Chubby Hubby or One Cream Tea Too Many

Life is one huge balancing act.  You're always up on the high wire wearing little ballet slippers on your feet and desperately trying to keep the long narrow balance pole level, aren't you?  No, you're not?  Lucky you!  I always have the high wire visual in my mind's eye. 

The immediate balance act is husband's weight.  We spent fifteen nights on a five star cruise ship.  A lot of people go on cruises for the food.  There are many overweight people on cruises.  It's hard to figure out what came first, the chicken or the egg.  Are the overweight people are on cruises because they're all about the food available twenty-four seven or are they on cruises because they are already too heavy to travel in comfort any other way?  I don't know.  All I do know for sure is that all everyone ever discusses on cruise message boards or on the ship itself is THE FOOD.  It's always about the food.  Now, anyone who knows me in the slightest knows that I am a Foodie.  Just look at this blog.  But, I am a Foodie in the conceptual and constructive sense.  I love food intellectually and creatively, not so much or to such a degree physiologically.  I love thinking about food, reading about food, experiencing it as art and making food as an exercise in creativity.  I like to eat what I cook and certainly have a palate that appreciates the subtle nuances of flavors, but I eat to live rather than live to eat.  I live to cook.  There is a distinction there.

Now that we've returned home, husband is beside himself.  He has gained eleven pounds in the six weeks were were gone!  I've gained three or four,depending on the way I stand on the scale.  I knew I had gained that weight because I weighed myself daily while in England, carefully converting the kilos on the UK scale to pounds.  I weigh myself daily at home.  Husband does the same.  But for six weeks he didn't weigh.  I'm surprised he gained so much because on the ship he did an intensive cycling/spinning class every morning while I stayed in bed.  Of course, that was only for two of the six weeks. 

 A huge difference between us though is that husband controls his weight through exercise.  I do not exercise in any formal way.  Husband has maintained 174 pounds for the past twenty years.  He plays tennis and cycles about fifty miles per week.  I weigh about five pounds more than I weighed in college over thirty years ago.  I am  5'6" and weigh 136lbs.  Evidently my body metabolises what I eat the same way it did when I was younger.  Husband's body must somehow depend more on a high calorie burn off through exercise.  I just sort of realized years ago that this weight was the  weight that was proper for my body and it has settled at that and stayed there pretty much no matter what I do or don't eat.

I really don't think that we ate a lot on the ship.  We ate incredible food, but after my first two mornings of ordering and eating Eggs Benedict for breakfast, on the third morning just thinking about all that Hollandaise sauce made my gag reflex kick in.  We often just ordered oatmeal with banana, coffee/tea and orange juice.  Lots of times for lunch we just had cheeseand crackers and fruit or soup.  Really, watching all the heavy people walking past with huge plates of food from the lunch buffet line is enough to curb one's appetite.  We stopped doing the buffet and went to the main dining lunch where we ordered off the menu rather than  be tempted by the two mile long buffet offerings.  Sample  Ship menu below.

One final thought about husband's weight gain.  We were in England for four weeks of steak and ale pie, fish and chips, treacle tarts, and cream teas.  It might have been one cream tea too many that put him over the edge....

  

This Woman is Trying to Kill Us

Is it any wonder that Paula Deen is obese? She is trying to kill us as a nation. There are daily headlines, including the one this week that 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is now obese. In Washington, D.C., alone, there are 60,000 obese children according to the Centers for Disease Control.  Someone needs to stop this woman...

A Day Like Any Other Day...

A Day Just Like Any Other Day Except…

…You were there. If you’re old enough to remember Edward R. Murrow, like me, you’re really old. He’d say that at the end of his broadcasts. We’re having an “at home day.” It’s an at home day in England at the home of Brother-In-Law and sister-In-Law who have scampered off to France for six weeks. Our original plan was to go with them, but I was worried about being in the French countryside if things went wacky in Canada. It’s a lot easier to get on a plane in London than it is to get back to London from St. Palais. That pesky English Channel blocks the way. Also, we realized that we have only spent four weeks in our home since last September. An extra six weeks added on to our two weeks spent crossing the Atlantic and then four weeks in UK would just be too much. David and Janet were kind enough to give us full run of their home so we are happily ensconced in this small village.

