Clinton Township Newsletter

1 F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 7 Since 1982 February 2017 Jie Fly, Edit Trying to maintain my weight is never easy. I can only imagine the challenge of actually needing to lose more than a few pounds. But, surely, there is a point beyond which we are not willing to sacrifice "quality of life" (aka eating all the good stuff) for a svelte profile. There is a column in one of my magazines entitled "What I Eat in a Day". It features scrawny, pencil thin celebrities in skin tight garments telling us what their daily intake of food consists of. For example – breakfast fare for this star is coffee with coconut milk, quinoa flakes and avocado with grilled veggies. A mid-morning snack includes an apple, chickpeas, sweet potatoes and almonds. Dinner highlights Thai pad see ew and hot water with tacos powder. Dessert, no kidding, is 2 or 3 teaspoons of vegan chocolate chip cookie dough. What a fun-filled day that must have been. What is pad see ew? Tacos powder? These are not tasty treats most of us keep in the pantry. Or am I simply out of touch with body image reality? If so, perhaps I should count my blessings rather than my calories. If someone told one of these celebrities that she only has 6 months to live would she subject herself to this kind of daily diet? Of course, she probably has a live-in trainer and a professional live-in chef, unlike my situation. I indulge in rare beef, chicken Parmesan and, shamelessly, bowls of Edy's coffee ice cream topped with Tofani coffee syrup and cherries. I suppose if my career depended on a faultless figure I would make the necessary adjustments to cut down, or even eliminate , those calorie laden edibles. But when is too little, too much? With the exception of Melissa McCarthy (God bless her!) I am dismayed to see the almost anorexic condition of Hollywood bodies. Likewise with runway models whose bones protrude from all angles and whose faces are scarily gaunt. They are size 0's for the most part and probably haven't eaten a substantial meal since puberty. What kind of message is being sent to our adolescent females? I wonder if adolescent males find wafer thin girlfriends appealing. I'm not suggesting an epidemic of overeating, but we need to get a handle on this diet stuff. Nothing in the food line is verboten for me. However I do practice moderation most days. And exercise in moderation doesn't hurt either. I am going to celebrate my 89th birthday in a few days with a rare steak, French fries and ice cream. Because I'm thinking time is surely running out for me! Upon discovering, over twenty years ago, that I was pregnant with a girl, I excitedly ran out and bought all manner of adorable little girl dresses. I was finally going to give birth to the living baby-girl doll I had always wanted (after having given birth to my precious living baby-boy doll). She was a petite little thing, which helped my fantasy even more. I carried her in a front-pack for the first six months of her life since, as the mother of two at the time, we were often physically moving and her big brother had a predilection for trying to tackle her when she was close to the ground. People would approach me and gasp, "That's a real baby?!! I thought it was a doll!" And then the inevitable happened. It turned out that this beautiful little child had a mind of her own and she was actually quite my opposite, much like her daddy. The first incident of this was when she, adorned in a dress of my choosing – resembling something like a birthday cake – looked up at me and very seriously stated, "Pink is not cool." To say that I was taken aback is putting it mildly. Sputtering, I replied, "What?!!!" She repeated herself, perhaps adding "And I hate this dress." She then took off the offensive garment, redressed herself in something more to her liking, and walked away. This child, I thought to myself, did not even exist four years ago, and she thinks she knows more than I about colors? I spent an entire year-long class studying color-theory at Parsons School of Design – I do not remember the "pink is not cool" lecture. (When I mention the fact that I spent a year-long class studying colors, my husband (who was at that time a scientist) said, "You did WHAT?!!") Growing up, I loved dolls and Barbies as well. When I joyfully gave a Barbie or a doll to my daughter, she would look up at me and say, "But what does it do?" Huh? This was a consideration that I never analyzed in my own childhood. "Well, you dress them up and play with them!" I happily responded. She looked at me as if I were insane. I got the same look from her when I happily brought home a garage-sale doll house. I had also loved doll houses so much growing up that I designed my own, built it (with my mom's help), and attended several years of classes learning how to make dollhouse furniture and accessories. (Again, my husband: "You did what?!") My daughter's response to this treat? "Oh, it's a little house! What does it do?" Again I was flummoxed, and my response, "Well, you play with it." was met accordingly with her bewildered gaze. So what did my little girl play with? Calculators. And the dozens of boys who came through our house. And Rubik's Cubes. And anything that went fast and/or that she could balance on. A dress never graced her closet until late middle school. And my husband and I were once again shocked, when our precious little tomboy entertained her girly side, albeit with a much more sophisticated palette than her mom. Editor's Column continued on Page 2. "When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before." ~ Blaise Pascal

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