FARE WARNING

Now that I am firmly lodged in the Sunset Years (my age? Let me just plagiarize a character from “Mame” and say, oh, somewhere between forty and death), I am surprised and frankly disappointed that I don’t look more like Jane Fonda. After all, I have her 1980 workout tape. I have enrolled in a yoga class that always seems to get pre-empted by snow or skipped by me for some excellent reason (too tired, too lazy, my friends aren’t going) and I have a rowing machine, as yet, unassembled. As you can see, I take this weight thing seriously, even though it has hit me, avalanche like, out of the blue. One day I was tipping the scales at ten pounds more than when I was married and the next, I was ten pounds over my nine-month pregnancy weight. What in the H-E-double-hockey sticks happened? As soon as the most recent (and most appalling) number appeared on the scale at my nurse practitioner’s office (and right after I lifted her off the floor) I started to research and absorb information about diets. Especially those written by celebrities of a certain age. (I don’t count Oprah as she has made it clear she has a personal chef.) I read Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Healthy,” Kris Jenner’s “In the Kitchen with Kris,” Dolly Parton’s “Dolly’s Dixie Fixin’s,” and “Entertaining with Kathy and Regis” and I still don’t look like Sheryl, Kris, Dolly, Kathy Lee or even Regis. (I considered “Kill It and Grill It,” by Ted Nugent who is not only my exact age but from my exact state but I decided it was a bad idea to mix diet and politics.) The bottom line (no pun intended) is that I don’t look like any of those celebrities. I don’t even look like their children. I suppose it would help if I’d cook the recipes and do the exercises but that seems like a stretch, and, anyway, these books are supposed to work like magic. I paid my $19.95. Where’s my magic? I’ve ordered probiotic pills, skinny tea and protein bars and I’ve fantasized about joining weight watchers. The trouble is that you have to swallow the pill and skinny tea must be accompanied by scones with clotted cream, protein bars taste like dog food (don't ask) and the prospect of getting weighed every week in front of a roomful of humans is unpalatable. If they had a weight watchers for dogs, I’d go. We'd both go. Toby is too fat, too. And that brings me to another complaint. Everyone said, “get a dog! A dog will force you out of doors. A dog will need (multiple) daily walks and you will automatically exercise!” Well, everyone was wrong. I managed to get the world’s only dog that isn’t interested in walks. I’m not kidding. He will run after a bicycle in front of the house or fetch a thrown ball which is more than can be said of me. The ridiculous part of all of this is that it shouldn’t have happened. Genetics are on my side. None of my grandparents was fat, nor were my parents, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. None of my children is fat. It’s too early to tell about the grandchildren. Everybody’s cute at four. Even I was cute. I mean adorable. We’re talking Shirley-Temple cute. Nowadays I don’t look as good as her, either, and, well, you know she’s dead. I think about food and my problem with it, all the time. (Except when I’m thinking about other worries.) Last night hubby and I were watching a Scandinavian film noir in which a coroner removed bits of tree bark from the body of a victim and it sparked an idea. “Say,” I said, “Think I’d lose weight if I went on an all-bark diet?” “All bark?” Just then a police dog appeared on the screen and Toby, as always, responded with a set of hysterical yelps. “It could work, if only because I’d shut you up in the basement and there’s no food down there.” I gave him my Mona Lisa smile. Obviously he doesn’t know about the leftover Snickers bars and the tin of Christmas cookies I stashed down there and, until now, had forgotten about. That’s another delightful aspect of ageing. My thighs may rub together when I’m taking a walk but when I’m in my favorite position, cross-legged on the couch bingeing on “Waking the Dead” and munching on salt carmels, I don’t care. Luckily, that’s most of the time. Here’s a “diet” verse from my late, great, not-fat father, Dick Emmons. FAREWELL FUDGE My diet makes me give up cakes, All sorts of tortes I’ve quit Meringue-topped pies said their goodbyes And the banana split.