Being here suits me. I grew up in New England, in Connecticut. Old England, here, looks just like where I was raised. I was a small town girl in a fairly rural setting. I had horses and dogs and rabbits. This is much the same. I like where we live now, in south Florida, for the warm air and the warm ocean and the soft breezes. It’s an easy life. The weather is awesome year round. Here, the weather is schizophrenic. This morning, the sun was shining through our draperies when I awoke. After yesterday’s day long rain, I was thrilled. I decided today was a great day for laundry. There is no clothes dryer here. Yes, really. SIL has spent her entire almost fifty years of marriage without a dryer. I do not remember a life without a dryer. I remember that my grandmother didn’t have one, but we always did. My first trip to UK was with husband and was in December. It was before we were married and I was “being presented.” We walked in SIL’s home and there were underpants and socks draped over radiators, drying. Well, being the American post-war Baby Boomer that I am, I hadn’t even seen a radiator in a home as far as I could remember, much less one used as a clothes dryer. The washer was a front loader and on the first visit it was in the kitchen. This was before the new craze of the huge front loaders we now have in the US. I do remember seeing washers like the one SIL has in a relative’s kitchen when I was a child. Talk about shock and awe. Most people in the UK now do have clothes dryers, but SIL says she’s gotten along this long without one so why bother? That being said, I do love hanging clothes on the line. It’s all about options and choice, isn’t it?

We hopped up this morning and stripped the bed sheets. After gathering up the rest of the whites, I washed a load. It takes forever in the washer here. I kept running out to the workroom to check and the machine was still churning away. Eventually it ground to a halt and husband and I headed for the clothes line. In the meantime, I hand washed two cashmere sweaters and laid them out to dry. The sun was shining brightly and a great breeze was blowing. Up and pinned it all went. As we are not allowed to have a clothes line or even a drying rack where we live, I found it freeing and exhilarating to see those sheets flapping in the breeze. I mentally gave home owner association ruled and regulated golf course resort living the proverbial middle finger and strolled inside with a satisfied smile. I grabbed my camera to take a few photos of the horses outback and the neighbor’s garden. All of a sudden, the wind gusted, the heavens opened and the rains began pelting me. Husband ran out and we began grabbing the laundry from the line. We draped the sheets over baby buggy and the drying rack and I hung pillow cases and underwear on radiators.

I’m a semi-proper English wife now, I guess. As soon as all that was accomplished, the sun again appeared, mocking me and my sissy American ways. As I said, the weather in England is schizophrenic. I may be a sissy, but I’m not a stupid sissy. I refuse to play the weather game. The laundry is staying in…

Time Flies

Especially when your recent life has been one big adventure.  We completed out two week trans-Atlantic cruise and have been in England for the past two weeks.  The cruise was phenomenal in every single way and almost beyond description.  I have thousands (literally) of photos to view, edit and organize.  I will bore you with them at a later date. We were very active the entire time.  We were pampered and fawned over and ohhhhh, I don't know, just sort of in an alternate universe comprised of new experiences, new places and people and scrumptious food and amenities. 

We spent the first few days in the UK reconnecting with family before heading off to Cornwall on the west coast of England for four days.  Brother-in-law David and Sister-in-law Janet had planned the entire trip and chose a beautiful little B&B in Cornish town of St. Austell.  We toured and dined and toured and dined and dined and toured.  It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, I will leave you with a lot of words....

Day One-All Aboard

Day One – All Aboard

It amazes me to realize that we have been aboard the gorgeous Celebrity Constellation for six days. The time flies by. We are active from morning to night. There is so much to tell. Where to begin? At the beginning seems a good plan.

