Happy Twenty Ten from The Mom

     I quit coming up with New Year's resolutions a long time ago because I don't think I have ever been able to keep any of the many that I have made. So...I am going to come up with a list of things that I will probably HAVE-TO-DO this year whether I want to or not....
    1.The Dentist. After avoiding this for a whole year (plus probably another year if I am honest), I will be compelled by the fact that I can no longer chew on the right side of my mouth to drag myself to the dentist and allow someone who looks like he is wearing a Hazmat suit put his giant paws into my mouth while he and his friends (he calls them technicians) poke around with all manner of shiny metal implements, scraping my gums raw in the process and looking for all those little corners and crevices where things called cavities love to hide. And somehow I am supposed to not only submit myself to this process not once, but twice each year, and to actually say thank you for taking me to the River Styx and back when I walk out of the office. In addition I also know that I am supposed to encourage my children to undergo this same torment all the while reminding them that they will thank me when they are old and still have all of their teeth. I, however, am not yet ready to thank my mother for introducing me to this heinous form of torture at ANY age. I also think dentures don't sound so bad.
   2. The PERPETUAL DIET. I think if Dante had ever been confronted with a post-modern post-menopausal twenty-first century more-than-middle-aged and aging-not-so-gently woman who lives in the midst of an exceedingly thin and body-obsessed culture, he would have included "the diet" as one of his levels of hell. It certainly is on my list. Furthermore it is never any fun getting on the scales at the beginning of the New Year and realizing you are about six or seven pounds away from Your-All-Time-High. This moment of reckoning comes of course the morning after you have consumed a rich and sumptuous four-course New Year's Eve meal accompanied by all manner of high calorie beverages that tasted good at the moment, but give you more than a pause the day after.
   3. The Cleaning. You know when you open the closet where the washer and dryer reside and can no longer maneuver your way through the detritus of life that has accumulated there to even know what lurks within, and your husband (who does his OWN laundry so you cannot assign blame to him in this area) has a slight conniption fit and asserts that he has had to scale the heights of Mount Everest while simply attempting to change the dryer setting, that some radical form of cleaning accompanied by numerous trips to the dump is more than likely in your near future. You are just hoping that he does not go into any other closets in the meantime because the cleaning might have to commence sooner rather than later and today you still want to be a slug.
     4. The EXERCISE. It's bad when you drive by the YMCA nearly every day and feel a deep desire to duck your head in shame because you pay good money each month for a membership that you hold in name only, but the truth is that you would rather go to the dentist, eat a very fattening and delicious meal with friends (even if you pay for it later) and deep clean your mess of a house than climb on a bicycle, lift a weight, or do anything that could remotely be construed as exercise (unless it involves a fork or a spoon and the last time I checked the calorie counter, using those implements did not even register on the scale). It is not that you don't need to, because point number 2 clearly indicates that you do, it is, honestly the fact that exercise is anathema to you. You seem to be allergic to it. Deeply allergic. But this is the year to begin to expose yourself in small doses to see if you can tolerate EXERCISE without keeling over.

Whew. Just thinking about the dentist, the diet, the cleaning, and the exercise has exhausted me. I think I am going to be forced to comfort and console myself with a bowl of homemade macaroni and cheese made with real cream, real butter, real eggs and real cheese and wait until tomorrow....What a realist I am!
Happy Twenty Ten!