Fall into Autumn

After my last post, I wanted to reassure everyone that we are, in fact, enjoying the season and that I am not just riding around in the dark looking in windows and stalking the people who bought my family's house. At least not every day.

(These poor people bought our family home fair and square and could not be nicer about it, and  when we trick and treat, they even invite us in,  and yet, we curse the ground they walk on. A long story having to do with them removing like butchers the graceful wooden benches that were on either side of the front door, the benches in which we'd carved our initials, and the benches that created the Dutch profile of the house. And I know they chopped them up before throwing them in the trash  because I drove past the house every trash day for two years and I still haven't seen them. And they enclosed the gorgeous, huge screened porch and made it into a TV room. With one window.)

( Caution:  Never invite the old owners into your house on Halloween  unless you don't mind a grown woman sobbing in your living room when she sees  your old fireplace which was the setting for all the wedding pictures of herself and her sisters and then you have to try to get rid of the crying woman while your kids are running around in costumes and you are trying to hand out Tootsie Rolls. I'm just saying. )

And, believe it or not, I haven't even been to the cemetery since last fall, since I prefer to celebrate the life than remember the death, at least on usual days when I do not allow myself to succumb to seasonal depression, mother in law stress,  overwork, and undereating.

The thing about losing 120 pounds is that you also lose the ability to self-medicate your black moods, unless you cross-addict to oh, say, alcohol, shopping or gambling, which I have managed to avoid, unless you count, and I hope you can't, the number of triple venti skim cappuccinos I am sucking down at an alarming rate (and never take a look at my Amazon account - tho they are all used books.)

Mr. Pom is tolerant, but after a year of post-gastric bypass living, he has learned how to control my manic or depressed moods. When he tires of my 1) whining, or 2) my coffee breath, he just uncorks some cabernet and waves it under my nose. When I say, okay, but just a sip, he liberally pours me a glass and smiles knowing that after a few sips, the alcohol will shoot right out of my shot glass-sized stomach right into my intestines, and I will start to giggle, then my eyes will cross, words slur, and soon be sound asleep, leaving him free to enjoy the ballgame without me bugging him every 5 minutes to run to Starbucks for a nightcap.

Alcohol has actually been an interesting experience since I had the surgery. Before then, I spent a lifetime wondering why people drink as my only reaction was that my scalp itched, my face flushed, my stomach hurt, had to lie down. And that was a good reaction. (I actually do better with mixed drinks.I can get a little buzz from vodka or gin, but wine is just a sedative. Or was.)

So yesterday afternoon, after a particularly depressing visit at the nursing home with Granny Pom, we jumped in the car and took off into the wilds of northern Westchester. We drove through ritzy Waccabuc and wondered how many of the mansions were in foreclosure, and then found a quilt store and a gorgeous yarn store in Ridgefield, CT. We then ate dinner at a little bistro, at the fashionable dining hour of 5:00. I was starving and it was opened. I said, sure, I'll have a glass of Chardonnay, and sipped very slowly. 

I sipped a little more. They brought out fried calamari. ( I always get Mr. Pom to order the fried calamari, which I swear I will share, and he always falls for it until I stop eating after three bites and he has to stuff himself.) It was very tender, but I noticed it was rather greasy, so I stopped, and good thing I did because the wine, which I thought I was handling very well, hit me with a rush and mixed with that breaded squid and I started to get a little dizzy.....

So, the evening ended early, which was just as well because we were an hour from home and were about to go into Balducci's and spend a fortune on little gourmet edibles that we really didn't need. (Especially since I had bought little gourmet edibles on Friday and forgot them in my office fridge.)

Today, we did another depressing nursing home visit, and then I made chicken soup and a loin  of pork in tomato sauce. I then dragged Mr. Pom to Lord & Taylor's after reassurring him a thousand times that we in fact did have a coupon for 20 % off.

We then had a little thing in the car because I started yelling that yes, yes, the coupon expires on WEDNESDAY IT DOESN'T START ON WEDNESDAY EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE A COUPON THAT DOES START ON WEDNESDAY.

And then he got really pissed off a little upset that I was yelling and when I explained it was because he never listens to me and bought tickets to see BLINDNESS instead of GHOST TOWN (what? he says. I thought you said he sees ghosts? Yes, he SEES ghosts. He's not BLIND and SEES ghosts!)

So I had to force him to buy a jacket by explaining over and over that it was 30% off and we had a 20% off coupon, so it was 50% off, even though the saleswoman insisted that it was 20% off AFTER the 30% off, so it was really only 40 45 48 (I can't do the math). At that point he was over being pissed off understanding that he caused me to yell and watched me try on about 50 coats, none of which I liked, so I'm doomed to wear a denim jacket all winter.

For some reason, though, as soon as we got home, Mr. Pom went to the kitchen and opened up a bottle of Pino Pinto Pinto Pinot Grigio Noir and gave me a glass just when i started tringt to right this post and noe i an tindingt myselg vyrry fujjy ad lughing  at medelf bt i gta go slp now se ya murrow....