We boarded the ship in Ft. Lauderdale on Friday, April 17^th. Embarkation was so easy. We were out of the car, through security and check-in and onboard the ship in less than fifteen minutes. As we walked up the gangplank, the excitement began to mount. I’m normally very unfazed by travel, but there’s something about boarding a huge ship that elicits butterflies in my stomach. They are not dull brown moths, but beautiful sort of Monarch butterflies symbolizing joy and happy anticipation. As soon as we exited the gangplank and entered the stunning marble foyer, we were greeted by staff offering us champagne. Yes, an auspicious beginning.

After genteel imbibing during which I chug-a-lugged two Mimosas, we boarded the elevator to deck ten to enjoy lunch. Our stateroom wouldn’t be available until one-thirty PM. We found a table in front of the window already occupied by a nice English couple. They were happy to have us join them and introductions were shared. Soon an absolutely lovely, quite elderly Scottish couple joined us. I am so used to my husband that I forget that he has an English accent. He just sounds like John to me. I quickly realized that because we were on a transatlantic crossing to England, the UK would be heavily represented both person and accent-wise on this trip. It made me happy to hear the cacophony of accents from every part of the UK. I’ve come to know that we have a large contingent of Germans aboard. All announcements are made in English and German. I will write more about the Germans later when I am more kindly disposed toward them. Today, based upon poolside lounge chair saving/hogging beginning at seven AM by hordes of Germanic speakers, is not that day.

Half-way through a delicious lunch we were informed that our room was ready. We have a very nice deluxe veranda stateroom. We weren’t sure that we really needed to spend the extra money for the upgraded veranda room, but thinking of fifteen days aboard ship decided we would like to be able to sit on the veranda and soak up the sun. I am still reserving judgment as it has been too cool for me to sit out there today (we are somewhere between Bermuda and the Azores).

Before the cruise I joined a discussion forum about cruising. On the board one may join a discussion group called a role call designed especially for one’s particular cruise. Through the forum, I found others and we managed to “meet” three other couples and form a dinner table group of eight. We all wanted a late dinner seating, eight-thirty PM. We like meeting new people. Before the cruise each of us wrote a brief sort of introduction of us as a couple. Still, we had no clue how this all would work out. There is nothing worse than feeling trapped by ill suited tablemates.

Before dinner we went to the theatre for a show by a gal named Jackie Michaels, a former Broadway singer and then back-up singer for Barbra Streisand. She was good; not outstanding.

Dinner dress the first evening out of port is “country club casual” meaning not formal, but no shorts, jeans, tennis shoes etc... This dress code is because not everyone may have their suitcases by dinner time. We were led to table 448 and our first face to face meeting with our online friends. Dinner conversation was lively and quick, but still somewhat exploratory. Over dessert though…well, that was the piece de resistance. I cannot remember the exact crystallizing moment, I think someone mentioned Obama, but we each had the “aha” moment almost simultaneously, realizing that we were all politically attuned and could freely exchange thoughts on the state of world affairs and philosophical beliefs. Small talk would not occupy our dinner conversations. The hell with the weather or the colors used in the staterooms or the nationality of the cruise staff members. We could actually discuss substantive ideas and global issues. Being the effusive, impulsive, affectionate girl that I am, I gushed to all, “Oh, I love this table! I love you all!” What a serendipitous event to have never once on the forum even alluded to anything other than cruise details and to have ended up gathering together eight liberals for dinner. Truly, my heart sang. We spent over two hours at the dinner table. Our meal was excellent from starter to salad to entrée’ to dessert. I started with Feuillete with Mushrooms in a creamy Herb Sauce, followed by Chilled Tangerine and Apple soup, Caesar Salad, Broiled South African Cape Hake and Crème Brulee. I did not and will not count calories. Why upset myself? We left the dining room and sat for a half hour in the champagne bar before waddling off to bed. We would sail overnight to Nassau, Bahamas, scheduled to dock at seven AM. In our little world, everything was fantastic.