and I missed my chance to contribute because I misunderstood the invitation. Only one of my cousins from the whole family actually did contribute. But that's my family – verbose to the extreme if it is meaningless, but faced with an emotional situation we clam up. We then drove for 3 hours to the cemetery for the grave side service. At the end everyone was throwing flowers in the grave, I eventually did because I thought I should, but I really didn't want to. Not letting go? Maybe. Watching the coffin descend into the ground was bad, really bad. I was very grateful for the presence of my little princess and my husband, they were a great comfort. I am quite sure we have got this whole death thing wrong, it's too difficult. There must be a better way. A process that doesn't make you feel like you've had your guts ripped out.
So now he is gone. He was a character: a man of endless wit, great strength and in his own way – much love. One of the corner stones of my family is gone. I'll say good-bye in my own time.

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